Sunday School | Hebrews Part III

Introduction

Alright. We're gonna get started. Thirty seconds. This is gonna be our last week in Hebrews. So you have your Hebrews notes, you can grab them. If not, we have some more up front. But if you don't have them, it's not the end of the world. All right. Alright. Alright. Okay. So you guys were so, so, so close. We've been looking at one book in the Bible, one book in the New Testament every week for the last couple months. But with Hebrews, it's a couple times, I think Romans and John, maybe a couple of times we gave a book two weeks. This is the only time I'm giving any book three weeks because I think Hebrews is so important and it's so complicated, and there's one more really key idea that we didn't get a chance to cover the last two weeks.

So we're going to do one final tap on Hebrews, and then next week we'll do Revelation. We'll give that one also two weeks, but we won't have class on Easter. We will have class on Palm Sunday, we won't have class on Easter, and we're almost done. So in Hebrews, the last section that we haven't really looked at is Hebrews chapter 11. So if you get your Bible, you wanna go there, although we're actually we're gonna get there, but we're not gonna get there right away.

The Main Message of Hebrews

Okay? We have been saying all, you know, the last couple weeks, what's Hebrews about? Jesus is better. Jesus is better. Jesus is better. Okay? And what's the threat? What's the problem? What's the remember, epistles are occasional. And so what's the occasion that has precipitated this treaties on the superiority of Christ? Robin? That's right. Robin's exactly right. People are turning back from following Christ, and so the author of Hebrews is saying, don't abandon him. Don't walk away from him.

What can you possibly find that is better than Jesus? He is better than everything. But if you pay careful attention to the things that he's better than, he's better than all these Jewish things. Right? He's better than Moses. He has a better sacrifice. He went into a better temple. He's better than the angels. Right? And you could, it would be reasonable, it would be wrong, but it would be reasonable if you conclude that in some way he is downstreaming or distancing himself from all the things that God revealed throughout the Old Testament. Right? As we talk about in the main service, like there's this there are these two different modes of being. And you could read this and say that Jesus is better because he's entirely different. He's better in as much as he is unlike what has come before, and that all the old stuff is different and no good, that there's some whole new thing, and that's not what he's saying. Right? He's not in any way, shape, or form saying that stuff was bad, he's simply saying that Jesus is the point of it all. The reality has come. Right? The thing that all of these things under the old covenant, in the Old Testament, throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, was pointing to something, and it was pointing to this, but it was pointing well to this, and there's something good about this. So he's not saying he's not setting up some break from the thing that was old, he's affirming the fulfillment of the thing that was old. Making sense so far? And in particular, the thing that he is going to make be it pains to affirm here in chapter 11 is that they were saved by faith. And we, they then were saved by faith, and we now are saved by faith.

There can be, kind of lurking in our minds, some sense that in the Old Testament, you were saved by your obedience, you were saved by works, you were saved by doing things. And then now, in the New Testament, under the New Covenant, we're saved by grace through faith. And that's not the case. It is, as Paul says, it's by faith from first to last. Okay? Now, he's gonna try to prove that to us. He's gonna demonstrate that. And when he does, he's gonna harken to one of the top two passages in the Old Old Testament on this concept.

Old Testament Foundations of Faith

So think about this with me. If you were to just limit yourself, forget New Testament for a minute, in the Old Testament, it seems to me and whenever I say something like this, somebody shows up with a third one and proves me wrong, but I think that there are two primary texts on faith. Okay? There's not only two, but there are primarily two texts on faith in the Old Testament. Okay? Now again, maybe there's 17 and you're gonna just embarrass me for the next twenty minutes, but I think there are two biggies. What do you guys think are the big passages on faith in the Old Testament, Gary? Genesis, I think, it says Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Okay, this is the foundational passage right here. Okay, Gary is exactly right. If you go to Genesis, in fact, just go ahead and turn to it, just look at it for a second. Genesis 15, Gary quoted it perfectly.

Genesis 15:6

It says that Abram, pre Abraham, but Abram, same dude, Abram believed God and it, namely his belief, was credited to him as righteousness. The New Testament makes hay with that. Okay? Not only this idea that we're saved by faith, but that God uses faith to impute righteousness to us. This is a massively important statement. And you could read through Genesis 15 and just kind of be on your merry way and not notice what an absolute train stopper that is, but the New Testament quotes it over and over and over again. You guys know where the primary place where Paul exegetes Genesis 15? He just goes crazy on it. Romans. It is Romans, good guess. It's Romans four. Go to Romans four for a second. Just look at what he's going to do with this. This idea, Paul is making the case, he's like, we're not making this up. This isn't new. Go to Romans four. This is all over the place. Just look at he's going to basically cite this passage like, I don't know, depending on how you count it, maybe eight times. Just look at this.

Romans 4:3-24

In Romans four, he's going to say, What shall we say that Abraham our forefather discovered in this matter? Okay? If in fact Abraham was justified by works, remember how some people claim they were justified by works, we are justified by faith? Paul says, false. Abraham wasn't justified by works, Abraham was justified by faith. And he quotes Gary's verse here. Look at this, verse three, what does the Scripture say? And then he quotes Abraham, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Then in verse five, he's going to say, his faith is credited as righteousness. In verse 10, under what circumstances was it credited? Later on in verse 11, that righteousness might be credited. In verse 13, through the righteousness that comes by faith, down in verse 22, that is why it was credited to him as righteousness, verse 23, the words it was credited to him, Verse 24, God will credit righteousness. Do you hear that he's just hammering and hammering and hammering? This idea that we can have a righteousness that is imputed to us, it's an external righteousness, it's a foreign righteousness, but we're going to give it to you. And the way you get it is by faith. Paul is like, did you see that? Genesis 15, this is true. It is one of the absolute most foundational concepts that the New Testament carries over from the old. Right? When Paul says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, he wasn't making that up. He was just exegeting Genesis 15.

What's the second one? Catherine first. Wasn't wasn't the whole point that he believed God before he was circumcised? So if he could Yeah. Circumcised of the law, wouldn't that represent the law? Catherine, that's a little bit of the kind of the second step. When Paul wrote Romans, he was writing specifically to a mixed congregation. There were Jews and there were Gentiles. So as he writes everything he's writing in Roman, sometimes he's talking to the Jews, then he turns to the Gentiles, then he turns to the Jews, then he turns to the Gentiles. And right here, knowing that the Jews might be like, well, cares what Abraham thought? He wasn't my father. He says, Oba, time out. All you Gentiles did I say Jews? I meant Gentiles all you Gentiles should not tune me out because notice the time that Abraham had his righteousness credited to him through his faith, he was at that moment still uncircumcised. So Paul goes on to argue, so he is the father of the Jews who were circumcised and have an imputed righteousness, and he is the father of those who weren't circumcised but still have a righteousness imputed by faith. Paul is just incredibly interested in being very inclusive to Jews and Gentiles alike. So that's kind of the argument he makes there in Romans four.

We have an imputed righteousness, and it's true for those of you that have a Jewish heritage, it's true for those of you that don't, we have an imputed righteousness.

What's the second biggie? And this one would be not only not only did Paul love this one, Paul's going to cite this one too, others will cite it. Martin Luther cited it, if that's a hint for you. Do you know the other big one? It's more obscure than Genesis 15. Anybody know? By the way, Hebrews is gonna cite this one too, if you're keeping score. It's in like most maybe one of the most obscure books in the New Testament. It's in the minor prophets, and it starts with h. Yeah. And nobody knows how to not Haggai, good guess. It's even more obscure than that. So it's the one that we always make fun of how to say it. It's Habakkuk, Habakkuk, whatever. Poor guy, nobody knows. Right? Listen to it. Tell me if you recognize this. This is yeah. Habakkuk 2:4. It says, see, he is puffed up, his desires are not upright, but the righteous will live by his faith. Paul is going to make hay on that one too. Look at go to go to Romans one as he builds his whole I mean, he literally hangs the entire case of Romans on this verse. If you go to Romans one. Let's see. Let me get there. Verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. See Catherine, he's always talking to both, right? Verse 17, for in the gospel a righteousness from God, not to God. Every other religion in the world is righteousness to God. Look at what I did, aren't I a good boy? For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. Martin Luther read that passage, and it absolutely changed the world. When he read this, he's like, the righteous live by faith. It's by faith. It's by faith, not by works. Right? This claim right here, this is from this obscure little book in the Minor Prophets, this claim gets made. And Paul quotes it in Romans one and two Corinthians five and Galatians two. In fact, to Galatians, let's do that one. Go to Galatians two. That's another big one. You shouldn't be every surprised if something shows up in Galatians two in Galatians that also shows up in Romans because these two books are so incredibly similar.

Galatians 2:20

Let's see, where do I wanna find this? We'll go we'll go we'll pick it up in 02/20. For I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith. That line right there, I live by faith, that's Habakkuk two. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing. And then he's going go on and he's going make this argument here in Galatians three six, consider Abraham, back to the first one, he believed God and it was credited to him as a righteousness. And then down here in three eleven, clearly no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous will live by faith. And right there in Galatians three, Paul gives us both of them. Genesis Genesis 15 and Habakkuk two, there is a faith that imputes righteousness, and then there is a faith by which the righteous live. We're saved by faith.

The Theology of Faith in Hebrews

Okay? Now, with those those two major major concepts in the Old Testament get ported over to the New, and then we really build our whole theology of salvation on that concept, that there's such a thing as an imputed righteousness based on faith. And the author of Hebrews, who has been saying Jesus is better, he is better, he is better, he is better, don't hear him saying that this is different, that this is new, that this is other. And so he is going go back and do this whole chapter of Hebrews 11, he's going to build the case. He's like, they were saved by faith, and this guy was saved by faith, and this woman was saved by faith, and they were all saved by faith. This is nothing new. That's the argument he's making here in chapter 11.

So I lose anybody already or did somebody raise their hand? I feel like I saw something flicker. Chris? When he quotes it in Hebrews, Habakkuk two four, the Hebrews ten thirty eight. Yes. I I get a different kind of way that the author of Hebrews writes. Okay. So let Well, yes. So we're gonna So let's let's look at it. So when we come to Hebrews 11, this is what we call the hall of faith, it's going be by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith. The set up for it is the last paragraph of chapter 10. So go to Hebrews 11 and then just scroll up just a little bit. Take a look.

Hebrews 10:35-39

So he's going to say this, this is consistent with the whole argument of remember this warning, he's like, don't walk away from him, don't abandon him. He's going to say, don't throw away in verse 35, don't throw away your confidence, it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere, so that when you've done the will of God, you will receive what he's promised. This is all what we talked about last week. For just a very little while, he was coming, will come, and will not delay, but here it is, my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.

We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe, and because we believe are saved. That's the case that he's making here. Okay? So he's picking back up on the same argument that Paul launches out of Romans, that shows up again in Galatians, shows up all over the place, and now he's saying, we live by faith, and we keep living by faith. We don't shrink back, we don't bail out, we finish the game, don't abandon him, lean in, stay in the game. Okay? That's the case that he's making. And then, he's gonna define faith. Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. The ancients meaning, see, this isn't new, this is what we've been doing for a long time.

And then he starts through this list, and the list is really pretty extraordinary. He's arguing all of these characters from the Old Testament, one right after another, that every one of them had some concept similar to Genesis 15. Every one of them understood that the central thing that God is inviting us to do is to trust him. It's a little, honestly, it's a little bit surprising to me. But it's something that I learned a long time ago and have been kind of in that, I believe, helped me in my unbelief state for most of my life. You guys? Yes. God loves faith. He loves it. It's his favorite thing. He is like the father. You know, remember when you're a dad in the pool and you're trying to get your kid to jump, and the kid is on the edge, and he's like, he might jump, but he might not. She's thinking about it, but that water looks cold. You know that feature? And the dad's like, I'm just gonna catch you. Promise, just jump. Just trust me. Like, just just stop it. Come. Trust me. Okay. He like, his orientation towards us is is that he loves it when we trust him. He loves so much. Think about this. That he has made literally the best and sweetest and most necessary thing in your life dependent upon it. Dependent. He could have said any number of things. It could have been, if you love well, for by grace we've been saved through loving people, For by grace you've been saved through obedience, through generosity, through any number of things. But the hook for everything, The one thing upon which all things depend is, will you trust me? When there's a gap between what I'm telling you and what you can prove, will you step into it? He loves faith. And that's bad news if you're given to fear. That's bad news if you don't trust him. That's hard news if you're like, yeah, I'd like the money up front, please. Right? He loves it when we walk by faith. And this is something, I mean, I'm what am I? 50? Two? Three? How old am I? What year is this? I'm 53. And I've been walking with Jesus for, I don't know, about thirty five years. And along the way, there are moments where I trust him. And honestly, there are categories where I trust him. But then there are categories where I don't trust him. There are categories where fear is greater than faith.

The Personal Struggle with Faith

I was in Fetz's truck the other night, and I was just talking to him, and that's a scary place to be, if you've ever been there. Right? I was just telling him that several months ago, maybe six months ago, I I was reading here in Romans four, a different part of Romans four, but Romans four says that Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God. He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in faith and gave glory to God. And then here's the last little bit, being fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he has promised. There's three p's in there, if that helps you remember it. He was fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he has promised. And when I read it I've never read it a million times, but when I read it, whatever, six months ago, I was struck like, if I dropped dead today and somebody chipped that into my tombstone, Tim Henderson, who did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God. That man should be shot and killed because it would not be true. Okay? Like, it's just not true. I waver through unbelief all the time. I'm constantly afraid of one thing or another. I am not fully persuaded. I mean, but I'm not fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he has promised. And so I have thought about that about a thousand times in the last few months and recited that to myself. Said, Lord, would you make me that person? Would you make me be the kind of a person that is fully persuaded that you have the power to do what you have promised? Would you help me be the sort of creature that does not waver through unbelief? I don't necessarily recommend you do that because it seems that when you do that, my my limited ex experiment on that is that he's like, okay. Let's go. And the only way that you develop faith is by withholding the thing that you want. Right? So that might have been a strategic error on my part, but maybe, right, maybe it'll be worth what it costs if on the other side of all things, we're like, I have become the sort of a man, sort of a woman that really trusts him. Because I'm telling you right now, he loves faith. Okay?

Examples of Faith from Hebrews 11

So what you're gonna find, if we skim through Hebrews 11 yes? That you just put. Like 16 times. Yeah. Romans four twenty and twenty one. Okay. Romans four twenty and twenty one. Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God. Now in Hebrews 11, you're gonna get this extraordinary cast of characters. And in fact, if you go back to the front here, you go to the very front if you have your Hebrews notes, and it's fine if you don't. When I list that the author of Hebrews relies on all these characters, he talks about Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Melchizedek, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Judah, Levi, all these people, most of them are Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 is this all-star cast. We're not going to look at all of them, but if we just scrolled through, in fact, can pick one. Alright? If you were to run through these, and we look at this one, we'll just do—you want to do Enoch? We'll do Enoch in a second. Let's look at Abel because it's the first one that caught my eye. Hebrews 11:4

By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man when God spoke well of his offerings, and by faith he still speaks even though he's dead.

Now you could just read that and then just keep moving, or you could be like, well hang on a second, what is that about? When you read through Hebrews, it's an invitation to go back to this Old Testament story and see what was that Abel story about.

So let's just play this game. By faith, Abel offered a better sacrifice. So load into your brain, what's the story of Abel's sacrifice? What's that about? Can somebody give me like the twenty-second version here? Robin?

Well, he offered the best of his flock and the fat offerings, but he must have—I’ve always wondered. I guess they already knew that it had to be a blood sacrifice because of what God did in the garden.

That's exactly right. He covered it. Yes. So He ordered that where and Boris kinda felt sergeant Cain, you know, he brought something, but that was just it. He just brought something. He didn't follow what God's pattern had been.

Robin is seeing this at a more advanced level than people tend to read the story, but she's exactly right. So Cain and Abel's story, Cain brings like a carrot or something, and Abel offers a sheep. We don't know what kind of animal, we don't know what kind of vegetable, but it's a fruit, you know, vegetable offering and then an animal offering. And God looks with pleasure on the sheep and not on the carrot. And people are like, well, that's too bad for the guy that was a carrot farmer. Like, what, you know, what he wanted to do?

Okay, well here's what he wanted to do. There's a pattern that Abel picked up on, because Abel was paying attention, and Abel was leaning in. Remember, in the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned, and God said, if you sin, you will die. Well, they did sin, but they didn't die, but they covered themselves. So Adam and Eve's instinct, okay, we have a problem here, let's solve the problem with a vegetable leaf. Right? And God walks into the garden and says, like, that's never going to work. Let me give you a garment of skin. But of course, you don't get garments of skin unless you kill something. And so I told you that if you did this, you would die, and I'm going to amend the rules. Somebody will die. But it doesn't have to be you. And they cover them, he covers them with garments, saying, your vegetable solutions are insufficient, something has to die. And then you turn the page, and somebody says, here's a vegetable. And somebody else says, here's a dead animal. And God says, this is what I'm talking about. What Cain misunderstood was that sin required a death sacrifice. What Abel realized was like, I don't exactly know all that's going on here, but it seems that you rest this one didn't die because somebody else died, and so can I offer you a sacrifice? And according to Hebrews, it was by faith, trusting what the Lord was going to do, that he makes that.

Now, his faith, think about this, Abel's faith puts ours to shame. Because though they were all saved by faith, they were saved by faith in what God would do about which they had the vaguest, sketchiest details. We are saved by faith in what God has done, and it's all been explained to us ad nauseam. Right? We have faith in what we know where it happened, when it happened, how it happened, why it happened. We have this giant corpus of data to help us understand it, and all we have to do is be like, okay, I agree with you, I trust that's what you did. Abel, he's like looking through a pinhole on this vague idea of, I don't know, death, sin is death, so I'll kill an animal, maybe that will work. And he trusted the Lord and worked. That's the story of Abel. Abel was a guy that with very little information said, Okay, if that's what pleases you, I will do it. I don't know how that's going to work. He couldn't possibly foresee. I bet someday you're to incarnate yourself as a human being, come live in first-century Roman. I mean, none of that was accessible to him. He just knew that God said, sin equals death, sin equals death, sin equals death. But it doesn't have to be your death, it can be somebody else's. And he said, alright, if that's how the game works, that's how we'll play the game. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. Okay? That's just that verse.

We can go down through it, and we can look at each one of these characters. We can say, what was going on in the Enoch story? What was going on in Moses' story? What was going on in each person? What did they have? What was available to them? What did they trust him in? What did they believe? And how did God honor their faith? It wasn't comprehensive knowledge, but it was enough for them to say, okay, Lord. Alright. I'll do it. I don't I don't know what you're doing, but I will follow you through it. They were all saved by faith, if they were saved at all. Make sense?

Okay. Who do got here? Kelly.

This might be stating the obvious, so sorry. But when Paul's doing this, he's doing it chronologically too through Israel's history. That's right. Talk about the whole entire, you know, King's history and all that. But it's just a part of his really the case. Like, I don't know. I I just didn't realize it was crumbling. It is. It's good to give you random stories, random all these fun stories, they're actually, logically inserted in their essay. It's the entire history. It's following the flow. Kelly's exactly right. Now, although Kelly said, when Paul does this dot dot dot, might have been Paul, might not have been Paul. Don't know if it was Paul or not. But whoever did it is doing it. And he does, just like Kelly says, he's going to run out of steam. He's doing this thing. Remember, this is a sermon. He's like, okay, we've to wrap this up. Then he compresses at the end. Right? But he gets it, if you look, if you go through, his history essentially makes it through not very far. He doesn't make it out of the Pentateuch. Right? By the time he wraps this thing up, he's at Rahab, for crying out loud. Right? He doesn't doesn't make it past, like he's not even through the Exodus here really, or through the, you know, getting them into the Promised Land.

Hebrews 11:31

By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Right? So, yes, it's chronological, but it's only the very beginning, and then he just jams a bunch of stuff at the end.

Examples of Faith from Hebrews 11

Speaking of jamming stuff at the end, let's pick one. Anybody want to pick one character that we'll just kind of explore a little bit? You can, if you want to. I'll give you a shot. Catherine, you can name it. Which one?

Well, Noah is the craziest one from the event. Okay, let's look at Noah. So Noah's going to be early in the game, in verse 7.

Hebrews 11:7

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

What is there anything about that that strikes you in particular? That what it would take for him to do what God is telling him to do.

Right. That's the first thing. It's so it's such an unusual circumstance. It may be the case, it's hard to know exactly, that Noah, maybe he never even saw it rain. He certainly had never seen a flood. And God says, build. He doesn't really tell him to build a boat. Do you know that? He tells him to build a box. An ark is a box, it's not a travel vessel. It doesn't have a motor on it. Know? He's like, build a floaty thing, but it's not really it's not a travel vessel. It doesn't have a motor on it. Know? He's like, build a floaty thing and then get in the floaty thing, and then it'll rain. And it probably takes him like a hundred years to build it. An extraordinary act of faith. Right? But it is the thing that saves the seed of his people right there.

There are a whole bunch of characters. He's Rahab in there. What is she doing there? It's amazing, the people that make the list, and amazing the people who don't make the list. Somebody said once, I forget who this was, but he says, when I get to heaven, I expect to be surprised by three things. Who's there? Who's not there? That I'm there. Right? Who is on the list? Right? It's just just crazy.

Okay. But then, here's what I want you to see. We'll spend our last couple minutes. As he goes through his list, Rahab's the last one who gets a little bit of explanation, and then he compresses it down, and then something important happens in the compressing down. Alright? Take a look. Go to verse 32.

Hebrews 11:32

And what more shall I say? I don't have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah. What book is that? Judges. Okay. We finally made it out of the Pentateuch. We're going into Judges. Okay. Or David, Samuel, the prophets. Where are we now? First Samuel. Samuel, maybe in Chronicles. Right? The prophets, and now the prophets could be all the prophets. Who? Listen to this. Verse 33, I want you to listen to a transition point. Listen for a transition point. I don't have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets who, through faith, because this whole thing is through faith, conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength, who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead raised to life again.

Others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

Did you notice the transition? Where does it split? What verse is it?

Hebrews 11:35

Where does it split? Five. 36. Right in 35 you get the word others. Everybody above that was victorious. They conquered kingdoms, they administered justice, they gained what was promised, they shut the mouths of lions, they quenched the fear of the flames, they escaped the edge of the sword, their weaknesses turned to strength, became powerful in battle, they routed foreign armies, even their dead were raised. It's victory, victory, victory, victory, victory. By faith, they won. And we're like, yes, that's what I'm looking for.

Then it says, others were tortured. They refused to be released. They faced jeers flogging. They were chained. They were put in prison. They were stoned. Implication, to death. They were sawed in two. That kills you. They were put to death by the sword. They were destitute.

You guys, what he's saying here is that the journey of faith and living by faith is not a promise of victory here and now. Sometimes, you get thrown into the fire and God shows up, and you come out and you don't even smell like smoke. Sometimes, you get thrown into the fire and you suffer an agonizing death. And these are both part of the game. And I know, believe me, every one of us is like top half, top half, top half, top half. Right? Don't you want to win? Don't you want to have a great story of resurrection? Don't you want to have, like, just kick butt all day every day? But some of us will walk by faith through enormous pain. Some of us will walk by faith and not receive what was promised here in this world.

Take a look at this. Verse 39. Well, we'll get a little bit of context.

Hebrews 11:39

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them, not even the top half, ultimately received what had been promised. God planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

You guys, the victories are little victories. They are not the thing for which we wait. The blessed hope, the thing for which we look and long, is not getting the job, or getting the promotion, or getting the girl, or getting the diagnosis. The blessed hope is the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, to redeem us from all wickedness, and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Whatever you're trusting him for, Lord, just would you show up, would you come through with a phone call from the doctor, with a phone call from the employer, with whatever the whatever the yes, we we Lord, would you do this? Would you do this? Would you do this? Would you do this? There's a million things. We're like, oh, Lord, please, by faith. But the thing that comes through all of them and is at the end of all of them is none of them. It is that he is coming and we will get him. He's the prize. He's the thing that we're waiting for.

And all of your little failures, all the times when the phone doesn't ring, and the problem is not solved, where there is no escape, and when you are cast into the furnace, and the son of God is not there like he was with Daniel's friends. It's only a small loss. The one that was sawed in two, do you know who was do you know who he's talking about? Who was sawed in two in this little list? I know. It's Isaiah. Did you know this? Isaiah, you guys, Isaiah, maybe no one in the entire Old Testament, maybe no one prior to the time of Christ had as keen an insight into the nature of God's salvation than Isaiah. I think Isaiah is the high watermark, certainly Isaiah 53. If it's not, I don't know what's superior to Isaiah 53. His insight into what the Messiah would be and do was so extraordinary. God's hand was on his life. He was God's chosen instrument. God revealed to him secrets that he had revealed to no one else so that he might reveal to us. Isaiah was a big, big, big, big deal.

And yet, as successful and as important and as privileged as you might think that would be, he was under the gun from a wicked king. He hid inside a hollow tree trunk, was discovered, and the tree knowingly cut down with him in it. The dude was literally sawed in half. And you might have thought, but you're you're Isaiah. You're the you're a top hafer. You're the guy God's blessing on your life suggests top half. You don't know you don't know who's gonna be top half, who's gonna be bottom half. You just don't know. But Isaiah's agony in that moment has been and will yet be richly compensated. Because when the Messiah comes and raises the dead and restores all things, Isaiah will be there to be sure.

Right? In fact, Isaiah is presently with the Lord. Because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Right? And the good stuff is still coming. So, you guys, we walk by faith. We walk by faith that God will be with us in these little victories and in these little losses that I know sometimes feel quite large. My own losses feel enormous to me. But we look through them to the end of the game, and by faith, because God loves it when we trust him, we're waiting that he's coming back. He will restore all things, and it'll take us to be with him. That's the blessed hope. That's what we're waiting for.

And I think that's what the author of Hebrews wants us to see, that we would be like them. Because we are surrounded by these others that have walked by faith, we're like, alright, fine. I will walk by faith. I will be the kind of man, I will be the kind of woman, I will be the kind of child that will say, Lord, don't know what the circumstances are pointing to, but I'm just gonna trust you. Then number one, everything will be okay. But number two, if it's not, then that will be okay. Then I'm gonna trust you to the very end of the whole game. That's what he's inviting us to do. He loves it when we trust him, walk by faith. That's all for Hebrews. We'll do Revelation next week. Good enough? Alright.