Well, we're working continuously through the book of Genesis, and this morning we come to chapter 23. So I would invite you to open your Bibles, turn to the very first book of the Bible, to Genesis chapter 23. Let's give our attention this morning to the reading of God's Word, Genesis 23, beginning at verse 1. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died at Kiriath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, I am a sojourner and foreigner among you. Give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The Hittites answered Abraham, Hear us, my lord, you are a prince of God among us. bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. And he said to them, if you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns. It is at the end of his field. For the full price, let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place. Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites of all who went in at the gate of his city. No, my Lord, hear me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people, I give it to you. Bury your dead. And Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, But if you will hear me, I give the price of the field. Accept it from me that I may bury my dead there. Ephron answered Abraham, My lord, listen to me. A piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead. Abraham listened to Ephron and Abraham weighed out for Ephron. the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, 400 shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants. So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites before all who went in at the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpelah, east of Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. The field and the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham's property for a burying place by the Hittites. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. A few years back, a few years ago, I traveled back to South Dakota to do a funeral of a relative and we went back there we went to the cemetery and in this old cemetery in South Dakota way in the back was a whole plot of graves and it was the Gordon section and there were tons of Gordons in this section I couldn't believe how many Gordons were buried together in this section I found my great-great-grandfather going way back it was really a fascinating thing to see. There was one, I just have to say, there was one imposter in there. The last name was Vandenaker. I'm not kidding. I figured the Gordons gave him a good deal. It struck me that all of these Gordons were buried together. Why did they do that? What was the conviction that you had generation after generation after generation buried together marked off in cemeteries that this was an old practice that this was always done have you ever wondered why that's done have you ever given a lot of thought to that because we don't really give much thought to that today do we there was conviction but what did it say many of these people were very devout followers of christ why did they want to be buried together that was my question why why this phenomenon of everyone buried together death is a horrible reality isn't it it's something that you know you really don't even want to have to preach about but it's the reality of life and it's never something that we're prepared for it's never something that we're ready for and when it strikes when it hits you get awful feelings of pain and i've always described it as just emptiness a feeling of emptiness and grief. Let's be honest, we've really struggled in our day to know how to deal with this great enemy of death. And that's exactly what it is. It's an enemy. That's how the scriptures describe it. It's an enemy like no other. And we all have this present reality looming over us that we or any of our loved ones sitting next to us, this could strike at any time. We all expect to live a full course and go the full way and have the dream set out of grandchildren and enjoy life. But no, no, no. The Lord doesn't promise any of you that. None. And when it hits, the pain of that can be unbearable. I raised this this morning because that's the reality of Genesis 23. We have been studying the life of Abraham now for some time. and as he approaches the end of his life, as we're getting toward the end, before us today, things are happening. Things are transitioning. Time is moving. He's coming to the end and before us, his wife dies. It's painful. It's a passage, I suppose, that would be easy to overlook or maybe that's not the best thing to say. Maybe it's just better to say it's something here that is much more significant than we realize. As I read it, I don't know what you were thinking, but there's all this detail of burial and death and all these details that surround the whole thing. And you think, well, what is the whole purpose of this? We have an entire chapter before us this morning in Genesis, an entire chapter dealing with the death of this man's wife, this great man's wife, and how he faced it, how he went forward, what he did. This man, Abraham, has 38 more years after this to go forward without his wife. And that's a striking thought. She's been beside him the whole way. They've been through so much together. And now she's gone. Gone. And today the passage is providing us a whole perspective and a whole scene of how the believer in this life is to live by faith even when death comes. That's been the whole thrust through Genesis. Living by faith in every single circumstance of life and now we come to the great enemy and here it is. What do we do when this comes? How do we handle this? What is the perspective? Do we really have, we really stood back from this and thought, well, what kind of practices has the world pushed upon us in dealing with this problem that I've bought into and that I've accepted. Have you ever thought about that? You might be surprised how much this has been pushed upon you, a worldly perspective of this whole event. And the Lord gives us these moments. I believe it's a very practical moment to instruct us and to see how faithful He is in these moments, to see what He's doing in these moments. And He wants us to understand, because I know there are many widows and widowers here, And even in the bulletin, I see that there was a note about Fred's death years ago. I was here. I remember that. Going forward, how do we think about these things? What do we do in moments of groaning and mourning? And today is immensely encouraging as we go back and look at the father of the faith and we see this saint, no different than us, dealing with this in the same way that we have to deal with this seeing his companion taken from him and how he then moves forward and that's what we're looking at today how to deal with this painful reality let's look at verse 1 we read in verse 1 that sarah lived 127 years these were the years of the life of sarah and sarah died at kiriath arba that is hebron in the land of canaan Notice the emphasis here. And Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. I think this is a really moving scene. Abraham went in to mourn. He went in to weep. Notice how it's repeated. Let's think about Sarah for a moment. The Bible commends this woman. I've always thought that if you were to give a lot of attention to a woman in the Scriptures, Rome really has it all wrong. It should be Sarah. The Bible gives way more attention to Sarah than any other in my perspective as I've looked at it. Listen to the language of Scripture about Sarah. Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness. This comes from Isaiah. You who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were hewn and the hole of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and Sarah who bore you. What an amazing statement. You'll remember that Peter used her as the great example that she would become the model of godliness for all women. And it's important because I've been looking at a lot of what the New Testament says about Abraham, but I haven't really looked at Sarah too much. The New Testament paints a very beautiful picture of this woman. Remember what it said in 1 Peter 3, wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands. And then it goes on, don't let your adornment be merely outward, arranging of hair, wearing of gold, putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and a quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. And who do they raise? Who does Peter raise? As Sarah obeyed Abraham. Calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror. Now, if you come to the Gordon household, Darcy doesn't run around saying, Lord, Chris. That would be awkward. But it does demonstrate a principle, doesn't it? Of respect for her husband. She was a Proverbs 31 woman. She was the example for women. And Hebrews 11 commenced Sarah. I mean, you only have two women as I said. I hope I'm right on that. If I remember, there's two women in there. And Sarah is the one that's highlighted. Remember what it said in Hebrews 11 about Sarah? By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed. And she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised. This was a remarkable woman of faith. She trusted the Lord's promises. And she's pictured as a woman in Scripture who stood by Abraham through it all. And boy, he's lived a life. Sarah is held out for you women. I find it remarkable that we have now in Genesis chapter 23 a whole chapter on her death and burial. The Lord is so good to us to show us this. Now Sarah died. What tragic words, isn't it? Sarah died. The narrative opens up. I think it's important to get into Abraham's mind a bit again. They had over 100 years together. Have you ever seen these couples who have anniversaries of 60 years? I've come across a few now in my ministry, and one of the greatest witnesses to me as a pastor has been these couples that have loved each other, and their love for one another is stronger than the day of marriage. It is absolutely remarkable how that love has grown. And they cannot be separated. They cannot be separated. It's a great witness. It's something that's increasingly very rare in our society today. But speaking to the men here for a moment, reflect on it. God gives you wives. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. We become one flesh, Genesis says. you're one. God specifically united you together as one. God gives you the grace of companionship. He tells us in this great relationship that we get the opportunity to reflect the love that Christ has for his church, and that he never wanted you men to be alone, that it wasn't good from the beginning for you to be alone. And God brought you a helper, a companion. Wives to share your burdens, to encourage you when you're down. They care about feeding you. They care about making the home beautiful. They care about making a happy home. They bear your children, little children in your image, men. They're treasures from the Lord. Treasures. I saw a series of pictures last week on the internet of this old couple, and every single year they would go on the back porch and they'd take a picture together. And year after year after year after year this happened, and the landscape would change, and they're getting older. And then you get to the long string of pictures, and at the very end he's standing alone and i thought that's just a tragic image tragic abraham goes through a period of intense sorrow the text wants you to see that it's it's repeated for a reason twice he comes and you'll notice he mourns and he weeps. And the pain of his companion that God had given, this companion now taken, gone. God never created it to be like this. God had created things good. And look at the fall. Look at the effects. Look at the pain. So here's the father of the faith dealing with this great enemy of death. Grief brings about many things in the life of somebody. It's caused by the pain of what you realize you've just lost when you didn't realize, when you had it, how you appreciated it. How you should have. I had a man up north lose his wife to cancer and she was a godly woman, very godly woman. And he said to me, he said, pastor, he said, hold tight to your wife. He said, don't take for granted because I can tell you right now what I'm experiencing after death. I didn't realize what I had. It was a moving moment for me. Death, it's an awful reality of life and people go through all sorts of responses and reactions to it when it comes. And I can only imagine for a minute what Abraham must have went through. They had been through everything together twice. He had lied and she was taken because he wanted to save his own skin and God had to come and rescue his bride. Can you imagine if history had taken its course? The grief of thinking at one point that he gave his love to another woman. And then there were all the moments of laughter and all the joys they had. Stood by him through it all. And now Genesis 23 opens up with this saint weeping. The question that I have this morning, the question for you is, how does Abraham deal with this? What does Abraham's response teach us? The first thing I want to say is that mourning is a right response to death, isn't it? It's a correct response. It was Jesus himself who wept. I find verse 3 fascinating. Abraham, notice the language of verse 3. And Abraham rose up from before his dead. Do you find that striking? What was he doing? He was sitting before his dead. And when you sit before the dead, what do you do? You think. You meditate. He was sitting before his dead and he rises up from before his dead. And the Lord is putting this here. Nothing's by mistake. He wants us to think about this. What would be the real tendency over time? What has been the tendency of culture after culture after culture, even going to the Egyptians and what they did with death? They would treat it as something normal. They would treat it as a way of passing to be gods. They would sanitize the whole thing. You know, today we have no contact with death, don't we? Years ago, we had the funeral. And in the funeral, you had an open casket. These were generations that knew war, by the way. These were generations that knew the hardships of life. We've entered the most prosperous time ever. And what happens? The casket goes closed. I remember as a child the impact when my grandfather died of the casket being open and my father shepherding me through this. It was my first experience with death. And he says, go ahead, touch his hand. And I, touch his hand. It's cold. And I'll never forget the impact that had. I was confronted. For the first time, I wept as a child. For the first time, I understood something was really wrong. Something was really wrong. It was the first moment in 1986. See, I even know. I can remember June of 1986. When Eric Finema died, the pastor, and they had the funeral service, they did the classic funeral and the casket was open. And you should have seen the young people come up and file by the casket. I watched that. Every one of them was weeping. High school students, weeping. You ever notice what's happened in our culture to death? We've gone from the funeral to the memorial to the celebration of life. And all we get in the celebration of life now is a complete glorification of the past. That's all we get. How great the person was. And then we go on with our lives. We have a big food feast and we go on with our lives like nothing had ever happened. I'm not asking anyone to be obsessively morbid. I hope nobody hears me that way. But I'm asking you to think through what culture has pushed on you and why we've closed the casket. I'm asking you to think about what the effect of losing all contact with death has done and only artificially imposed upon us in video games and the movies. We've sanitized it. There was an article recently called The Tragic Death of the Funeral. And in the article, the author writes, Welcome to a world in which the womb becomes a casket and funerals become fun. Think about that. He calls the celebration of life a formalization of death's disguise. Funerals, at least in traditional Christianity, take death seriously. and it balances the truth of grief and loss with the hope of life and resurrection. The celebration of life looks neither to the present of grief nor the future of hope, but solely to the past. That's not what Abraham's doing here today. I'm going to show you that. He says, therein lies the great tragedy that's happened today. For a celebration of life is a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding, a missed opportunity to understand death aright. When a funeral degenerates into a celebration of life, he says, mourners may find temporary relief in the nostalgia of memories, but they will be deprived of true and lasting healing that comes only after death, confronting death and finding life in another. Amen. cemeteries today aren't called that they're called monumenta and forest green we don't even i feel uncomfortable as a pastor now even saying so and so has died you can't say that they've translated they've passed you can't say death and i'm saying today there's something incredibly healthy about being confronted with it in reality now i raise all of this today i do all of that. Now to apply the text and to show you what the text is saying to you. Notice how Abraham handles this. He weeps, he mourns, but he gets up. And all of a sudden he rises. And I want you to think about the structure of this. You get only two verses of the mourning and the weeping. And I want you to think about for a minute what this comes on the heels of. It comes on the heels of the Isaac incident. Think of what Abraham learned in that whole event. This is really powerful. God had said to him last week, remember, sacrifice your son, your only son whom you love. And God didn't put him through that, did he? Instead, this ram was offered as a substitute to proclaim to Abraham the day of Jesus. And that's what we looked at. The angel of the Lord finally appears to Abraham. He'd been appearing to Hagar, but now he appears to Abraham, and Abraham rejoiced to see that day of Jesus, and he saw it and was glad because he learned right then and there as the substitute went on the altar, death would be averted. Death would be overcome. And there was a visual of that, of the gospel. And Hebrews tells us in his mind that he reconciled that since the promise of God was life, that he would live forever in the land, since the promise is that his seed would inherit that land forever through Isaac, that if he put him to death, God would do what? Raise him. The resurrection was the answer. So, what's the conclusion? God's going to provide the Lamb of Atonement. Resurrection is the answer. Now, Abraham's sitting before that reality in the next scene. Imagine him sitting before his dead thinking about this. God's provided the ram. Isaac was taken off. What do you think is this question? You're going to come up with the question of the Heidelberg, aren't you? You're going to come up with that question. Well, if Christ died for us, if Christ was put on that altar, why do we still have to die? And Abraham thinks, well, death is no longer a punishment for sins then. It can't be. So what is this? It puts an end to sinning and it enters us into life. In other words, it moves us toward what God promised. That's what he's thinking. So this is a test. Abraham's weeping, but now he begins to weep, not as if he had no hope. He thinks, if death was overcome by the angel of the Lord, then death is not the end. And if God has promised us, we're going to live in the land forever. If God said that, we're going to live in this resurrected land. The story's not over. That means Abraham begins to think, and this is the heart of this this morning for encouragement and help, death is absolutely no obstacle to the fulfilling of God's promise. And that's the power of this that we see. Abraham gets up. Many in ministry I've seen struggle to get up after this. We mourn and we get up and we go forward. We have to go forward. But what drives you forward? It's the resurrection. It's important for us because tomorrow this could be you. And it knows no favorites. It knows no ages favorites. I mean, it could take anyone. In the baptism form, and one of the other ones in the prayer, it's interesting that it says it is a constant, this life is a constant death. what did death do for abraham it launched him into looking for another country and that's what i love about this text he acts upon the promise death purges worldliness doesn't it and the structure is fascinating you have two verses on morning and the entire rest of the chapter this morning is on what abraham purchasing a burial place this is the dilemma here's the dilemma. If the land is promised to me and the Hittites own it, I'm not putting my princess in a Hittite grave to let her be forgotten. I refuse that. I won't stand for that. God promised this to me. But my dilemma is it's not realized yet. My dilemma is I haven't realized it in full yet. So what do I do? I refuse to put her in a Canaanite grave. No way. So what happens? After the morning, he gets up and he goes to the Hittites and he asks for a burial place. In verse 4, he says, I'm a sojourner and a foreigner among you. Give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The sons of Heth are the Hittites here and Heth recognize he's a great man. Take whatever you want. Use whatever you want. You're a prince. Pick the choices of burial places. Abraham wants nothing to do with it. This is building. Why does he want nothing to do with it? Abraham knows the cave he wants. He wants the cave of Machpelah, which is owned by a man named Ephron of Zophar. And what happens is Abraham says, you go talk to him. I want that cave. And three times, Ephron offers to give it to Abraham. Nope. No way. I will not accept that. And so Ephron, probably in doing some inflation here, what's it between me and you? 400 shekels of silver, which was a great price. In verse 17, Abraham gets even more in the deal. He gets the field, he gets the cave, he gets trees, the whole area. And you'll notice the language is deeded over, it's made over. This is a legal transaction where the land is deeded to Abraham. And everyone sitting there watching this, all who went before the gate of the city. And then we read in closing that Abraham buries his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah, east of Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. Verse 20, it was made over to Abraham for property as a burying place by the Hittites. Why is this significant? It's His. It's His. What does all this mean? It means what Hebrews 11 tells us. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. We know it's coming. And having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth for these people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. And that's what the title really should have been. Seeking a Homeland. Death made Abraham seek that which is to come. And he made a public claim on God's promise right then and there. In the heart of the land, in the middle of the land, there was the tomb. And there these bodies went in there. And this was God's gift to Abraham that goes beyond death, that goes beyond the lifetime of Abraham and Sarah, that one day, all of this, they would get in the resurrection of the body when you have a brand new heavens and earth. They would get it. And this would become a huge moment for Israel. Israel would look at this and understand this. Why? I believe that the Lord, they would think the Lord is going to fulfill his promise of giving us a homeland. And what did they do? What did all these saints do? they kept bringing their bodies back to go into the land to be buried. Sarah is buried here. We read in Genesis 25, we know Abraham would, that Isaac would be brought and buried here. Jacob's son took his body and buried him here. Listen to the last words of Genesis. Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here. These bones are rising. So Joseph died being 110 years old. They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. And you know what happened in the Exodus. That body was carried back to the land. These pilgrims lived by faith. Something sad today that they demonstrated sometimes I think greater than we do. Look at how we look at death. They waited together for the fulfillment of God's promises. Sometimes I think we get so discouraged in this latter time of history looking at how messed up things are and how violent the world is and how much terrorism is happening and how economies are falling and how much sorrow there is and death all around us. And I believe that Christians stop looking for what is to come. I believe we stop really looking for what is to come. I mean, tonight we're going to consider this. We're going to consider how to live in preparation for what is to come. And what a great moment for you to say and be here and say, I'm going to wait I'm going to listen to how God instructs me. The place should be packed out. But we're not really looking. And the Lord is encouraging you today that there is a permanent city awaiting you, God. Permanent. A city that He constructed. A city that will never enter in a robber or a thief. A city that there'll never be death in. A city that has no terrorism. a city where never will have any young man's life cut short a city where there's peace in the walls a city where the sun always shines better than southern california jesus said i'm not remember what he said when they were asking about abraham and isaac and jacob he's not the god of the dead but of the living and jesus said in the gospels over and over whoever believes in me even though he dies he shall what live and then he looked at all the people and i can't imagine the moment when he looked at them after he said i am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me shall not die but live he looked at them and then he said do you believe this do you believe and then he walks up to a tomb they had been mourning over that body jesus weeps over this man and he walks up to a tomb lord you can't go in there four days it's just full of stench the body is corroding lazarus come forth and he gets up the resurrection and jesus foreshadowing all which was to come in his own resurrection is telling you that today. That's what's coming. Our God attended a funeral and He triumphed over death that day. Death is no obstacle to His promise. Do you believe that? It's faith to go forward that way. The story's not over. The last words of this section are burial place. They're in the land today. I think a mosque sits over it, they say, today, which is really fascinating that God would put that there so no one could tamper with it. It's Abraham's cave. And all those bodies are sitting in there right now waiting for the resurrection. And their faith still speaks to you. It's going to happen. Abraham's faith, says one pastor, exemplifies the faith of all believers who buy their own graves without having obtained the promises, yet believing that the meek will inherit the earth. Jesus said, this is all yours. And that's what's coming. That's what Abraham believed that day. That's what he saw by faith. That's what he lived in faith by and he acted upon. And so I challenge you today, when death strikes, remember this. We mourn, but we never mourn as Christians as those who have no hope. We press forward with what is ahead for us. And I close with the words of Paul. Laying hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also already laid hold of for you. It's already yours. Grab it. Hold on to it. And go forward. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we bow the head today. And Lord, we have a lot to confess about our view of death. and our readiness for it. And we ask, Lord, that You would help us to be ready. And we thank You for putting on display before us this man years ago who had to face the same reality just like us. How he went forward, what he believed, how You strengthened him, and how today they wait in hope for the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Encourage your church today and strengthen us in your gospel promises. And may we always remember that this great enemy has been struck down by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is our confidence and our life. May we lay hold of that for which he has already laid hold of for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.