Part of our series on Hebrews

1. Hebrews 11:8-22
By Faith the
Patriarchs

2. Faith is focused
• Faith in faith is useless
• You can have great faith in something that will
fail
• You can have very little faith in something that
is secure
• “He considered him faithful who had made
the promise”
• Abraham’s faith was rooted in the character of
God
• Faith is believing the word of God

3. Faith is reasoned
• Faith is never a leap in the dark
• Abraham reasoned, he must have asked
questions;
o Has God spoken?
o What did he say?
o Can he be trusted?
o Is he big enough?

4. Faith is followed by obedience
• “When called to go to a place he would later
receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went”
• “Faith is very difficult when we live as
‘practical atheists’” (David Guzik)
• When we live knowing the reality of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ and heaven, things get easier
• “You see that his faith and his actions were
working together, and his faith was made
complete by what he did” (James 2:22)

5. Faith makes you an outsider
• “He made his home in the promised land like
a stranger”
• They lived in tents
• They owned only the land where they were
buried
• They were different
• Abraham called on the name of the Lord
(Genesis 12:8, 13:4, 21:33, 26:25)
• They were not natives, they were strangers

6. Faith means being prepared to wait
• Abraham was called when he was seventy five
• He waited until he was as good as dead
• God is not Santa Claus
• Sometimes it’s difficult to wait

7. Faith is pleasing to God
• Without faith it is impossible to please God
• The patriarchs were flawed people
• God is not ashamed to be called their God
• God identifies himself with us
• In Jesus he has experienced our troubles
• So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers
(2:11)

8. Faith will be realised
• “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a
son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act? Does he
promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19)

9. Faith will be realised
• The patriarchs died in faith
• The great hope is fulfilled in Jesus
• We too are looking to a ‘better country’
• Reasoned faith tells us we will see the city
• Reasoned faith tells us we will see his face
(Revelation 22:4)
• Let us make our time count