Longing for a Better Homeland
Pastor Tan Thai · Feb 2, 2014
This sermon uses the image of refugees to illustrate how believers are called to live with their hearts set on their heavenly homeland. Drawing from Hebrews 11 and the examples of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the pastor calls the congregation to invest their hearts in the eternal homeland God has promised.
The sermon opens with the story of French philosopher Blaise Pascal and his famous wager: if God exists and heaven is real, the believer gains everything; if not, the believer still loses nothing since living by Scripture produces a joyful and healthy life. The pastor introduces the theme of two earthly homelands — Vietnam as the first, the United States as the second — and heaven as the eternal homeland for believers, grounded in Revelation 21:1-4.
The next section surveys the global reality of refugees and migrants — over 45 million people forcibly displaced in 2012 — and connects this to biblical figures who also left their homelands: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joseph, and the family of Jesus who fled as refugees to Egypt. The pastor draws a spiritual parallel: every believer is a refugee who has left the old life of slavery to sin and been rescued by Jesus Christ, now living under His protection and heading toward a heavenly country.
Hebrews 11:13-16 is expounded to show that the patriarchs — Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob — all died in faith without receiving the promises, yet they acknowledged themselves as strangers and pilgrims on earth. They did not seek to return to their former homeland but longed for a better, heavenly one — and so God was not ashamed to be called their God. John 14:2-3 is also cited, where Jesus promises His disciples He is going to prepare a place for them and will return to take them there.
The pastor paints a sobering picture of worldly suffering — poverty, human trafficking, war, disease, and death — to demonstrate that earthly homelands are not all rosy but filled with grief, loss, and darkness. Ecclesiastes 7:2 is cited on the value of meditating at the house of mourning, and Matthew 6:19-21 on storing up treasures in heaven rather than on earth. The conclusion reminds the congregation that wherever their treasure is, their heart will be also, and calls each person to redirect their spirit toward their true homeland in heaven.
The sermon closes with a practical exhortation to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:31-33), and to invest time in studying God's Word. The pastor emphasizes that believers must live with the deliberate conviction that their true homeland is heaven and not any place on this earth.