Obtaining a better resurrection ( Heb. 11:35)

As we know our faith in Christ Jesus is based upon the resurrection a spiritual reality hidden from the unredeemed. Apostle Paul says in 1^st Corinthians that if we do not believe in the resurrection of the dead then we are in a worst predicament than the unbelieving, since we are living our lives in the obedience of such a faith. Enoch who the Bible says walked with God must have had a hope of a better country than this one and his hope did materialize in his everyday life. He lived what he believed and it was not a myth to him.

Resurrection is then the basis of our entrance to a new realm called the supernatural spiritual world of faith. Many altogether deny it’s truth and this keeps them barren from it’s blessings first here in this life and  later on in the life to come. You see God has called us through Christ’s resurrection to be the witnesses of His righteousness in behalf of men by redeeming them from corruption of death, both physical and spiritual.

The women at the tomb were the first to witness an empty tomb and soon after to find the Christ among the living. This was the beginning of the foretold good news of our gospel. However knowing and being set free through this truth required them internally to live according to it’s revelation on daily basis, and this was accomplished in them by the receiving of the promised Holy Spirit.

This was the greatest reason to for them to be, which was to live by it’s conviction daily. The greatest command in the Bible is to

( worship our God) or to love our God with all of our hearts, and souls and our might and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Yet many times we see in the word that the word worship is interchanged with acts of obedience of faith through grace offered to us by His fullness of obedience on the cross.

Therefore I see a straight connection between worship and obedience of faith. Abraham said to Isaac let us go unto Moriah to worship God, where in fact he was going to offer up Isaac through sacrifice. Even though Isaac was not aware of the substance of their worship the Bible does not say he resisted his father in obeying God’s will.

Their faith was affirmed as James says through their act of worship of their love for God in obedience and it obtained them to know God in a higher sense as YHWEH Yireh.

Having said all this I mean to say without a genuine faith in the resurrection from the dead there could not be any true obedience of faith, since even the scripture say Abraham knew the power of God’s resurrection and that was the strength of His faith to sacrifice his one and only promise. He knew that His obedience of faith could resurrect his son even from the ashes of his obedience. This is what I want for us to see before I can tell you more about our message today.

In a world where we live many claim to love God and are professing faith in Him, yet our worship have little obedience in it. Our profession of faith is just utterances of our lips, with very few truth attached to it. We say in our words and songs we love Him, yet our daily lives completely disprove our spoken confession, and here is the danger.

We proclaim that we see as the Pharisees in John chapter 8, yet we are all  blinded to its truth when we are exposed to it’s demands.

As you very well know very difficult days are ahead of us in the natural. Isaiah 60 says “ Arise and shine your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold the darkness shall cover the earth and the deep darkness the people, But the Lord will arise over you.”  I believe in the physical appropriation of this word for the Church the Body of Messiah, yet in this awesome word and it’s following promises made to Christ and now to His true followers there is a command is given to Rise and shine. How could we rise and shine so that the glory of the Lord would rise upon us?

I trust this is to say to us we need to rise above our mere confession of our faith in putting our faith in practice. The Lord is going to increase His graces and mercies on His people who would look unto obedience of their faith on resurrection.

We are the priesthood of the New Covenant through His precious blood, But  we need to heed it’s sacredness and live by it’s sanctity .

As in the Old Covenant scriptures we read in Joshua’s account the Lord gave Israel twice to walk on the dry ground in the midst of the storms of adversity around them, and the second event accrued a little different from the first.

In the Read Sea crossing it was Moses and His staff and His faithful obedience to the voice of The Lord, but in the Jordan crossing we see it were the priests and the Levites who carried the Ark of the Covenant who’s feet stopped the waters of Jordan and it was their steadfast standing that God used to keep the waters parted to make the Israel pass through without being spotted or wet through the waters of Jordan River.

Both were God’s hand of mercy and acts of His grace, yet let us please observe the difference between the two.

The first vessel was one man  and his stick the second were anointed men who held up God’s covenant Law on their shoulders.

The first miracle of breakthrough came through The Abrahamic covenant promise, yet the second Breakthrough came after receiving the Law of righteousness and through their obedience to keep it’s commands in standing in it by faith that parted the Jordan for them and their loved ones to Pass over. This was where God had Joshua circumcise all who had not yet been circumcised and these were those who were born in the wilderness.

Through this we need to understand that our final blessing has very much to do with our treatment of what we have received and believed through faith.

The author of the New Covenant book of the Hebrews in chapter 10 verse 36 through 38 says it this way ….” Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done thewill of God, you may receive the promise.

“For yet a little while and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, but if anyone draws back My soul has no pleasure in Him”.

But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

In these words we see he the author of the book of Hebrews encourages his readers to stay and stand in faith steadfast and in standing in faith they needed to refuse the compromises offered to them by the world and the enemy.

The New American version of the Bible describes faith in Heb.11:1 in this way and I just quote it to you.

“ Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen”.

I really favored this translation in the fact that speaks of assurance and conviction.

If our faith in Christ and the power and truth of His resurrection is not an assurance in our hearts through divine conviction by faith we will all drift away in the coming days. That is why the author of the Hebrews repeats prophet Habakkuk’s words just like Apostle Paul that the just will live ( or will be saved) by faith.

This is a faith unto a better resurrection as the latter part of chapter 11 is speaking of. In verses 30 to 40 of Hebrews 11which we read many gave up the privileges of this earthly life for a better resurrection, since they had a better homeland in mind. The word says some were tortured not accepting deliverance, that they too might obtain a better resurrection. Some were stoned to death like Stephen and some were sown in two like Isaiah and others were beheaded like Paul having finished their race and having kept the faith.

Revelations the 20^th chapter brings us even a better understanding of the first resurrection which commands it’s participants for their overcoming power of their faith in rejecting the worship or the obedience of the beast and of his image in being even a martyr for Christ to be in the first resurrection where second death had no power on them.

The power of resurrection in a genuine believer must keep us from any form of compromise and it starts in small obedience’s of the truth.

If  you and I are neglecting the small places of obedience in faith in it’s stand in our daily lives, how are we going to stand in the coming heat, where no man can endure on their own human merits?

God will bless his people, but those who would stand by His truth when it is not to our own benefits and who would confess their true need for Him to strengthen our hearts for the hope of a much better resurrection.