Well, let's open to Hebrews chapter 11. This is our fifth week in this chapter. If you don't stop me, I'll spend the next several months in this chapter. It is such an encouragement. It's such a blessed word from our Lord. Hebrews 11, verse 13, speaking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The writer says, all these died in faith without receiving the promises. But having seen them and having welcomed them, having embraced them from a distance, having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. And therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Lord, we thank You not only for this Word, but for what this Word contains. The promise of a heavenly fatherland. A heavenly homeland in Your presence. We thank You that in these words is reflected the promise of You. That we will live with You in glory forever. Well the last three Lord's days, we've seen the working of faith. Abel and Oak, Noah and Abraham. And in chapter 11, verse 1 especially, we're reminded that faith is something that's given by God. It's not something we can manufacture or arrive at through our own righteousness or our own intellect or our own reason. We can't produce faith in ourselves. It's a gift from God. It's assurance from God. It's a confidence that God gives to His children. It assures us of something we could never assure ourselves of. It assures us of eternal life in glory with God. That's what faith is. It's evidence. It's the proof of those eternal blessings, which we can't yet see with our human eyes. And so chapter 11, as we know, the writer presents this history of people of the Old Testament, saints of the Old Testament, who responded to this gift of God by believing God, by trusting in Him, by living according to that faith, and who then received His commendation. God had regard for Abel's offering. He walked with Enoch and Noah, and He called Abraham His friend. So chapter 11 shows us not only what men and women of faith can do and accomplish by faith, but what God does and what God does accomplish in fallen men and women through the gift of faith. We recall that at the time God called Noah, conditions on the earth were as bad as they've ever been. Every intent of the thoughts of man was only evil continually. And God destroyed the whole world with a flood. By the time he called Abraham, the world had again returned to wickedness. Genesis 11 recounts this attempt of people to build a city of man. tower of Babel. And the Lord was again displeased with mankind, and He came again in judgment, this time not destroying the world, but scattering people all over the world, confusing their language. But the Lord was always, always working out His plan of redemption. He's still doing it. We need to learn that and have that secure in our minds from this passage. He'd made a promise in Genesis 3, 15 in the Garden of Eden, after Adam fell, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And you know, these folks, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had to look forward to the fulfillment of that promise. We are so blessed we can look back to it. The Holy Spirit has assured us of its truth. But even in the time of the patriarchs, those men understood God would not fail to fulfill His promise. And so, like Noah had before him, Abraham and then his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob responded to the call of God in faith. They did what God called them to do. Are we doing what God is calling us to do? In Hebrews chapter 11, those verses 8 through 12, the writer focused on four instances of how faith worked in Abraham. We looked at these last Lord's Day. First, how Abraham had responded to the evidence that God had given him of things he couldn't see. Of the assurance God had given him of the things he hoped for. He left his home. He went out. He lived as a stranger in a strange land. He looked for the eternal city which God had promised. And when God promised him innumerable descendants, as many as the stars of the sky, he believed God, though he and his wife were both barren and beyond childbearing age. So when God called him from an apparently comfortable living in Mesopotamia, from his own country, He didn't tell him where He intended him to live. He left him in suspense. He said, Go into the land that I'll show you. This was no ordinary trial of faith to give up what we have in hand and go to some unknown place, not even knowing what we're going to do there. God didn't tell him where he was going because he wanted to exercise his faith. He does this with us. He exercises our faith to teach us to trust him. Even when Abraham arrived in the land of Canaan, the land that was promised to him, he didn't receive that blessing. He continued to live wholly in reliance on God's Word. His status as a pilgrim, as a sojourner in the land that had been promised to him and his descendants, continued on for many generations, for over 400 years. Through the lives of Isaac, and then Jacob, and beyond without fulfillment. But Abraham, Abraham lived according to the assurance God had given him. This is how faith works. God had given him assurance of things he hoped for and couldn't see. And he believed Him. He left his home. He left his family. He lived in tents. In tents, in a strange land, but trusting in God. Never receiving the fulfillment. Why? Well the writer tells us this morning, it's because he came to believe in a heavenly country. He believed that God would do all that He had promised. And so Abraham's life as a pilgrim, as a sojourner, shows us that faith does more than simply save us and call us into God's kingdom. It's by faith that we live here. Our faith should be the central principle by which we live. Abraham's life also shows us. And it's important we remember this. We don't receive all that God has promised in this life. God doesn't promise to heal every ailment we have. He promises us a heavenly country. These blessings, the greatest of these blessings, are not going to come until He calls us into His glorious presence. But what a blessing that will be. What a blessing. So Abraham fixed his eyes on things above, where Christ is. Now when we come to verse 13, the writer seems to interrupt briefly his recounting of the life of faith of Abraham. And he teaches us in these four verses the meaning of the faith that was demonstrated by not only Abraham, but by Isaac and Jacob. All these died in faith. were living in faith when they died. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Each one of them approached his death knowing the things that God had promised. Knowing that God had promised their family the land of Canaan. But also knowing that God had not yet fulfilled that promise. And so they died, the promise unfulfilled, yet still believing. Each of them died believing in something in the future, in the future for them, in a future state of existence. They believed they were to receive God's blessing even after they died. They were looking for something better. Something better than this world. Something beyond this earth and the things of this earth. They believed that God would bless them after they died. After they died. John 8, 56. Jesus said, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day. Jesus Himself confirmed that Abraham looked far beyond his own earthly existence to the time of Christ and the blessing that would be won by Christ. They died in faith, each one of them, in the promise that the Lord would give to their posterity the land of Canaan. That there would be millions of descendants. That God's blessing would come through their seed to people from every nation on the earth. And they believed that God had prepared for them a heavenly country. that God would raise up from them a horn of salvation, a Messiah, and give them eternal rest in Him. That's what they believed. And they didn't have the fullness of the revelation that we now have after Christ has come and done all these things to accomplish all these blessings for us. They never even took possession of the land. But they believed God's promise. They believed He would do what He said. Faith gives sight to see the unseen. And Abraham, Isaac, Jacob lived in faith. They trusted in God. What God had said and what God had promised to the very end of their earthly lives. all without having received the fulfillment of the promise of this land in which they lived in tents as pilgrims and strangers." Their land. They didn't allow even death to call into question the certainty of the promises. You know, Jacob died more than 200 years after the promises had been first made to his grandfather Abraham. And even by then, promise had not yet been fulfilled. And where did Jacob die? He died in Egypt, in a foreign land, a pilgrim, a stranger, a sojourner. His sons and all their sons after them were about to become enslaved in a foreign land. It would be 400 years before the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob received the promised land. And yet Jacob died in faith. This was all, though, according to what God had said to Abraham. Look at Genesis chapter 15, verse 13. God said to Abram, Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions." And we know that's what happened. And so though the fulfillment of even that promise of the land lay four centuries. Centuries! This country has not been here four centuries. But even though that promise was four centuries in the future, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all died still trusting God would do as He had promised. They were able to live in faith and die in faith because God had blessed them with faith. He'd given them assurance of things hoped for. He'd given them evidence and internal proof of that which they couldn't see. And they responded. This is the lesson for us, by the way. They responded by believing God and living in the assurance of His Word. because of this gift, they could look on the thing promised and see them from a distance, from afar off, as though they were present right before them. The New American Standard says they welcomed them from a distance. King James says they were persuaded of them. A more literal rendering might be they saluted these promises. But the best sense here is they embraced them. They embraced the promises. They held them fast. They held them close. They embraced. They cleaved unto them, John Owen said, with love and delight, fruits of faith. Calvin says, when they had only tasted of the promises. As though fully satisfied with their sweetness, they turned away from all that was in the world, and they never forgot the taste of them, however small it was, either in life or in death. Kelvin still, though God gave to the fathers only a taste of that grace, which is largely poured out on us, and showed to them at a distance only an obscure representation of Christ, who is now set forth to us so clearly before our eyes. Yet they were satisfied, and they never fell away from their faith. Calvin asks, how much greater reason than do we have at this day to persevere when the Lord sustains us by so many helps and blessings? The writer says they confessed, declared they were strangers and exiles on the earth. This word here, rendered strangers, comes from a Greek word xenoi. the word from which we get a popular word among some today, xenophobia. The word means, though, they were people not merely from another place, but people who didn't fit in, who didn't belong. They were strangers. They're people who are different in important respects, unknown to and not well understood by those of the world. This was the lot of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Canaan. Strangers. And we've all seen the quizzical and questioning looks we get when we tell unbelievers about Christ sometimes. And this is because the unbelieving look at the world far differently than do believers. This is the blessing of the body of Christ. We can come together apart from the strangeness of the world and join together in the worship of God, join together in prayer, join together as we sit and hear His words. They didn't have any of that. They were strangers. There was nobody like them. So their lives were their confession of faith. It was by their lives they confessed that they were strangers on the earth. They lived in expectation. Even the land of promise was, in reality, no more than a foreign land. It was no less foreign than was the wilderness in Moses' day. Abraham didn't live in Israel. He lived in Canaan. Isaac didn't live in Israel. He lived in Canaan. But trusting God that one day it would become the land named after Jacob. They knew they were pilgrims. Look at Genesis 23, 3. Abraham rose from before his dead and spoke to the sons of Heth, I am a stranger and a sojourner among you. Give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight. God gave him this whole land and yet he had to buy a burial plot. Genesis 47, 9, Jacob said to Pharaoh, The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty. Few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourn. Move on a few hundred years to the time of David. 1st Chronicles 29, 15. For we are sojourners before you and tenants, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. They were all strangers, pilgrims on the earth, as are all true believers. Because heaven is our home. Heaven is our true home. The world, John Owen says, is the home, the habitation, the city, and the country of most men, writing in the 1600s. But it is not so with believers. Our citizenship is where? It's in heaven. We who are believing the Word of God, who are trusting in Christ's death as the atonement for our sins, are strangers, exiles in this world. We are pilgrims on the earth because this isn't our home. We're redeemed and yet we're remaining in the fallen world for a season by the will of God and called by Christ Himself to be salt and light, even as strangers and pilgrims." We're people traveling in a strange land, but with a certain destination. Sojourners is the other word here. Peripetemoi, people passing through to a destination somewhere else. for us a pilgrimage to the celestial city, to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem." With as little information as they had. Now, God did speak to all three, but they realized this earth was not their destination, nor was their destination to be found anywhere on this earth. That there was something better, a better country, a heavenly one. even after Moses died and they received the land, they remained, just as Christians are today, pilgrims in this world. That wasn't the end. It wasn't the ultimate destination. Verse 14, it says, "...for those who say such things, who confess they are strangers, make it clear they are seeking a country of their own." A homeland. of fatherland. The word here is patris. We all recognize that as a root of father. It's not just a country as the King James renders this. It's not a country of their own as the New American Standard does. But fatherland. Fatherland, where one's true home is. They were seeking a true homeland, a true fatherland. There's much more to this word, Richard Lenski says, Patras, fatherland, than is generally noted. Unlike children of this world, Lenski says, such persons cannot settle down in some earthly place and call it their fatherland. Can't feel fully satisfied or fully content there. They're born of God. They're children of God. And so this earth is not our home. And though we must remain here for a season, for the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by their words and by their lives, they spoke as strangers and pilgrims. And in so doing, they showed they are seeking a true heavenly fatherland. This is the lesson for us. Fix your eyes on things above. And verse 14 doesn't really speak of Abraham and his descendants as traveling toward the true family home, but of waiting for it with anticipation, in expectation. So what the writer is saying is that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in faith, desiring their true home with their eyes of faith set on their true home. with God. God is with us in our true home. Even though they hadn't yet received this land, they still look beyond the land to the ultimate fulfillment of the promise of God in the heavenly Jerusalem. Now, living for hundreds of years in some cases here, as strangers in a foreign land, you might think maybe they might would have had some desire to return home to Irv the Chaldeans. No. For Abraham, Mesopotamia was not his true home. It's interesting. He sends a servant back to Mesopotamia to find a wife for his son Isaac. But look what he says here, Genesis 24, 4. You will go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac. The servant said to him, Well, suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land. Shall I take your son back to the land where you came from? And look at Abraham's response. Beware you do not take my son back there. Guess they weren't thinking of the country from which they came. Nor should we be thinking of what our life was before and desiring to return to what we were before Christ came into our heart. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart is. And their treasure was looking at things above. This means a truly converted person has exchanged all his former hopes and dreams for new ones in Christ and in the world to come. And that's what we see here in verse 16. As it is, they, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. they were desiring a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Well you talk about good news. We may not get it on our TVs. on our news sources, but we sure do have some good news here in Hebrews 11, 16. Three glorious thoughts in this verse. First, a piece of land in the Middle East was not their heart's desire. And it would probably be a good thing if people in the church and in our world today set their sights higher than a piece of land in the Middle East. It was only a foreshadowing of the heavenly Jerusalem. where the true Israel, the true people of God, will live forever. There's something way better, folks, than what's in this world. And these men were not looking for earthly treasures, or an earthly kingdom for that matter, though God had blessed them with many blessings on earth as well as part of His assurance of His fidelity to His promises. They wanted something better. That's what the Word says here. They wanted heaven. And they desired with all their hearts to be with God. They wanted to be with God. This was the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in things hoped for, yet not seen. It seems to have made little difference to them whether the promise of this land of Canaan came to them during their lives or not. If they would ever live to see its fulfillment, they were looking far beyond the land of Canaan. They were looking for a greater, eternal, heavenly fulfillment. They all realized that the earthly Canaan and the earthly Jerusalem were just temporary object lessons pointing to the saints' everlasting rest in Christ, in the eternal city of God, in Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem. He's showing us this because this is what should be our outlook on all things. This is what should motivate us. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob present to us here a shining example of what it is to live by faith, to be seeking that heavenly country. What it is to live in light of the assurance that all that we hope for, everything we hope for, will come to pass. And we are blessed with the internal witness of God Himself by His Spirit. Though we can't yet see that glory that lay ahead. It is certain, folks. It's certain for all who believe in Him and who trust in Him and who lay their sins at the foot of the cross. This is what faith does. This is the experience of every true convert. Christian life is a pilgrimage. It's oftentimes, I guess, a difficult pilgrimage. A war not only against opposition from outside, but from within the desires of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life. It requires daily and continual repentance, this journey. And though it is assured We don't arrive in our heavenly homeland in this life. So we wait. in expectation, patiently, and we live by faith. Look at 2 Timothy 4.8. This is what is in store for the people of faith. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearance. Second point here in this verse. He's not ashamed to be called their God. Exodus chapter 3, verse 4. God calling Moses. And the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look. God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. He said, Here I am. And then he said, Do not come near here. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. He said also, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face. He was afraid to look at God. Jesus quoted these very words, you know, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then in Exodus, still chapter 3, verse 16, God says to Moses, Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The Lord... And look how he identifies himself. He's not ashamed to be called their God. The God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt. He's not ashamed to be called their God. And yet these three patriarchs were not without sin. Yet God is not ashamed to be called their God. Why? Because they took Him at His word. Because they believed Him. Well the third point here, He has prepared a city for them. He has prepared a city for them. the new Jerusalem, the eternal state. Matthew 25, 34, Jesus describes it as the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. You know what this is? This is a realm of eternal rest and blessedness. I go to prepare a place for you, Jesus said. Chapter 2, the writer of Hebrews in verse 10 says, He is bringing many sons to glory. And His entrance into heavenly glory was the prerequisite for our entrance into glory. John the apostle was given a vision of the glory of the new Jerusalem. Revelation 21.1, And then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth passed away. There is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God made ready as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them. Abraham. Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs. They all desired something better than anything this world can offer. They desired God Himself. Faith is waiting on the Lord. Look in your Scripture sheet. Psalm 27, verse 14, a Psalm of David. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord. Psalm 37, David again. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret because of Him who prospers in His way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes. 37, 34 in Psalms. Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. In Psalm 130, verse 5, a song of ascents. I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His words do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning. Indeed, more than the watchman for the morning. Oh, as I read these psalms of David and his words, I thought if only David had been there with Job. Instead of Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz the demonite. Spurgeon says this, This is a most divine precept and requires much grace to carry it out, to hush the spirit, to be silent before the Lord, to wait in holy patience the time for clearing up the difficulties of providence. This is what every gracious heart should aim at. Time is nothing to Him. Let it be nothing to you. God is worth waiting for. wait in obedience as a servant, in hope as an heir, in expectation as a believer. Our pilgrimage can be difficult. We can grow impatient for earthly blessings, earthly possessions. We can be tempted to become resentful of others who oppose us or have things we don't have. Perhaps at times we can even grow weary with this pilgrimage of faith. And these things can all lead us into great spiritual difficulty. And that's why, that's why we must live by faith as Abraham did. Faith in God's promises, delighting in His love for us because He does love us. Remembering how this all ends. which will be so blessed, so glorious, so peaceful. And while we wait, while we wait, God has given us His own Spirit as our present comfort, as our present help, as our companion. We don't have to make this pilgrimage alone. God is with us. John Wesley, as he near death, was heard to say, The best of all, God is with us. Farewell. Farewell. Question for us. Do you desire to be with God? Above all else. If that's true, you have assurance. You hunger to draw near to Him in worship. If you do, you have assurance. Do you long to be among the assembly of the people whom Christ is going to gather to Himself when He returns? You know, He's not going to come door to door. He's going to come and get His church all at once. If you don't desire these things, pray that God will grant you these blessings, a hunger for Him, a hunger for His people, that you'll desire to be numbered among the peoples of Christ's church whom He will bring to glory. So He's calling us as a body, as a fellowship of people who believe Him, who are joined together in this pilgrimage to a heavenly country, a homeland prepared for us by God Himself. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived as though these promises were already fulfilled. They took God at His word. So why has the writer seemingly abruptly come to chapter 11 and begin reminding us of the faith of these men? What's been the purpose of this letter? Chapter 2, verse 1, so that we will not drift away. And if your Bible's still out, chapter 6, verse 11, here's what he says. Hebrews 6, 11, And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promise." In chapter 10, verse 23, He's encouraged us to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. That's what this letter's about. That's why He's telling us about these great men of faith. This morning, the Holy Spirit shows us their example so that we may follow them, living by faith in the promises of God. Pilgrims in this world but like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ever seeking a heavenly homeland. Let's take just a moment and meditate on these things, and then we'll close in prayer.