Hebrews 11: 13-16 "A Stranger and Exile of Earth"

Introduction:

On August 21st after I recieved word that my Dad had gone into eternity to be with Jesus, I spent much of the day reflecting on Hebrews 11 and what it tells us about the life and example of Abraham.

A. The Example of Abraham

God promised Abraham a land for him and his descendants. But Abraham in his physical life on earth never saw it come to pass.

The great irony is that is if you know anything about the life and death of Abraham then you know that when he died the only piece of land he owned was a tomb, in which he and Sarah, his wife, were buried.

We might be tempted to be skeptical and think some fulfillment of a promise that turned out to be.

But in reality Abraham didn’t feel that way. We know this because back up in verse 10 we are told that he was looking for a city whose maker and builder was God.

You see Abraham didn’t believe that the fulfillment would be in this world. As a matter of fact Abraham knew he was a stranger and an exile of earth. He knew it was impossible for God to lie so if fulfillment wasn’t here then it must be somewhere else.

The trials and hardships in a fallen world under a curse remind us of this same truth. This world is not our home; we are looking for something greater than anything this world has to offer.

Both the joys of this world and the trials and the longings of our hearts are meant to direct us to the eternal for ultimate fulfillment.

Many of us here today have also come to realize the reality of this truth that Abraham believed and understood.

I think my Dad in his younger years was hopeful that ultimate fulfillment could be found here.

I will never forget the story that Granny told me how when he was about the 6th grade he came to live with them.

He had on bib overalls and a brown paper bag in his hand with the rest of his belongings. In God’s providence, that move changed his life forever.

He worked hard and at times it appeared the harder he worked the possessions of earth ran through his hands like sand. Many of us have had such disappointments in life.

But through such difficulties God gets it across to us that this world is fallen and and we were never meant to find ultimate fulfillment among the thorns and thistles of a cursed world.

That is why Abraham considered himself a stranger and an exile on the earth. He knew ultimate fulfillment didn’t come from a piece of real estate in the middle east about the size of New Jersey.

I lived in New Jersey for 9 years and I can tell you ultimate fulfillment can’t be found there either. If it could we could all just move there.

But Abraham acknowledged that he was a sojourner in the land and the older he got the more obvious it was to him. That is the way it was for my Dad as well, the older he got the clearer he could see the ultimate fulfillment of eternity.

He used to tell me not to brag on him when I preached his funeral. “You just tell the truth that I was a rotten sinner deserving of hell but I was only saved because of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

I would just say back “Don’t tell the pastor how to preach.” What he said was blunt but it was true and he knew it. God had taught him this.

Like Abraham he had come to realize that eternity with Christ was everything and being with Him was ultimate fulfillment. Every longing and every desire and temporal pleasure of this world was pointing him to another world.

C.S. Lewis, in his work “Mere Christianity” reminds us of this truth when he says: "Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise ... If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Lewis continues, "Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same." (C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity, pp. 135-137).

Lewis is telling us that all of our experiences in this life are pointing us in the direction of eternity if we would dare to look in that direction.

II. Conclusion

Today I can tell you with absolute certainty Daddy didn’t arrive in heaven wearing bib overalls and carrying a brown paper sack half full of his possessions from earth.

He arrived wearing the righteousness of God in Christ, washed in the blood by a Savior who died for him on Calvary’s Tree.

He didn’t need a brown paper sack. All that is left for him in his earthly body is a burial plot about 300 yards from where I am standing today.

A grave is not the land of fulfilled promises. My Dad in his later adult years never thought about his life or the grave being his ultimate fulfillment. And neither did Abraham.

16 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.

Revelation 21 tells us about that city and we are told that the pinnacle of our existence in that New Jerusalem is that God is in the midst of that city. And He will dwell with His people and He will be their God and they will be His people. No more sickness, crying or pain for the Old order has passed away and the new has come.

What about you? What are you living for? You are either living in light of eternity in Christ or you are living for something of earth.

You are seeking for ultimate fulfillment here or you are seeking ultimate fulfillment with Christ in eternity.

My friend if you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you need Him more than you need your next breath. Jesus Christ died in the place of sinners to pay their debt on the Cross to reconcile them to God.

Abraham was a “Stranger and Exile of Earth” and so was my Dad, may this be true of us all. Let’s Pray!