Hebrews 11:13-16, 24-27; 13:10-16
August 31, 2025
preached by Pastor Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“The ascension changes the way we understand our place in this world. We belong to Jesus Christ who is in heaven. Our true home is there, not here. As we sojourn, we touch the things of this world but lightly… The church of Jesus Christ, then, is called out of the world in order to lay down her life for the world. We draw apart from the world in its insistence on self-sufficiency. Yet we return to that very world with the offer of the love of the gospel. Our mission is properly defined by the ascended, reigning and returning Jesus.”

~ Gerrit Scott Dawson, contemporary pastor and author

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

~ C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

“Christians are no different from the rest in their nationality, language or customs… They live in their own countries, but as sojourners. They fulfill all their duties as citizens, but they suffer as foreigners. They find their homeland wherever they are, but their homeland is not in any one place… They are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They live on earth, but are citizens of heaven.”

~ from To Diognetus 5.1-11 (c. A.D. 130 to 180)

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
A-trav’ling through this land of woe.
And there’s no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright world to which I go…
I know dark clouds will gather ’round me
I know my way is rough and steep;
But beauteous fields lie just beyond me
Where souls redeemed their vigil keep.

~ excerpt from traditional folk and gospel song “Wayfaring Stranger”

Sermon Passage

Hebrews 11:13-16, 24-27; 13:10-16 (NIV)

Hebrews 11

¹³ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them….

²⁴ By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. ²⁵ He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. ²⁶ He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. ²⁷ By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

Hebrews 13

¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. ¹¹ The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. ¹² And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. ¹³ Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. ¹⁴ For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

¹⁵ Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. ¹⁶ And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.