Never! Never! Never! Never! Never!

For this morning's message, I am asking you to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 13. We will look at only two verses from this chapter, and as we look at these two verses, we need to keep in mind what's behind them. The writer of Hebrews has been presenting the case to these people who were tempted to leave Christ alone, to go back to the sacrificial system and the priestly system of the Old Testament and link that, the shadows, to the reality of Christ. And he's warning these people, don't do that. Do not forsake Christ, the reality, and try to link him with the shadows that were always pointing to him. It's on that basis that the writer of Hebrews begins these practical exhortations. And this is what we want to look at. And we need to keep that in mind as we read verses 5 and 6 of Hebrews 13. Keep your lives free from the love of money. And be content with what you have. Because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? I was talking with a family who has lived here in California almost four years now and it was only last October that they finally hooked their TV up to any kind of TV signal and they got the basic cable package from Cox Cable so they could listen to the presidential debates and the presidential election and all that. Well, the family has not watched television in some years So they've been set back and surprised by the kind of advertisements that they're also finding on the television. What they're finding is many of the advertisements are geared towards presenting this world and all that's in it as a desirable package that's glittery and nice and worthy for you to have, and you deserve to have it. They're presenting it as a solid, desirable gift in which you can anchor everything that you are. Because you deserve the world, and the world is a perfect place to anchor everything that you're about. Some of the examples is American Airlines. Their motto is, One World. The idea is that they can comfortably zip you from here to Paris or wherever you want to go in the world. They have made it so small that it's your one world and will take you to it wherever you want to go. Even the SUV commercials have got into the act. They've got this guy with his new SUV and he gets in. It's almost like the door's airlock around him and he's in his silent world of his SUV. And the phrase is, enjoy your world as you drive around in your SUV secluded from everybody else's world. The newspaper entitles itself, The World, as if they can present and give you the whole world on Sunday morning. And after all, you really do want the whole world, don't you? Another commercial for children says, hand a child the world. As if that's the best thing that you can give a child. Is this world and everything in it? And even dial soap getting in on the act. I think they kind of missed what the other people are saying, but it works. It says dial soap will wash away the world. You talk about a global economy, a global market, global warming, a global community. As if this world has so solidified, it becomes so stable, that this is where it is. This is reality. And you deserve to have it. After all, it's your world. But the world doesn't work that way, does it? Airplanes crash and kill people. In one world. UVs flip and burn and kill people as you enjoy your world. The newspaper who hands you the world on several sheets, all it's filled with is the misery and death in the world and how the world is changing. It's never stable. World economies fail. You see, we live in a world where we truly can say, never say never. Because the world is not this solid, immutable terra firma in which to anchor our lives. Because it is changing. It's not stable. And we can never say never, because the world is changing all the time. So there's good advice in telling somebody, never say never. Because of the world that we live in and the way it functions. But God can and does say never in light of an ever-changing world. And this is what this text is doing for us here. In this one sentence, verse 5, though our English translations have a hard time picking it up, in this one sentence there are five negatives. God is saying, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Five times He says, never. And only God in this world can say, never. When it comes to God's promises, God is not above repeating Himself. And the title that you find on your bulletins is not a mistake. Dead, didn't get carried away with the computer. It really is five nevers. I didn't stutter over the phone when I gave it to her. It really is never, never, never, never, never is what we're looking at here. And God is not above repeating Himself. And without getting into all the technical things about the Greek language, and I think I mentioned this in one message I preached earlier on promises, promises, promises. That's where the seed thought for this message came. And I thought, I would like to develop that with you a bit. But in the Greek language, when they wrote this sentence, They used the most emphatic tool they had to express a negative. There is no other way that they could more emphatically express negative than the way they structured the words in this sentence. And he does it twice in the sentence. And if you look at the Greek text, there are five negatives used here. God's saying, I will never leave you. Now, we want to look at the phrase, because God has said. We don't want to under-consider that phrase throughout Scripture. Because God has said, or thus saith the Lord. All of creation depends on, thus saith the Lord. Everything was brought into creation by God's Word, what He said. Our very existence are held together by God's Word. Our salvation is dependent on thus saith the Lord. So we don't want to under-consider the importance of what's being said here by saying God has said. Because think about with me just a little bit what it would be like if God had not said. If God had never said never, if God made no promises, where would we be? We would be helpless, wouldn't we? All we would have at our disposal is what's in this world. And it would be up to us to somehow gather enough resources to establish ourselves in this world. That's all there is if God had never said never. We would have no strength. We would have no helper. And to a large degree, that's what our culture teaches, isn't it? But in addition to be helpless, we would also be hopeless. We would be no better than a group of Buddhists who had gathered to worship Allah or Buddha. We would be the same kind of people. If our God had not made promises and sealed it with never will I leave you. There would be no hope. There would be no salvation. No forgiveness of sins. No Christ. If God had not said never. But God has said never. And because He has, we have everything we need. Because of the promises that God has made, and He has sealed it five times over, we have everything we need. I want you to think about that. We have everything we need because of God's promises. We have God's covenantal faithfulness. We have a God who has made promises and is able to keep them and has kept them. Because this sentence, verse 5, comes from the Old Testament. And interestingly enough, there are five negatives in this one sentence. It's coming from the Old Testament where you find it five times. Starting with Genesis and going through the whole Old Testament, you find God saying, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. The first time you find this is in Genesis 28. Where what we often hear people call Jacob's ladder. It's not Jacob's ladder. It's Jacob's dream about heaven's ladder. And upon which in that vision, in that dream, he sees Christ. And at that point, the promise is sealed to him. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. And the next time you find it is in Deuteronomy 31. Where Moses is commissioning the Old Testament church. And he's reminding them of this covenantal promise that God has made. And he tells the people, God has said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. And then Joshua 1.5, where it's the end of Moses' life. And he's commissioning Joshua to take the torch and run into the Canaan land and conquer the people. He reminds Joshua, be strong and courageous because I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. And then at the end of David's life, and he's passing the torch to his son Solomon. In 1 Chronicles 28, we find the same promise being repeated. David telling his son, our God has promised never to leave us. Never to forsake us. The last time you find it in the Old Testament is Isaiah 41, 17, where he says, To the poor and needy, I will never forsake. I will never leave, but will bring rivers of flowing water. And then you come into the New Testament. Matthew 1, 21 and 22. it says you shall call his name Emmanuel which is God with us the promise has flown through every page of redemptive history and at the arrival of the God man the promise is fulfilled God with us there he is he has made good on his promise and we will see as we work through here how Christ is both the fulfillment of that promise and the promise to never leave or forsake Christ is the basis of this five-fold promise because you see Moses Joshua, David, Isaiah they were all doing the same thing they were constantly pointing the next generation to the light to the one that would come and finally the one came to whom the promise had always pointed all the Old Testament writers all that they were doing all they were saying was pointing to the one that would fulfill the promise of God never leaving us But throughout that process, God giving us His very law, the law we just read, it reflects God's holiness, but it also speaks of His desire to be with His people through His Word. The building of the tabernacle in the temple, where was it located? Right in the middle of His people. Why? God wanted to be with His people. Enter Christ. Who do you find lying in a manger? God Himself to live with His people in the person of Christ to redeem them so God could forever be reconciled. And God is able to say, because of Christ's work, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. And we need to remind ourselves that this passage, these two verses we're looking at here, is not written just by itself, but it follows the context of the entire letter. And we need to understand what Hebrews is about to understand what is being written here. Hebrews is about this one main thing. The writer is trying to get the people to understand, don't forsake your hope in Christ alone. don't go back to the shadows. And what he was trying to get them to understand, if you go back to the shadows, hoping to find some reality, you are denying the reality that the shadows have always pointed to. You think you'll find Christ by going back to Moses? You'll forget it. Moses was pointing to Christ. That's what the writer of Hebrews wanted these people to understand. And that's what he wants us to understand. Don't get tied up into this world's shadows. This world is a place to find who you are and your reality. But find it in the reality of Christ. Not Christ and something else. The writer of Hebrews has been proving it all through the letter. Christ is the reality. In chapter 1, verse 3, he says, In these last days He has spoken to us by His Son. He says, Yes, in times past I spoke to you through the prophets and all kinds of different communications. But now I'm talking to you through my Son who is the exact representation of God. He begins his letter by driving home the point, Christ is your hope. In chapter 8 he says, we do have such a high priest who sat down at the right hand of majesty in heaven, who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not man. He's saying to these people, you want to return to the sacrifices? You want to return to the tabernacle? You want to turn to the world system? He says the real high priest has done his work in the heavenly sanctuary of which all of this stuff was a reflection of the reality. That's the high priest we have. That's the God who has kept his promise through the work of Christ. But now He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself. This is the fulfillment of God's promise. I'll never leave you. No wonder He could repeat it five times. Christ has sacrificed Himself on our behalf in the heavenly realities. And that's why this verse is found in the context of contentment and confidence in this world. We don't find those things in this world, of this world, but in the other world, the heavenly, the spiritual, that we have been made partakers of. And the last thing we want to look at in Hebrews as far as the context of these verses is chapter 11. So often chapter 11 is taught as this list of heroes of faith. Look what these guys did with their faith. They did amazing things. And if you've got faith like them, you can do even more amazing things. That's not what Hebrews 11 is teaching. Hebrews 11 is driving home the point of the letter. You think that Moses and Abraham and David and Joshua and Isaac and all these found hope in the shadows? He's making the point, no. But their faith was always looking forward to the reality that the shadows pointed to. And that's why he says in verse 16 of chapter 11, if Abraham had wanted to return to the country, he could have. But he and everybody else in that list was looking for a heavenly country. A better country. Whose city and builder is God. In other words, they were looking for Christ. Through the types and the shadows. He's saying to us today, it's not what's here. It's not the shadows here. It's not the world that the world would sell itself upon us where we're going to find reality and hope. But reality and hope comes from the crucified, risen Lord, the God-Man, who is the fulfillment of the promise. He is the promise. God has no need to leave us. God has no need to forsake us. Because we're washed with Christ's own blood, you see. God doesn't want to leave us. He gave His Son for us, and everything else that flows out of that has become ours. God doesn't want to leave us. And I know some mornings you wake up, and some evenings, and you're wrestling with sin in your life, and you see what's in your own heart, and you say, how is it that God can hang around? This is how. Christ has washed every vile sin away with His own precious eternal sacrifice of Himself. No wonder God can say five times, I'll never leave you. He can't leave us. Because He has purchased us with Christ's own blood. 2 Corinthians 1.20 says, No matter how many promises God has made, they are all yes and amen in Jesus Christ. No matter how many times God repeats His promise, They're all yes and amen in Christ. Because He has come. He has lived a perfect life on our behalf. He has died the death of the cross. He has rose from death. He has seated Himself at the right hand of majesty. And He will come back to gather those that He loves. And Revelation 20, verses 1-4 will be true. On that day I shall see Him face to face. And He will dwell with His people. The promise made by God must come true. Because it comes true in Christ and all that we have in Him. that's the focus that's where you're looking at that's it God has promised five times over never to leave us never to forsake us out of that center flow two practical exhortations from this writer notice in verse 5 keep yourselves free from the love of money and be content with what God has given you we are not those who buy into this world system and say all I need is a little bit more money I need a little bit more I need a newer car I need a better house more, more, more we are not that Madam Blueberry more, more but we are those who are markedly different we are God's people and we are being exhorted here because of God's faithful promise to be content with what God gives us. And we need to ask ourselves a hard question. Are we content or are we looking for something a little more, a little newer, a little better? Or am I content with what God has provided? Have we learned the secret that Paul learned? To be content with much or nothing. What was the secret that Paul learned? It's no secret at all. Because he says in the next verse, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Through God's promise as fulfilled in Christ, we have everything we need. Therefore, the writer of Hebrews can say, be content with everything God's given you. Because, you see, He's given you everything through Jesus Christ. The last exhortation is to be confident. Verse 6, he says, so, with confidence, we say, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. We are those who have been made children of the King. And verse 6 is a quote of Psalm 118, which says, The Lord is with me. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? The Lord is with me. He is my helper. That's the confidence that Christ brings us into in the relationship of Christ with our Heavenly Father. We have become His children. He opens the way of the Holy of Holies right to His throne. Because we deserve it. No, because of Christ has opened the way for us in His redemptive work. The writers, the listeners to whom this letter was sent would have been familiar with Psalm 46. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. This world is being wrapped up by the advertisement world as a nice solid package that everybody should have. even if this world itself falls apart and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, I will not be afraid. Why? Because my Heavenly Father is the Creator of all the earth and He holds me in His hand. What can man do to me? That's the question. We should fear no man. But Luke 12 tells us, I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who after killing the body has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him. If you're here today and you don't know what it is to stand in the forgiving grace and blood of Jesus Christ, you have every reason to be trembling with fear. Because not only will your appointed time of death come for your body, but the appointed time of casting your soul into hell will come. I implore you, run to Christ. And know what it is to have a father to say, I'll never leave you. For those of us who knows what it is to be in Christ, we fear God with a reverence. As our God, but also as our Father. Contentment and confidence. Contentment is looking and following, desiring God. Like the deer in Psalm 42, as he pants after the water to cool his burning flanks, so too we desire Christ to stop and take a cool, deep drink of eternal life. That's contentment. in an ever-changing world. And confidence is that by which we have been given the privilege to say, Abba, Father, in the Holy of Holies. Because God through Christ has said, I will never, never, never, never, never leave you or forsake you. Let's pray. We thank you in humility for your promise, Your emphatic promise that you will never leave us. And we thank you that you don't want to leave us. You have no reason to leave us. Because we stand in your Son. The promise. And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.