The Focus of Faith | Hebrews 11:8-22
Brian Hedges | January 26, 2025
For the sermon, turn this morning to Hebrews 11.
While you’re turning there, I want to read a quotation to you from the sociologist Christian Smith, who is drawing a contrast between the hopes of modernity, people in the modern world, kind of in the post-Christian world, and it’s a contrast with the hope that we have in the gospel, the hope of Christianity. Christian Smith says,
“To make everything new, to leave behind the past, to be unbound by any tradition, to enjoy maximum choice, to be free from any constraint, to be able to buy whatever one can afford, to live however one desires—that is the guiding vision of modernity’s spiritual project. It is spiritual, not merely ideological or cultural, because it names what is sacrosanct, an ultimate concern, a vision for what is most worthy in a sense that transcends any individual life.”
That’s a powerful description of the hopes of many people in the modern world. And maybe you read that list and even some of those things kind of resonate with you. I mean, all of us want to live with freedom. All of us want to have a certain degree of success and prosperity in our lives.
But if that’s the guiding vision of your life, as it is the guiding vision of so many people in the modern world, it doesn’t take much thinking to realize that that vision can only take you so far, because what’s missing from that vision is any kind of hope beyond the walls of this world, any kind of hope beyond death, any hope for life beyond this present life. It’s a very short-sighted vision—a vision for health and prosperity and freedom and so on, but a vision that falls short of the Christian vision.
Smith points out how this modern vision of hope is like a spiritual pursuit, promising ultimate fulfillment through autonomy, consumption, and endless self-reinvention. But as attractive as it is in the short term, it offers no solid hope in the face of suffering and death.
But the gospel of Jesus Christ does offer us that hope, and we see that hope supremely in the letter to the Hebrews that we have been studying together. Let me remind you of the basic context of this letter. It’s written to Jewish Christians, people who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, who are now beginning to suffer for their faith. Some of them have had their goods plundered. Some of them have been locked into prison. They are facing even the possibility of shedding their blood. So there’s the temptation, in the midst of this suffering, in the midst of this persecution, to pull back from faith in Jesus and from worship of Jesus as the Messiah and to go back to old covenant worship. And the author, in the face of those temptations, is saying, “Don’t turn away from Jesus. Jesus is better than everything that came before. Jesus is supreme. All of God’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus. Therefore, hold fast the confession of your hope and the confidence of your faith. Hold fast to the end.”
In this letter, he gives us Hebrews 11, which we’ve been studying together for the last couple of weeks. It’s really just a chapter full of illustration and application, illustration of those who went before, a gallery of Old Testament saints who lived by faith in the promises of God, leading to this exhortation that we also are to run the race of faith, the race that’s set before us, with our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.
So far, we’ve looked at the first seven verses together. Today, we’re going to take a slightly larger chunk of text, Hebrews 11:8-22, and the focus today is on the faith of the patriarchs or the fathers. And, especially, we’re looking at Abraham and his family, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And as we look through the passage, notice here the emphasis on the promise, on the inheritance, and notice the future focus or orientation of their faith.
Hebrews 11, beginning in verse 8.
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
“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. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 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.
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.”
This is God’s word.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that there is a tension in Hebrews 11 and a tension that I’ve kind of touched on so far in this series. It’s a tension between a faith that is not blind, it’s not a leap in the dark, but it is faith that is oriented to the future fulfillment of God’s promises.
In other words, this faith is not an irrational faith. It’s based on the promises of God. It’s rooted in God’s revelation of himself and of his will and his plan in the word of God, but it is faith which is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). It’s faith that is focused on the future fulfillments of God’s promises; not an irrational faith, but not based on sense experience and not time-bound. It’s rather faith that’s rooted in these eternal promises, promises that take our vision beyond this present world as it is.
That’s the thread that holds together this section in Hebrews 11 on the faith of the fathers—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph—the future orientation of their faith. And as we look at this passage, I want us to see three things, three things that their example teaches us to do. I’ll word these as exhortations for us.
1. Trust in the Covenant Promises
2. Look for the Better City
3. Hope in the Resurrection
That’s what the life of faith calls us to: to trust in the covenant promises, to look for the better city, and to hope in the future resurrection.
1. Trust in the Covenant Promises
Just notice in the text the focus on the promises of God. Maybe you notice the language here of promise or promises. I think the word is used five times in this passage. You can see it in verses 8-9.
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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.”
You also have the word “promises” in verse 17. So the language here of promise and promises of an inheritance, of being heirs of an inheritance, and even, in the latter half of the passage, the language about blessing as Jacob and Joseph blessed their sons or their grandsons—even that language is language that connects to the promise.
Of course, the specific promise in mind was God’s covenant promise made to Abraham back in Genesis. There are a number of places in Genesis where you see those promises, where the covenant is made and ratified and reaffirmed. You see it in Genesis 15 and in Genesis 17 and in Genesis 22.
But especially think of Genesis 12, when Abraham first received that call to leave Ur of the Chaldeans and to go into a land that God would show him. And God essentially made four promises to him. He said that he would give him land, he would lead them into this land of promise; he would give him a son, and he would make his descendants this great nation; he would protect him, and he would bless him and make him a blessing to all the nations.
Hebrews is now highlighting how Abraham obeyed in faith, trusting in those covenant promises from God even though those promises were far from being immediately fulfilled. In fact, the text tells us that they did not receive the things that were promised, but they saw them and greeted them from a distance. They saw them and greeted them from afar.
And you look at the story of Abraham in those Genesis narratives, and what you see is that Abraham never receives the land. He never receives the promised land. He lives in tents his entire life. He’s a nomadic wanderer, constantly uprooted, constantly on the move. The only piece of land that Abraham ever actually has is the plot of land he purchases to bury his wife, Sarah. That’s the only piece of land Abraham ever actually owns.
He waits years and years and years for the promised son, Isaac. It seems like that promise will never be fulfilled. Yet Abraham lives by faith, trusting in the promises of God and just walking one step at a time. Just one step at a time, trusting in God even though he’s not seeing the fulfillment of these promises. This means that his whole life was marked by waiting.
Brothers and sisters, the life of faith is like this. It is a life of waiting as we trust in the promises of God.
Dale Ralph Davis tells a story of an unforgettable sermon that was preached by an elderly minister named Doctor Johnston Jeffrey, preached to students at the Glasgow Bible Training Institute. Dr. Jeffrey at this time was near the end of his life. He was so weak that when he read the main passage, Psalm 139, by the time he got through reading the text, he seemed exhausted from the reading. Then he preached a sermon in three short, halting sentences. He said, “Young people often have problems with guidance for the future.” Long, long pause. Then he said, “God will always give you strength or give you light, enough light to take one more step.” Another long pause. “Take that step.” And then he sat down.
That’s a pretty good sermon. The life of faith is often like that. We need guidance, we need help, and God gives us just enough light to take the next step, and the life of faith is taking the next step, trusting in God even when we don’t see the full and complete fulfillment of his promises.
You might think, “Well, Abraham had specific promises from God. They don’t apply to me.” Right? “God hasn’t promised me a piece of real estate or descendants as numerous as the stars.”
No, but listen. God has also called us to live by faith in his promises. And walking by faith means trusting in God’s promises in the daily struggles and stresses of finances and relationships and suffering, even while we wait for final redemption. That’s what the life of faith looks like for you and me.
So if you’re facing financial stress and you’re worried about how to make ends meet or how to pay the bills, you trust in the promise of God. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” “Remember that your Father knows what you need before you ask, and your Father clothes the grass of the field. Will he not much more clothe you, oh you of little faith?” You trust in the promises of God to take care of you even while you seek his kingdom and his righteousness.
Or if you are discouraged by deeply challenging family relationships—maybe you’ve been hurt by the failure of a parent or the betrayal of a spouse, maybe you’re worried sick over a prodigal son or daughter—what do you do with that?
You root yourself in a chapter like Romans 8 and you remember that nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus your Lord, and that God has promised to work all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. You root yourself in the love of God, and you trust him to carry you through.
Or if you are afraid of suffering and you’re anxious about growing old or getting sick or eventually facing death, you remember these words:
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43:2-3).
Or, it may be easier to remember the words of that old hymn by (I think it was) John Rippon, based on Isaiah 43.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be near thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”
“The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”
That’s the life of faith. It’s trusting in those promises of God to carry us through, one step at a time, while we wait for final redemption. That was the kind of life that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph lived, and it’s the kind of life that we are called to live.
But listen; they were on this journey, but it wasn’t a journey to nowhere. It wasn’t an aimless journey. They were headed somewhere. They were looking for something. They were looking for a city.
2. Look for the Better City
That’s the second exhortation for us this morning, to look for the better city. Look at verse 10. “For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” And then in verses 13-16, you see the same thing.
It emphasizes that they were strangers and exiles here. Right? They were strangers and exiles, but they were seeking a homeland, a better country, a heavenly one. And verse 16 says, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”
In other words, these wandering nomads who were still waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises were living as pilgrims. They were living as strangers and exiles, and they were looking for something that was still in the future, something still to come.
Of course, this heavenly city that they were looking for, this city built and made by God, represents our final destination as well. It represents that final fulfillment of all God’s promises, when the city of God will come down from heaven to earth, where God will make his home with us, where there will be a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth, and all will be be renewed, and we will live in a place of eternal joy and justice and peace and rest.
As we look for that city now, it should shape the way we walk by faith, because we’re also exiles. We’re also pilgrims on a journey to a new world. Hebrews 13:14, which I read in the assurance of pardon this morning, says, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” We’re living for something beyond this world. And in your heart of hearts, you know that you’re made for something greater than this world.
C.S. Lewis tapped into this desire in that famous quote from Mere Christianity. “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” You’re made for something more than what you’re experiencing right now. Therefore, we’re called to look for the better city.
This applies to our lives in a number of ways. This pilgrim perspective frees us from the idolatry of worldly success. It reorients our priorities and it reminds us of our true citizenship.
There is a temptation for all of us to cling to worldly success, to be focused on accumulation, to be focused on consumption, to be focused on gaining the riches of this world, gaining financial security, gaining the esteem of colleagues or peers or friends or whatever. But when we have this pilgrim perspective, we hold those things more loosely. We work hard at our jobs, for sure, but we hold those things more loosely, and we recognize that we’re really called to live for something greater than that.
I think of the stories of the great missionaries and martyrs who were willing to give up everything in order to pursue Christ and to seek the kingdom of God. Think of William Borden. He was the heir to this vast fortune; he chose to give up his fortune in worldly success to become a missionary to China, and he famously wrote in his Bible after giving all that up, “No reserves.” And when he got on the mission field he wrote another sentence, “No retreats.” And by the end of his life he wrote the third sentence, “No regrets.” No reserves, no retreats, no regrets.
The life of faith should call us to the same kind of mentality, whether we’re on a mission field in another country or not, but we’re willing to give up anything for Christ. It reorients our priorities as well, so that we’re not just caught up in merely temporal concerns. We’re called to set our minds on things above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2).
That means instead of obsessing about all the temporal concerns, we pour our energy into relationships and into gospel ministry and into acts of justice and kindness. We’re seeking the good of others. And even in our vocations, that’s what we’re doing. We’re seeking to invest our lives in others, to be a blessing to them.
This pilgrim perspective also reminds us of our true citizenship. Brothers and sisters, when we remember that, we will be less likely to get overly entangled with partisan politics, which is such a temptation in our world today. We will instead find our primary purpose and unity and our shared citizenship in the kingdom of God.
Now listen; I know that we should be concerned with injustice in the world. I know that we should be concerned about moral issues, and that will affect the way we engage in the public sphere. I’m not denying that.
But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we await a Savior, Jesus Christ. We belong to another kingdom.
Imagine the testimony of a church where believers across the political spectrum can worship and serve together because they recognize their shared identity in the eternal kingdom of God. We have a higher citizenship. We’re looking for a new city, a better city. This is part of the life of faith.
3. Hope in the Resurrection
Abraham’s faith was anchored in the covenant promises of God, his faith pointed him to this better city, but that faith also sustained him with hope in the face of death, the hope of future resurrection. That’s point number three: hope in the resurrection.
Again, if you look at the passage, you can see how the passage here highlights the resurrection hope, the hope of life out of death, that sustained all these different characters.
So Abraham and Sarah’s faith, even in conceiving Isaac. They conceive Isaac by faith. And it’s faith in the one who is faithful, the one who promised and who is faithful, who is able to bring life out of a barren womb.
Then, when Abraham is given this great test, the supreme test of his faith, to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Remember this in Genesis 22? God tells him to “offer your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, offer him as a burnt offering to me, a burnt sacrifice to me.”
Now, we know, of course, that God didn’t really want that in particular. There are many other passages in the Old Testament where God made clear He abhorred anything like human sacrifice. But it was a test of faith for Abraham, to see whether Abraham loved God more than he loved his son, and whether he trusted God even when everything that God had promised seemed to be at stake, because all of God’s promises are now centered in Isaac. Here’s the promised son. He’s finally here. And God is saying, are you willing to give that up?
Remember that Abraham was willing to do so, and Hebrews 11:19 tells us why. Because it says “he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.”
Of course, God provided the ram caught in the thicket, and Isaac was spared, a wonderful type of Jesus Christ, who is the substitute for us. But in this passage, the focus is on Abraham’s confidence that God could raise the dead. It’s resurrection hope.
Then, even when Jacob and Joseph bless their sons and grandsons on their deathbeds—you have that with Isaac and Jacob, and then Joseph giving instruction about his bones—in all of those cases, they are looking at something that will last beyond their death. They’re at the end of their lives. They’re looking at something that will last beyond death. Why does Joseph give instruction about his bones? “Take them to the promised land.” Because he has confidence that this promise is yet to be realized. It’s resurrection hope. It just runs like a thread through this passage.
The applications, I think, are pretty obvious to us.
(1) This hope frees us from the fear of death. The hope of resurrection frees us from the fear of death. When we really grasp the reality of the resurrection, the sting of death loses its power. Remember 1 Corinthians 15—Paul’s words—“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Because for the believer, death is not the terminal point of the journey. Death is a doorway into life, life with God.
Some of you will recognize the name of D.A. Carson, Don Carson. I’ve quoted him many times here. He’s a famous New Testament scholar who taught for years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He’s one of the cofounders of The Gospel Coalition.
Sadly, Carson is now older in life and has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and it’s gotten bad enough now that an email went out recently saying that Carson has now had to completely withdraw from any kind of public ministry. He’s no longer able to take speaking engagements or teaching or preaching engagements. But that same email also quoted Carson as saying that “this Parkinson’s is nothing that a good resurrection won’t fix.” That’s the kind of faith that we’re called to: faith that will sustain us in the face of our mortality.
(2) The hope of resurrection also gives us comfort in our grief. Sometimes it’s harder to face the death of a loved one even than to face our own mortality. What is it that gives us comfort in the face of grief? Again, it’s the resurrection. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 that “we do not grieve as those who have no hope, because we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and he will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” Death for the Christian is just sleep, and there will be this morning when the saints will be reawakened. They will return with Jesus.
I don’t think before this morning I’d ever shared this experience, this story. In the years after my mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, but before she died, I had a recurring dream. It wasn’t often, but occasionally I’d have a dream.
I’d have a dream that she had been cured. I’d have a dream that somehow she’d been healed. It wasn’t a dream that she had never had the sickness, it was that we got her back. There was this palpable sense in the dream that “we’ve got Mom back.” I could have a conversation with her. She recognizes me again. Of course, I would inevitably wake up, and there would be that slow dawning realization that it was just a dream.
But someday, friends, the promise of the resurrection is that someday, she will wake up, I will wake up, and all of this will be the dream. And the new reality will be the reality of restored life, a restored mind, a restored body, and reunion and eternal joy together.
There’s a famous passage in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov where Ivan says,
“I have a childlike conviction that the sufferings will be healed and smoothed over, that the whole offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear like a pitiful mirage, and that ultimately, at the world’s finale, in the moment of eternal harmony, there will occur and be revealed something so precious that it will suffice for all hearts, to allay all indignation, to redeem all human villainy, all bloodshed. It will suffice not only to make forgiveness possible but also to justify everything that has happened with men.”
Brothers and sisters, someday that will be reality. Someday, we will know that that is so, that the Lord has done all things well, and that Christ, in the power of his resurrection life, will make all things new. Therefore, this hope gives us boldness.
It calls us to live boldly, knowing that our labor for the lord is not in vain. Again, 1 Corinthians 15, this great resurrection chapter, ends with this charge: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
That means that everything you do in the name of Christ and for Christ and out of love and for others, it’s not in vain. When you serve in children’s ministry, it’s not in vain. When you give to meet the needs of the poor, you distribute food to the hungry, that’s not in vain. When you share the gospel, you just plant this gospel seed, and you don’t know if there’s going to be fruit or not, but you’re just pointing someone who doesn’t believe to your hope in Jesus, that’s not in vain. There’s going to be a harvest, and everything that we have done and suffered in the name of Jesus will be found to have been meaningful. It’s not in vain.
That will give us strength to keep on going when we’re tired and weary. That will give us hope to persevere when we are sad and discouraged. That will give us joy in the midst of our sorrows and our sufferings. It will help us continue.
So, brothers and sisters, to summarize, the faith of the fathers points us to the faithfulness of God. His promises are sure, his city is better, his power over death is unmatched. Let us, therefore, live as people of faith, trusting in God’s promises, looking for that eternal city and holding fast to the hope of future resurrection.
But don’t let this just remain abstract in your life. Instead, take these promises and rub them deep down into the pores of your soul and apply them to today’s stresses, to today’s burdens, to today’s concerns. Rub them deep into your heart so that they give you hope and joy for today in the face of fear or loss or despair or anything else that you’re facing, and reorient your mind and your heart around the hope that’s promised in the gospel.
And if you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, but something in this message today has resonated in your heart, and you know that, like Lewis, you’re made for something more than this world; let me encourage you, turn your eyes to Jesus, trust in him, maybe talk to somebody before you leave today, embrace the gospel, join this community of people who are seeking to walk in the footsteps of faith as we look for the new city.
Let’s pray together.
Gracious God, we thank you this morning for your gospel. We thank you for your word, for the good news that gives us hope in this world.
Lord, there are many things in this world that could discourage us, but they all pale in significance and in power when we consider the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we have gathered to worship today, because Christ is alive and because we have hope. We have a better vision, a vision of what you will be for us as our God and what you will do, what you have done in Christ, and what you will continue to do and will do on that final day of redemption. So, Lord, sustain our hope with that vision this morning.
Even as we come to the Lord’s table today, may we come with that hope burning in our hearts. I pray, Lord, that the table would be for us a means of grace to strengthen, to nourish, and sustain that hope, to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus in the coming week. So prepare our hearts for that now, and draw near to us, we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
