Being a Stranger

Good morning. Good to see so many familiar and friendly faces here. Not too much time has passed, I can tell, because I can look to certain points in the room and I know exactly who to find sitting there. Some of those habits never change, I think. But that's fine. It's good to be at services again. I think most of you know, for those who don't, I'll just briefly say we moved to Poland back in May of 2008 after having been here for about two years. And just recently, at the beginning of this month, we relocated from Warsaw to Zurich, Switzerland. So it's good to be back here with all of you. And we've gotten used to church services down in our family room, sitting back on the couch, watching the webcasts. So it's kind of nice to be together with a bunch of people again.

Actually, one of the things we like a lot about being in Zurich is we'll have a congregation there to join with again. They meet about once every three weeks. So it'll be really enjoyable to get to know them. We've only had a chance to be with them once so far. I think they met again last week while we were all over here. So once we get back, we'll be able to mix with them and get to know them a little better.

Services there are all in German, so we'll all get up to speed on our German a little faster. I've been translating for the kids along the way, and they've been taking German in school for the last year or so. So hopefully they'll come along slowly and be able to pick up more of it as we go on.

So it's been kind of a whirlwind year. I think it's been almost exactly a year since we were here last. I've covered about 20 different countries in that time and had a lot of interesting experiences. As a family, I haven't counted how many countries we've visited as a family, but probably five or six as well. So we've had a lot of interesting experiences getting around to different places and kind of get used to being a stranger wherever you are.

That's what I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about today. My kids would tell you that I'm an expert on talking about being strange, but maybe not so good at being a stranger. The kids can fill you in on that a little more after services if you want some of those details.

But wherever you travel, I guess I've gotten used to... customs are different, languages, of course, are different. Everything that you see around you is different. You have to sort of orient yourself to this pace of trying to adjust to whatever is coming at you and whatever is going on in different places.

In Poland, one of the big things that I learned was focus on detail. The Polish language is incredibly complex as a language. It's got like 16 different grammatical cases similar to Russian. Polish children, from the time they grow up, are just getting grammar and the details of their language hammered into them. I believe that language really sort of structures your brain in terms of how you think. If you've met people from different parts of the world, some people will tell you, for example, Japanese people just plain think differently than we do. I really believe that. It's interesting in dealing cross-culturally then with people.

They just have to focus in on the details, whereas as Americans, what I've seen is we tend to sort of view things generally, think about the concepts, think of the overview, and then sort of dive into the individual places where it's important. So trying to figure out how to meet up with the different mindsets and adjust to what you need in that environment has been a great learning experience. Beyond just the issues of language, some of you know I grew up speaking German, and so I'm fairly functional in German and work there for a fair amount of my time.

But even then, just learning how to talk with people and what to talk about when you're making just social conversation and small talk gets interesting. So here, what is it that everyone tells you in polite conversation? Don't talk about religion and politics. And as Americans, we start to talk more about where you're from, how many kids do you have, what do you do for hobbies. When you're dealing in Germany, it's almost the opposite. They love talking about politics, they love to debate about things like this, and it's actually not so polite to get too personal too quickly with people.

And so if you've just met somebody and suddenly you're asking them about their children and their wife or husband and where they came from, they sort of shrink back a little bit and it seems sort of odd to them. So trying to get used to all of those different elements. And of course, then there's food, which is different wherever you go in the world. I've shown my kids some interesting videos from when I was in Beijing last November. I had some extra time walking down the street and you walk by these food stands of different markets that are set up.

And they have these wooden sticks and they put different types of food on these sticks and then just set them in a bowl where they're standing up and the food is there. Now the food is not shish kebabs and not a lamb kebab or something like that that you might see. One of them was scorpions where you can still see them wiggling. And when they're ordered, they jam them in the deep fat fryer to crisp them up, I guess, and kill them, and then hand them to you to eat. And others were starfish. I think there were some crickets. Needless to say, I wasn't going to have anything to do with that. But some of the local people do like to eat those things.

I do want to say as well, thank you to all of you for your prayers over the last little while. I think most of you know my dad was quite sick for a period of time. He passed away a couple of months ago. A number of you sent cards and things to my mom, which she really appreciated very much.

So thank you for the prayers. I know as well that a lot of people here have been going through a lot of trials as well. And certainly hope for the best with all of that. It's part of the lives we lead and part of the things that we're meant to learn as human beings. So as I said earlier, I did want to spend a little time today talking about the concept of being a stranger.

And I'll try and weave in a few of the experiences we've had over the last year or two. God has called us, really, to be strangers. And it's an interesting word to look at as you go through the Bible, in terms of what God thinks about strangers and what he talks about as far as how we treat strangers as well.

If you look at the examples in Hebrews 11, for example, there are so many people that God, as He called them, He took them away from where they were, away from where they were comfortable. And some people have said that the job of ministers, when they preach, is to make the uncomfortable comfortable, and to make the uncomfortable comfortable. And part of that thing that God has done, in terms of drawing people away from the environments that they've been in, is to make people uncomfortable.

And in one level, as human beings, God really does want us to feel uncomfortable with what's going on here, because we live for a different life and for a different place. So if you think of Abraham, for example, he had his life going, he had his flocks and herds, he had his family, and God called him away from that, put him in a new place, a language he didn't understand, a different set of people that he didn't understand, and He planted him there in order to work out a plan for him so that he would have a more open mind towards what it was that God was trying to do with him and his life.

If you look at Paul, for an example, as well, we've been reading at home through a book about the Apostle Paul. The last chapter that we read talked about how Paul and we need to learn through being detached from our familiar surroundings and being in a place of quiet and solitude and reflection. And Paul, after he was called, did not go immediately to work preaching and doing all the things that we know him for, but rather he was out in the wilderness being taught for, what, three, three and a half years, I believe it was.

And again, in a situation that would have been quite foreign to him compared to the place that he grew up. So again, God taking people out of their familiar places. And likewise, Moses, who, of course, we all know, led the children of Israel out of Egypt.

What is that period of time that Moses had that really refined him as a person? Remember that he was a very, apparently fairly impulsive person, very hot-headed when he flew the Egyptian who he saw beating one of his fellow Israelites after he knew who and what he was. He had to flee Egypt and he spent years out in the wilderness, completely different life, removed from everything that he had grown up with in the court of Pharaoh. And again, God using that time away from what was familiar and what was comfortable for him in order to teach him certain things. And even the journey of the children of Israel, when you think about that, taken again from what they had, even though it wasn't great being slaves, it was familiar, and they longed for it when they were in the wilderness, but took them out as strangers, moving through other people's lands and having to rely on God for safe passage taken away from what they were comfortable with.

You'll turn with me to Hebrews 11. This concept is foundational to this passage on faith, and we'll come back to this passage a few times over the course of this morning. But Hebrews 11, just focusing right now on verse 13, talking about all of these examples of faith that are in this chapter, says, These people all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, they were assured of them, they embraced them, and they confessed that they were strangers and they were pilgrims on the earth. So things that they looked forward to made them realize, just like we heard in the sermonette, what God has waiting for us as a reward, as what comes after this life, makes us realize that we're different, that we're strangers in this world as human beings. We don't hope for the same things that other people hope for. We don't have the same ends to our lives in terms of what we're trying to accomplish that everyone else has. And it makes us think of ourselves, it should, as strangers and as pilgrims, people who are going through this existence, but not rooting ourselves down in the way that other people would in terms of putting everything that we have, all of our hopes, all of our desires, all of our concept of ourselves within the society that we live in.

So we like to get into our habits, and we like to get comfortable wherever we are, and that's a human thing, but at the same time we have to remember the fact that being uncomfortable, being a little bit out of place, is good for us. In terms of some of the things that we've experienced, I do have to tell a story on my wife. And, you know, living in another country, especially when you don't speak much of the language, you do get comfortable.

You sort of find your routes around to get to things, you find the stores that you like to shop at, you get to know certain parts of town. But still, at certain points in time, it just all comes home to you at one point that, you know, if something really happened here, I would have no idea what to do and how to cope with it. And, you know, certain members of our family tend to drive a little faster than the speed limit sometimes.

And so Karen's gotten very good at speaking with the Polish police.

But we had some interesting experiences with that. The last one, actually, when we were driving, we drove our cars down from Zürich, or from Warsaw down to Zürich, which is about a 14-hour drive. The first day as we were driving through, I'll admit we were both driving the same speed, but Karen got pulled over.

And the policeman, of course, didn't speak a whole lot of English. And so she had to go through this period of time, about 20 minutes, as, you know, she's trying to figure out exactly what he wants, pulling out, you know, license and registration and all of these different things, and not really understanding entirely what was happening during that period of time. And at times like that, when you realize, you know, I'm really out of place, I'm a fish out of water, I'm completely at these people's mercy.

And fortunately for Karen, she's always able to either speak English very quickly so they get flustered and don't want to deal with her, or there's always the reserve, which I don't think she's had to use yet, which is you start crying and blubbering. And generally that gets you out of those kinds of problems. But seriously, as we had in Warsaw, we had some break-ins and petty theft and those sorts of things going on in our neighborhood.

And it made us sit back and think, you know, different language, different country, we really wouldn't even know specifically what to do if there was a problem, other than go to our neighbors who are Polish and ask them to help us. But when we think about our lives here, that's really the same way it is. And that's something that God wants us to understand, that in the end, the society we're living in, the day-to-day that we're living with, do we really know how to cope with it from an ultimate spiritual sense? We don't. And when problems come along, what is it that God wants us to do? Immediately know that we should be calling on Him for help. Because in terms of who can help us, who knows the way this life works, who knows how we work, and knows our minds and our hearts, it's God, and that's the only one. And that's who we can rely on.

And so that's part of what we're supposed to learn as strangers, and thinking of ourselves that way, not thinking about whether it's our bank account, or our new car, or our house, as a level of security that we have in life. But as the trials come on and different experiences come on during life, we realize that there's really only one place that we can lean, and one place that we can rely on for help, and that's God. And that's exactly what we're supposed to begin understanding.

Turn with me, please, to Zechariah 7. I found this very interesting. It wasn't something I'd focused on for a while, but Zechariah 7.

We hear and we think, of course, when we think about the Bible and our responsibilities, about how we should be looking out for the disadvantaged, looking out for the poor, looking out for the fatherless, and the widows. But what's interesting when you turn to Zechariah 7 is what else is added in there, starting in verse 9 of Zechariah 7.

So God puts the stranger in the same category, interestingly enough, as the widow, as the fatherless, and as the poor. And why is that? Other passages in the Bible tell the Israelites that they should be very careful how they treat the strangers who come through, and they need to remember that they were once themselves strangers, relying on God's help and relying on the help of others in the lands that they went through. And strangers, really, in a sense, are helpless.

And whether you look at that as people coming new into a congregation, people moving into a new city, people moving into a new country, taking the time to reach out and help people who are strangers, and as it points out here, not taking advantage of them. Because there is opportunity for when somebody is in a strange place and doesn't know what's happening that they can easily be taken advantage of in all kinds of different ways, whether that's financially or oppressed in other ways.

And in days gone by, people could be enslaved and taken advantage of that way as well. And the Israelites were told very clearly, and we were told very clearly, that we need to think about the stranger. And so that can work its way through in terms of how we deal within our congregations. It can and should also work through how we deal in our neighborhoods. As people move in, we have children in school, and there are new people who come in that we're reaching out to them. And I'd say that's something we learned being overseas as well in an expatriate community. Fifty different countries represented in the school where the kids went. There were always new people coming in, and we were really, really impressed when we first got there by the number of people that would just reach out and say, if you need anything, call us. Or we'd just plain come and say, here are some things that you should know and think about and understand about living here.

Make sure you do this. Make sure you don't do that. Make sure you speak English really fast if you get pulled over by a policeman.

And it was very helpful to us, and certainly Karen, especially involved with a lot of the ladies at the school, was able to do the same thing. We had one experience of a lady with her family that moved right in the middle of the winter. And the winter in Poland is dark and gray and cold.

It gets light at about 7.30 in the morning. It gets dark about 3.30 in the afternoon. And it's probably cloudy nine days out of 10. And so these people moved, I think, from somewhere in the Midwest, from Georgia. And the lady just was so freaked out by the whole situation that she would not leave her house. And she just could not cope with it, just couldn't figure out how to get started, where to go, and all those types of things.

So a group of the ladies, Karen included, then spent time over the course of several weeks into a month just taking her along to go shopping to the grocery store to see the same groceries. You pay money to the cashier at the grocery just like you do when you're at home. You can drive down the road.

Everything is okay. You just have to get sort of acclimated to it. And again, helping a person who was a stranger just get acclimated, get comfortable, and get back on her feet. So important in the way that we think of strangers and treat others, but also important in the way that we treat and think about ourselves. And remembering who we are, remembering that before God we're all human beings, and in that sense not one better or worse than the other, and that we're here to help one another out just as Jesus Christ gave his sacrifice for us. So that feeling of helplessness that can come from being a stranger is one that we should think about and reflect on just as God told the Israelites, because it should change the way that we relate to and work with other people.

So a few points to talk about and go through then in this message related to being strangers. First of all, strangers have different expectations from life. Strangers have different expectations from their lives. People often ask me how things change in terms of living overseas, especially in a country that's almost a first world country like Poland. And what we tell them is that we've learned not to really expect anything. And when something happens according to plan, it's a really good day. And it sounds funny, but it's true. I think I might have told you guys last year how it took seven weeks for us to get an internet connection last year.

It took seven or eight trips to the cell phone store in Poland to get a cell phone, because there was always one more. First they needed an employment letter for me before they could issue me a cell phone. Then when Karen went to the store with the employment letter, she was told, well, it's your husband's employment letter. I can't take it from you. He has to come. And so there was always some little technicality or some little thing that had to be gotten through. And the expectations that we have in life change as we think of ourselves as strangers.

If you look in John 16, some of the parting words that Jesus Christ had for us before he gave his life, John 16, and starting in verse 33. A fairly simple statement, but not an easy one to live. Because these things I've spoken to you that in me you might have peace.

In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer because I've overcome the world. Now there's a lot that's packed into that one verse. A lot to me that really lies at the heart of how we view our Christian lives and how we live every day. Because he says at first, he's spoken all these words that we might have peace. And when he sums it up, the peace that he's talking about has to do with expectations.

Because he says very clearly, in the world you will have tribulations. I think all of us who've lived any period of time can identify tribulations of different types. I'm certainly not going to stand up here and try to tell everyone sitting here about tribulations, because I know that so many people have gone through some very deep trials here. And so you know exactly what that's like. But he said in other places too, very specifically, when he was praying to God in this time before he gave his life, he said, you know, I don't pray that you take them out of the world.

I pray that you leave them in the world, but teach them to live differently, to be strangers, to be different. And we're supposed to take heart and have peace in the fact that he overcame the world, that there's more out there at the end of this journey than people who are not strangers, who are citizens of this world.

There's a lot more reward and future there than what normal people, citizens of this world, can expect. And in that, we have to take cheer, we have to have peace, and should have peace, as we can focus on those things. Certainly much more easy to say than it is to do, but something that God wants us to have regularly in mind. Faith as well, as peace, ties in very closely to expectations. I think often when we put our faith in a false expectation in terms of what's going to happen in the future, it's actually a misplaced faith. And we can allow our faith to be shaken because we've expected things that were really never promised to us.

If you can think, for example, of situations where you might have been as a child, felt like you were promised a toy, or at the end of the day that you were going to be bought a piece of candy or gum by your parents or by someone else, that doesn't happen. That expectation, which might have been misplaced for some reason, is shattered. And you're really disappointed as a result. Turn with me to Hebrews 11, verse 8. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place he would receive as an inheritance.

But he went out not knowing where he was going, didn't know what to expect. By faith he dwelled in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. So he knew what to put his expectations in. In this situation, like it clearly says here, the expectation that he had was not in this life.

He didn't really know what to expect in terms of where God was leading him to go physically for living. But he knew ultimately as far as what the promise was. It was not a promise that was coming in this life, but a promise that was coming in the life after. And that that's what he was focusing on as his clear expectation. Now, in terms of expectations of life, living in the part of the world that we lived in, to me, was very instructive.

Because most of the people my age in Poland are ones who grew up under communism. And so I've had long discussions, for example, with my boss over there, who's one year younger than me. And talking about the experiences that he had, first of all, as a child growing up in a communist society, and then going to school during the time of the Solidarity Movement as it was coming up. And really, the expectations that people in that age and time had. I remember one of the other guys at work saying, you know, I remember sitting back as a 13-year-old, he said, I can clearly remember sitting back with my friend in school and someone saying, do you think that this system will ever change? And everyone just laughed and said, no way, maybe when we're 80. And everything in their world then suddenly changed. But the expectations that they had at that point in time was really a bleak, gray sort of existence. And the other thing that I've experienced a lot of there is people who went through the war. The things that happened in that part of the world during the war were very extreme. The kids have had a chance to do living history programs in their school, where they actually bring Holocaust survivors in to speak directly with the children. If you've seen the movie, The Pianist, the wife of the pianist, came in and talked to the kids and told them about what life was like then. They went to Schindler's factory. They've gone to Auschwitz on a school trip. And to me what really strikes me there is when you think of people in that young age group, people 16, 18, 20 years old going through the war and those experiences. And that's a time when you're having fun. Your expectation is that life is just going to be this fantastic thing. It's just out there waiting for you. And then war and these experiences come and just completely dash those expectations.

And how different people cope with that is very instructive in terms of understanding the mindset, the will, where they put their faith and what it does to their lives. We had the opportunity to visit the small village where Karen's dad grew up just a few months ago. And that brought the same lesson home to us again. He was about 16 in a village, which is now Poland, which was Germany at that point in time, when the Russian troops came across.

And so at age 16, he got an hour of basic training with his weapon, with all the other kids in his area. And he got sent forward and they said, go fight the Russians. Of course, the Russians came rolling forward with the tanks and guns and everything. They threw down their weapons and surrendered. And he himself spent about a year in prison camp with the Russians before being released.

But at that point in time, so the 17-year-old, his home had been taken away. He was a refugee and had to remake a life at a point in time where most of us are really more focused on, you know, who are we going to go out with tonight? What are we going to do to have fun this weekend? And thinking about school and building a future for ourselves. And so again, the expectations in terms of how closely we tie ourselves to those things are very important. God has promised us that regardless of what happens in this life, there are great future expectations that we should have.

And that he promises that what will come is so much better than anything that we could expect in this life. If you're still in Hebrews 11, turn down to verse 14. Talking here about the people who died in faith, again, considering themselves strangers and pilgrims, in verse 14, they say those things and they declare plainly that they seek a homeland. Truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they'd come out, they would have had an opportunity to return.

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. So what is it that God wants in the people that he's not ashamed in?

He wants them to be thinking of a different life, a different homeland, a different expectation of what the future is. Not thinking just about what this life has to offer, but about that greater promise, that greater homeland that God has for us. Expectations and culture are tied very closely together.

Whenever you think of different holiday celebrations, foods, all of those things, when you're away from your country and you're a stranger, you realize how these expectations are just so different in different parts of the world. One sort of funny example, when you go to most older houses in Poland, you'll see downstairs there's usually a laundry or utility sort of room, and there's a really deep sink.

It's about maybe six feet across, four feet wide, and it's probably four or five feet deep. And one of our friends had these, and he showed it to us, and it's thinking, what in the world is this sink for? Well, the custom, the expectation of a Polish family at Christmas time is that you go get the carp at the store, live. You fill the sink with water, and you let the carp swim there in the sink for however long, a week, however long it is, ahead of time that you bought it.

And then on Christmas Eve, you pull the carp out. Suppose you'd probably take it by the tail and whack its head on the counter and filet it up for Christmas dinner. So that's one of the expectations. And in fact, Karen, we were getting ready a year and a half ago, I think it was, to leave for vacation over the kid's Christmas break. And she went to the store thinking it wouldn't be terribly crowded because it was fairly late at night, like 10 o'clock at night, the week before Christmas.

And there were just lines of people lined up, especially in front of the fish tanks, buying their fish. So what you expect to do at certain times of the year is very different, depending. One more word on expectations. One of Satan's primary deceptions also has to do with expectations. You'll turn to 1 Corinthians 15. Satan really wants us to believe that this world is all that there is, and that instead of considering ourselves strangers here, we should really embed ourselves deeply in this world, in everything that it has to offer, but most especially in the hopes and expectations that this society has.

And what is it that most people hope for these days? It's leisure time, it's fun, it's money, it's the new toys. It's a real focus on consuming in this life. When you think about the differences, someone else had told me, when you look at different societies, you travel around the world, look at where they invest the money that they build, the public works, for example, that they build.

And if you go back into the Middle Ages, people were building cathedrals. So much money was sunk into building these monstrous cathedrals in Europe, and it showed a hope and aspiration that leaned more towards God. And art, in the time of the Renaissance, also had behind it the philosophy that the greatest achievement of mankind is to be like God, to have the creative ability of God to be able to really praise Him. Nowadays, what is it that we sink our money into? It's typically the office buildings, it's cars, it's vacation homes.

And so the way that people use what they have in terms of their treasure is real indicative of where their expectations, where their priorities are. In 1 Corinthians 15, we know this as the resurrection chapter. It talks about different elements around the fact of the resurrection. Leading into verse 16, it talks about, is there really a resurrection? And if you don't believe there's a resurrection, it starts talking about how all of the beliefs that we have unravel.

Because if we don't believe in the resurrection, we don't believe Jesus Christ died or rose from the dead. If we don't believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then there's no sacrifice for sins. There's no sacrifice for sins. What's the point of our life? How is it that our life has changed?

And so in this passage, Paul's really laying out how central that fact of Jesus Christ's resurrection and the hope of our resurrection is to our entire faith. Starting in verse 16, he says, then, For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You're still in your sins. And those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. And then verse 19, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable or the most miserable, I think a lot of the translations say.

But what is it that Satan wants us to believe? What is it that this world wants us to believe? A place where we should be strangers and not citizens. It wants us to believe that this life is where it's at, right? What is it we're supposed to do? Maximize the gratitude, maximize what we can do today. Take hold of today, because who knows what's going to happen tomorrow. Enjoy your life today, and don't worry about what's going on in the future, because there's nothing you can do about it. And there's very much focus on that, taking everything that we can earn and put together today and having the maximum enjoyment, because that's really the only thing we can count on in today's philosophy is what's going on today. Because who really knows what's going to happen tomorrow. But that's not what is laid out in this chapter and what's being talked about. And so I think one of the big deceptions that Satan lays out for us is to have all of our expectations embedded in what this world can offer for us.

And so I think it's something we need to think about as well, in terms of what is it that we really expect and work for and aspire to achieve in this life? And is it the things that last and drive towards the expectations that God wants us to have? Or is it really focused on building something only for this life?

Next point about strangers. Strangers learn through suffering.

Again, I think this is something that all of us, especially as we go on in our years, become more and more familiar with. For me, this year was a watershed year with the death of my father. And many of you have gone through the death of a parent as well as other loved ones. And it is sort of a milestone experience in your life. I think it makes you think more about your own mortality. It makes you think about the time that's gone on.

It's made me think as well about the foundation and the things that went into my life being what it is today. Because when I look at my life, the things that we've been blessed with, and then I look back a couple of generations, it's a night and day difference. Just to share a story or two from my background. Many of you know my father was Chinese, grew up in this country.

But his parents both came over from China directly. And after his death, I was reading back through some of the things my sister and my cousin had written down after interviewing him and his sister about a year and a half ago over Thanksgiving. And some of it's really funny, almost too bizarre to believe it's true, but it is. But he grew up in this small little island off of southern China. And by age 14, he'd already been taken out to sea on a whaling ship by his father and been back. And he was basically the strongest one in the family. There wasn't enough food to feed everyone. And so they shipped him off to the United States. And my dad had said, you know, he had, my grandfather had told him, you know, and Stephen is 14. So just to give you a little bit of example in terms of age. My grandfather said when he landed in San Francisco, if someone had taken him by the hand and said, I'm going to take you back to China, he would have been back in a heartbeat. Would have never looked back twice. But he then worked essentially as a slave to the people who had paid his passage coming over and worked as a water boy on the railroad, told my aunt and my dad about Indian parties raiding the railroads and how these Indians would come in and fire arrows and shoot at the railroad workers. But they wouldn't harm the Chinese because the Chinese looked kind of like them. And so they were able to sort of make it. He learned English from Catholic nuns and then eventually worked in Chicago owning different restaurants. And so my dad was born into that during the Depression and into something that was very similar to probably, you know, a very difficult immigrant story that a lot of you would have as well. You know, very difficult home lives that people had back then. You know, families suffered a lot of prejudice, whether you were Irish, whether you were African American, whether you were Chinese. There was a lot of prejudice against whoever the new set of people were that were coming through, taking the jobs and so forth. And so he grew up in a very difficult environment but eventually worked his way through that, got a degree as an engineer after World War II, and was able to put together a really good foundation for us. So one of the things that I focused on and thought about a lot after my dad's death was a combination of thinking of that journey that our family had gone through from just, you know, two generations before coming out of a completely destitute situation to where we are now and the kind of lives that I see my children, my nieces and nephews living. And then at the same time, having all the people from our congregation and church come out during the funeral and seeing them, and really thinking about the time and the sacrifice that they'd laid down, the suffering really they did in terms of giving their time so that we could have everything that we did in church growing up, the activities that we had, the times that we had, building relationships with friends, the tithes that were given, being able to benefit from going to Ambassador College, all of those things. And it really made me reflect in a way that I haven't in a long time how so many people were contributed to where I am today, where my kids are today, and also thinking again, you know, what is it that I'm doing and how can I continue to give those same things to others? So I know that many of you have very similar types of experiences as you think about where your families were over past generations as well.

Hebrews 11 is a catalog of the people who suffered before us as well, spiritually. And we have that legacy, and that's really a big point of the chapter in Hebrews 11, is to think about what is that legacy of suffering, the legacy of dedication and commitment that's been put in by these generations, these fathers and mothers of the faith that went before us, in order that we can have even the Bible that we have before us today.

So it's thinking about and understanding those who have paved the way for us, and realizing the fact that the things that we have today are not things that were just built by us. I think of a passage, I forget where it is, I think it might be in Malachi, but talking about the world tomorrow, and one of the blessings that it talks about is that you will reap where you've not sown. And I think when we think about the lives even that we have today, a lot of us can say that we're reaping things in terms of benefits where we've really not sown it. It's people who came before us that put in that hard work and that effort and built that foundation that gives us the blessings that we have today. As long as we remember those things, I think there's still a better future out front. But when we forget those things and don't realize what it was that went into where we are, we end up on slippery ground. Let's go to 1 Peter 4. This ties also back to the earlier point about expectations. 1 Peter 4, and we'll read starting in verse 12.

1 Peter 4, starting in verse 12. Beloved, don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trial that's going to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you.

But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you're reproached for the name of Christ, you're blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he's glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, or an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters.

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this manner. For the time has come for judgment to begin with the house of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who don't obey the gospel of God? Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly of the sinner appear? Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good as a faithful creator.

So it tells us we should expect suffering, but don't let it come on us because we're busybodies and all the other things that are pointed out here. It says, let it come on us because we're doing what's right, because we're following God's way, and it will still come. We think again about what our expectations are and where our faith is placed. We can't afford to place our faith in saying that because we're Christians, we're going to have good lives.

And I think sometimes we contend to make that mistake because we see other passages in the Bible that talk about how God will prosper those who follow him. But we think of that within sometimes our own frame of reference, and again what the world around us and the citizens of this world think God wants for us. And the fact is, what God wants is to refine us and to make us into people who will inherit his kingdom and to build his way, his thought process, his character in us. And that will involve suffering. We have to expect that. Ecclesiastes 7 talks about how it's better to be in the house of mourning than it is to be in the house of mirth. And that goes along with the same topic. I have to say it wasn't clearly an enjoyable experience to experience the death of my father. No death of a loved one is a joyful thing. But at the same time, what it can work within us as we think about the lessons that come from it, as we think gratefully about the things that were brought to us by that person, we should be learning more and reflecting on our lives as a result of those things. Let's turn to James 4. James 4, starting in verse 13. In the end, this changes the way that we think about and do things in our lives. James 4, verse 13.

And so it really, again, talks about focusing what it is not only that we expect on our lives, but what our lives are in terms of a timeframe and our own mortality. And this dovetails into the last point that I would like to spend a few minutes on. As strangers, we should have a sense of urgency, realizing that our life is not indefinite. That's really the point that's made here in this passage, when it talks about our life being like the grass, or like a vapor, something that goes away very quickly. One thing that we've learned is that living away from home and knowing you're going to be there for only a short period of time makes you really change the way that you live your life. In the expatriate community that we're in, people from all over the world, what we've noticed is how friendly people are. Because they're taken away from their homes, they're taken away from their familiar surroundings. Typically, they're out there by themselves and looking for friends. And they realize they're only going to be there for a short time. And so people reach out instantly towards other people and just build friendships, look to the people who are around them and find things that are in common, find things that they can do together and they bind together. And for us, that's not only a rewarding experience in terms of being able to very quickly have groups of people that we can be together with and enjoy interfacing with, but it's also been a good lesson to us in terms of how we live our own lives. And we've sat back often and thought not only in terms of personal relationships, but in terms of traveling and doing those types of things, how differently we approach our lives today than we did when we were sort of living our everyday life. Because the viewpoint in the past was always, well, you know, Pikes Peak, we can go there next summer. I've got other things to do right now. We'll head over there next summer and do it. And actually, we've never been to Pikes Peak still after 10 and a half years in Colorado. And I'm sure all of you can probably name things in Colorado that you've always thought, someday I should do that. Or maybe you do it only when visitors come into town, because it's something else that spurs you to do it.

But there's a different mindset when we think, you know, we're going to be here forever, and we can just do that tomorrow. And there's a tie-in as well to our spiritual lives. When we think about the things that we know that we should be focusing on within our own lives, as we feel God's Holy Spirit moving within us and urging us to do certain things, how often do we respond to that urging versus quenching it and saying, you know, that's a good idea, but I can call that person tomorrow.

Or I can write a card to that person tomorrow. Or whatever it is that you feel. And we do feel those urgings. We know sometimes, you know, I just need to do this. I know it's the right thing, and I need to do it now. But how often do we say, you know, I can do it tomorrow? And what these verses are telling us is, we need to seize that time, and we need to do it. We need to realize that there might not be a next opportunity to do it. Ecclesiastes 9, verse 1.

This scripture got hammered into my head as a kid because my mom didn't want me to be lazy and doing chores around the house. That's in verse 10. But we'll start in Ecclesiastes 9, verse 1, because there's a bigger picture in terms of what's going on here.

This is an evil in all that's done unto the Son, that one thing happens to all of them. Truly, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil, madnesses in their hearts while they live, and after that, they go to the dead. But for him who's joined to all the living, there's hope.

For a living dog is better than a dead lion. I like the symbolism of that. A living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, their envy, they've now perished. Never more will they have a share in anything done under the Son. Go eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life which he's given you under the Son, all your days of vanity, for that's your portion in life, and the labor which you perform under the Son. And whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there's no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you're going. Now in a way that sounds kind of depressing and hopeless, but what Solomon really is saying there, in my view, is when you look at it, all of the things that we wrangle about day after day within life, we collect this, we focus on that, we do these other things. In the end, what is it that's left? And that's what we have to focus on. What is it that we can do in this life that recognizes the hope that we have, God's Spirit working with us, in order to make a difference? Because all of these other things go away. I spent a few days at the beginning of this week sifting through endless loads of what my dad, as an eccentric engineer, collected in the basement.

And I did think of some of these passages during that time period because, frankly, it was a load of junk. But having grown up in the Depression, he just could not help it. If someone was throwing out a TV set, he'd bring it home. If he couldn't fix the TV set, he'd cut the cord off of it and hang the cord on a hook on the back of the door. Because you never know when you could use it again to try to fix something else.

We've got an engineer sitting out there who might be able to identify with some of that. So we had this basement full of all these things. It did make me think about it. My dad did tremendous things for a lot of people during his years. I will always admire him for that. He also spent a lot of time collecting a lot of junk, which I will also remember.

So it makes you think about what is it that we're spending our energy on? Does it focus on the fact that we're strangers in this world? We're focusing our energies on things that make a difference long-term and using God's Spirit in enriching and helping the lives of other people? Or are we spending an inordinate amount of our energy on these sorts of things that Solomon lays out here in what he's writing?

Because I think he observes correctly that people live their lives. It comes and goes. And so many of the things that we do with our lives, every one of us, in the end, aren't going to matter that much. So we need to focus now, during that time, during that short time as dry grass or as vapor, we need to focus and make sure that a significant amount of our energy is going towards the things that will last. And I think that's the piece Solomon, in his view, might have missed and lacked here, as he took sort of a fatalistic, pessimistic view of life. It's not just what he lays out here. This is one piece of it. The other piece of it is a lasting difference that we can make when we have impact on other people. So as we think about our lives and where we live, what we're doing, what we're focusing on, think about the idea and the concept of being a stranger. And if there's just one thing to carry away, it would be that simple word, stranger. As we're going through our lives and living day to day, it's important to think about what is it that we're trying to be? How is it that we see ourselves? There's the physical life that we live, but then there's much more importantly the spiritual life and the destiny that we have. Do we consider ourselves strangers, or do we spend our effort and our time and our energy trying to become citizens of this world and going after what the world has laid in front of us? As we've seen, and the people that we want to emulate laid out in the faith chapter in Hebrews 11, it was the people who thought about and hoped for that future world, that reward that was something different, and who viewed themselves as strangers and pilgrims on the earth that are receiving the reward. So don't necessarily focus on being strange, but think about being a stranger.