Not Ashamed of His Nomads

At first glance, the argument of Hebrews 11:16 might cause some to scratch their heads. 

“But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

This passage seems to say that the people of faith mentioned in Hebrews chapter eleven long for a superior eternal home. Because of this, God is not embarrassed to be associated with them. Why? Because he has indeed prepared that kind of city for them, that kind of homeland. 

It’s not so much that the logical connections are hard to see in this verse, but that the assumptions behind the argument seem strange. Why does this passage imply that God might be ashamed of those who desire a better and heavenly country? What is so embarrassing or shameful about that? 

Is it that these people of faith are messy sinners saved by grace? That their sin is the reason some might feel that God is ashamed to be associated with them? That conclusion, that God is indeed not embarrassed to be identified with sinners, is correct in a biblical-theological sense (Mark 2:16). But it does not actually fit with the context of this passage. 

No, here it’s not their sin that leads to the sense that God might be ashamed of them. It is the seemingly-foolish lifestyle choices they are making, based on seemingly-foolish promises. 

Noah invests in building an ark because he believes God’s word about a coming flood (Heb 11:7). Abraham leaves his influential city and lives in tents because he believes he is to inherit the land of Canaan (11:8-9). Barren Sarah believes she can give birth as a ninety-year-old woman because the angel of the LORD tells her so (11:11). Childless and elderly Abraham believes his descendants will be like the stars of the sky, like the sands of the seashore (11:12). 

Contemporaries would say these people are not living in the real world. Global floods of extinction don’t happen. A family of tent-dwelling nomads doesn’t dispossess nations living in fortified cities. Old and barren men and women don’t produce offspring. They absolutely do not produce millions of them. 

In the eyes of their contemporaries, these people are living foolish, even irresponsible, lifestyles. And why? Because of their faith in foolish-seeming promises. “You are living like that because God told you what now? What a waste! What a joke. What a shame.” This is how the wisdom of the world views the costly lifestyles of God’s people of faith. 

But not so with God. This text says that God is not ashamed to be called their God. To be not ashamed means that he is honored to be known as their God, he is proud to be associated with them. What a humbling – and frankly shocking – idea. But this is God’s posture because the foolish-seeming faith and lifestyles of these men and women align so well with his character, his eternal plan, and even his past actions. As it turns out, God has already prepared a place for them, an eternal home – though this homeland is invisible now, the kind of place you can only hear about and cannot yet see. 

When these foolish-seeming people live not for this temporary world, but for the one that’s coming, God delights in them, even as the world scoffs. God delights because they trust his promises. They trust his character. They risk based on the fact that he is a rewarder. And the heart of God rejoices when his people believe and live in keeping with these realities (11:6). 

This truth matters to all believers, since all of us are sojourners and strangers in this age, awaiting our final inheritance (1 Pet 2:11, Rom 8:23). But it especially hits home for those engaged in gospel ministry. Those who decide to pastor, to church plant, to be foreign missionaries, these all embrace seemingly-extra-foolish lifestyles in the eyes of the world – and even in the eyes of many Christians. 

For starters, the economic choices of a ministry lifestyle can seem downright disastrous. Pastors might live in a parsonage that doesn’t belong to them, labor in bivocational roles, or struggle with lower-than-average salaries. Church planters take huge risks to see a church birthed that may or may not survive, much less be able to support their family’s needs. Missionaries liquidate their households over and over again during their many transitions, each time incurring significant loss. Over time, these cumulative costs don’t compare very well to peers who have been busy investing in marketplace careers and appreciating assets. 

The chances of seeing success and gaining influence also seem disastrous. These ministry Christians tend to choose difficult places to work – thorny church revitalizations, unchurched urban areas, remote agricultural communities, unreached people groups. It’s like they want to fail. As with the figures in Hebrews 11, this quixotic work is all driven by faith in foolish-seeming promises. You cannot truly live unless you first die (John 12:25). The meek will inherit the earth (Matt 5:5). The church will storm the gates of hell (Matt 16:18). Every nation and tongue will one day contain believers (Rev 7:9). Weakness is actually strength (2 Cor 12:9). Suffering is actually meant for good (Rom 8:28). 

Yet as year by year the costs mount for minds, bodies, and bank accounts, it’s not only the world or worldly Christians who might say of these kinds of lives “What a waste, what a joke, what a shame.” Even gospel laborers themselves can sometimes look at the material fruit of their lives and feel the same way. “After all the costs, what do I have to show for it? The world is ashamed of my life. I feel ashamed of my life. Perhaps even God is ashamed of my life.”

These gospel laborers – and all Christians – need to remember the truth of Hebrews 11:16. God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has already built the city, the eternal inheritance, that awaits his foolish-seeming tent-dwellers. The world cannot see it, but a new heavens and new earth are coming, more certain than the sunrise. And when it is revealed, when the foundations are exposed by the final storm, the seemingly foolish will suddenly be seen as the truly wise, and the worldly-wise and wealthy will mourn at all that they have wasted. These latter await the terrible prospect of the God of the universe seeing the fruit of their lives and turning away from them, ashamed of them.

A great reversal is coming. The nomads will inherit the earth. And like the saints of Hebrews 11, happy is the Christian whose costly investments reflect the reality of that day. And happy is the God whose name they are given.

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