We so often say that we have faith in God but I would ask if that is because we have seen Him do something in our life to show us that He is real? Maybe you have seen God work in the life of a person that you thought would never come to Christ, maybe you were praying for healing of a loved one or maybe some prayer that was answered the way you were hoping. What if none of those things ever happened? What if God never showed us by some outward confirmation or the fulfillment of something that we want to see, would your faith in God stay intact? Now don’t get me wrong I know that when we see some of these things happening that this builds our faith because of what we have seen Him do already but we must notice that God is here even when we do not see things work out the way we hoped.
In this study we will not look into just one person’s faith but we will look at the fact that none of these people that we have studied and will be studying in this series, ever saw the fulfillment of the promises given to them. Like them we too wait for the promises given to us. If you are reading this then you have not made it to Heaven yet so we are waiting for the promise of our eternal home. As we look at this section of Scripture I hope you can see how you can have faith even at times when you don’t know if you will ever see the things that you are praying for. Let’s look now at our first point.
1.Having faith in spite of promises unseen.
Look with me at Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
What we see here in the people within this chapter is not much different than how we too wait for the promises of eternity. Now obviously these people we are studying on in this chapter did not have even as much revelation as we do. They did not see Jesus come to the Earth, die and resurrect, they did not see the formation of the church age, they did not see the barrier between the Jew and the Gentile tore down nor did they even see the fulfillment of many other promises while they were alive and yet they remained faithful. Ask yourself ,would have lived this way in your life if you never saw one promise fulfilled?
The key to understanding how these people were able to have faith even when they did not see the fulfillment must be looked at as what they were hoping for. Was it just the fulfillment of the earthly promises that they were looking towards like most of us are?
I mean most people that claim to be Christians actually look like they are chasing after worldly prosperity and dreams more than living for the future promises. I think that many in churches today, probably more so in the United States, have a Christianity that attaches Jesus to your life instead of a denial of self. This type of Christianity sets peoples motives for living as Christians as one that looks for God to bless them in the here and now because you know, we already have been saved. This is true that salvation is already a reality for a Christian but that must change your motives, change your behavior, change your priorities and change the way you think. We must look towards our eternal promises and trust that God will indeed take care of us while we are here. It is really what our Lord said in Matthew 6:32-33 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
So our verse in Hebrews shows us how these people carried on in the faith that they did. Hebrews 11:13a says These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.
They were content with knowing the future promises and not even seeing them in their lifetime. We talk about Abraham so often as being the father of faith and this is true. The promise of the future wasn’t just that he would have one son but that he would be the father of an innumerable amount of people. Genesis 15:4-6 shows us this reality, look with me at what is said there: And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
The birth of Isaac was just the beginning of the promise of the many that would be Abraham’s offspring. So even though he did see his own son born, he did not see in his lifetime the fulfillment of an innumerable amount of people that came from him. We do know from the words of our lord Jesus that Abraham did see this fulfillment but not in his life on Earth. Jesus says in John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.
Abraham along with the others accepted the fact that they would only see some of these promises as they lived as strangers and exiles on the earth as the rest of Hebrews 11:13 says. We have already seen back in Hebrews 11:9 that Abraham was one of these that lived this way. Look at what it says in Hebrews 11:9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
We use Abraham as the example because there is so much content on him throughout the Bible but as we will see further down that this is the case for all of these Old Testament saints. Look at what Hebrews 11:39 says And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised.
So we see that they were content to live this way but the question is, what motivated them to live in this way? This is what we will see in our next point.
2.Having faith in our eternal home.
Look with me at Hebrews 11:14-16 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 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.
The writer of Hebrews makes it clear at the beginning of this verse that these people were no doubt looking for a place to call home. I mean we all want a nice home life, we want a place of worship that we can call home, a place that we feel secure and loved but this is not the motivation of our faith as believers. In fact many that lived in this way left a home life that was loving and secure. Some of them had material wealth and living the life that they worked so hard to establish. But God called them away from that life to a life that was pointed towards God’s plan for them.
When I think of this I think of the Lord’s 12 Apostles and how they left everything to follow Christ. The call was to leave the old life behind to never return to the way they were once living. We must make a break with hoping for a life of ease and wealth, and begin to live for the eternal life that we have been so graciously given. This is what we see in Hebrews 11:15 that says If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
So often we think about Lot’s wife that looked back when they were escaping the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as you can read in Genesis 19:1-29. The warning was to not look back and when she did, she was turned into a pillar of salt. Jesus uses her as an example of how we are to not look back at our old lives but look forward to what God is and will be doing in our lives as believers in the future when Jesus returns. We see this in Luke 17:31-33 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. 33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
I also think about how Abraham was sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac among his family. The servant asked if the woman from there was unwilling to go with him then should he go back to his homeland? Look at Abraham’s reply in Genesis 24:6-8 Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there. 7 The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there. 8 But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath of mine; only you must not take my son back there.”
The point is to not return to a life that you once lived but to live by faith in the promises that have been given to us. The people that we have already studied on and will study on in this chapter kept on believing God in spite of not seeing everything come to pass in their life. It isn’t that God wouldn’t fulfill these promises but it was that these people were not concerned with the temporal promises. They looked beyond the temporal to the eternal. Look again at what is said in Hebrews 11:16 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.
What was it that was said of Abraham back in Hebrews 11:10? It says there: For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Paul says in Philippians 3:20-21 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
These Old Testament saints did not have the full revelation of the Messiah and what eternal life would be fully but with what revelation they had, they believed in a dwelling place with God and it was this that they were looking for. It was these promises that was the reason they went through so much persecution and some even executed.
Is this what you live your life for? Would you give up your life to proclaim the truths of God’s promises? Would you trust God even if your life did not go the way you think it should be?
We need to follow in the footsteps of these Old Testament saints and continue to live by faith through whatever trial or persecution we may face. In our next study we will look once again at Abraham, but this time we will see the faith of Abraham as he is faced with a test that proves what real faith looks like.
Disciple's Direction 