Hebrews 11:13-16
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Strangers
Strangers
Connections:
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
Tension:
We are in a place that we do not belong, seeking a place that we can see but cannot be.
We are in the already but not yet
Message:
As we step into this text, we need a reminder. A reminder of where we are and who this was written to. We are 11 chapters into a 13 chapter letter, we are nearing the end and nearing the climax. The author is writing to a deeply persecuted Jewish-Christian community, meaning that they have a deep understanding of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and they believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah. As they go about their days, they are loosing property, loosing jobs, the author says that they have “endured a hard struggle with suffering.” The recipients of this letter are likely citizens of Rome, likely living in Rome itself, but they do not feel like they belong. They do not feel like citizens of this society. So they have two options;
Leave Jesus behind. Abandon the faith and return to their roots. They will feel apart of society again, they will no longer be rejected, their lives will be “normal.”
OR
Look to Jesus in your suffering. The author of Hebrews does well to bring to mind that our God is not one who watches the suffering of His people from His castle in the sky, He is One who comes and joins in our suffering.
But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
As we look to Jesus, we have faith (confident assurance) in the future promises of God.
Those are their two options, and quite honestly, those are our two options today. We either abandon Jesus or we look to Him. In the passage that we will look at today, the author gives us examples of why we look to the promises of God. Let’s take a look at our passage:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
We begin in verse 13 with the phrase “These all died in faith” now when we say this we are talking about the people previously mentioned; Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, & Sarah. They died knowing the promises of God but never being able to grab hold of it. They heard, they believed, but they never had, yet for some reason it brought them hope to look towards it.
Life of Abraham:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
Ur, to Haran, to Shechem, to Egypt, to Bethel. Abraham traveled at age 75 likely over 2,000 miles by foot. If that was your life, where would you call home? He faced dangerous journey’s, wars, and other threats to his life. He was not what you would call “welcomed” to be there. Yet he trusted in the promise of God, that one day his seed would be as numerous as the stars, that they would have a land of their own, and that his seed would be a blessing to the whole earth. As Abraham reached the end of his life, he lost his wife. When he went to find a place to burry her, this is how he described himself.
“I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”
Abraham did not have a home, but he had the promise of God to look forward to. A promise of a future, better life. A place to call his home.
The word translated “exiles” is the greek word παρεπίδημος, which also means “a temporary resident.” That is where we are, we are strangers or temporary residents in a foreign land, but where is our home?
Verse 14-15 says,
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
So again we see that they know that this fallen world is not their home, it is not how it was meant to be. It was meant to be as in the Garden where everything was good and we walked and co-ruled with God, but that is obviously not the world we live in. We live in a world where a “utopia,” a perfect society is deeply desired but continuously unattainable. Even our most creative minds only ever see utopia turning into dystopia. You get worlds like; Hunger Games, the Giver, Snowpiercer, and Blade Runner.
