FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-5; Hebrews 11

Strangers and nomads, foreigners and refugees, and exiles are what the saints of faith were; and such is what we are as believers in a country, a kingdom, that has been promised to each of us. In our own world of strife, of corrupt institutions and broken lives, of competitive greed and concentrated power, we, as men and women of faith, are strangers and exiles as well This is not our permanent home, for we are only traveling through to a better promise!

Abraham and all the rest of these who were such great examples in their faith, desire to reach for a better world, and real homeland, because they and we were and are made strangers and wanderers by the promises of God to each of us who walk by their examples. Their examples show us that they couldn’t settle down and make terms with things as they were. The patriarchs were condemned by their faith to accept their destiny in the distant future. This is the perpetual and continuing burden of those who choose to walk by faith.

The kind of perspective which allows or requires us to look beyond the disappointments and the imperfections of the present to a time and place where all these are somehow put away is a perspective of faith. If we can believe that there will be some point when all of God’s promises to His people will be fully delivered and a utopian moment when they will be realized in full, then we are caught up in the power of faith. After all, we have heard the writer of Hebrews setting this entire discussion in the context of faith: “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1, NLT). We may know this first verse of Hebrews 11 a little better in the New King James Version rendering: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The word we have translated substance suggests a foundation; faith, then, is the foundation of the Christian life and the Christian pilgrimage. This is why so much of what Jesus taught during His earthly mission was about the importance of faith!

We are on a pilgrimage toward our heavenly home and the new Jerusalem, and that focus will carry us through much that is unpleasant, destructive, debilitating, and nonsensical about the life that is ours in this world. That should be very comforting; for it is hopeful. Yet, while our focus is ever beyond the immediate, we must be careful not to make the obvious mistake; we must be careful not to write off the present as insignificant. This world with all its imperfections is still our place for a time, and in our search for our homeland we still work to leave the places through which we travel touched by the goodness and graciousness of God which pull us toward our goal. In spite of the fact that we know better, we live in this world, and Jesus Himself told us to continue and be diligent until He returns, so we must continue to pour ourselves into making this world as heavenly as we are able, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as if it is all we have, until Christ Himself returns. That is precisely the way we find our way to the homeland God has built for us over there. God will continue to lead and guide us all the way!

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-5; Hebrews 11

Faith for Abraham was never a peaceful, gentle, thing. It was a disturbing force compelling him to venture into the unseen. Faith that does not involve risk is not faith. True faith can never be based on conclusive evidence or upon carefully calculated profits. Faith acts upon that which is unseen, yet real. Faith causes one to feel the pull of the beyond.

When we talk about operating on other worldly standards, we must look to Abraham’s wife, Sarah’s life and situation.

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. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore (Hebrews 11:11-12).

Of course, when Sarah first heard the news that she was going to have a child in her old age after never having been able to conceive, she laughed. The implication is that she laughed with some sense of skepticism at what she heard about God’s promise from the angel. Actually, Abraham laughed, too. We can likely assume they are laughing because the angel not only seems to believe it but seems to expect them to believe it too. They are laughing because with another part of themselves they know it would take a fool to believe. . . . Think about it . . . they are most likely laughing because if by some crazy chance it should just happen to come true, then they would really have something to laugh about, especially because of their ages.

But don’t let Abraham overshadow Sarah on this one. She’s in the faith hall of fame on her own. She was a woman who, as much as any man, longed for a world where things could be just the way God said they could be without any reservations or stipulations, even if the prospects did make her laugh.

Each of these notable persons lived by faith hoping for that which was unseen but promised; in one way or another, they were on pilgrimage looking for a homeland where the promises given to them could and would be fulfilled. Life at its very best is never whole this side of heaven. Even at the end of what we would all consider a full life well-lived, there remains unfinished business. Rarely, if ever, are all one’s dreams realized and promises fulfilled on earth. We are gifted through the grace of God many times over and blessed so richly that we often take our blessings for granted, but we will never be complete until we are at home with God, our Father. At the same time, we have pain that in this world is never absolutely relieved, questions that are never fully answered, grief that never goes away entirely, and a sense of inadequacy that is not put away with finality. These voids and others like them remain with us in this place through which we pass. As preoccupied as we can become with them, these burdens are not the absolute determinants of our quality of life in the present or the future. Do you remember another of the old spirituals?

I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger,
A trav’ling through this world of woe;
But there’s no sickness, no toil or danger,
In that bright world to which I go . . .
I’m just a going over Jordan, . . .
I’m just a going over home. ¹

As journeying pilgrims, that is our song, too; it was the song of the men and women of faith who inspired the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews. They were in search of their true homeland, and they “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).

To Be Continued

¹ “I’m Just a Poor, Wayfaring Stranger,” Hymn for the Living Church (Carol Stream: Hope, 1978)
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-5; Hebrews 11

Enoch was one of the grandsons of Adam and the father of Methuselah who lived longer than any other person recorded in the Bible (969 years). Enoch lived a long time, also, 365 years, but he was such a godly man that, one day, God just took him into heaven. The writer of Genesis tells us that Enoch “walked with God” (Genesis 5:24), in other simpler terms, Enoch spent his life in intimate fellowship with God. What a eulogy! Do we know what it was about Enoch that pleased God so much? According to Hebrews 11, “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, . . . [for] without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:5-6). Enoch was so sold to the way of life in the heavenly country that he was able to step right into it. Maybe we should see here that aside from Jesus of Nazareth no one on record ever did a better job of living according to a heavenly way of life on earth than Enoch did. Even though he was here a long time, this world was not his home; he was neither fulfilled nor complete here. There was a better world for which he reached.

Then there was Noah who lived in a time of such prevailing corruption that he was the only good man God could find. God decided that the creation of the human race had been a colossal mistake so it was back to the drawing board. The story goes on to state that God decided to flood the whole earth and virtually start all over again. To protect this one good man, his family, and a sample of all that was good in the rest of creation, God tells Noah there will be a great flood. To be protected from it, he is going to have to build a gigantic houseboat, an ark. No one, Noah included, had ever heard of any such thing. But, Noah decided to do it. Maybe he was afraid not to do it. In Hebrews, the writer noted that Noah “moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household” (Hebrews 11:7). Because his eyes were fixed on a greater world, he was able to follow God’s instructions which made little sense to him and endure the taunts of people all around who kept insisting that they’d never heard of an ark or anything like it before. Actually, by Noah’s faith and his focus on what transcended this world, our text explains that “he condemned the world” (Hebrews 11:7).

It wasn’t that Noah consciously passed judgment upon the world, for that was not his to do. But the author of Hebrews shows that every faithful confidence in God unconsciously and severely condemns the fretful lives of those who choose to establish their own security, obtain their own salvation, and work out their own destiny, without Christ.

We all know Abram’s (Abraham’s) story, too. It is a well-known story from our Old Testament lessons:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:8-10).

Abraham, literally, was in search of a new homeland on earth which, of course, was never fully realized. He was reaching for a city founded on the promises of God, a city whose builder and maker was God. That city, land, and country has never lasted upon this earth, but Abraham looked forward to it in faith.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-5; Hebrews 11

“This world is not my home,” people often say, “I’m just a passing through!” It’s a similar sentiment to that often expressed in the spirituals: “Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world. . . . Goin’ home to be with God”; “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.” Focus on the word home. Here, it doesn’t refer to that warm place of acceptance, peace, and space to do as one pleases; rather, the longing is for something more than a comfortable residence as important as home is in this sense. The longing in these words is for a country, a home, and, not just a place where an individual is comfortable and at peace, but a country wherein, as far as we can see in every direction, everyone shares the kind of protected and cared-for feeling we all desire in our abode.

The writer of Hebrews wrote of people of God who were searching for a homeland in which their faith could be fulfilled, in which all the promises of God could be claimed in full. This would necessitate the absence of evil and spiritual distraction. Such a place was in their hearts and dreams, but they wanted a tangible expression of it.

The writer of Hebrews has created a literary “faith hall of fame,” a recalling of those who were known for their great faith though the full rewards of their faith were not realized on earth. Let that latter phrase be emphasized: though the full rewards of their faith were not realized on earth. The initial subjects in this faith hall of fame are Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. The values by which each of these lived and acted revealed that they were not caught up in or bound by the perspective of nonfaith. Even on earth they were living according to the standards of a heavenly country which, at best, they could barely glimpse.

Do you remember the story of Cain and Abel? When they were adults, these first two children of Adam and Eve had developed personalities and habits which were in sharp contrast, no consolation, yet it provides good reading for parents who marvel and moan at how differently the children they thought similarly reared turn out to be. The firstborn was Cain, and he became a farmer. The second born was Abel, and he became a shepherd. Only two professions in the world, and the sons take different paths! Even though Adam and Eve had been sent out of the Garden of Eden for their respective acts of disobeying God, they apparently had kept up the religious dimension of their lives. Both Cain and Abel knew that at harvest time, an offering to the Lord was in order. Cain brought some of his crops as his offering; Abel brought the first lamb born in his flock of sheep. God was pleased with Abel’s offering and not Cain’s; obviously God’s response had to do with Abel’s desire to bring his best and Cain’s tokenism. Jealous because of God’s praise of Abel’s faithfulness, Cain kills Abel.

Here is the writer of Hebrews using dead Abel as an example for others who would be faithful to God, and we think, as did the original readers, no doubt, “Are there any examples of people who were faithful and lived to tell about it?” What is Abel doing in this roll call of God’s faithful anyway? Our writer explains that it was because of Abel’s faith that he “offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, . . . and through it he being dead still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4). The standards of the heavenly country establish that God’s people give their best for God. That is why Abel is in this list; that is the sense in which he was reaching toward a homeland that he had not known on earth.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.