God's Awareness Though The Journey

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info visit us at thrive-fl.org. And welcome to Thrive, and for those of you here in person or and those of you joining us online, welcome to worship this morning. I just recently read that millions of people go on pilgrimages every year to a place, a sacred place maybe, or a memorable place seeking a blessing. Historically, Celtic Christians did something different. That's what we're going to talk about today. Celtic Christians would get in a boat and just wherever the currents took them, or they would just start out in a direction, because the blessing they sought was not at a destination, but it was the awareness that there was a God of grace who was with them on the journey, and that he provided strength along the way. We're gonna take a look at some of those heroes of faith and those kind of things, but I pray that you have that same awareness, that there is a living God who in his son Jesus Christ, by the indwelling Spirit, has enabled us to have this adventure that we call life. A life walking with our God who blesses us along the way that grows our faith. You know this, Hebrews 11 is that great chapter in the Bible that is all the heroes of faith, and so let me just read this. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the expectation of things unseen. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land promised as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of that same promise. For he was looking toward that city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them, greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and aliens, exiles on this earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they're seeking a homeland. They have been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity obviously to return there, but as it is they desired a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them, he's prepared for them that city. Well my dear friends, in Jesus who was, who is, who always will be the only Savior of the world, I'd like to share some words with you this morning in meditation on that passage from Hebrews 11. Triple A estimates 90, well 88 million people will be traveling this coming week, 88 million of them with 60 million driving. If you have ever gone on a journey and you've traveled by car, or van, or SUV, or RV, and you have children with you, there is one question that will inevitably you will have to face. Children will ask it, they will ask it as soon as you pull out, they will ask it often, they will ask it with a kind of whining, obstinate passion. Some children, like my own, will even be creative, set this question to music, to the tune of Verjaka, and they will keep singing it for hours like some kind of a pagan chant. They will continue to ask it even though you as a parent have warned them that you never want to hear it again, they will ask it as though they have a legal obligation to ask it, this question will irritate you, and quite honestly it is actually designed to do so by them. The question of course is, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Now, friends, imagine for a moment going on a trip and having to say to your fellow travelers, no, we are not there yet, we're not going to get there today, we're not going to get there tomorrow, in fact, we will not ever get there. Our whole life is going to be a journey, and brothers and sisters that statement is true for all of us, and you see we're all headed for that one destination Hebrews 11 tells us in all of the world that is truly worth traveling to, that's the good news, that God in His grace has prepared that place for us, in His Son our Savior Jesus, but the bad news is the truth is that we won't make it in our lifetime, it's going to require patience to stick it out on this journey, it's going to require heroic perseverance. So the question that we really want to unpack and look at this morning is this, how do we keep going on a journey where in this life at least we never fully arrive? You see the challenge for us to accept is the fact that we live in a not there yet kind of world, we will never get there, not fully, not in this lifetime. You see brothers and sisters we have to face the fact that we live in a not there yet world and yet because of God's faithfulness to us, His grace and love and forgiveness to us that we have received by grace through faith in Jesus we now have the Holy Spirit and He creates this desire in us to continue to grow daily in our responsiveness to that God, to continue to grow to the point we hold nothing...