“Looking for a City…” Hebrews 11:8-10
Hebrews 11:8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.
God called Abraham to leave his home, to leave everything he knew, to follow him. And while Jesus may or may not call you to actually physically leave your home, Jesus says,
John 12:26a, “All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me.”
I. We too are called to follow Christ, and we can learn from Abraham’s journey some truths that will help us along the way as we follow Christ. The first thing that we see of Abraham is that he didn’t know where he was going, but he went by faith. Now, I’m not suggesting that you leave here today and take off for who knows where and wait for God to tell you when you get there. I’m talking instead about the journey of your life. None of us, when we answer the call to follow Christ know where we will end up.
I remember just a few weeks ago, I was in prayer and I was reflecting on a song that I used to sing when I was a kid, “I’ll go where you want me to go dear Lord. O’er mountain or plain or sea. I’ll say what you want me to say dear Lord. I’ll be what you want me to be.” In those moments of my innocent youth, I made a commitment to follow Christ wherever he would lead me. And I was singing that song anew, my eyes were filled with tears, just thinking where Christ has brought me. I used to sing it so innocently, so naively. I had no idea where God would lead.
And even now, I’m still standing at the beginning of my life. I don’t know where God will bring me next. I don’t know what else God has in store for me. Probably in another five or ten years, I’ll look back and be amazed at where I’ve come from. But like Abraham, I must be willing, and like Abraham, you must be willing to follow God wherever it is he leads you. You must commit to follow his plan for you, no matter what.
I read a story about a man who was dying. He asked his Christian doctor to tell him what was waiting for him on the other side. The doctor struggled to think of something. Just then, his dog, which he had locked in the basement, began to scratch at the door. And the doctor told the man; I never let my dog in here. He has never been inside this room. And yet, he is scratching eagerly at the door. Why? Because, he knows that I’m here in this room. And the same is true of heaven. We don’t know exactly what waits for us there. We may have descriptions and ideas, but our minds aren’t even capable of comprehending it. Yet we ought to yearn and desire to go there. Why? Because we know that Christ is there.
This story rings true, not only of our final destination in heaven, but also of every stop along the way. No matter what our course in life, be it storm or calm, peace or trouble, sickness or health, no matter what we go through, we can look forward to tomorrow with joy, because we know that Christ will be there with us. Surely he is the one who said, Hebrews 13:5, “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (NKJV)
When you look at the story of Abraham leaving his home in Genesis you’ll notice something. Wherever Abraham goes, God meets with him. And I’m sure that this was a big part of the reason that Abraham was able to venture into the unknown. He wasn’t going alone, but God was going with him. It wasn’t just Abraham who followed God without seeing the fulfillment of the promise. His son Isaac and his grandson Jacob also followed. And when God reiterates the covenant with Jacob that he had made with Abraham, God concludes by saying:
Genesis 28:15, “What’s more, I will be with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. I will someday bring you safely back to this land. I will be with you constantly until I have finished giving you everything I have promised."
Twice to Jacob, God said “I will be with you.” And it’s the presence of God that kept them all waiting for the moment when God’s promises would be fulfilled. They didn’t always know where they were going. They didn’t always know how they would get there. But they knew one thing: wherever it was and however they went, God would be with them. And the same is true of us. No matter what God has for you in your life. No matter what he has for you in your walk, it doesn’t matter that you don’t know where you’ll end up, because you can know who you’ll end up with.
II. Hebrews 11: 9 And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith – for he was like a foreigner, living in a tent. And so did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the same promise.
An American tourist visited the 19th century Polish rabbi, Hofetz Chaim. Astonished to see that the rabbi’s home was only a simple room filled with books, plus a table and a bench, the tourist asked, "Rabbi, where is your furniture?" "Where is yours?" replied the rabbi. "Mine?" asked the puzzled American. "But I’m a visitor here. I’m only passing through." "So am I," said Hofetz Chaim.
Philippians 3:18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their future is eternal destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and all they think about is this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.
As Christians we must keep this perspective. We must remember that we are pilgrims passing through this life on the way to the next. It’s not that this life has no significance at all for us, after all, it’s this life that determines where we will spend the next. However, we are not true citizens of this world. We do not really belong to this world. We’re like Abraham, when he was moving around from place to place waiting until he got to the place of God’s promise. We are also moving along, with a final destination that is not of this world.
Some people when they go on vacation, they get to the hotel room and they unpack everything. They take it all out of the suitcase and put it into those bureaus. I think I did that once when I was staying in the same place for three weeks. But if I’m only going to be around for a week or a few days, I don’t even bother to unpack. I just leave everything in the suitcase and when I need it, I just take it out. I couldn’t be bothered to get everything settled, because I know that very soon, I’m going to have to pack it all up again. Well, you may agree or disagree with my vacationing habits—that’s up to you. However, we must have this sort of way of thinking when it comes to life. Now we may be here 80 or 100 years, but compared with eternity, that’s just a weekend trip. If we spend our time focused on this life and this world, then we have wasted our life. Sometimes we spend our energy trying to build a comfortable or successful life here. Sometimes, it seems that we can so easily forget that we’re just passing through that we not only unpack our suitcase, but we try to decorate the hotel room too. We want to paint the walls, put in a new carpet, refinish the furniture, hang a few pictures on the wall. Who cares?! Life is too short. We’re just staying for a short trip. No time to unpack.
The world would like to convince us that he who is most successful in life is the one who has amassed the most things. In fact I once saw a bumper sticker which said:
He who dies with the most toys wins.
And while that bumper sticker was just trying to be a little bit funny, it does some up our cultures view on life. But in the grand scheme of things, the “things” of this life won’t matter in the least.
The Roman emperor Charlemagne has an interesting story surrounding his burial. This famous king asked to be entombed sitting upright in his throne. He asked that his crown be placed on his head and his scepter in his hand. He requested that the royal cape be draped around his shoulders and an open book be placed in his lap.
That was A.D. 814. Nearly two hundred years later, Emperor Othello determined to see if the burial request had been carried out. He allegedly sent a team of men to open the tomb and make a report. They found the body just as Charlemagne had requested. Only now, nearly two centuries later, the scene was gruesome. The crown was tilted, the mantle moth-eaten, the body disfigured. But open on the skeletal thighs was the book Charlemagne had requested – the Bible. One bony finger pointed to Matthew 16:26: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations (Rockville, MD: Assurance Publishers, 1979)
Here was one of the most successful men by the world’s standards, and yet the course of time revealed just how much all of that was worth. And it isn’t just the material things that won’t matter in eternity. It was more than the physical worth of the crown that proved to be useless to Charlemagne in the end. The crown and the cape and the scepter all represented his authority as king, his great fame and power. But all of these things were now useless to Charlemagne. All of the great learning he had achieved, all of the power he had amassed, all of the praise of men amounted to nothing.
Since none of us are kings, we may not face the same sorts of things that Charlemagne faced. We may not be tempted with the same temporal things that he was. However, there are so many things that we can get caught up in—things that are not in and of themselves bad—but things that in the end have no inherent value. King Solomon encountered some of the same temptations in his life. And he tried to find fulfillment and happiness in all kinds of things. But he could only come to one conclusion:
Ecclesiastes 1:2, “’Everything is meaningless,’ says the Teacher, ‘utterly meaningless!’”
Solomon tried pleasure. Sometimes we think that if we can just have fun, live life to the fullest, then we’ll be truly satisfied. The meaning of life is to have as much fun as you can. But the pleasures of this life are fleeting. They are here today and gone tomorrow. They can bring a good feeling, but only for a moment. They cannot bring true satisfaction.
Solomon was the wisest man ever to live. And probably we live in a time period that puts more emphasis on knowledge than ever before. In order to get a good job you need at least a master’s degree nowadays. And our culture thinks that education is the answer to everything. We have a problem with a disease running rampant—education is the answer. Is there racism—education is the answer. We want to throw information at everything that comes our way. And we put pressure on ourselves to succeed. I’m not saying education is bad. Education is a great thing. However, knowledge in and of itself is valueless. It’s what you do with knowledge that gives it value. And eternal value is measured in light of eternity. If you studied your whole life and put the knowledge you gained to use only in this world, then it has been a waste. Instead, even in our education, we must keep this perspective: we’re just passing through. We’re not here to stay. Therefore, we must use the knowledge we have for the Kingdom of God.
Solomon also tried to find his happiness in working hard. He thought surely if I work hard, then I can leave something behind. I can make some difference, some impact. However, he realized that this was exactly the problem. He would leave the work behind. It wouldn’t be of any real benefit. He could not stay to enjoy the benefits of his work. The Bible is a strong proponent of hard work. However, work for the sake of work isn’t good enough. If I go into my backyard and work hard 14 hours a day to dig a big hole, what good will that do? Surely, I’ll be doing more work than probably anybody in this room. I’d be working hard. And hard work is rewarding, or so our culture tells us. But I don’t need a big hole. My work would be useless. All my energy would be wasted. Well, any work that we do that is not done in light of eternity, is like digging holes. In the end it will be useless. Our life’s work, our careers, cannot be our fulfillment or our life, but can only be a means to achieve our true purpose. Our work cannot be the end, but is instead only a means to the end.
Surely there are other things that Satan might use to keep us focused on this world. This is by all means not an exhaustive list. However, we must always keep in mind this one thing: we’re just travelers, passing through. We’re not here to stay, but we’re on the move, getting ready to go home. Everything we do should be focused toward that journey.
If the things we amass, the pleasures we experience, the knowledge we gain, and the work we do don’t matter in the end, then what does matter? Is this life just a useless waste? Is this life completely meaningless, just something we have to get through in order to make it to the next life, where the real living starts?
1 Corinthians 3:12-15, "Now anyone who builds on that foundation may use gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But there is going to come a time of testing at the judgment day to see what kind of work each builder has done. Everyone’s work will be put through the fire to see whether or not it keeps its value. If the work survives the fire, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builders themselves will be saved, but like someone escaping through a wall of flames."
Our spiritual works are the things that really matter in this life. The things that we have done for the Kingdom of God will last for all eternity. This is the way that we can store up our treasure in heaven as Christ commands us to.
Matthew 6:19-21: "Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where they can be eaten
by moths and get rusty, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in
heaven where they will never become moth-eaten or rusty and where they will be safe
from thieves. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be."
III. 10 Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.
And here we are introduced to the reason that Abraham was able to hold on, the reason that Abraham was willing to live in a tent and not make a permanent home. He didn’t want to settle for this old world. He wouldn’t settle for the pleasures, and wealth, and security of this life for one reason: he knew there was something better. He knew that he would be foolish to sell out for so little. Not that this world has nothing to offer at all. Sometimes this world seems grand. It is, after all, the handiwork of God. But it pales in comparison to what is ahead.
I recently made a trip to Ellis Island in New York. Ellis Island was one of the biggest immigration processing centers in the U.S. in its day. It processed thousands of immigrants a day. Now all of these immigrants left their homelands with whatever difficulties it had to come to “the land of promise.” They believed they could make themselves a new and better life here. At the time, a trip to America was over a month by boat. When I went to Ellis Island, I saw dormitory rooms where people could stay while they were being processed. While they weren’t much to look at from our 21st century American perspective, I wonder what they looked like the 19th century immigrants. Maybe to some of them, especially after months on a boat, looked promising. Maybe it was the grandest room they had ever seen. And imagine with me that one person is so overwhelmed with the greatness of this room that he decides he will stay here forever. And so when they try to finish processing him, he stalls it. He hangs up his pictures above the bunk. He unpacks all his clothes and moves right in. You would want to just grab this guy and tell him how foolish he’s being. You would want to explain to him that this place is a dump and America has so much more to offer him. You want to tell him that he’s wasting his new freedom by imprisoning himself in these sub par conditions.
And yet, how often do we do the same thing. Surely, this earth is grand. But it is only the processing center. This life, especially our life in Christ, is much more grand than when we were dead in our sins. However, it’s only the gateway. The next world holds beauty and grandeur that is up to now incomprehensible to us. We can become convinced that things like wealth, and fame, and power, and knowledge, or anything else in this world is the climax of our existence. However, we would be like the fool who thought the dormitory was all there was. We would be selling ourselves short. It isn’t that we give up and forsake this world, and miss out on something. On the contrary, we reject the pull of this world, only because we know that something far greater waits for us on the other side. The great author and thinker C.S. Lewis said, “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.” And this is precisely the thing we must realize. We were not made for this world alone. And the things that we need to have true satisfaction are not found in this world. This world cannot bring us fulfillment, because we were not designed to be fulfilled in this world. We must look for something more than this world has to offer. We must look for something we can never find here. At that fulfillment will only come when our focus is not on this world, but on the next. And then we will find not only fulfillment for this life, but the life to come. When we understand the purpose for this life as a journey, it becomes so much easier to find joy in all circumstances, because we know it’s not here forever. We, like Abraham must look for the city whose builder and maker is God.
I want to close with a story:
There was a king who had all his world could afford. The thing he loved most, however, was to laugh. Once while being entertained a jester came along wishing to join in the festival of activities and also wishing to perform for him. His opportunity came and he put the best comical show together he had ever done and the king never laughed so hard.
Once the activity was all over the king wanted to hire this jester to be his personal jester. Once hired the king in humor handed him a small stick and said, "You are the most foolish man alive. When you find someone more foolish than you, then you give them this stick," and the king laughed heartily.
After many years had passed by the king lay sick on his deathbed ready to go at any moment. He called for his jester, for he wanted to laugh one more time before he died. When the jester was through he asked to speak to the king personally.
Once alone with the king the jester asked, "King where are you going?" The king responded, "on a far journey." The jester asked again, "and how do you plan to get there?" Again the king responded, "I don’t know." Then the jester pulled the stick from his back pocket and handed it to the king. The king was stunned and asked why he had given him the stick. The jester replied, "King today I have found a more foolish man than I. For you see, I only trifled with the things of life, but you have trifled with things of eternity!"
Let us not trifle with eternity. AMEN!
