Open with me, if you have your Bibles, to Hebrews chapter 11, which can be found on page 1007 in your pew Bibles. Our text this morning is a continuation in the so called Hall of Faith passage that we started studying a few weeks ago now. In today's text, we're going to hear our author focus on the faith of Abraham and some of his most immediate descendants, people like Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. Men of Faith, whose stories occupy the lion's share of the Book of Genesis. we'll touch on some of those stories as we hear what our author tells us in Hebrews chapter 11 about those individuals. So with that said, let's hear what our author of Hebrews tells us about the faith of these men in Hebrews 11:8-2222. Hear now, the word of the Lord.

This is the Word of the Lord. In the early years of the 20th century, an English-Irish explorer, somebody by the name of Ernest Shackleton, became relatively famous in the world for his wild expeditions to the continent of Antarctica. For around the years between 1901 to 1921 Shackleton played an important role in an era when many explorers were launching grand expeditions to the chilly southern continent, which was sort of the final frontier of the day of land exploration. Now, in total, throughout his life, Shackleton embarked on four multi-year expeditions to Antarctica. Though he never actually reached the South Pole, another Norwegian explorer would beat him to that prize, he became well known for how he managed to survive in some really treacherous circumstances. Then, curiously, he kept coming back again and again for more.

In fact, one author portrays Shackleton as something of a restless spirit and comments, "From the first Shackleton seemed to be of two worlds. You see, he may have had a cozy home, a wife and three children back in England, but he never stopped looking southward. He continued his adventures going into great amounts of debt in the process until he finally died of a heart attack at age 47 while embarking on his fourth and final expedition."

Now, whatever we say about Shackleton's motivations for setting out on these grand expeditions, why he did what he did, I think we can at least observe that he was a man who was restlessly transfixed on something beyond his home. He was willing to go to great lengths and to make innumerable amounts of sacrifices in the process in order to reach that destination.

Now, on the one hand, the Bible tells us that contentment in life is really important, and perhaps Shackleton could have benefited from a greater contentment in his own life. In fact, I'm certain that many of us would do well to grow in contentment, too. Especially when everything we encounter in this world trains our impulses to be dissatisfied consumers through and through. We would all do well to be more content with our jobs, with our homes, with our callings.

Yet, on the other hand, the Bible also prods us from start to finish towards something better than this world. It appeals to us not to be satisfied with the bounty of this world or the hope of this world. Rather, it prompts us to set our sights with restless expectancy on that which lies above this earthly realm and beyond this present age. C.S. Lewis famously wrote once in Mere Christianity, "If I find in myself desires, which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."

Friends, this is the kind of attitude that we're called to embody in the present. It's an attitude that that, like Shackleton is obsessed with another place. But unlike Shackleton, not a place that we can point to on any map nor journey to. If we were ambitious enough. In the passage before us our author summons the example of Abraham and some of his most immediate descendants, to show us that this attitude is an attitude that lies at the heart of an enduring and long suffering faith. Faith, our author tells us, is something that transfixed is itself on another world. On another hope. On another home. And like Abraham, friends, this is what our faith is called to look like as well.

So our big idea of as we embark on a study of this text is this faith fixes itself upon our heavenly home. As we study this text, we'll study it in three parts, kind of corresponding to the three paragraphs that we read in our text just a moment ago.

1. The Promise of Home
2. The Pursuit of Home
3. The Certainty of Home.

The Promise of Home

So let's start out first with the promise of home. Understand that throughout this passage, again, the so called Hall of Faith passage, Hebrews 11, our author has been and will continue to reflect upon the faith of several Old Testament figures. Last time we were in Hebrews 11, a few weeks ago, we heard about the faith of people like Abel and Enoch and Noah. But by far the two individuals in this long chapter, Hebrews 11, that occupy the most space are Abraham and Moses. In the passage before us, our author is focused on Abraham and his faith.

Now, bear in mind also that this whole conversation our authors embarking on in Hebrews chapter 11, and the many examples that he cites that he brings to the table is all part of his larger argument of showing his readers what a long suffering and enduring kind of faith looks like. Remember, he exhorted us back at the end of chapter ten not to shrink back from what we believe and confess, but rather to endure by faith in the present. As we'll see, Abraham is a great example of an enduring and long suffering faith, because we learned in the Bible that Abraham lived to be 175 years old. Each event in his life that our author is going to reflect upon in a moment are events that are separated not by days or months, but by years.

In other words, Abraham was a man who heard the promises of God. He orbited his whole life around these promises over the course of many years, even when challenges and doubts and plenty of sin crept up both in him and on him. So what specifically, then, does our author reflect upon from Abraham's life? What does he have to say about his long suffering and enduring faith?

Well, if you look at our passage in verses eight through 12, our author begins by citing three examples from Abraham's life. The first two examples he gives us refer to a promise that Abraham was given of a place. The third example centers on the promise that was given to Abraham of a people. So let's hear first what our author says about these promises and beginning with the promise given to Abraham of a place. So if you're following along with me in the text, you'll notice in verse eight that our author opens by commenting on Abraham's faith as it's portrayed for us back in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis chapter 12 is the first chapter in the Book of Genesis that tells us anything about Abraham. And in Genesis chapter 12, we hear how God calls this pagan man named Abraham at the time Abram. He tells Abraham to leave the land in which he's currently residing and to venture out to a place that God would show him. He's called to, to get in his car, as it were, and just start driving. You know, don't worry about having a GPS or a map or even a compass, just start going. You see, in Genesis 12, God doesn't tell Abraham where he's going, nor does he even provide any enticing descriptions of the place in which he's going. Yet for Abraham, for Abram, because God spoke well, that was enough for Abraham. So Abraham went as the Lord God told him.

Now, eventually, many, many, many years after Abraham, well, after his death, God was going to give to his people, his people Israel, the descendants of Abraham, a place. He was going to give to his people, a plot of land in Canaan, where the nation of Israel would flourish under King David. Then the temple in Jerusalem would serve for a time as the meeting place between God and man on Earth. We might expect our author and Hebrews to say something about that at this point, since after all, he's talking about the Promised Land.

What's interesting is what our author tells us next is that Abraham actually went to live in that land of promise. He tells us that in verse nine, that he went to live in that place. But while he was there, he and his sons didn't live like that was home. Rather, they lived as nomads. They went to live in that place, but they lived as if that place was not their home. They lived in tents and the most that place was ever like home for Abraham and his sons was later in his life when he purchased a small burial plot in that land. So God called Abraham to go to that place. Abraham went to that place, but it was never home for him.

Why is that? Well, according to our author and Hebrews, that plot of land was never meant to be Abraham's home. Neither was it meant to be the home, the resting place for the people of God who would follow after Abraham. It was good, but that plot of land always pointed beyond itself to something better, to something heavenly, to something imperishable and eternal. In short, it pointed to the glories of heaven, and ultimately to the new heavens and the new earth to come, where God would reign in the midst of His people forever and ever in glory. T

his is why our author writes what he writes in verse ten, where he tells us that even when Abraham was in that land, he was, "Looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God." He was looking to something else, to something that that land ultimately pointed towards.

Not only was Abraham looking forward to a heavenly home, a heavenly place, as it were. He was also looking forward to a people who would fill that place, to descendants, to a people that were promised to him. Notice in verses 11 through 12, we hear the author of Hebrews shift from this issue of Abraham's true home to the issue, an issue that would plague Abraham and Sarah throughout much of their life, an issue of descendants. You see, throughout Abraham's life, as it's recorded for us in Genesis, we hear God promise over and over again that Abraham would be the father of many families, of many people. In fact, before Abraham had any children of his own, the Lord promises to make his offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth and as plentiful as the stars in the sky.

Now, when God makes these promises to Abraham in the book of Genesis, there's little reason, humanly speaking, to believe that those would ever come to pass. After all, when Abraham receives those promises, he's 75 years old at the very beginning. When God calls Abraham in Genesis 12, he's already 75 years old, and his wife Sarah isn't too far behind. She was only ten years younger than him. So, humanly speaking, there was nothing to think that this promise would materialize. And yet, Abraham and Sarah, we learn in verse 11, consider that even if the promise seemed foolish and absurd, well, the one who promises he's faithful. And as such, they trusted by faith in the promise.

You, see so often, whether we believe a promise is true or not is conditioned by who promises. If our young children or young child tries to bribe you, for example, with the promise of $100 if you bless them with an ice cream cone. I've been there. You probably wouldn't believe it, because, you know, your child can't back up that promise. If Warren Buffett comes to you and promises $100, you should probably ask for $1,000 because, you know, he has the capital to back up that promise. How much more so than when the infinite, omniscient, omnipresent and self-existent God makes a promise? Well, it shouldn't matter. It doesn't really matter what he promises, because we know that he's faithful and we know he's more than able to follow through. It's that fact alone which generates a robust confidence in the promises of God. Not just for Abraham and Sarah in their own day, but brothers and sisters also for us too.

Now, one of the curious things about the particular example of faith that's given to us in verse 11 and to a certain extent, all of the examples of faith from Abraham's life is how someone like Sarah would be commended for her faith as she is here in Hebrews, when her response to the promise of a child in Genesis is often one of unbelief. You know, for example, in Genesis, chapter 16, Sarah, she remains barren. She's unable to have a child. Yet, even with this promise in view, she decides to take matters into her own hand and to give Abraham, her female servant Hagar, to have a child with. It's not a good move.

Then later in Genesis 18, when Sarah hears the promise repeated that she will indeed bear a son in a year when she's already 90 years old, well, she laughs at the absurdity of it all. Now, there are indications later in Genesis that Sarah does express faith in the Lord and his promises. John Calvin is surely correct when he remarks in his commentary that Sarah's faith, just like the faith of all of us, is often blended with belief and unbelief, faith and a lack of faith.

One of the notable lessons we learn from how Abraham and Sarah received God's promises over the course of their long, long lives is how, even in the midst of many doubts and many failures, their weariness doesn't ultimately triumph. After all, at the end of the day, what we notice here in Hebrews is they're not scolded for their weariness towards God and his promises, which took so long even to be partially realized in their own day. What we see is they're commended for their faith. Weariness, in other words, does not speak the last word.

Now, I think most of us probably know in our own lives what it's like to be worn down by weariness. I, for one, can think back to a time before I had kids and recall my naivete and thinking that I was going to parent better than any other parent. My own parents included. I had strategies, I had a plan, I had willpower, and I was determined to create a home with very particular rules and order and everybody would obey and they would be happy about it in the process. Yet you can only take so many sleepless nights. You can only take so much persistence from your kids, before that unwavering edifice of certainty and parenting begins to crumble a little bit. Weariness, in other words, can derail even the best of us.

Yet, when it comes to plotting through the Christian life, friends, don't let weariness derail you from trusting God's promises. You see, we live in a world that often expects immediate results. When those results don't come to us at our beck and call, weariness sometimes dictates that it's best to take new paths rather than to endure. You know, think about how many how many services out there advertise money, back guarantees if you're not satisfied in the first 30 or 60 or 90 days. You see, we just don't have that much patience for sticking with it. Then think about Abraham and how long he had to wait for God's promise of a son to realize. He never even saw what the promise of place and descendants ultimately pointed towards.

So let me ask you this, are you weary of waiting on God? Are there sins that you're trying to break free of but you just can't seem to get past? Do you pray that you would desire the things of God more and more and yet too often you find yourself cold and callous and bitter towards God? Or are you praying and working on bringing contentment into your life where you are right now, where God has you right now, and yet you still find yourself persistently dissatisfied. My brothers and sisters, there's no doubt that weariness plagues all of us in this world under the sun, but also understand that we have something that Abraham did not.

You see, we see by faith, the offspring of Abraham. Jesus Christ, the one who gives us access into the heavenly places. In Christ, we have actually become children of Abraham, heirs according to the promise. When we look out at the church all around the world, we see how God is faithful in Christ to bring about descendants of Abraham as numerous as the grain of sand on the seashore, or as plentiful as the stars in the heavens. Like Abraham, we may hear the promises of God and be weary from time to time when we don't see those promises and all of their fullness. We may decide from time to time to take matters into our own hands, to ensure that we will get what we want. But brothers and sisters, all we need to do is look to Christ and see that God is faithful and God will surely bring His children home when they complete their sojourn. When we complete our sojourn in this foreign land.

These promises are our hope. It's a hope that doesn't disappoint. But while like Abraham, we cling to this hope, we see in the next part of our passage how Abraham's whole identity and approach to the world was also profoundly shaped by this hope as well. So this leads to our second point the pursuit of home, the pursuit of home, and will take us into verses 13 through 16 of our passage.

The Pursuit of Home

Any time someone asks my wife the question, where are you from, where's home? It's often funny because I get to watch as she thinks for a moment before saying something to the effect. Well, that's a complicated question. You see, my dad was military, so I'm certain that many of you can relate with that as well, you are not quite sure where home is for you. Even if you can't relate with that and you were born and raised in Nebraska or Iowa, that there's a definitive place that you call home and that's an easy question for you to answer. Well, there's still a sense, I think, spiritually speaking, in which this should be a more complicated question for all of us to answer.

You see, for those of us who know Jesus Christ, we are and always will be foreigners in this world. And this is what the author of Hebrews tells us next, specifically about Abraham. Notice when we turn to verse 13 of our passage, our author tells us that that that Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, these all who died in faith while they died without receiving what was promised. Again, they knew that Canaan wasn't ultimately their homeland, and they knew that their true home wasn't a place that they could point to and identify on a map. They knew their true home was heavenly. A home populated by a remnant of every tribe, tongue, people, a nation. A

as a consequence, while they sojourn on this earth from start to finish, they embraced their status, their identity as strangers and exiles. You see, if we were to examine their lives and Genesis, what we would find is that there was never a point in any of their lives where these men settled down. That's what our author gets to, is he reflects upon the life of Abraham. In verse 15, he tells us essentially in verse 15 that if there was a physical place on a map that they had hoped to go to, that they called home, well, then they would have just gone there. But they didn't, because according to verse 16, "They were looking for a better country. That is a heavenly one."

Now this reference to a better country is pretty important because it fits with this larger theme that we've been encountering over and over again in the Book of Hebrews. Understand that if we were to summarize the entire book of Hebrews in one phrase, to capture the essence of what Hebrews teaches us, it's pretty simple. Jesus is better. There's your summary of Hebrews. Jesus is better. Throughout Hebrews, as some have pointed out, we find that everything that's connected with Jesus and the covenant he inaugurates is described as better. We find in Hebrews 1:4 that Jesus has described as being better than the angels. In Hebrews 7:19, he introduces a better hope. In Hebrews 7:22, he's the guarantor of a better covenant. In Hebrews 9:23, he draws us near to God through a better sacrifice. Jesus and everything that He brings is simply better.

You see what Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and every Old Testament saint who ever lived ultimately looked forward to, were the better things that we have at our disposal in Jesus Christ. They desired all of these better things that are found only in Christ. Yet, though, the blessings that we have right now far exceed anything that Abraham and Isaac enjoyed, according to our author, we nevertheless remain in this world strangers and exiles just like them.

The apostle Peter makes this very point, in 1 Peter 1:2, when he reminds us that we, the people of God in this age, in the last days, are still sojourners and exiles. You see, we'll always find or should always find the pursuits and pleasures and desires of this world to be at odds with the things of heaven. In that vein, the apostle Paul roots in grounds our identity in heaven when he tells us that in Christ, our citizenship is not of this world. Rather, we are citizens of heaven. Understand then, friends, we just do not belong to this world.

One commentator points out that, in fact, the way that this identity or status is embraced by Abraham and our passage is pretty instructive for us. If you notice in our text, we read at the end of verse 13 that Abraham acknowledges, or another way that could be translated is Abraham confessed that he was a stranger, an exile on Earth. In light of that, this this commentator perceptively writes, "To sojourn in an alien land is one thing, but to intentionally embrace this lifestyle by confessing that status or identity is another." That's just what Abraham does. Abraham and his descendants aren't just so journey in the land as exiles and sojourners. They're confessing that identity as well with their lips and in their hearts, because they know that they just don't belong to this world and they're willing to lose much in the pursuit of something better in the process.

Last week there was a story in the news of a of a Russian oligarch who I read renounced his Russian citizenship, decided that he was going to give up his Russian passport. Obviously, in light of current events, he decided that he could no longer be associated with his home nation or its government. So he made the determination to cut ties with the place that he once called home. But historically, such a move is nothing new. When Hitler rose to prominence in Germany in the early 1930s, Albert Einstein famously renounced his German citizenship in 1933. Occasionally this happens in history, whenever someone has been frustrated or disillusioned by the activities or governments of their home nation and it reaches a boiling point. You find from time to time that people make the step of announcing that they are renouncing their citizenship.

Now understand that the Bible never commands us to renounce our citizenship in our home nation when we become a Christian. After all, the Apostle Paul invokes his Roman citizenship from time to time in the Book of Acts, and he never renounced that. With that said, the Bible does call us in a spiritual sense, to leave this world behind in order to follow Christ. It prompts us to recognize, just like Abraham, that we don't belong here. Rather than trying to co-exist in this world or find an enclave in this world that we can settle down and call home in the fullness of what that means. The example of Abraham presses us to leave the promises and comforts and mechanisms of this world behind and identify ourselves with the world that is in heaven and will one day break through to fill the whole earth at the end of the age, when heaven and earth become one.

I love how John Calvin puts it, he writes this, "We are hence to conclude that there is no place for us among God's children except we renounce the world, and that there will be for us, no inheritance in heaven, except we become pilgrims on earth." See Calvin saying we just can't coexist in this world and the fullness of what that means. We can't have one foot in the door in heaven and one foot in the door in this world and coexist. We're either citizens of this world or we're citizens of heaven and the prompting, the prodding of our author and Hebrews is to become like Abraham. Recognize that in Christ, we just do not belong to this world. Our citizenship is in heaven.

This leaves us with, I think, the all-important, crucial, crux question that all of us need to ask ourselves. Have you left this world behind? Have you left this world behind? Now again, what I mean by that and what I don't mean by that, rather, is that all of us have to somehow embrace the Amish lifestyle, retreat to our own geographical enclave in a desert somewhere or in a wilderness, and have no interactions with our neighbors. That's not what I mean. But rather, have you renounced the systems of this world as your ultimate hope and comfort? As a follow up question, not only have you renounced those things, but are you also pursuing what Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph pursued instead? Are you pursuing the City of God expressed in the community and fellowship of Heaven in the Church, and the loving embrace of the King of Kings Jesus Christ?

Brothers and sisters understand that if our pursuits are for the kingdoms of this world, it will be like drinking salt water. You might think it's quenching your thirst, but in the end, it's going to kill you. But if our pursuit is for heaven, well, friends, we will drink from springs that never run dry. This is our pursuit in life, and it's nothing other than heaven.

As, we come to the final part of our passage, the end of our passage, and we look at this final section. We also learn that this, which should be our hope and our identity in life, is also our hope and our identity, even in death.

The Certainty of Home

So this leads to a third point, the certainty of home. So, again, Abraham and his descendants there, they're hearing these promises throughout their lives that they're embracing these promises by faith, even when they don't see their fulfillment. But what happens? What happens to their faith when they are confronted with the imminence of death?

In the last part of our passage are author sites? For examples, he's going to cite one more from Abraham. Then he cites an example from Isaac, one from Jacob and one from Joseph to show us how each of these four individuals approached these promises. Promises again, that they received and lived by faith throughout their lives when death was knocking at the door. Look with me first at verses 17 through 19.

In verses 17 through 19. We see the first example that our author reflects upon. It's the relatively well known story that comes from Genesis 22, where God calls Abraham to ascend Mount Moriah with his son Isaac. Isaac being the son of promise, the one who Abraham and Sarah were able to bear only in their later years of life, but then to offer this son Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord. It's a story, I think, that that often shocks us today when we read it. It would have been equally, if not more shocking to Abraham, who had waited years for the promised son and is now being called to offer him up as a sacrifice to God.

According to our author and Hebrews Abraham, he presses forward according to God's commands. The reason that's given in verse 19 is he considered or reasoned that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. You see, Abraham remembered that when he was as good as dead himself, God was faithful to his promises and he provided a son. He provided a son of promise to him and Sarah. Through that experience and through the entirety of his life, lived in communion with God, he has come to be convinced that God's promises are so certain that even death couldn't render God's promises null and void. This wasn't a blind leap of faith into the darkness for Abraham, rather, as the text puts it. Abraham calculates he reasons, with well over a century of life, lived in communion with God, that God could be trusted, even if Isaac has to be slayed.

The same could be said of our next example, Isaac, who in the latter years of his son, we read, "Blessed Jacob and Esau." Now, the narrative that our authors referring to here comes out of Genesis 27 few chapters after Genesis 22, the previous example. We learn in Genesis 27 how Isaac in his old age is deceived by his wife and his son Jacob, so that he would give the blessing of the firstborn, not to his actual firstborn Esau, but rather to Jacob instead. Isaac and his old age is in fact deceived; he ends up giving the blessing to Jacob.

That's the story, our author alludes to here in Hebrews. Perhaps that raises the question why would our author in Hebrews here credit Isaac with faith for being deceived? Does it really take faith to be deceived? Well, no. Instead, as a couple of commentators point out later in the same chapter in Genesis in Genesis chapter 27, when Isaac gave the blessing, rather, to Jacob than Esau. Esau is furious. He's angry at all of this, that he missed out on the promise. Yet, at that point, Isaac seems to recognize and appreciate that this was all part of God's plan. Yes, he was deceived, but at that point, by faith, he trusts that this was all part of God's providential plan. Even after he's gone, he trusts that God would use that event to bring about all of his promises, all of his purposes. Neither Isaac's intentions nor his death would be able to thwart the certainty of God's promises.

Then we read two other examples, the example of Jacob and Joseph. And again, this same general point applies. In death Jacob trusts in the certainty of God's promises, so much so that as He nears the end of his life, we find him worshipping. In death. Joseph is so confident that God would bring about all of His promises that He instructs that His bones be carried out of Egypt into the land of promise when the exodus takes place a few hundred years after he's gone. That's how certain he is that God would bring about everything that He promised.

Understand that each of these promises, in each one of these promises when death looms large, each figure that our author highlights rests in the certainty of God's promises as they prepare to die. Even in death, they know that God is faithful and even in death, they look beyond their own lives, beyond their own deaths, to the resilience and the fulfillment of God's promises.

Let me ask you this. What would it look like for you to die well too? What would it look like for you to die with the same confidence that all of these men had in tow? Now, this isn't a question that we often think about, I think, or reflect upon with very much frequency today. I suppose if we had to give an answer to that question, there are a few things we might say. We might think about our legacy. In other words, ensuring our legacy is secure and intact. Well, I could see that that would be an ideal way to face death and to die well, with confidence. It would also be good to ensure that our finances are in order so that our families are secure after we're gone. That, too, would be a good way to die with confidence.

While there's nothing wrong with those things, when we look to the example of people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and especially Joseph, they were able to die well. Not necessarily because their finances were in order, although they were probably wealthy and their finances probably were in order, but rather because they trusted that God could raise the dead, that he would raise the dead. They shared in an iron clad certainty that in their death they were going home. This is the essence of why they were able to die well.

Now, perhaps for many of us, we don't want to think about this topic at all. Death is one of those unpleasant things that many in our world would rather keep at a distance unless absolutely necessary. We might talk about death if we need to fill out our will or if we need to get a life insurance policy. Otherwise, many of us, including many of our neighbors, would prefer to keep that topic at arm's length. Yet, when God's promises and God's kingdom are at the forefront of our minds, when it's the hope that courses through our veins at every point during our sojourn on this Earth, well, we can look beyond this life and pass this world with joy. Knowing that the Lord is storing up for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Now, of course, that doesn't make death good. It still means that death hurts when we see our loved ones die. But it also frees us, like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, to take our final breath with certainty, knowing that God will lead us home and then one day we'll bring heaven to earth at the end of the age.

So what does it look like to die well. Well, in short, embrace God's promises now with certainty by faith and embrace the identity that this is not your home. But there's no place like the home God has in store for you and me.

Application

While we wait for that hope, let me leave us with this in the present, as we conclude our thoughts on this passage. The best way to be of any earthly good for as long as the Lord keeps us here on this earth, is to be heavenly minded. That's the concluding point I want to leave us with. The best way to be of any earthly good is to be heavenly minded. Now, I'm sure many of you have heard the inverse of this before, don't be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. The implication being that you could focus too much on the things of God such that you're no help at all in solving the real problems of this world.

Yet, as one commentator, F.F. Bruce notes, when we look at the life of Abraham, for example, someone who is celebrated in our passage for his heavenly mindedness, we discover in Genesis that his neighbors were often blessed when Abraham was in their midst. We could look back to Genesis and see just that. This then leads Bruce F.F. Bruce to comment, "There have indeed been many occasions when practical men of the world have been thankful to the saints for timely help in an emergency beyond their power to cope with it." I think Bruce is right. Those who throughout church history have had their hope directed towards heaven. Those who have been grounded and anchored with confidence in the God who promises, are those who are equipped to be a non-anxious presence in a world gone mad.

They are the people who very often take risks and sacrifice for the good of their neighbors because they know and love that they are known and loved by the God of the universe through Jesus Christ. So, friends, if you want to be of any earthly good, which is certainly a noble and a good desire, before anything else, be a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. Be a citizen of the Kingdom of God through faith in the one who reigns and is exalted in the heavenly places right now, and who promises to one day come again to this earth and bring heaven and Earth in one. Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Pray with me. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the examples of men like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. And we know that while they, too, like us, sinned and fell short of the glory of God that you gave to them what you give to us and that is the gift of faith. Lord, we thank you for faith. Though our faith is often imperfect, though, it's often mixed with belief and doubt. Lord, you give us yourself, you give us your son. You point us to a better object to trust in and believe in and you secure us by your spirit to that hope. Lord, I pray that we would have our hearts and minds directed throughout the entirety of our lives towards that hope. That we would remember that this is a hope, the hope of the Gospel that does not disappoint. That we would have our affections, our mind, all that is within us directed heavenward throughout the entirety of our lives. And that this same hope would be our hope even when faced with death. We ask all of this in Christ's name. Amen.