Evidence of Things Not Seen - Greetings and Goodbyes

In Hebrews chapter 11, after reminding the New Testament Christians of the faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah, the writer takes a moment to discuss that they all died in their faith, never having seen what they were promised:

13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Sarah and Abraham and the others mentioned died before they were given the reward that was promised.  They likely never understood the grand way in which “the nations of the world would be blessed” through their lives.  They must have grappled with what that meant.  We know Abraham did.  He asks God how he will know that the promise will be fulfilled.  Not doubting God, but trying to understand.  

Our faith is no different in that way than was the faith of those who came before us.  It is by our own faith that we understand who the creator is - God can’t be proven mathematically, scientists will never confirm His existence.  Yet, our faith tells us that God is the Sovereign over the universe, that He exists outside of our ideas of time and space, and that He controls and works in ways we cannot imagine or understand.  

We tend to think in purely egocentric terms when we compare our current world situation to the historical time periods which preceded us.  We think that our historical context is the most complicated, the most wicked, the most depraved.  I’m not denying that our world is complicated and wicked and depraved; however, that’s always been the state of the world.  We just have new ways to spout our idiocy and hatred.  Perhaps we are more inundated with the views of the world due to the television, the internet, and social media, but I can’t imagine that Lot was much more protected from the evil surrounding him than I am from the evil that surrounds me…at least mine has an off switch.  

The whole point of these reminders is that we have more reason to cling to our faith than these people did - they hadn’t received the promise.  But we have.  We have evidence of God’s great plan to save mankind from itself.  They had evidence, for certain, but not for their own salvation. God required them to imagine something greater, something higher, something beyond their understanding and to trust Him.  And they did.  Knowing who God is, they were assured of His promises.  They “embraced” them.  I like that word; however, a more accurate translation is “greeted.”  They saluted, as it were, His promises.  They rushed to meet them, to take them in, to live with them.

The question of our faith is really one of what we will greet - what we will live with and attach ourselves to - and what we will bid farewell and separate ourselves from.

It’s about greetings and farewells.  We greet God’s promises. We attach ourselves to them, we provide them room in our hearts and our lives, and we live there.  My sister, Elizabeth, has a series of lessons on discipleship where she talks about dwelling in God’s word.  And she discusses how true disciples don’t just visit God’s word, popping in and out and only staying for a time.  We dwell there.  We attach ourselves to His word, and we abide with it.  We greet it gladly, and even when we don’t understand, we stay there.  

We attach ourselves to Christ, and then we detach ourselves from the world around us.  The icons of faith in these passages greeted God’s promise and then declared themselves strangers in the world. Over and over in the scriptures, we are told that we cannot live in two realms.  We cannot serve two masters.  We cannot build two houses or walk two paths or enter in through two doors.  

What we see here is just another lesson in the same vein. We cannot have two attachments. 

Verse 14 states that in acknowledging  ourselves as pilgrims and strangers, we openly declare that we are searching for a different homeland.  Our lives look different.  There was no mistaking that Abraham was different.   Enoch obviously wasn’t taken in by the evil of his generations that led God to destroy the earth with a flood.  Noah was surely different; his contemporaries thought he was crazy!  Detaching themselves from the societal norms of their day made them look different, and in that difference, they proclaimed their faith in God, even though they didn’t have the hope of salvation that we lean on today.  They knew God, and they trusted that He alone could control the tides of cultural chaos.

If we can’t detach from this world, from our current culture and political environment, then we will never search for something better.  Maybe we’ll buy into the modern idea that WE will create something better - here on this earth.  And perhaps there are ways to restructure society for the better - I don’t know.  But I am at the point in my life where I have fewer years of this life in front of me than I do behind me, and the perspective of age teaches me that I don’t really have the capacity to change society to any great extent.  

I know that this society will run in circles and cycles until God decides to end it once and for all.  And then it won’t matter how I voted or which charities I supported or what school I attended or what my kid’s grades were or what street I lived on or where I shopped or any of the other dozens of things my culture says are important.

I can attach myself to those things…that’s a choice, but it’s silliness.  

When I say that I’m a pilgrim, I let go of those worldly concerns.  I can still vote, but it doesn’t matter much what the outcome is.  I can still work for charitable organizations, but I understand I’m only putting a band-aid on the suffering of mankind, I won’t stop the suffering.  I can encourage young people to do their best in school, but how they do in school is nothing compared to how they live their lives in service of God, and so I will choose to focus my efforts there.

What are you going to greet in your life?

If you want to attach yourself to the here and now, God will let you.  The Hebrew writer says that if any of these people had wanted to return to their earthly country, they could have. Noah could have refused to build the ark.  Abraham could have returned to Ur.  Sarah could have made it complicated, if not impossible, for Abraham to go where God led him.  God wouldn’t have stopped them from attaching themselves to the world. 

He won’t stop you either.  He wants you to choose to attach yourself to Him.  And when we do that, when we attach ourselves to God by our own choice, then He will call us His chosen.  And He’s not ashamed to be our God because we have chosen Him as something so much better than this world.

In Western culture part of our problem is that we have every comfort imaginable.  We have so much food that we can be picky eaters.  We have so much wealth that we can entertain ourselves for hours…weeks and months at a time.  And when that’s what we are attached to, then we begin to think of this as heaven.  And we forget that there’s suffering and pain and depravity.  You want to know why Western cultures seem less “godly” than they were even just 20 years ago? Why even my students who grow up going to church don’t know the story of David and Goliath?  You want to know why even Christians will opt to sleep in on Sunday and watch church online? Because Satan is really good at his job.  He makes us feel like we already have it all, and he tells us that God didn’t really mean what He said about holiness and judgment, and we greet that message, and we embrace it, and we live there.  And we place our citizenship here…in this world and forget the hope of heaven. If you don’t feel like a stranger in the midst of the chaos of your culture, then you may have some rethinking to do.

Bid farewell to all of those messages, sisters!  Be a pilgrim and a stranger.  You won’t be alone.  One of the great blessings of this kingdom is the love and fellowship we have with other pilgrims - and they are in every part of this globe.  In choosing Christ, you may be a stranger to those around you, but you can walk into any congregation of the Lord’s people anywhere on this planet and feel attached…because you will be among others who have decided to be aliens here and  citizens of heaven.