A Pilgrim's Walk

Good afternoon, everyone. It's always difficult coming up after wonderful special music like that.

Makes me wonder what I have left to say beyond that. Very nice.

Thought I'll give a few minutes of just introduction of myself to all of you, since my family and I, as mentioned, will be moving here in a few months' time. Not sure if I should be grateful for that introduction or it kind of sucked all the credibility out when everybody laughs when you introduce the speaker, right? No. We're looking forward very much to coming here.

I've been in the church since I was really, I guess, since I was probably the age of child back that I saw over here. So I've got plenty of memories of church looking at the lights on the ceiling as they slowly kind of dim to black and waking up to the closing hymns. So if that happens to any of you, I understand. But I grew up in Minnesota, so seeing snow piled in the parking lots the way it was this week kind of brings back memories of being a kid. So looking forward to being back in a climate with some good solid seasons. We'll see if I say that again in the middle of the winter next year. My wife Karen grew up in Calgary, Alberta, and so she spent about 20 years living there before moving down south. And we met in college in Pasadena back in the late 1980s and got married in 89. Lived down there in Pasadena until actually 1994. So I spent five years working for the church down there in the television department. Five really interesting and exciting years during that time from 89 to 1995. And went to school a night at the time, so when things wrapped up with the telecast started into the career that I work now as an accountant.

My son Stephen, our son, was born in 1996 out in Southern California. And then in the fall of 97, we moved from Pasadena up to Denver, Colorado, and our daughter Madeline was born there in 98.

So Stephen will be graduating from high school coming up here in June. And I can hardly believe he turned 18 years old about a week ago. My daughter will be turning 16 at the end of March.

So time marches on quickly, but we're looking forward very much to being here.

After about almost 11 years in Colorado, we moved to Warsaw, Poland in the spring of 2008, and spent two years living and working in Warsaw, and then moved to Zurich, Switzerland in the summer of 2010. And we'll wrap up our four years there at the end of June. Booked our flights this past week for four people and two cats on the 29th of June. So I guess it's irreversible at this point.

But we're looking forward to coming out, looking forward to being part of the congregation, looking forward to the chance to get to know all of you. And we'll be out for a couple of weeks over the spring Holy Days, actually, coming out on the 11th and staying for two weeks.

So we'll join you for the Holy Days and for the Sabbaths in between there. And somewhere in between, look at some options for housing over on the east side of Cleveland. My son's got a couple of college campuses to look at so he can make a final decision about school and all the logistics of life that come with all of that. So we're excited about it. We're looking forward to it, and looking forward to being part of the congregation here. My son wrote his college essays not too long ago, and that's interesting. You know, the words in the song, maybe this isn't our home, and that ties in very well to the message I'd like to talk with you about today.

The opening line of his college essay was that sometimes the easiest question to answer is actually the most difficult one. Where are you from? Now, of course, as you know, I mentioned you the different places we lived. He was born in California, grew up quite a while in Colorado, and lived a couple places overseas. So actually for someone like him, it's not quite so easy to answer. And he's got pieces of all of those different places that are part of him.

But culture is really an interesting thing, and where we're from is really a defining factor, isn't it? You know, when we think back, I think most of us probably, if somebody asks us where are we from, we'll pick a specific place. And that place will really have those formative experiences that we had that really identifies us as what we are. And it comes out in interesting ways as well.

Speech patterns, for example. So we live right now in Switzerland. Switzerland is well known for having multiple dialects, some of them almost like separate languages. And people who speak German, which is the dominant language, but one of four official languages of Switzerland, people who come down from Germany will have a hard time understanding people speaking Swiss-German.

Because these groups of people grew up in these little valleys all around Switzerland, in fairly insular communities, and all developed their own dialects. And I've got one friend back there who lives near Basel, and he talks about the village that he comes from. And he talks about how he can go in about a 50-mile radius of his village, and within about a minute of talking to anyone, he can tell you exactly where they're from. He can tell you exactly what town they grew up in, from hearing them speak. Those cultural elements. And even here in the U.S., where we don't have dialects that are quite that strong, you can generally tell at least, you know, people who have an ear for it, can tell at least what region of the country people came from. These things are deeply set. It also comes out in our style, in terms of how we interact with other people.

I've had the opportunity over the course of the last six years to travel pretty extensively with my job to pretty much all different parts of the world, and it's just incredibly interesting, getting into business situations in different parts of the globe. So you can go to places like Germany or the Netherlands. The Dutch really pride themselves on being very blunt and outspoken people. And it's sometimes very different than the way we would be used to, but with a big smile on their face, they can look you in the eye and they'll say, you know what, I disagree with you and I think you're wrong. It's not meant as an insult. They respect you and your opinion, but they have an opinion, which is you're wrong. And from there you go on and you discuss it. And then you go to other places that I can very distinctly remember being in a meeting in Hong Kong with a group of people. And some people who were much more senior within the company, some people much more junior, and you ask an open question, what do you think about this? And the room was literally like this.

Nobody wanted to speak up because culturally, in front of your superiors, you don't give your opinion. You hold it back, you wait to see what everyone else is saying and thinking, and you come in when you're invited to. And so how we act, all the things that we do, are very tied to our cultures. We've of course all seen the movie with the stereotypical line, you're not from around here, are you? It kind of reminds me of a friend of mine. I've got a friend, Yvonne, who is Russian, and he was doing a U.S. professional license, and he ended up in St. George, Utah, after taking a class and walked into a bar, and that's exactly the line he got.

You're not from around here, are you? But he actually was very complimentary and talked about all the people there in the bar who were all locals. Over the course of a week being there, he struck up a good friendship with them. They were very interested, they don't get a lot of Russians coming through St. George, Utah, and so he had a real entertaining time there.

Not all cultural differences, though, are geographically based either, are they?

So when you think about it, people's belief systems also drive the way that they act and think.

So nowadays, especially if you're on Facebook, there are all kinds of common interest groups for different sort of people, right? People who homeschool have a certain culture, things that they do, ways that they do things. There are people who are into eating certain types of foods, or into certain workout programs, which you can see. And there are distinct ways that they live their lives, or that they eat, for example. If you've been around people who've been on the Atkins diet, that was the craze where I worked back in Denver for a while. And you could always tell if you were at a breakfast meeting with somebody and they had a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon and sausages and no potatoes, you knew that they were going through their Atkins diet. But all these different things, the belief systems we have, the things that we do, come out in the way that we act, and they drive a certain level of culture. So I'd like to talk today about this element of culture. What is it that we identify with, and how do people identify us?

And more specifically, delve into the concept of being strangers. The concept of being strangers.

Now, my kids would say I'd be an authority on talking about being strange, but today we'll talk about being strangers. I had a chance not too long ago with my family to take a tour of Israel, and I was struck by a tour group. So in Israel, the Jewish families in the United States, there's a program, I think it's called the Heritage Program, so people who come from Jewish heritage can apply to be a part of this program, and you'll have just groups, tour groups full of 18 to 21 year old Jewish kids, many of them from the U.S., but also from other parts of the world, touring Israel.

They'll take a week or two and really get a tour and see and understand their roots and their cultural background. And I was really struck as we were at one of the sites that we were at, and there was a group over on the side, and I believe they were from New York, and the group leader was there talking with them as they were looking at this archaeological site that they were in the middle of, and he had a point that he wanted to draw out as they were looking at an old synagogue from back in the Roman times. And he said to the group, what is the question that you always hate to hear? And I thought, well that's kind of an interesting question. Why would you ask a group of Jewish young people that question? So it piqued my interest, and nobody said anything.

You know, it's a group of 18 to 20 year olds, and everyone just kind of sat there staring at each other, and he said, no, come on! You all know what the question is, which really got me thinking, what's the question? And so finally a girl raised her hands and she said, do you feel more strongly Jewish or American? Interesting question. And it struck at this idea of culture, right? Because as Jewish young people growing up in the U.S. or whatever other part of the world, there were two different cultures that they deal with, because they have a very strong sense of their cultural identity. And then of course there's the geographical culture that they grow up in, the place that they live. And it really sent me back and made me think, and it comes around this idea of being a stranger, where are you at home, what is your culture? And similarly, we in our belief system have a specific culture that God expects us to follow and a way of life. So I'll ask the same question to all of us.

What do we identify ourselves more as? As Christians? As Americans? As Ohioans? As Clevelanders? Or something else? What is our culture? Where do we feel at home? Where do we feel out of place? And why? So for those of you who like headings and sections and notes and so forth, our first signpost will be that strangers are important to God. I don't know if you any of you have ever really looked up the word stranger in the Bible, but if you're looking for something interesting to do over the next couple of weeks, I think it has a lot of tie-in as well to the holy days that are approaching. Look into the concept of strangers. Let's start in Exodus 23 verse 9.

There are way too many verses for me to go through all of them, so I'm not even going to try that, but I picked out a few here at the outset where I just like to lay out the foundation, the fact that strangers are very important to God. And there's a reason why.

Exodus 23, starting in verse 9.

Exodus 23 verse 9, also you shall not oppress a stranger, and it gives a reason why, for you know the heart of a stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Let's turn to another verse that lays out the same thoughts in Leviticus 19.

We'll read verses 33 and 34. Leviticus 19 verses 33 and 34.

Starting in verse 33, and if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.

The stranger dwells among you, shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

Building a little more on this thought, let's go back to Exodus, this time chapter 22.

In Exodus 22, and we'll read verses 21 through 23.

And literally, if you go back to, of course, a concordance, I haven't counted it, but I would guess you'll find 20 or so passages like this, just in a few books within the Bible.

Exodus 22 verses 21 through 23.

So what I find interesting is how many protections God set up for strangers.

And the other thing that I find, this is not the only verse in the Bible, that the way that strangers are treated is equated, or given the same prominence as the way that the fatherless and the widows are treated. Not sure if any of us have focused on that before.

I really didn't focus on it before I was preparing for this message.

In fact, I think that the other sections are in Malachi, where it talks about the oppression of the stranger exactly in the same way as it talks about mistreating the fatherless and the widow. Because strangers in a society, people who come from outside of society, have a certain level of helplessness as they come in. They're people who can be taken advantage of. They're people who typically can't fight back. They have no support system. And, importantly, as we've read in these three verses, the Israelites were to remember their heritage. They were supposed to remember where they came from, the experience that they came from, that they were strangers, and that God took them out of that situation of being strangers by His grace, and they were to extend that same grace to other people. And to not do that was considered, as we read in these verses, a very bad thing. Let's read on about this in a longer passage that I think drives all of us home and summarizes it. Deuteronomy 8. I find this always to be an instructive section to read through. Of course, we all know Deuteronomy is a section that kind of summarizes before the entrance into the land of Israel, before the tribes disperse and go to their land that they're inheriting, going back over the experiences that the Israelites had over the time of their wandering through Israel, things they were taught, the things they experienced, the things that they had to remember and internalize. And Deuteronomy 8, we'll read a fairly long section here, starting at the beginning of the chapter. This entire concept is driven home, in my opinion, in a very coherent way here. And again, and one I think that, as we think about this time leading up to Passover, and as we'll talk more about through the rest of this message, really drives home a lesson for us.

Deuteronomy 8, we'll start in verse 1. Every commandment that I command you today, you must be careful to observe that you can live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

So he humbled you. He allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you didn't know, nor did your fathers know, that he could make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. Again, can't help but think of the special music that we heard today and the words of that song along the very same lines.

Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and you are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you.

So you see the turn that he is taking here now as he is speaking to the people, rehearsing all of the hardship that they went through, where it was that they came from, and all of the goodness of the land and all of the blessings that they are going to have there. But now he is really bringing home the point in terms of what they have to remember. Because there is a danger when people have eaten and are full, when they are not having to march every day and wonder where they are going and how they are going to be fed.

It starts in verse 11, Be aware that you don't forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, his judgments, and his statutes which I command you today. Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land, where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know that he might humble you and test you to do you good in the end.

And then you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day.

Then it shall be, if by any means you forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you will surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God. So what is it that's being talked about here? When we take this in the context of the other passages that we read earlier about being strangers and remembering not only that remembering that they were strangers and bringing that out in the way that they treated others who were strangers.

It's all about understanding and recognizing God's grace, the things that God has given by his power, and being conscious of the fact that the things that the Israelites had were not things that they'd gone and gotten by themselves.

It was a gift from God. God literally picked them up miraculously and brought them out of the land of Egypt, brought them through all of the hardships that were described, and the great danger was that when they came in the land and were comfortable and began to forget about those hardships, felt at home and no longer felt like strangers that they would forget the things that God had given them.

So an important concept here, talking about strangers, focused in this case on the children of Israel.

So if you want another header or signpost, the next one is that God has called us to be strangers.

God has called us to be strangers. It's interesting when you look through the Bible and look at how many people within the Bible were picked up from their surroundings and taken somewhere else as a part of God working with them. So when you think back, Abraham is one of the earliest ones, right, where he's told to get out, get away from your kinfolk and your people, and go to a new land that God was going to give them. And that was part of God working with him, taking him out of the familiar, out of all of the places where he had the physical support and where he was comfortable, and taking him and his family and everyone who came with him into a new place. Think of the Apostle Paul spoken about earlier today as well. He grew up in his community in Judaism, was a very zealous Pharisee, was called out of that to do something completely different in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. Moses, who was taken away after growing up in the house of Pharaoh for a number of years, and lived out in the wilderness as a stranger, 40 years, if I remember correctly, before God called him and brought him back to do a work that he was doing.

And that time out in the wilderness was a very important formative experience. And even going back to Paul, when we think three years that he spent being taught out in the wilderness himself, as well as additional years really doing nothing but waiting for God to call him and use him.

Daniel, who was taken away from his family and into the palace. And Joseph, as well.

So the numbers of examples that we can think of of God dealing with people in situations where he makes them strangers and takes them out of the situations that they're comfortable with.

And likewise, he's called us to come out of the world. Now, it's difficult in some ways for us, and different from the experience that most of these people had, because they were taken out of their physical surroundings, right? If you're Abraham, he was asked to pick up and moved and go to a completely different place. It's a little different for us when we're called.

We basically live in the same house. We live in the same city. To some extent, we have the same friends, although that probably migrates a bit over time as interests and focus starts to change.

But it's more subtle, and it's a little easier to forget that we're called to be something different than what everything else around us is. Let's turn to Hebrews 11. Read Hebrews 11 verses 13 through 16.

Of course, Hebrews 11 goes through the heroes of faith, and it talks about a specific viewpoint that all of them had in common. Hebrews 11 verses 13 through 16.

Talking about these people whose lives and deeds were rehearsed earlier in the chapter, it says in verse 13, these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and they were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they'd come out, they would have had 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 just like it is for them, or was for them, it is for us. That God has called us out from one thing to be strangers for a time in this world and pilgrims, not looking for and hoping for all of the goals and promises and future that the people living around us have, but looking for a different homeland. And as it's laying out in these verses, these guys could have gone back, right?

Abraham could have said, you know, I've tried this thing, this Promised Land thing, but I like it back in Ur of the Chaldees. I think I'll head back there. But he didn't do that. He looked for the promises that God held far off, and he was willing to live as a stranger. He was willing to put up with the sacrifices he had to make, the changes, the differences, and to move forward in the path that God had for him. And the process of being removed from their homeland made them focus, then, on what was sustaining them.

The fact that it was God that was taking care of them and sustaining them. I'm sure many of you have gone through the process of moving before. I don't know how many of you have moved to a strange city or an unfamiliar place, but in a lot of ways it's a very disturbing experience. It's sort of challenging sometimes. And you realize when you end up suddenly in a place you don't have your household goods, you don't know anybody, and you realize kind of how thin this veneer of life and the control that we have over life really is.

But I think it's a good thing for us to experience at times. We experience the same thing when we go through health trials, when we go through job trials or something else, and that is that there are all of these things around us that were so solid and so tangible and that we just completely rely on, and they just completely get knocked out from under us, and they're gone.

And we realize that without God and His support, there's really nothing else that we can truly rely on in this life. And as painful and difficult as it is to go through that, I think that's something that God wants all of us to go through at certain times in our life. Because just as He told the Israelites, it's very easy once we have our houses around us, once we have all of the things that we have, it's very easy to trust in those things and to believe that those solid, tangible things that we see around us are what we really should put our trust in.

But it's an illusion that we create for ourselves that we're in control and that we're self-sufficient and we're independent, when in reality we have to remember all the time that we're strangers and we rely on God to sustain us. And those are the things that He wants us to think back on. And again, this time of year is a good time to do that. I'd like to go back to another phrase here in verse 14 of Hebrews 11. Those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

How many countries can you think of, or how many people can you think of in the world that don't have a homeland? And how do those people live? If you think of some of the most strife-ridden places in the world and where there's some of the most difficulty, it's in places where people have been robbed of a homeland.

So we look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, right, which is incredibly complex. But what is it? It's two groups of people who claim the same area as their homeland. We have Palestinians who've been displaced after the British partitioned the Middle East, and they believe this is their land. We have the Jews who have taken that land, made it into the modern state of Israel, and have lived there now for several generations.

And we have the arguments that go back and forth, and they don't want to give that up. Why is that? Because they're seeking a homeland. And sometimes you look at that and you say, well, why do they fight for generations and generations?

Why not just move somewhere else and start over again? But there's something deep and visceral and emotional about wanting your homeland. When that's your place, it's been promised to you. It's where your grandparents, your great-grandparents grew up. There's something very emotional about that, and people fight for it.

And I think that's the same idea that God wanted to get across to us in the book of Hebrews, as far as people really seeking a homeland. It's not just, well, I kind of like that place to live.

There's something very deep about that, a place that people have a desire and a passion, and they're willing to make sacrifice in order to have that land and have it restored to them. Plenty of other places you can think of like that. If you think about the Balkans and the different fights that have erupted over what used to formerly be Yugoslavia. Think about the Armenians and the Kurds, if you've heard about them, and the whole area around northern Iraq and into Turkey. People who, when the Middle East was partitioned, ended up without their own territory, split up between different countries, and end up constantly trying to have a homeland, to come back together, to band together as a people. It's that same passion that God wants us to have for the culture that we've been a part of, the homeland and the kingdom that he's prepared for us. So God really wants us deliberately to have a feeling of not belonging in this world, of being strangers and looking for a different place. To me, one of the most poignant places this is pointed out is in the Passover ceremony. Let's turn to John 17. Most of you hopefully already know the verses I'm going to read here.

I always find this a interesting and a moving statement to think about on the Passover when we read these verses. John 17 verses 13 through 19. John 17 starting in verse 13, Now I come to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they're not of the world just as I am not of the world. I don't pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. I really want to focus there on verse 15.

I do not pray that you should take them out of the world. We were left here deliberately as strangers.

Something is part of God's plan that we live here without being part of everything that's going around on around us. We're supposed to be separate. We're supposed to be strangers. We're supposed to exactly as it says here have different priorities, have different motivations, and have a different way of living. And that's the constant daily challenge that we have. And exactly as we saw pointed out in Deuteronomy to the Israelites, we as Christians have the same thing that we have to be careful of. Because as soon as we start to feel at home here, as soon as we start to feel comfortable, as soon as we try to fit in and be a part of everything that's going on around us, we look like the geographical culture that we live in. And we don't look anymore like the strangers and the people who are from the culture of God. And that's what we have to watch for, just as people of ancient Israel had to remember that they were strangers in the land that God had given to them. So the parallel between those two things to me is very striking and something that we should give thought and reflection to during this time. In the remaining time, I'd like to just go through three brief points as things that we can learn and should learn from being strangers. What are some of the things that we should learn and think about as far as qualities of strangers? The first one, strangers are reliant on others. Strangers are reliant on others. Again, if we go back to those verses in the Old Testament, it talks about not oppressing strangers. It'll talk in other places about not perverting judgment against strangers, not taking advantage of them. As I said, it's because strangers are helpless. They often can't defend themselves and can't help themselves the way somebody who's well connected, embedded in the society and in a place can do that. And they can't figure everything out on their own. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 through 31.

Reliance on others, especially on God, but also on our brethren, is something that God wants us to learn. It's an interesting thing, especially in the American psyche, isn't it? Because what is the thing that we really value above everything else as Americans? It's independence, right? You know, you talk to people. I talk to my father-in-law. He's Canadian, but still qualifies. And the thing that he's most afraid of is losing the ability to drive his car. Because it takes away his independence. He'll have to be reliable on other people. And I can completely sympathize with that.

But as we go through our lives, we tend to really value the fact that I can stand on my own two feet.

What's the thing we hear out of our kids' mouths so much, right? As they turn three or so, I can do it myself, right? God builds that into us as human beings, but it's still something we've got to be watchful of. Because in the end, God is trying to bring us to the point of understanding we can't do it all by ourselves. That's why Jesus Christ died for us. Because we can't do it all by ourselves. 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 through 31. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, God has chosen. The things that are not to bring to nothing the things that are.

That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. That as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. Not in his independence, not in his own abilities, but in the grace of God, and what's been given to us by God.

I think back to a few of the experiences that we had, especially living in Poland, which can be sometimes a difficult place to navigate. And I'll never forget my assistant at work telling me one day that I was like the Pope. Now that's not really a comment you get from people very often, so I'll have to explain it before you get too worried. But you might remember John Paul II was actually Polish, and somebody that the Polish people were very proud of. And one of the things that John Paul II was really good at was he would, when he made public appearances, he would speak in the local language. Now not everybody knew it, but he didn't really understand all of those languages.

What he was good at was pronouncing them. And so he would get this script, which would be, you know, two, three, four pages long, and he could read a papal message in a bunch of languages. Now some of them like English and German and obviously Polish and Italian, he understood and he was competent in the languages. But some of the others he didn't, but he could read it. And so I was at home one afternoon, and my wife was trying to clean the floors. We had this bottle of floor cleaner with instructions in Polish. And I'd been taking, you know, some Polish lessons for a while. So I was at the point where I could pronounce the words, but I had no idea what most of them meant.

So I called up my assistant at work and I said, I'm going to read you the back of this bottle, and I just need you to tell me what it says, please. And so I picked up the bottle and I started reading it and the best Polish pronunciation I could muster, at which point she said, you're like the Pope. You can read Polish even if you don't understand it. And she went on to explain how we should go about using this stuff to clean our floors. So it was actually floor cleaner and not stripping all the the surface off the floors. So simple things that you take for granted. We would go to the store and you see these little tubs of white dairy product and you see the labels, but you don't know what it is. Is it whipped cream? Is it yogurt? Is it sour cream? Is it, I don't know, buttermilk? Who knows? It kind of makes a difference if you're going to cook dinner that night. So it's just the little things that you take for granted you feel completely helpless about. And so you find yourself being reliant on the next person coming by down the aisle who's going to be willing to take a moment, who speaks a little bit of English, and can point out for you what something is. Of course, then you have to take some survival language lessons to get by as well.

But all these experiences, knowing that you just have to rely on other people, and you just can't make it on your own, and it's a good experience to go through sometimes. Paul writes about this, too. We'll go to 2 Corinthians 12. He wrote about it in regard to the trials that he went through, which were exceedingly different from trying to figure out various dairy products in the supermarket. 2 Corinthians 12. And we'll start in verse 7. Here Paul writes, Lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me, and he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly, I would rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches in needs and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

And so what he was acknowledging was this very point. It's that reliance on God that God was teaching him through this unexplained thorn in the flesh that he had. Many people believe it was a problem with his eyes, with his eyesight, but it's never really specifically stated in the Bible.

And he gloried in that because it made him reliant on God. It took somebody who had incredible capabilities, tenacities, human strengths, that probably very few people were born with, and it made him realize that he was completely reliant and subservient to God. And he considered that a blessing. And so as strangers, we have to remember that. You know, it's not unusual in the U.S. these days to find a lot of immigrants who are living as strangers in our society who go through the same thing. You hear stories on the news and you see it about how people will take their kids to doctor's appointments with them because the children speak better English than they do. And so imagine that as an adult. You know, there you are 30, 40 years old, and you're relying on your teenager or your 10-year-old to be your lifeline to really explain what's going on, whether you're going to get a driver's license or going to a doctor's appointment or dealing with signing a rent on an apartment. And that's got to be a difficult thing as a parent, as an adult, to be so reliant on your child in that situation to take care of everything, to properly interpret for you, and to make sure that everything gets done right in this language that you don't fully understand. Reliance on other people, something for us to learn. James 4, verses 13 through 17. One last passage on this point that being strangers, God wants us to learn that we must be reliant on Him. James 4, verses 13 through 17.

James says, Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow will go to such and such a city.

Spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit. Whereas you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It's a vapor that appears for a little time, and then it vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to Him who knows to do good and does not do it, to Him it is sin. You know, when tragedy strikes, we realize very quickly how thin and fragile our hold is on this human life. You know, we heard about some of the announcements and the different trials that people are going through, which unfortunately many people go through. And it makes us realize when those things happen how quickly life can change. And hopefully it helps us also in strengthening our faith in Him, because God does promise that He'll take us through all of those things. The first point in terms of being strangers and the things that we're to learn, it's really a total and complete reliance on God.

That's the only one who can really take us through things. Second point that we can learn as strangers, second quality of strangers, strangers endure hardship because they live for a better future. Strangers endure hardship because they live for a better future. You know, if you know many people who are immigrants, you'll see a common thread in terms of wanting the next generation to have a better experience than what they had. I read a really interesting editorial in the Wall Street Journal probably five or so years ago. I searched for it online, but unfortunately couldn't find it. And it was written by an Asian American, and he talked about his father who had passed away not too long before he wrote the article. And he said how his dad would push him really hard and continually tell him, what I want for you is a better future, a better life than what I had. And the line that he always used with his son was, my job is to lie in the mud so you can walk across my back to a better life. And that's really the type of hope that immigrants have for the people coming up behind them. I can identify with that in some ways myself. My father grew up in the U.S., but with Chinese heritage. My grandfather actually came over when he was 14 years old. Basically got thrown onto a ship. You're the oldest one, you're a boy, go earn money and send it back to us. And so from age 14, he lived, worked on the railroads, and eventually opened some restaurants and worked as a cook and as a restaurant owner. And so my dad grew up basically kind of raising himself on the streets in Chicago, running around in the 1930s and 1940s.

And with a fairly challenging time, post Pearl Harbor, getting beat up, coming home from school all the time, because not too many people in Chicago know the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese.

Wearing a button, he and others would wear these buttons that say, I'm Chinese, to try to ward off how people are going to beat them up. But a tough time. And my dad didn't say a lot about those parts of his life, but you could tell that it caused him plenty of pain. But this same theme always came through in the way that he dealt with us. The theme of, you know, don't take for granted what you have. Work hard. You've got to push yourself. You've got, we want a better life.

And it comes through strongly. My wife went through a similar thing. Her parents both came from Germany after the war. And one of the really interesting experiences we had when we lived in Poland was we went to the small village where my wife's father grew up. And I've thought several times about this because, you know, the experience that he had as a young person was just so different, essentially being robbed of his youth. He was about 16, I think, or 17 when the Russians came through. And they basically gave these kids an hour or two of instruction on how to hold and load a rifle. And then they sent him out and said, go fight the Russians. And of course, you know, the Russians started coming. They all threw down their rifles and surrendered.

Because, you know, as a 16, 17-year-old trying to fight these, you know, hardened, angry Russian troops have been, you know, besieged for years by the German army, there was no way. And so, you know, at the age, by the time he was 20, he'd, you know, seen his village destroyed and overrun by the Russians. Everything they owned taken away escaped after a year of Russian prison camp to West Germany and then eventually over to Canada to work on work as a draftsman there. And that tenacity in terms of building a new life there and making something different and starting over and really wanting something new, a better future, and being willing to endure basically any hardship that came between that. That kind of focus, because he knew he was a stranger. He had nothing to go back to.

He only had a future to build for himself and for the next generations. It's that same thing that we need to have in us as Christians. We're not going back to the world that we came from.

We're fighting and we're yearning and we're pushing for another world that God's going to bring.

Let's turn to John 16 and we'll read verses 32 and 33.

John 16 verses 32 and 33.

Wonderful thing is the incredible amount of hope that God holds out for us of this coming time.

John 16 verse 32 he says, Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again. Your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you. And in that day you will ask me nothing.

Most assuredly I say to you, whatever you ask in the Father, the Father in my name, He will give it to you.

Let's go back to Hebrews 11 and we'll read a broader section, part of which we read before, but again in this context. Hebrews 11 verses 8 through 16.

The context of enduring hardship because we look for a better future.

Hebrews 11 verses 8 through 16. Starting in verse 8, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt 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. It's always interesting how the Bible uses the contrast in language, right? If we look in the preceding verse in verse 9, it talks about how he dwelt in tents with his children, and he's waiting for a city that has foundations, right? That contrast between living under some goatskins and sheepskins and then having a city, if you've seen some of the old walled cities, that strong foundations, big stones, big walls around it that God was going to bring. That permanence. By faith Sarah herself, in verse 11, received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude, innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from far off, they were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland, and truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire better, and that is a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Not a bunch of tents, but a city. And I love that phrase, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. Isn't that what we all want God to say about us? And he's proud to be our God. Let's turn to Romans 8, another section that strikes some of the same themes, in terms of the fact that as strangers we go through the struggle because we have our eyes on a better future world. Romans 8. And we'll read here in verses 18 through 23.

Romans 8, verses 18 through 23. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

So as we think of ourselves in a Christian sense, as Christians, as strangers, an important thing is that we have to remember what we're suffering, what we're going through in this life, is worthwhile as we look to that promise and what our true homeland is and really yearn for that and strive for it in all that we do. Third point, third quality of strangers before we wrap up today, strangers have a sense of urgency. They realize that time is not indefinite.

I had an interesting experience growing up in Minnesota. I was kind of the oddball as a little kid, you know, growing up half Chinese. My mother is German, so we spoke German at home, and I grew up in the church. So kids at school didn't really know what to do with this German Chinese Jew.

And so, I was kind of the oddball as a little kid, you know, growing up half Chinese. My mother is and so I felt different. And I distinctly remember, and I look different than everyone else, and I acted different, not always in a good way. And I distinctly remember, though, as the Vietnam War was coming to an end, that we had a lot of Vietnamese refugees that came up to Minnesota, from Laos, parts of Burma, and from Vietnam. And a lot of the churches in Minnesota would host these people, would sponsor them, would help them get on their feet there. It was very interesting to watch these people as they came, because a lot of their kids came into school with us, didn't speak a lick of English, and a year later they were at the top of all of our classes.

There was a sense of urgency there in these people. I mean, you had people who came over as doctors, as people who had been officers in the military, and what did they do? They lived four families to a house. They worked two or three jobs doing whatever anybody would pay them to do. They might be busboys in the restaurant after having had very high positions in their company.

And they worked, and they just slaved away at some of these jobs. And pretty soon the four families would buy a second home, and it'd be two families in each house. And they'd keep going until everybody had their own house. The kids were set up and ready to go to college, and they knew that they couldn't waste a minute, because they realized they were restarting their life, and there was only so much time to get it done. There was a sense of urgency there in what they were doing.

And again, tied to the second point, in terms of wanting a better future for their family, there was a focus there among these families in order to get it done. And they realized that every minute was important. They couldn't waste a moment, because they were doing a full restart on their lives. Again, do we have that quality of a stranger within us? You know, looking at it on the positive side, the life that we've lived over the last few years, I feel like we've learned a lot, too, knowing that we're not going to be in a place for very long. You know, the typical thing that people will tell you, right, is we don't see the sights within our own city, except when people come to visit.

Right? How many people have been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Okay, about half. But that's typical. It certainly was that way for us in Denver, you know, there are a lot of things. We just wouldn't go do it, because, you know, when you live there, you always figure, I can do it another time. There's no sense of urgency, is there? It's always there.

I got to clean the house. I got to wash the car. I got to mow the lawn. I'll do it next week.

Right? But when you're living in a place for a short period of time, you want to see everything. You want to experience everything. You want to do everything, because you know when your two years is up, when your three years is up, you're gone. You're moving somewhere else. And if you don't see it when you're there, you might not get a chance to come back.

It drives a very different mindset in terms of that. Let's turn to Hebrews 3. We'll just look at a couple of verses in this context before we wrap up. Hebrews 3. We'll read verses 12 through 15.

Hebrews 3 verses 12 through 15.

Beware, brethren, it says in Hebrews 3 verse 12, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God.

But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

For we've become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning or a confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

So you can see twice how it uses in this passage the word today. It's really saying, not tomorrow, not next week, not some other time when the other important things get done, today. While it is still called today to do it. And I know we all struggle with that as we live our lives here, because like we covered before, we've been left to live in this world and we have to keep going in our lives, but there's a different culture we're part of that says we've got to seize hold of things today because of this life that we're living and this set of goals and the calling that we have.

One last chapter to look at, one last passage in this context, James 1, and we'll read verses 9 through 11. James 1 verses 9 through 11.

Let the lowly brother in James 1.9 brought glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass. Its flower falls and its beautiful appearance perishes, so the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. And that's so true of life, isn't it?

At this point, it's brought out. I was mentioning earlier my son turned 18.

A week ago, I know many of you have grown children and those who do, you look back at the years and even though they seem like they would never end, when kids are little sometimes, when things aren't going so well, when you look at it in the rearview mirror, the years are like the blink of an eye. And so it drives that sense of urgency and I think maybe that's why as people get older they also realize that, you know, it can't keep procrastinating. You've got to take care of it and do things while we have the chance, because as it says here, the time goes by so quickly. And as strangers, we have to realize as we're living this way that we have to take advantage of things now. We have to listen to the instruction of God now. We have to have that sense of urgency in our life to do the things that God expects of us to keep our commitments to Him.

So in conclusion, God has called us to be part of a different culture. He's called us to be strangers. And He's dealt all through time. We look at the Bible from beginning to end. He's dealt with people as strangers. He's called them out of the places that they've been. He's called them into new circumstances as part of the way of working with them. For us, He's doing the same thing, but it's different because we don't really leave our physical surroundings, but yet we're called to live a life that's different. That can make it much more difficult to do because as humans we're so wired into what we see around us and the pace of everything that's going on around us.

So we have to think and reflect on this fact that we are strangers and we do live in a world, or for a world, that's very different than the one that we're in today. So as we realize our status as strangers, let's be conscious of our reliance on God. Let's make sure that we live for a future hope and understand that the suffering that we go through right now is something that we go through willingly because we know that what's coming, what's promised to us, is so much better.

And let's have that sense of urgency as we live our lives.