Is this going to be good or bad?
Is the future going to be easy or difficult?
Are we going to find friends or enemies?
You know what those questions are?
The questions that Moses asked the scouts to come back with answers for
when they went into the promised land to scout it.
Maybe you noticed they also sound like the questions that we’re asking
on the night of an election as we think about the future,
if it’s going to be good or bad,
is this going to be easy or difficult to the uh, the road ahead,
are we going to find more people treating us like friends?
More people like enemies?
Took the scouts 40 days to come back with answers to those questions.
40 days.
Man, I hope it doesn’t take 40 days to sort out this election.
[laughs]
But maybe it would.
I don’t, I don’t know.
But no matter how long it takes,
it's not going to answer all of your questions,
whatever the result is.
Someone is going to get elected,
and eventually somebody is going to be sworn into office,
maybe for the second time,
maybe for the first time.
And life is still going to hurt,
and people are still going to be in need,
and citizens will act really cold towards each other,
and you’ll still feel guilty.
You’ll still have to say goodbye to people you love,
and the tears will still flow sometimes.
It doesn’t sound like a very positive report, does it?
No.
Which is why I want you to think about the worst case scenario.
Like, what if this turns out exactly the opposite of what you were hoping?
And what if it’s worse than you could ever imagine?
What if . . .
What if the government becomes completely immoral, and its citizens too,
so much so that they don’t even notice when someone good,
right in front of them, is in need and they can do something about it?
What if your friends aren’t there to help?
What if they’ve all run away?
What if the pain of the future is worse than you would have ever imagined?
Then what?
What’s the scouting report then?
I’ll tell you.
It’s heaven.
That would describe the situation when when God was dying.
His government didn’t help him all that much.
His friends weren’t there to save him.
Citizens turned a cold, cold shoulder to God who was right in front of them, in need of help.
But they didn’t,
they didn't help.
And he died.
And then, he knew.
I mean, he knew before, but then he knew from experience
this will always be a really hard place to live.
That’s why he came to save you from it.
Because he wanted you to have answers to your most important questions.
Will the pain ever end?
Will I ever feel loved again?
Will I ever see my loved one again?
When will I have to stop wrestling with myself, deciding between the good and the bad?
When will I stop giving in?
He wanted you to know that there’s a promised land that’s coming.
When the scouts came back from their promised land, they brought something with them.
It was a large cluster of grapes.
We’re not told exactly how big they were.
We’re just told that they needed, uh,
they needed two men to carry it with a with a pole on their shoulders.
nd it was it was on their shoulders,
and they were carrying it,
and they carried it all the way back to where the Israelites were to show them
that this is better than you could have ever imagined.
Of course they had to wait 40 days,
as they just sat there with their questions.
And I don’t know how long you’ll have to wait here with all of your questions.
40 days?
40 more years?
Longer?
But what’s coming for you is far better than a cluster of grapes.
It’s a heart that’s been set free from worry,
from guilt,
from anxiety.
It’s a body that’s completely healed.
It’ll never hurt ever again.
We already know that’s coming.
A place where God wipes every last tear from our eyes.
What does that have to do with today? with tonight?
It just means that whatever questions you have,
whether or not you’d ever get answers for them,
it just means we know you’re going to be all right.
So you can turn off the TV,
turn off your device,
and close your eyes.
Meditate on the cross.
It gave us a future worth holding on to.
Think about the God who gave it to you,
who is right now with you.
And rest well tonight, my friends.
It’s going to be all right.