Prayer Meeting Jun 19
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v16 is an extraordinary verse:
Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
1 - It assumes that God ought to be ashamed of humanity - and we don’t need to look far into our own lives to realise why.
But
2 - It declares that there is a way for God to be unashamed of us!
So it would be helpful to look quickly at how we can cause our God to be unashamed, or pleased with us.
And it’s all still summarised in that verse, v16.
Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Look carefully at the end of the verse, and we actually find that God’s pleasure in us, is actually based on His own work!
Which ought to be a relief and encouragement for us!
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for HE has prepared a city for them
Living a life that pleases God, that causes him no shame, starts with HIS work of preparing us a city to dwell with him in eternally.
We know that has to include the work of Christ giving us full and free access to that great place, the holy city.
We know that includes the indwelling of His Spirit in us now, guaranteeing us this inheritance.
We know that includes His fatherly love that loves to hear our prayers as we travel towards our prize.
What a glorious and gracious God we have.
So, if God’s pleasure is based on His grace and provision,
do we put our feet up?
Not really, no.
Abraham, infact the whole ‘great crowd of witnesses’ we read about in Heb chapter 11,
FED God’s pleasure by doing something in response to the grace they were shown.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
heb 11 13-
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
The New International Version Chapter 11
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one
start of v16
They longed after the heavenly city!
They lived in preparation for the heavenly city.
They gave up the comforts and pleasures of this world, that drew them away from the true citizenship of Heaven.
Abraham didn’t return to his home country,
despite the comfort that would have brought him.
Despite the joy of renewed friendships
Despite the feeling of being ‘home’.
No, he gave it all up, and ‘longed for a better country’.
He longed for the city God had promised.
He longed for the grace he had already received to be an eternal reality.
And therefore, God was not ashamed!
Don’t we long for Christ to return and God to say,
Based on his grace but also as a result of our response to his grace,
For God to say,
I am not ashamed of you.
Welcome home.
You have lived this life in total anticipation of eternity with me.
Well done, good and faithful servant.
On the foundation of Jesus, and the fruitfulness of your Spirit-filled life,
Come on in.
Pray