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While We Wait - Others Who Waited

  • Writer: Paul Downie
    Paul Downie
  • 2 days ago
  • 17 min read

Hebrews 11:13-16 NIV

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

We often find people posting on social media if they have been passing through a public transport hub or on a plane or train and come across someone famous. Restaurants often reserve a space on their walls for pictures taken with important people who visited their establishment. We understand why. It’s quite a privilege to meet someone who has excelled at anything, or who is famous for other reasons. It lifts us up. It gives us something to aspire to – or just something to boast about to our peers.


In this passage we learn some very encouraging information about our wait for God. That is: we don’t wait alone. Many millions of Christians across the globe have waited on Him and are still waiting on Him right now. Some of those Christians are great people; others are quietly worshipping in the shadows. To an extent, it doesn’t matter. We are in the company of many others and are keeping good company. We are not alone.


But there is more. This passage is inside the great gallery of faith heroes in Hebrews 11. This is the spiritual equivalent of the handprints in the Hollywood Walk of Fame, except the people in this list faced deep physical and emotional challenges that even the most ‘method’ actor would not even be permitted to face.


What I am saying is that we stand with these great heroes of faith. We stand with them, shoulder to shoulder. 


In fact, there’s more: Hebrews 12:1-3 pictures these heroes cheering us on, which is truly extraordinary.


There is much we can learn from these people. They waited on God in situations much harder than ours. And they got what they waited on – and so much more. 


So as we explore this gallery of heroes, let’s not just look up at them in admiration, but to take from what they did correctly, set aside what they did wrong, and learn from their lives in order to make our wait better.


There is a pattern than the writer describes here that is common to them all.


We see that he mentions a Promise.


Promise

Hebrews 11:13 NIV

[13] All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.13.NIV)


When I was a child, people still used cheques a lot. However, people sometimes wrote you a cheque for your birthday, but asked you to take it to the bank a few days later. The reason was simple: they were able to write the cheque, but if you banked it, they would not have the financial wherewithall to back it up until payments cleared in their account. What they were giving you was not actual money, it was the promise of money: a promise that would take more than five days to come to fruition.


When we were applying for my wife's spouse visa, the British Embassy in Manila wasn’t yet accepting electronic payments. They were very strict in how they wanted the fee to be paid. It had to come from a Filipino credit card. It had to be paid by cheque. But it couldn’t be an ordinary cheque. It had to be a banker's draft. They is, it had to be a cheque issued by a bank teller or the bank manager as absolute assurance that the funds were there to back it up.


So we stood in the queue at a bank branch in Cebu City, Philippines. We paid the money into her account. We paid a small handling fee. Then we received a special cheque.


You see, our signature was not enough. The British Embassy wanted absolute proof that they would get their money.


Cheques are very infrequently used now. Everyone prefers the immediacy of an electronic payment. Only older people who prefer the feel of paper in their hands write cheques.


Every cheque – indeed, every banknote – is a promise. In fact, our whole economy is built on promissory notes, whether written or electronic. There are even whole currencies built on digital ledgers where no actual cash ever changes hands.


We will happily trust an elderly relative, or our bank (despite the messes they’ve got us into over the years) to make good on their promises.


But in this passage, these heroes of the faith trusted different promises: from God.


Now, if a rich person writes you a cheque, you aren’t worried: they have the resources to back it up.


So if God Himself writes us a cheque and makes us a promise, should we believe it?


Absolutely!


That is what each of these heroes of the faith did. There were three phases with these promises:


  • God made them a promise

  • They believed the promise 

  • They acted on the promise


The last step is critically important. As we saw much earlier this year in James:


James 2:17, 26 NIV

[17] In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
[26] As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

There is no point at all in saying to God, ‘Yeah, thanks for your promises and all. Really appreciate it. But I'm just doing my thing now. Just being me.’ And then remaining in your comfortable easy chair.


No!


The Bible says this about these people and their faith:


Hebrews 11:1-2 NIV

[1] Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. [2] This is what the ancients were commended for.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.1-2.NIV)


They received the promises of God, they believed them and they acted on them. That is what changed their behaviour, their attitudes and the direction of their whole life.


Consider what happened with Noah. He was living righteously before the Lord while everyone around him was wicked. God gave him a promise of salvation which involved building an ark (Genesis 6:12-21). What did Noah do?


Genesis 6:22 NIV

[22] Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.6.22.NIV)


Consider the amazing promise Abraham was given in Harran:


Genesis 12:1-3 NIV

[1] The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. [2] “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.12.1-3.NIV)


What did he do?


Genesis 12:4-5 NIV

[4] So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. [5] He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/gen.12.4-5.NIV)


Hebrews 11:8-10 NIV

[8] By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. [9] By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. [10] For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 

At the ripe old age of seventy-five!


Consider Sarah, who, yes, had a wobble more than once and wavered in her faith – which, given her situation, was not surprising - but this is what is said about her:


Hebrews 11:11-12 NIV

[11] And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. [12] And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

These people weren’t perfect. They made mistakes. Unlike many of its contemporaries, the Bible doesn’t shy away from it. The heroes in its pages are presented as flawed because its writers had no interest at all in glorifying them. But the reason why these ancients were commended was for their faith: their faith in God’s promises, even when it looked very unlikely that they would be fulfilled.


That is truly what it means to wait on God.


These verses also describe two rewards that were granted to these faithful ancients. The first of these was The Country.


The Country

Hebrews 11:13-16 NIV

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

I live in a family that effectively lives between two countries. I am Scottish. My wife is Filipina. My daughter is Scottish born but half-Filipina. We live in Scotland because our life opportunities here are better, both for us and our daughter. We eat food from across the world, but rice is an ever present staple. We speak two languages in conversation and I am fluent in a third (Romanian). We like to travel.


When you travel from one country and culture to another, it’s a strange phenomenon. You feel like you are a stranger in both cultures. There are positives and negatives of both. You have a different perspective than people from either culture. It’s a unique experience that really matures you as a person.


These verses are very specific. They talk of nomads who had travelled from Ur in modern day Iraq to Harran in modern day Turkey, where they had remained for a while. God called Abraham and his household there to give him a country – the Promised Land. 


Three obstacles stood in God’s way:


  • Abraham. He was old.

  • Sarah. She was barren.

  • The land. It was already occupied by other people.


But God turned the wheels of history and fulfilled His promise to Abraham and His people.


However, there is a very important fact about this, highlighted in verse 13:


Hebrews 11:13 NIV

[13] All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.13.NIV)


We see again three aspects of how Abraham and the patriarchs reacted to God’s promise:

  • They did not receive the promise

  • They only saw it from a distance

  • They became aliens and strangers on earth


To reiterate what we saw earlier:


Hebrews 11:8-9 NIV

[8] By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. [9] By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.8-9.NIV)


They believed their descendants would receive the land. They did not live to see it happen. While they were alive, they wandered through the land God had promised to them and lived in tents. They made no attempt to take it for themselves. They did not settle down in permanent accommodation.


In fact, the only member of their family who seems to have settled in anything approaching a house was Lot – in Sodom (Genesis 19:2-4). 


His move there didn’t last long. 


These patriarchs were asked to do something very unusual: to live in a land they would inherit, but not take the land for themselves by force. In fact, when Abraham died, instead of owning all the land he was told his descendents would inherit (Genesis 13:17), he only owned the narrow strip of land where he buried his wife Sarah (Genesis 23).  


The other patriarchs were the same. They walked the same land. They lived on the same land. Yet despite gaining wealth and power, they did not at any time attempt to take the land for themselves, because that was God’s plan (Genesis 15:16). 


We see the same thing happen with David – another of Israel's greatest leaders. He was rising while Saul was falling. He was gaining in strength and power, which drove Saul insane with jealousy (1 Samuel 18:6-9). David quickly gathered people who were drawn to his leadership (1 Samuel 22:2). Yet despite being the next anointed King (1 Samuel 16:13), David made no attempt at all to take the crown from Saul, rebuking those who urged him to do it, even when he had the opportunity (1 Samuel 24, 26). 


But what marked out the patriarchs out even compared to David is that saw God’s promise fulfilled in his life time. He became king. But the patriarchs did not see God’s promise fulfilled, knew they would not see God’s promises fulfilled and yet believed it anyway. 


Their incredible faith reminds me of what Jesus said to Thomas after providing him absolute, incontrovertible evidence of the resurrection: 


John 20:29 NIV 

[29] Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jhn.20.29.NIV)


Do you see this? I hope you do. 


There are therefore three reactions to God’s promise. 


There are those who simply don’t believe it. They can’t believe it. They won’t believe it. They have no faith. Regardless of whether they have been so beaten down by circumstances or raised without faith or simply think it’s all too good to be true, the cause is irrelevant: the only thing that really matters is that they have chosen not to believe. 


There are those who believe but who do so conditionally, on the proviso that God will deliver on His promises within their lifetime or accordin to their timetable. If He doesn’t, they abandon Him. 


And then there are those who, like the patriarchs, and many other heroes of the faith, who will believe no matter what, knowing that God will always deliver on His promises, even if in this life they will not see it. 


They are like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: 


Daniel 3:16-18 NIV 

[16] Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. [17] If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. [18] But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” 

These are people who know what is right and true and will do it regardless. 


The picture of the land represents these people. 


But there is a second reward: that of The City. 

 

The City 

Hebrews 11:16 NIV 

[16] Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.16.NIV)


Cities are quite astonishing places. Some we love; some we don’t. Some we avoid like the plague; others we love to visit. Some we go to and never want to go to again; others we would return to in a heartbeat. 


These nomadic wanderers were promised a city. Not just a house or a home, but a city. 

Now, at first glance that might confuse us. After all, apart from a few tiny microstates, a country is generallya lot larger than a single city. 


But what they were being promised was not just a physical city. No, it was an eternal one: 


Hebrews 11:16 NIV 

[16] Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/heb.11.16.NIV)


Their city was the New Jerusalem, as described in Revelation: 


Revelation 21:2-4, 9-14, 18-27 NIV 

[2] I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. [3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. [4] ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 
[9] One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” [10] And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. [11] It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. [12] It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. [13] There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. [14] The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 
[18] The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. [19] The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, [20] the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. [21] The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. [22] I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. [23] The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. [24] The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. [25] On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. [26] The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. [27] Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. 

We have been to many cities in our time. None can match this. It’s not even close. Not even remotely close. 


When you were living a nomadic life, cities wouldn’t necessarily be your favourite place.


However, in dangerous times they were a place of safety and plenty, a place where peace, security and rest were guaranteed behind high walls and armed guards. God promised this to the patriarchs at the end of their long years of sojourn and pilgrimage. 


And His promise is still good for you, as the writer to the Hebews stated: 


Hebrews 11:39-40 NIV 

[39] These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, [40] since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. 

The eternal city was theirs. The eternal city is ours too. 


If we wait on God. 


Because this city is symbolic of God’s promise fulfilled. 

 

Conclusion 

Hebrews 11:13-16 NIV 

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

Years ago, I remember coming out of my apartment block in Pitești, Romania, and saw a long line of people snaking down the road. There were no government office nearby or large shops with a sale – the queue was down the side of a busy highway – so I wondered what was going on. 


It was late December. The queue was to buy bread before the bakery shut down for the Festive break. Bread is an absolute essential in Romania. They used to joke that Romanians ate bread with bread. They could not face going without it, so they lined up in the freezing weather to get what they needed. 


On the other hand, I have been in places where people have joined a line without realising why they are there or what the line is for. I've even done it myself on a few occasions – even reaching the head of the line before realising that I was in the wrong one and couldn’t get what I wanted. 


If you're not in a crazy rush, that can be a little humorous. 


But if you spend your whole life waiting and longing for something that never arrives, that is nothing short of a tragedy and a waste. 


Before Christmas, where the long wait of the Jewish people – and, indeed, all people – was fulfilled, we have been through this long series of studies about what it means to wait on God. I can’t speak for you, but I have been challenged and changed by this series.  


Now we find ourselves looking on as those who were the forerunners of our faith were commended for keeping their faith during a long wait for God to come through for them. We noticed three very important aspects of this. 


We saw the promise God made to them, and how their reaction to it was to receive it, believe it and act on it.  


We saw the country they were promised, and how this showed their determination to do the right thing even if their reward didn’t come on this life. 


We saw the city where they made their permanent dwelling: the City of God; the New Jerusalem. 


We are all waiting on God for something.


Sometimes it’s easy. At other times it’s excruciatingly hard. These verses describe to us those who didn’t just go before us, Hebrews 12:1 pictures them cheering us on.  


I have sat in some pretty boring waiting rooms more times than I care to mention. It’s hard.


Here we see that our wait is anything but boring. Standing with us are those who waited and obtained what was promised. 


And one day we will be too. 


Hebrews 10:36-37 NIV 

[36] You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. [37] For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” 

Right now we are approaching the time of year when God kept a promise that had remained for thousands of years. If He kept that promise, He will keep every promise He has made to you in His Word. 


So we end this study by returning to words that we saw in the very beginning: 


Psalms 27:14 NIV 

[14] Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.27.14.NIV)


Prayer 

Lord Jesus, You know better than anyone how hard it is to wait on You. Give me the strength and encouragement I need to gain all that You have promised, whether in this life or in Heaven. Amen. 


Questions for Contemplation 

  • How did the patriarchs react to God’s promise to them? Why is that important? 

  • Did they receive all that God promised them? What can we learn from this? 

  • What have you learned from this series that will encourage you as you wait on God? 


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