{"id":2162,"date":"2023-12-15T08:34:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T14:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/17\/whats-it-like-to-be-a-christian-faith-obedience-and-living-as-strangers\/"},"modified":"2023-12-17T08:35:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T14:35:11","slug":"whats-it-like-to-be-a-christian-faith-obedience-and-living-as-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/15\/whats-it-like-to-be-a-christian-faith-obedience-and-living-as-strangers\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s It Like to Be a Christian? Faith, Obedience, and Living as Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Good reflection from our friends at Desiring God!<\/p>\n

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\"What\u2019sWhat\u2019s It Like to Be a Christian?<\/p>\n

Faith, Obedience, and Living as Strangers Cities Church | St. Paul<\/p>\n

At the end of July, our family visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, with our sons\u2019 12U baseball team. After hearing so often about Cooperstown as a lifelong baseball fan, it was surreal to finally be there onsite, and especially to walk through the famous Plaque Gallery and see the faces of the Hall of Fame inductees. One thing I didn\u2019t realize about Cooperstown until this year is how far it is off the beaten trail. It\u2019s not in New York City or LA or Orlando or Vegas, where tourists would already be gathered. It\u2019s four hours north of Manhattan. You don\u2019t just happen to go by the Hall of Fame. You go out of the way, to upstate New York, away from the big city and other distractions, to this small town with a population less than my wife\u2019s hometown of Aitkin, Minnesota.<\/p>\n

So, you get away from normal life, and stand in awe of these larger-than-life figures who did what very few humans can do. Sometimes we hear Hebrews 11 talked about as the \u201chall of faith\u201d or \u201cfaith hall of fame,\u201d but that might give the wrong impression. Hebrews 11 is actually not like the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is not a remote gallery to visit while you forget normal life and gawk at inimitable greats. Rather, Hebrews 11 takes normal humans, who had faith in the true God, and presses their stories into the service of our real lives and struggles. This is no mere record of Israel\u2019s history, but Israel\u2019s history pressed into the service of helping us persevere in faith. We live in times where this is particularly needed. We need examples and encouragements to help us endure in faith and keep believing.<\/p>\n

Amen Time<\/p>\n

Chapter 11 is the rhetorical climax of Hebrews, the best part of the sermon, the big \u201camen\u201d part, leading up to the highest point in 12:1\u20133, where Jesus is the climactic man of faith, and author and perfecter of ours. Along the way, while narrating this \u201cby faith\u201d history of Israel, Hebrews makes four editorial comments (in verses 6, 13\u201316, 32, and 38). By far, the editorial comment in verses 13\u201316 is the longest, and most significant. Verses 13\u201316 are the heart of our passage this morning, and in some ways the heart of the whole chapter. And verses 13\u201316 deal with three distinct but connected realities: faith, obedience, and being strangers because of it. This chapter leads us not only to ask what these realities are and what they mean, but what they are like . In other words, what\u2019s the experience of faith like? What\u2019s it like to obey from faith ? And what\u2019s it like to live as strangers and exiles in this world , seeking another, rather than being at home in this one?<\/p>\n

So, with this risky experiential focus, let\u2019s ask three \u201cwhat\u2019s it like\u201d questions this morning:<\/p>\n

(1) What\u2019s it like to have saving faith?
\n(2) What\u2019s it like to obey from faith ?
\n(3) What\u2019s it like to live in this world as strangers and exiles , seeking a homeland?<\/p>\n

1. What\u2019s It Like to Have Saving Faith? We start with the first half of verse 13: These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar . . . Last week we looked at verse 1, which may be the closest thing to a definition of faith in the New Testament. However, the chapter keeps going. Instead of just giving a definition and then moving on, Hebrews keeps going and shows us faith from one angle after another. In fact, if you were to say, \u201cOkay, what does this chapter say about the nature of faith, and what it\u2019s like to have it?\u201d you will find various angles on this many-splendored reality: Verse 1: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Verse 5: Faith pleases God, and walks with him. Verse 6: Faith sees God as a rewarder of those who seek him. Verse 10: Faith looks to God\u2019s city, not man\u2019s. Verse 11: Faith considers him faithful who promised. Verse 14: Faith seeks another homeland, and desires a better country. Verse 19: Faith considers that God is able to raise the dead. But the first part of verse 13 has a particularly important contribution to make: faith (1) sees God\u2019s promises from afar and (2) greets them. Last Sunday we saw this emphasis on faith as \u201cseeing\u201d what is not yet visible. Faith hears the promises of God and sees them with the soul, or the eyes of the heart. Faith sees spiritually what cannot yet be fully seen, or seen at all, with the physical eyes. There is a kind of distance, for now, bridged by faith. And because this \u201cseeing\u201d is a response to hearing God\u2019s promises, faith is tied repeatedly in this chapter to \u201creceiving\u201d (verses 8, 11, 13, 17, and 19). Faith receives. It\u2019s a \u201cpeculiarly receiving grace,\u201d as Andrew Fuller said. It is not a \u201cdoing grace\u201d or a \u201cperforming grace.\u201d It does not merit God\u2019s favor. Rather, faith receives God\u2019s favor and \u201csees\u201d his promises that are still, for now, invisible and distant. But faith not only sees from afar. It greets . That is, it welcomes, embraces, even kisses. Faith receives with delight, not with disgust or disinterest. It is not mere assent, but warm embrace. In the language of verse 6, faith looks to the reward. Verse 10: it looks forward to the heavenly city. Verse 16: it desires a better country, the heavenly one. And the whole point of the chapter is that saving faith perseveres . It keeps seeing, keeps greeting, keeps looking forward, keeps desiring and tasting of the fullness of joy to come.<\/p>\n

So, then, what\u2019s it like to have saving faith? What might we say about the experience of faith? On the one hand, to live according to faith is not to have all the promises yet. Once you have all the promises, you no longer live by faith, but by sight. Faith is not yet content with the here and now, as we\u2019ll see. But faith also has a foretaste of the goodness of God\u2019s promises. Faith hears God\u2019s word and sees him as true with the eyes of the soul and embraces him as desirable. Saving faith is not indifferent to what it sees or apathetic toward who God is and what he has said and done. Rather, there is in faith an eagerness, a desire, a thirst to drink, a hunger to eat, and a foretaste of satisfaction. As Jonathan said last Sunday, faith says to God, \u201cI want you.\u201d And saving faith perseveres . It keeps wanting. (Which might lead us to ask, practically, How am I conditioning my soul \u2014 for indifference to God or delight in him?) So, faith, in verse 13, sees God\u2019s promises from afar and greets them, and continues to want them.<\/p>\n

Which leads to our second \u201cwhat\u2019s it like\u201d question.<\/p>\n

2. What\u2019s It Like to Obey from Faith?<\/p>\n

We ask this because verses 8\u201312 and 17\u201322 tell us about external, observable actions undertaken in faith: Abraham obeyed and went out and lived in a foreign land. Sarah received power to conceive and gave birth. Abraham reached for the knife to sacrifice his beloved son of promise. Isaac and Jacob and Joseph invoked blessings on their heirs and gave them future directions. So, having some working sense of the experience of faith, what\u2019s it like to obey, to act, to live by faith? Faith Looks Forward First, verses 8\u20139, Abraham\u2019s obedience: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. So, God said to him in Genesis 12:1, \u201cGo from your country and your kindred and your father\u2019s house to the land that I will show you.\u201d And Abraham obeyed. But (this is very important) God didn\u2019t only command obedience; he made promises: I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:2\u20133) This wasn\u2019t just \u201ccommand and obey,\u201d but \u201ccommand and promise,\u201d leading to \u201ctrust and obey.\u201d So, verse 10 tells us how faith led to obedience . What was it like? Abraham obeyed because (\u201cfor,\u201d verse 10) \u201che was looking forward [that\u2019s faith] to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.\u201d In other words, God didn\u2019t just command it, and Abraham obeyed it. God made commands and gave promises, and Abraham looked forward to \u2014 that is, believed \u2014 God\u2019s promises as the better future, which led him to obey. Still today, when we talk about looking forward to something, we mean something we want, desire, anticipate enjoying.<\/p>\n

Faith Considers Then, Sarah.<\/p>\n

The first part of verse 11 tells us she obeyed, and the second part describes how it happened: By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Now, this obedience seems very different from her husband\u2019s. He goes out and moves and stays. Sarah obeys by welcoming God\u2019s work in her womb and preparing at age ninety to finally have a child, to nurture the child in pregnancy and give birth and nurse and raise the child \u2014 all sorts of big and little obediences to bring a child into the world, and to do so at age ninety. And how did her obedience come from faith? See that word considered in verse 11? We\u2019ll see it again in verse 19 (and again next week, talking about Moses, in verse 26). That idea of \u201cconsidering\u201d is so important to obeying from faith and to how faith gives rise to obedience. There is a natural course of action \u2014 ninety-year-old women don\u2019t prepare to have babies. But faith considers . It does not simply move, like natural humans, with the patterns of the world. God\u2019s promises come, faith receives them and looks forward to them, and it changes how we live. We move to another place and live in a different way, with our eyes opened to something better. We open our arms to receive a child, or later we open our hands to release our grasp on that child (that\u2019s next). So, Sarah heard promises from God, like Abraham, and she too considered God faithful. She believed God would do what he said, and she desired that he do it, that it would be better, and so she acted differently. Faith changed how she lived. Her faith led her to obey. Faith Acts (Differently) Now, back to Abraham. Verses 17\u201318 tell us about Abraham\u2019s further obedience by faith, and verse 19, how it happened: By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, \u201cThrough Isaac shall your offspring be named.\u201d He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Like Sarah, he considered . Naturally speaking, it made no sense to offer up Isaac. How could offspring come through Isaac if he was dead? Answer: God could raise him . God had promised offspring, and God had said, \u201cTake your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and . . . offer him . . . as a burnt offering\u201d (Genesis 22:2). So, Abraham tells the two young men he brought with them, \u201cStay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you \u201d (Genesis 22:5). Abraham would obey God, and he believed that God would provide a rescue, or resurrection, for Isaac. Again, faith leads to obedience. Faith takes God at his word. Faith considers the truthfulness and faithfulness of God, and his goodness, and that his plan is better, and faith leads us to act differently than we would without it.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s it like today to obey from faith? In short, we see something better than the world sees, and we act accordingly. Hearing God\u2019s promises, we consider differently than unbelievers. Our minds and hearts do different calculus. We don\u2019t float through life, with its givens, like unbelievers do. We don\u2019t just see and do. We see, we stop, we see with the eyes of faith, and we then act. For Christians, the line \u201ceveryone else is doing it\u201d is not a good reason to do it or (don\u2019t miss this) not do it, but for us to pause and ask, Given my true home and my new desires, what is obedience here? So, faith gives us a foretaste of God\u2019s promises, our souls consider the world and life differently, and we obey from the heart.<\/p>\n

3. What\u2019s It Like to Live as Strangers?<\/p>\n

Now we finish with the rest of verses 13\u201316. We already saw in verses 9\u201310 that Abraham \u201cwent to live . . . in a foreign land. . . . For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.\u201d Now we learn more: These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. So, men and women of faith not only see God\u2019s promises from afar and welcome them, but they acknowledge , or confess, themselves to be strangers and exiles on earth. Make no mistake: faith makes them strangers. To hear God\u2019s promises and embrace them is to be a stranger. You are no longer \u201cof the world.\u201d Now you are different, strange. But Hebrews says these examples of faith also acknowledged it. They confessed it. They recognized it and said it. And verse 14 says that people like that, call them Christians, \u201c make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.\u201d They are not \u201cat home\u201d in this world, and don\u2019t expect to be, and don\u2019t pretend to be. This age, its patterns, its assumptions are no longer theirs. They are Christians, and by definition, they seek a homeland other than where they were born on earth or where they live for now. Strangers Refuse to Move Back In verse 15, Hebrews looks his first audience right in the eye (if you can do that in a letter). He puts his finger on the connection between Abraham\u2019s story and theirs. Because of social pressure, they are tempted to \u201cgo back\u201d to Judaism apart from Jesus. So, Hebrews says about these examples of faith, \u201cIf they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.\u201d But they didn\u2019t. They didn\u2019t reminisce about the past. They didn\u2019t dwell on the comforts of their former life before God spoke and they believed. They didn\u2019t constantly consider the old or pine for the other. For them, the \u201creturn\u201d would have been Judaism. For us, what might it be? Normal modern American life? And to them, and to us, Hebrews says, \u201cDon\u2019t go back. Don\u2019t settle for an earthly homeland when God has prepared a better city. In Christ, the best is ahead, not behind. Don\u2019t let nostalgia play tricks on you. God has prepared a better place for you \u2014 a New Jerusalem, the better city and country that is come, the heavenly one, \u2018that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God\u2019\u201d (verse 10). We seek a homeland that is not immaterial, but is not of this age and not of this earth (but \u201cof heaven\u201d). We seek the better city, built and inhabited by God himself, that soon will come \u201cdown out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband\u201d (Revelation 21:2).<\/p>\n

Strangers Live Differently Than Locals<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s it like to live today as strangers and exiles? Simply, our hearts are not at home in this world. God has lit the flame of faith in our souls, and now we no longer want all our world wants and do all it does. We\u2019re not at home with its movies, its shows, what it affirms and denies, its values and priorities and proportions, its distractions and investments of attention, its ways of talking, its dreams, its topics, its ways of using technology. We do not think and feel and live like everyone else. Or do we? Being strangers and exiles doesn\u2019t only mean that we give Christian takes on all the world\u2019s topics and trends while we just swallow its feeds and add our spin. We find different feeds. We order our lives around God\u2019s word and his people, rather than the world\u2019s authorities and algorithms. We set the patterns and pace of our souls through meditating on Scripture and rhythms of prayer and meeting together in the habits of church life. Or do we? Now, all the answers and subtle ethical challenges are not easy. We overlap as humans: we eat, we sleep, we love, we nurture, we exercise, we work, we rest. But now it\u2019s all different, even while some of it\u2019s still very similar. If you ask, \u201cHow do I live as a stranger and exile in this luxurious, twenty-first-century American life?\u201d wisdom requires walking in tensions, not reaching for easy fixes or simplistic compromise or separation. The answers are often not in the absolutes but in the proportions, and in the rhythms of our lives, and in how we condition our souls. But what Hebrews 11 makes unmistakable is that the Christian faith is not a layer you add to the old life of unbelief, but it is new life, from the inside out \u2014 joy enough to obey and own that we are strangers. Not Ashamed to Be Our God Let\u2019s end with the amazing statement in verse 16. So those who are of saving, persevering faith are not those who return to where they came from, but desire a better country, the heavenly one.<\/p>\n

Verse 16: Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t think of anywhere else in Scripture that talks about God being ashamed or not ashamed. What could Hebrews even mean that God would be ashamed? God never does anything shameful. God could never be put to shame. So, what is Hebrews communicating by saying that God is not ashamed to be called our God, if we have such faith? What is the opposite of shame? Honor. So, put it like this: for those who desire the heavenly city, God is honored to be their God. Don\u2019t you want that? None of us wants to bring shame to one we call our God. And in the end we won\u2019t, because if we abandon faith, we show that he was not our God. God will not be shamed. But he will be honored. He will be honored by those who take him at his word, welcome his promises, embrace his Son, and confess themselves to be strangers on the earth \u2014 and desire a better country, a better land, a better city than human hands and constitutions can build. Not only is that desire an aspect of faith, but that desire honors God. He is not honored by indifference or apathy to him and his promises. He is honored by souls that seek him, embrace him, welcome him, desire him. He says, in effect, I am honored to be their God because they desire me, not their world and its empty promises. They seek a fatherland, a home, with me, not on earth. They see me and my city from afar, and they are not uninterested or unimpressed, but they greet it, welcome it, embrace it, kiss it. They want me, and that honors me. They enjoy me, and that glorifies me. No, I am not ashamed to be their God; I am honored by such hearts of faith. And they will not be disappointed \u2014 because I have prepared for them that better city that they desire. And a better Table.<\/p>\n

To the Table<\/p>\n

We come here with such faith. We do not come with indifference or apathy or disinterest. We come here seeking satisfaction. We come desiring God and his city. We come embracing his Son, and cherishing his Isaac-like and Isaac-surpassing sacrifice. In faith, we see the crucified and risen Jesus from afar and greet him. We receive his good news as true, and we receive it as good. We come to eat and drink according to faith and to satisfy our souls in him.<\/p>\n

This content was originally published here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good reflection from our friends at Desiring God! What\u2019s It Like to Be a Christian? Faith, Obedience, and Living as Strangers Cities Church | St. Paul At the end of July, our family visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, with our sons\u2019 12U baseball team. After hearing so often about Cooperstown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kHU7-yS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Whats-It-Like-to-Be-a-Christian-Faith-Obedience-and-Living-as-Strangers.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2165,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions\/2165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}