Lesson 102 · Unit 15 · His Heart for the Nations
The Sojourners' Gospel
People who drift understand the gospel best — it was a letter to sojourners in the first place.
Open
On moving day you hear the sound of packing tape tearing open again. There is one box you never unpack — a few old books, a bag of dried chilies from home, a family photo. The addresses change and change again, and the box follows you. You have got very quick at editing the delivery address on a shipping form, but on any form that asks for "home address," your pen stops every time. Which one do you write down to count as home?
The Bible has a word kept for people like this: sojourners. It is not a sigh. It is the addressee on an envelope — Peter's first letter is headed "to the chosen ones who are living as foreigners in the Dispersion" (1 Pet 1:1). People who drift understand the gospel best, because it was a letter to sojourners in the first place.
Scripture
Moses introduces Israel to who God is; Hebrews counts up the faith of the travelers. (Deuteronomy 10:18-19; Hebrews 11:13-16, WEB)
18He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing.
19Therefore love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
13These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.
15If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return.
16But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
See
God writes the sojourner into his own introduction
In Deuteronomy 10 Moses is describing who God is: God of gods, Lord of lords, great and awesome — and the next sentence stoops all the way down: "He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing" (Deut 10:18). When the Lord of heaven and earth gives his own name, he names three kinds of people with nobody behind them, and the foreigner is one. The command falls on Israel next, and the reason given is not an argument but a memory: "for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt" (10:19) — people who have received mercy know the taste. Jesus made it heavier still: "I was a stranger and you took me in" (Matt 25:35). The faces with out-of-town accents in your city are not scenery. Every meal set out for them, the Lord puts down in his own name.
The gospel was a letter to sojourners
On the other side, perhaps you are the one adrift — posted abroad, emigrated, studying overseas, or simply grinding away in a city that will not take you as one of its own. Hebrews 11 says the forebears of faith "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Heb 11:13). Abraham was called out, lived in tents his whole life, and died without a deed to a foot of the promised land. It was not that he had no home; he "desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (11:16). Notice the second half of that verse: "Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." To admit you are a traveler is not defeatism; it is a declaration of faith. My address will keep changing. My homeland will not.
Sojourning is not exile
That said, the loneliness is real: the video call at the festival, watching your family around a table through a screen; and then, once life here is worn in, you go back and cannot get a word in at that table either — both places feel like home, and neither one is. The Bible does not paint over that ache; it changes the ground color under it. God "determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwellings" (Acts 17:26). Every stop you have landed in was not drifted into; it was arranged — so that people there would seek him (17:27). Sojourning is not exile. It is another way of writing "sent." And the church ought to be a home a stranger can walk into: "You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God" (Eph 2:19). If you are settled, be that door. If you are adrift, go knock on it.
Deeper
God's self-introduction (Deut 10:18)
when the Lord of lords gives his own name he names the orphan, the widow and the foreigner: God stakes his reputation on people with nobody behind them.
Memory becomes command (Deut 10:19)
"for you were foreigners": the memory of mercy received is the reason for mercy given.
A traveler's faith (Heb 11:13-16)
admitting you are a sojourner is not conceding; it is what only someone who has sighted that city can say.
Seasons and boundaries (Acts 17:26-27)
every stop of the drifting is in God's hands, so that people would reach out and find him.
Story
Lao Quan came to Milan at twenty-two and worked in the back kitchen of a relative's Chinese restaurant, gutting fish and working a wok, without a word of Italian. The first few New Year's Eves were the hardest: a restaurant is busiest on a holiday, and after closing, past midnight, he would crouch by the back door and call home on video — a table of hot dishes on that screen, a cold alley on this side. In the eighth year, an older overseas-Chinese woman who came in often said to him, "Come and eat at our church on Sunday. Everybody speaks Chinese." He went, and never left — it was the first time in Italy that anybody remembered he does not eat coriander. He has his own place now, and every New Year's Eve after closing he keeps two round tables free, a free meal for students and young workers who have just landed. When people ask him what he is getting out of it, he answers in the words of Deuteronomy: "Because I was a foreigner too."
Respond
Reflect — alone, or talk it through together
1In Deut 10:18-19, what reason does God attach to the command to love the foreigner? Why call up a memory rather than raise his voice?
2Hebrews 11:13-16 says a traveler's faith "desires a better country" — how is that different from drifting along a day at a time?
3Which side are you on right now, settled or adrift? Which door, which table, is waiting for you this week?
Saved on this device only — visible to no one but you.
Pray together
God who has prepared a city for travelers: thank you for writing the sojourner into your own introduction, and thank you that your Son was a traveler himself. Make me remember the taste of mercy received, and go and love the foreigners near me. And if I am the one adrift just now, let me recognize your arrangement at every stop, and find a table and a name. My address keeps changing. The city you have prepared does not. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.
Walk
This week's actionabout 20 min
Choose one. If you are settled — think of a sojourner near you (a colleague with an out-of-town accent, a neighbor who just moved in, an international student), invite them for a home-cooked meal or take them a taste of home, and open with one question only: "Where are you from?" If you are adrift — find a local church or a Chinese-speaking gathering and walk in once this week.
Mark it when it happens — this week, at your pace.
Spiritual practice
Each night before sleep, pray one line from Heb 11:16: "God has prepared a city for me." Then pray by name for one sojourner in your city.
Memory verse · Deuteronomy 10:19
Thereforelovetheforeigner,foryouwereforeignersinthelandofEgypt.
Walk further
Abraham's life in tents, a devotional on "you were foreigners," the infant Christ's flight into Egypt, how the Jewish dispersion paved a road for the gospel, and Lesson 80 on opening your home.