Text: Hebrews 11:8-10, 13-16
Aim: to emphasize our hope of heaven.
Thesis: we have been created with a longing for more than this life – a “homesickness” that points us to our true home, heaven.
Introduction:
TURN TO HEBREWS 11 – READ Verses 8-10, then 13-16.
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with
foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
It is one of the most enduring mysteries of nature: how do geese, seals, whales, salmon, all sorts of creatures make long, difficult journeys, sometimes a 1000 miles or more, in order to go HOME? Without a compass or a map, somehow they unerringly make their way year after year to the same precise spot on the globe – driven and guided by some instinctive motivation to go home.
Take the monarch butterfly: you’ll see them fluttering along on the breeze, light as a whisper, yet each winter those insubstantial little creatures manage to fly as much as 1800 miles from Canada down to the mountains of central Mexico, and always they find their way back to the same spot. How do they do it?
Or homing pigeons: where do they get their uncanny sense of direction? Some have suggested they navigate by the stars; but when scientists transport the birds many miles away, cover their eyes, and turn them loose – even blindfolded, the pigeons still unfailingly find their way home.
Do animals make their migratory journeys by memory? Then how do we explain creatures such as eels, who make an arduous journey to a home they’ve never seen? For example, North American eels and European eels are of the same species, and both are born in the Sargasso Sea in the mid-Atlantic.
Yet newborn eels always return to the same exact streams and rivers where their parents grew up. Once there the little eels mature, eventually return to the Sargasso Sea, give birth to their own young, and the process begins all over again.
And not only that, the American eels and the European eels mix and mingle freely in the Sargasso Sea, but when it comes time to return to their ancestral waters to breed – you cannot fool them. No European eel ever makes its way to America, no American eel ever travels to Europe – each species always knows the way to its own home, even though its a place they’ve never seen!
[Illustration taken from Lowell Worthington – 45 & Satisfied]
That homing instinct is one of the most powerful in all of nature: God has instilled in a multitude of creatures…….the way to their own true home.
But did you know: the Creator has placed that same instinct in US? And when we are true to our God-given nature, there is an internal compass in human beings – a longing in our soul, deep in our being, for a home we have never seen.
You see, we are created for a perfect fellowship with our Father – we were never intended to exist in a sinful, fallen world such as this. Back in Eden, before things got so confused, Adam and Eve enjoyed a personal communion with the Lord – but after they sinned, our ancestors were thrown out of the garden, and God placed an angel at the gate to ensure that they couldn’t go back……….ever since, human beings have had a longing to return, to regain what we have lost, to restore that fellowship with the father, we have had a deep, deep, desire to go home.
Solomon hinted at it in Ecclesiastes 3:11 where he says God has “set eternity in the hearts of men.”
In his Confessions, Augustine described it vividly when he said of God, “You have created us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”
Listen to HEBREWS 11:16! After describing the faith of such great heroes as Abel, Enoch, and Noah – it explains WHY they lived the way they did.
Verse 16 “They were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
Did you catch that? There it is – that “longing” of the soul. Just as the salmon are driven to swim upstream, just as the swallows return to Capistrano, so there is, within the human heart, an innate drive to reach our one true home: those great men and women of old lived as they did, achieved their victories of faith, because they were “homesick for heaven.” And I can no more explain it than I can explain the flight of the geese in winter. But I can DESCRIBE it for you – in the life of ABRAHAM – in three phrases from this text.
THE FIRST PHRASE is in VERSE 8 – “called out”
What causes the geese to decide it’s time to fly south? The changing of seasons, a chill in the air, the shortening of the day, the position of the sun. What awakens our own spiritual homing instinct? It begins when we thrill to hear the voice of God – when we respond with joy at receiving His word – when we allow His Spirit to begin His work in us. We are “called out” of this world so that we can be prepared for the next.
The SECOND PHRASE is in VERSE 9 – “a stranger in a foreign country…..lived in tents”
You may remember the story of a disagreement between Abraham and his nephew Lot; how Abraham had his choice of locations, and could have chosen the best grazing lands – could have settled down in Sodom. ABRAHAM REFUSED TO “SETTLE DOWN” / “SETTLE” FOR WHAT THIS LIFE OFFERS / COMPROMISE.
Genesis 13:10a “Lot saw….” (from a temporal standpoint, his decision made sense)
:11-12 “Lot chose”
:13 “wicked”
:10b “before the Lord destroyed”
(Sodom’s judgment hanging over it / doom just around the corner) Lot chose the path of ease, comfort, prosperity – and the result was awful!
Abraham, on the other hand, was a “traveler,” a “pilgrim.” Abraham chose to live “in tents.” Have you ever gone camping? Spent some time in the great outdoors? It’s great – for a while. But living in a tent grows old quickly. Just ask the folks in south Florida. After Hurricane Andrew came roaring through back in 1992, more than 80,000 homes were totally demolished, rendered unlivable. 160,000 people were suddenly homeless. The Army came and set up tent cities. Folks were glad to have the shelter for a while. But they soon discovered that living in a tent gets old. It doesn’t take long before folks want to settle down – crave the permanence of four walls, a floor, and a roof over your head.
Listen! Why does the Bible emphasize Abraham “lived in tents”? It isn’t talking about REAL ESTATE – it is referring to REALITY, to spiritual reality. Abraham remained intentionally apart – not quite belonging – a “stranger in a strange land” – he refused to compromise his faith, because he knew this world isn’t permanent – it doesn’t last. Oh, this world is real, but it is not as real as the one to come.
1 John 2:15,17 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him…..the world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever”
VERSE 10 – “a city with foundations”
IMPLIED: ABRAHAM WAS DISSATISFIED WITH THIS WORLD!
“This world is not my home, I’m just a’passing through,
My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue,
The angels beckon me, from heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore”
Someone has said that an OPTIMIST is a person who’d like to believe this is the best of all possible worlds – and a PESSIMIST is a person who’s afraid he’s right! Well, Christians are REALISTS: we know this world is fallen, sinful, and imperfect – but we are HOPEFUL REALISTS, because we believe God has planned something better later on.
Was Abraham disillusioned by the raggedness of this life? Was he put off by the uncertainty of this world? Or is it more likely that when he was called by the voice of the Almighty, once he had encountered the power of the living God, nothing else was ever quite the same again? One thing is for sure: when Abraham heard that voice, he answered it, and he never looked back.
CONCLUSION:
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN TO US? THREE KEY WORDS:
1. Verse 13 “aliens” – We live in a nation that is concerned about illegal aliens, foreigners slipping into our country, and we seem to be unable to maintain control of our own borders! But put the shoe on the other foot: what if you were one of those aliens? What if you knew that you didn’t belong, weren’t wanted? What if people looked at YOU with suspicion, made it clear you weren’t accepted, didn’t belong?
Have you ever felt uncomfortable, “out of step” with others, because of your faith? It will forever be the lot of the Christian to be an outsider! The earliest followers of Jesus felt this keenly. An unknown disciple from the 3rd century gave this description of Christians:
They live in their own homelands, but as foreigners. They share in everything as citizens, but endure everything as aliens. Every foreign country is their homeland, but every homeland is a strange country to them. They spend their time on the earth, but their citizenship is really in heaven. (Epistle to Diognetus)
2. Verse 13 “saw”
Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we DO NOT SEE. This is what the ancients were commended for.”
FAITH is the confident expectation, the joyful anticipation, of the promises of God.
v. 3 “not seen”
v. 7 “not yet seen”
v. 23 “he saw him who was invisible”
“Seeing is believing”? NO – believing is seeing!
3. “by faith”
HOW CAN WE BE HOMESICK FOR HEAVEN WHEN WE’VE NEVER BEEN THERE? verse 13 “By faith”!
This passage reorients our thinking entirely: somehow we have gotten the idea that what we can SEE here on this earth is real, while all this talk about “heaven” is just wishful thinking.
When I was young, I thought sermons about heaven were morbid, and all that talk about the life to come was unhealthy – after all, I was eager to live in the here and now, and didn’t want to hear about the “by and by.”
But the longer I am privileged to live, the more I realize the limitations of this life and the imperfections of this world. And when faced with the impermanence, the unpredictability of this life – then you grow to appreciate what the Bible means about being “homesick for heaven.”
This life is precious – enjoy it as best you can, use it for God’s glory as long as you can – but don’t ever trust it, not completely – because you weren’t meant for a world like this, and sooner or later, it will always let you down.
God has put a homing instinct in you – don’t let the world drown it out!
“There’s a land that is fairer than day, and BY FAITH we can see it afar,
For the Father waits over the way, to prepare us a dwelling place there.”
Dan Williams
