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God’s Acceptance of Faith

Hebrews 11:1–16

The Epistle to the Hebrews Go on to maturity in Christ,

our heavenly Priest

1:1-2 1:3–2:18 3:1–4:13 4:14–10:18 10:

19-39 11:1–13:25

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Living Practical

Hebrews 10:22–24

10:22 Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith

10:23 Let us hold the confession of our hope without wavering

10:24 Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds

Hebrews 11–13

By faith in the unseen chapter 11

Let us run with endurance the race set before us

chapter 12

Let love of the brethren continue chapter 13

Attaboys and Guardrails Heb 10:19–39

  The warning against despising Christ’s sacrifice 26–31

  Willful sin leads to judgment

  Disdainers of Christ will be judged

  Sure and fearful judgment

  The exhortation to endure as in their past 32–39

  Remember

  Prioritize

  Endure confidently by faith

  The basis of positive exhortation 19–21

  Jesus’ new and living way to God 19–20

  Jesus our great high priest 21

  The “Let Us” patch 22–25

  Draw near with assurance

  Maintain our confessed hope

  Meet together to provoke each other to love and good deeds

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Hebrews 11

Hebrews 11 Witnesses of Faith

Hebrews 11:1–16 The Undiscovered Country

The Divine acceptance of faith

  Noah

  Abraham

  Sarah

  Faith is explained 1–3

  Faith is approved 4–12   Creation

  Abel

  Enoch

  Faith anticipates 13–16

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Heb 11:1–3

Faith is Explained True faith always involves the unseen. (John 20:29; 2 Cor 5:7; John 4:46–54)

It is an assurance or conviction (1). It is not ephemeral.

It is based on God’s revelation. (3; 8–9; Rom 10:17)

Faith brings God’s approval (2, 39) (= acceptance with God, divine sanction). The only guaranteed result of faith is God’s approval.

Heb 11:4–7 The Antediluvian Faithful

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Heb 11:6 [NET] How to Please God Now without faith it is impossible to please Him,

for the one who approaches God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

Heb 11:8–9

Abraham the Sojourner

  Called => obeyed

  Going out to a place promised as an inheritance

  Not knowing where he was going

  Lived as an alien

  Dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise

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Heb 11:11

Sarah’s Baby Shower Sarah’s impossible condition

The ability to conceive

Why? Because faithful she/he regarded the One who promised

Heb 11:12

Abraham the Forebearer

  Born out of a “dead” man

  Descendents “as the stars of heaven in number”

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Heb 11:13–16

Faith Anticipates

13  They died in faith, but they saw the promises and welcomed them “from a distance”

14  Those who confess being strangers and exiles on the earth are making it clear they’re seeking a “country of their own.”

15  The indirect proof: if they had not been seeking another country, they could have returned to Ur from where they started.

16  Better = heavenly. Therefore, God approved (“not ashamed to be called their God”) and prepared them a city.

Heb 11:13–16

Seeking the Better Country The choices of Abraham and Sarah

The choices of the Hebrew Christians

The choices of you and me: the warning of Demas 2 Tim 4:10 (2 Tim 2:3–4)

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Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.

J. Oswald Sanders