Walk Where You Can’t See Series

Living in what? Tents. Tent means temporary. That’s the point of this part of Heb 11. Abraham lived like someone who wasn’t staying, as did his son and grandson.

Now, I like sleeping in a tent, but I like it because it means I’m camping.

When you’re living as someone who’s just passing through, things are different. Just the basic stuff of life, like staying dry, warm, and eating, becomes a lot more work. If you’re not staying where you are, it changes a lot about it, doesn’t it?

Every week, there’s someone here who has had to deal with the harshness of reality. There’s someone who has received bad news. There’s someone struggling. There are people dealing with heavy loads.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that this is a camping trip. Maybe your bed is lumpy. Maybe the tent leaks when it rains. Maybe there are bugs and sunburn and wind and storms. There’s a reason life gets that way: this is a camping trip. This isn’t our home.

2 Corinthians 5:1-2 (MSG)

For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we'll never have to relocate our "tents" again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it! We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies!

People who plan on leaving their campsite don’t drive their stakes in so deep that they’ll be hard to pull up later. Neither do people who know that Heaven is our real home live like they’re never going to leave here. That’s part of walking where you can’t see. You’re just passing through. Here’s one more important part. You…

4. Can’t Ignore the Future

Abraham left everything, he didn’t know where he was going, he lived in temporary housing for the rest of his life here. How could he handle all that?

Hebrews 11:10 (MSG)

Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

He wasn’t really looking for the country that would belong to Israel some 700 years later. Abraham was looking to live in Heaven forever! And it wasn’t just Abraham. Look at the other people who were doing things that required faith:

Hebrews 11:13-16a

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. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one.

You can do this when you’ve accepted that where you’re at isn’t as good as where you plan to go. So, I have to ask you today: What are you looking for? The person who walks where he can’t see is a person who’s always looking ahead to the final destination.