“It was
because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this
personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded
about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any
man: that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared
for them the city of their desire.” G. Vos
“But as it is,
they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews
11:16.
Let’s remind
ourselves of the two verses which Vos took as his text for his sermon, preached
at Princeton Seminary chapel, Hebrews 11:9 & 10:
“By faith he
[Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land,
dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for
he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder
is God.”
In his
conclusion, Vos says that “the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man:
that God is not ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for
them the city of their desire.”
Can this be said
about us?
Do we have what
Vos styles as a “personal love” for God? Or is our love a religious love,
a “love” that is cautious, lest others thing we are making too big a thing of
Jesus Christ? Is our love measured, lest we love God too much and miss out on
the things of this world? Is our love more of a love for a Christian lifestyle,
a love of being with nice people, of having a reputation as a nice Christian
man or woman, than it is of having a reputation within and without the
professing church of being someone who loves God with all his heart, mind,
soul, and strength, and who loves his neighbor as himself?
Are we
attempting to live in two cities, the City of God and the city of man? Do we
think we have some type of dual citizenship? Is our love and allegiance divided
between the things of this world and the things of God?
Do we have a
homesickness for God? This homesickness means that we realize that we are not
who the world says we are, but rather men and women and young people whose true
genealogy is in God, whose destiny is in God, who were elect and chosen before
the foundation of the world to travel home to our heavenly Father in and through
Jesus Christ. This homesickness means that we realize that we are not accidents
looking for a place to happen but have been called by Jesus Christ to follow
Him from this age into the next as the daystar rises within our hearts.
Is God “not
ashamed to be called our God”?
Jesus says in
Matthew 10:32 – 33; “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will
also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me
before men, I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Then in Mark
8:38 we have, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in
the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Vos writes of “the
city of their desire.” What is the city of our desire? Where do we desire
to live today? Tomorrow? Forever?
Do we desire a
city of pleasure? A city of materialism? A city of political power? Of sports
power? Of entertainment? Of economic power? Of religious power?
Or is the city
of our desire that city whose architect and builder is God? Is it the City
where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light, life, and delight?
Are we living
the life of the heavenly – minded?
Below is the
final section of Vos’s sermon. I have included it so that we can read it again
and catch the challenge and beauty of his conclusion. Can we say with Paul in Philippians
3:13 – 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God
in Christ Jesus”?
“Finally the
highest thing that can be spoken about this city is that it is the city of our
God, that He is in the midst of it. Traced to its ultimate root
heavenly-mindedness is the thirst of the soul after God, the living God. The
patriarchs looked not for some city in general, but for a city whose builder
and maker was God.
“It is
characteristic of faith that it not merely desires the perfect but desires the
perfect as a work and gift of God. A heaven that was not illumined by the light
of God, and not a place for closest embrace of Him, would be less than heaven.
God as builder and maker thereof has put the better part of Himself into his
work. Therefore those who enter the city are in God. The thought is none other
than that of the seer in the Apocalypse:
“I saw no
temple therein: for the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple
thereof. And that city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine
upon it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the throne of God and the Lamb
are therein: and his servants shall do Him service, and they shall see his
face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.”
“It was
because God discerned in the souls of the patriarchs, underneath all else, this
personal love, this homesickness for Himself, that He caused to be recorded
about them the greatest thing that can be spoken of any man: that God is not
ashamed to be called their God, and that He has prepared for them the city of
their desire.” G. Vos
AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment