1. "I think one of the most significant differences between many people at the age of 30 and how they were at 15 or 20 is they've discovered that their parents are people."

2. "We can read their whole story while you and I are still in the middle of ours."

3. "Trials and torments that include homelessness and hiding in holes in the ground aren't what we first think about when we sing loudly about standing on the promises of God. But in our fallen, cursed world, that's what it will sometimes look like for a while."

4. "We Christians are not defined by our common past, but by our common future. We are defined by the country not we're from, but that we're going to."

5. "Our faith is not a faint hope which grows into some kind of emotional certainty within us. No, friends, it's our perception of the reality that inspires our hope. We grasp the unseen because we're grasped by it."

6. "God makes the poor rich, the ugly beautiful, the weak strong, the guilty really innocent. Your circumstances and mine are not so far gone that we shouldn't continue to believe God's promises to us even in our current difficulties."

7. "If you have found a sin that really will be pleasurable to you for your whole life, and mind you, that is an extremely rare variety of sin, you will find when you get to the end of it how short and fleeting this life was."

8. "We are strangers and exiles in the world, but we're at home on the Lord's day with each other, rejoicing in these promises, singing about them from our hearts."

9. "You're happy seeing him on the bicycle, but what's made you really happy is how he's talked about you to his friends. That's us with the Lord."

10. "We keep believing in our hearts what we haven't yet seen with our eyes, because God has promised it in His Word, and because He really is worth trusting."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 11:1-2, how is faith defined, and what did the people of old receive because of their faith?

2. In Hebrews 11:13-16, how does the author describe the posture of the faithful toward their earthly existence, and what does he say they were seeking instead of returning to their homeland?

3. What specific action did Abraham take in Hebrews 11:17-19 when he was tested, and what did he consider about God that enabled him to obey?

4. According to Hebrews 11:24-26, what choices did Moses make, and what was he looking toward that motivated these decisions?

5. In Hebrews 11:35-38, what range of experiences did the faithful endure, and what phrase does the author use to describe their worth in verse 38?

6. What do verses 39-40 say about what these Old Testament saints did and did not receive, and what reason does the author give for why God arranged it this way?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the author emphasize in verse 13 that the faithful "greeted" the promises "from afar" and acknowledged themselves as "strangers and exiles"? How does this shape our understanding of what biblical faith looks like in practice?

2. The sermon highlights that these Old Testament saints "did not receive what was promised" (v. 39), yet earlier verses describe many fulfilled promises (land, children, deliverance). How do we reconcile these statements, and what does this reveal about the ultimate promise God was making?

3. In verses 17-19, Abraham was called to sacrifice the very son through whom God's promises were to be fulfilled. What does Abraham's reasoning in verse 19 teach us about how faith responds when God's commands and promises seem to conflict?

4. How does the phrase "apart from us they should not be made perfect" (v. 40) connect the Old Testament saints to New Testament believers, and what does this suggest about God's unified plan of salvation across history?

5. The sermon argues that we are "defined not by our common past but by our common future." How do verses 14-16 support this claim, and why is this distinction significant for understanding Christian identity?

Application Questions

1. The sermon describes faith as "putting our lives where our faith is"—like Noah building the ark or Abraham leaving home. What is one specific area of your life where you sense God calling you to act on His promises even though you cannot yet see the outcome?

2. Hebrews 11:25-26 says Moses chose mistreatment with God's people over "the fleeting pleasures of sin." What "fleeting pleasures" are most tempting for you right now, and how might focusing on "the reward" change your perspective on them this week?

3. The faithful are called "strangers and exiles on the earth" (v. 13). In what practical ways do you feel the tension between being at home in this world and living as a citizen of a heavenly country? How might you live more intentionally as an exile this week?

4. The sermon emphasized that we should "suffer together" and not follow Christ alone, pointing to Hebrews 10:23-25. How can you more intentionally encourage another believer this week who may be struggling to hold fast to their confession of hope?

5. Verse 38 describes people "of whom the world was not worthy." How does this category challenge the way you evaluate success, status, or worth—both in yourself and in others around you? What might change in your attitudes or actions if you adopted this perspective?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 22:1-19 — This passage recounts the full narrative of Abraham's test in offering Isaac, illustrating the faith and obedience highlighted in Hebrews 11:17-19.

2. Exodus 2:1-15 — This passage tells the story of Moses' birth, upbringing, and choice to identify with his people, providing the background for Hebrews 11:23-27.

3. 1 Peter 2:9-12 — Peter describes believers as a chosen people and sojourners who are to abstain from fleshly passions, reinforcing the "strangers and exiles" theme of Hebrews 11.

4. Romans 8:18-25 — Paul teaches that present sufferings are not worth comparing to future glory and that creation awaits redemption, connecting to the theme of waiting in faith for promises not yet seen.

5. 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10 — Paul contrasts the temporary afflictions of this life with eternal glory, encouraging believers to walk by faith and not by sight, which directly parallels the message of Hebrews 11.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Challenge of Learning from People Different from Ourselves

II. How We Are Not Like the People in the Old Testament

III. How We Are Like the People in the Old Testament

IV. The Call to Endure in Faith as Strangers and Exiles

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Detailed Sermon Outline

The definition of projection is the unconscious transfer of one's own desires or emotions to another person.

I think that we're born naturally doing at least some of that. In fact, one of the things that's most significant in our maturing for our first 15 or 20 years is our growth and our ability to understand others. And their point of view is being distinct from our own. I think one of the most significant differences between many people at the age of 30 and how they were at 15 or 20 is they've discovered that their parents are people.

Now they always knew they were people as opposed to being potatoes or aliens or something, but as they themselves begin to slow down in their own changes and settle down into the person that they will be, they find themselves in situations, you know, maybe moving someplace, having to make choices about an apartment or how they're going to make some other decision, and it ends up causing them to ask mom or dad what they did when they were in a similar situation.

And all of a sudden, well, I think many of our college graduates are surprised to find how much mom and dad have learned during the last four years. It's like they were the ones taking the class. Classes, you know? Or we see some picture of our grandfather when he was 28, and we begin to relate to him not only as an 80-year-old man, but as someone who was once 28, who made significant decisions, not unlike the ones some of you are facing. Maybe you're from New Mexico and you meet yet another person from Texas, and you figure, what can a Texan understand about our life out here in New Mexico?

Maybe it's gender that makes you feel you can't learn from someone, or politics, or some other difference. Part of maturing is our being able to learn more and more from different people around us.

I think one challenge we have when we come to the Bible is that when Ben talks to us about the Israelites, you know, in the book of Numbers, in the wilderness, or Bobby talks to us about Samuel or people in the nation of Israel, or even we're in the New Testament, this letter written to the Christians in the first century, this letter of Hebrews. Sometimes we think, these people are so different than me. They're in such a different situation. What can we learn from them? That's the way many of you may feel today.

When we turn to this famous chapter in the Bible, chapter 11, the Hall of Faith, as I was dividing up the book of Hebrews into the sermons that I would preach through this year, I thought, this is long, this is 40 verses, but I also had a very hard time dividing it up. Unless I were going to make a whole series out of just chapter 11, which would be a wonderful thing to do, the same message is being given throughout this whole chapter. So I thought when it comes to this, though we've gone slowly through chapters eight and nine and 10, when it comes to 11, we're just gonna have to take it whole. Now lest you fear that you're about in for a 95 minute sermon, let me assure you that I am so confident that there is so much material that we can get out of this for the good of our souls that I am quite content getting just as I put it last night in the lecture, just a cup out of the ocean. And trust that you will be able to continue to read and profit from this chapter as you read it on your own.

Well, you'll find the chapter on page 1007 in the Bible's provided. Let me encourage you to turn there now. Hebrews chapter 11. If you're not used to being in a Christian church or hearing a sermon from the Bible, you'll be helped to leave the chapter open in front of you. I'll be referring to it throughout.

As we walk through it. And what I want you to notice is basically there are some ways in which we are not like these people, and it will help us to realize that. And there are some ways in which we are like these people, and it will help us to realize that. Listen now, as I read to us Hebrews chapter 11.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.

And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 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. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David, and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats.

Destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Friends, again, so many ways we could approach this. I'm suggesting simple two categories. I want us to notice first how we're not like these people in the Old Testament, and then how we are. I hope and pray that as you do this, your faith will be strengthened, your souls preserved so that you will be helped to, as our writer says in 12:1, lay aside every sin which clings so closely and run with endurance the race set before us. So first then, how we're not like the people in the Old Testament.

And the most obvious way is this. They are in the Bible we are not.

I mean we can open this thing up and read about them. We can read about their lives. We cannot read about our lives in the Bible. I mean not in exactly the same way. I hope all of us read about our lives in the Bible and that we understand the gospel and we believe the gospel.

But I mean in the sense that the proper name is right there referring to the particular person and particular actions they did, places they lived, they're in the Bible, their whole stories are there. We can see God's promises fulfilled in the Old Testament, whether we're talking about Abel or Enoch or Noah or Abraham or Sarah and Isaac or Jacob or Joseph or Moses and the Red Sea, the fall of Jericho or Rahab and the rest of the Old Testament. All of these people received God's command or promise, His Word, and they responded in faith. That is, they believed and put their lives where their faith was. So Noah built the big boat and Abram left his home and Moses identified with his enslaved fellow Israelites.

They walked into the sea bed and around the walls of Jericho. Rahab hosted the spies. We can read about all of this in the Word of God. And we can read about God's Word coming to them and about their deciding to obey and about their beginning to obey and about their obedience and And about what happened to them then? So Abel was commended, and Enoch walked with God, Noah and his family were saved, and Abraham made it to Canaan, Sarah was given a son, and that son Isaac was given a family, and Jacob and Joseph pronounced blessings that came true, Moses led the people out of Egypt through a dried-up seabed, and the walls of Jericho did fall, and Rahab was married to Salmon.

And so became the ancestor of David and therefore all of David's descendants. We can read all of that because we, unlike they, have our Old Testaments written down. They're here for our reading. So even the summary is down in that last big paragraph where he's pointing to everything else in the Old Testament, that's his et cetera paragraph. Even they should inspire us.

Kingdoms conquered, justice enforced, promises obtained, mouths of lions stopped, the power of fire quenched, the edge of the sword escaped, the weak made strong and mighty, foreign armies put to flight. In the case of the Assyrians around Jerusalem in Isaiah's time, absolutely obliterated. Even instances of the dead resurrected. And then others, he says, moving into the advanced University of Faith there in verses 35 to 38, hearing God's promises moved out to suffer torture and being racked and refusing release.

They were mocked, flogged, chained, imprisoned, even killed.

Did you notice verse 37? Look at verse 37.

Stoned. That's an ugly way to go.

Sawn in two.

Killed with the sword. You can find all these accounts and others on the pages of the Old Testament. They're all there. The end of verses 37 and 38 present the strange way God's promises may come to fulfillment in this fallen world. They went about in the skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

Trials and torments that include homelessness and hiding in holes in the ground aren't what we first think about when we sing loudly about standing on the promises of God. But in our fallen, cursed world, that's what it will sometimes look like for a while.

These first readers needed to be reminded that as dark as some of the stories on the pages of Scripture may have looked for a while, again and again God's promises were always seen to be true. God promised Abraham a new land and he came to it. God promised him heirs to live in it and so came Isaac and Jacob and a whole nation more. God made an amazing promise to 90-year-old Sarah, so amazing that she laughed out loud. But it came true.

Not everything with all its implications happened to them in their own lifetimes. You could argue not the ultimately most important fulfillments happened in their own lifetime, but crucial parts of it did. Amazing indicators that they were on the right way. And a record of all of this is left for us in the pages of the Old Testament. So our author here in this chapter is simply presenting us with a kind of highlights reel of the Old Testament.

As God makes promises, and 24 times in this chapter it mentions, By faith the people stepped out and believed him, and so built, left, walked, hosted, obeyed in so many other ways. And so we read about these examples and many more. The Old Testament's full of them. Job getting his wisdom. Hannah getting her child.

David getting his throne. Nineveh hearing and repenting and being spared. Nehemiah leading the exiles home. And on and on we could go. Kids, you can read about whole kingdoms rising and falling in just a few chapters of the Old Testament.

Just ask your parents when you get home this afternoon. Okay, okay, he convinced me. There are good stories in the Old Testament. Where should I read? That's what we have for us on the pages of the Old Testament.

We have a great aid to our faith that these very people we're reading about didn't have. In that sense, we are not like the people that we're reading about. We can read their whole story while you and I are still in the middle of ours.

Of course, the most important way that we're not like these people that we're reading about, we can see God's promises fulfilled in Christ. That's the most important way. We see this at the beginning and the end of our chapter. Look at the beginning, verse 1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, for by it the people of old received their commendation.

Okay, the people of old that we read of here who are approved of by God are those people that he recounts here in this chapter. So people in the Old Testament were told of God's reconciling His people to Himself. The more you read the Old Testament, the more you find, whoa, this Messiah thing, it's all over the place. Deuteronomy 18, Moses was told of the prophet like Him that God would raise up. Or David's greater Son in 2 Samuel 7, or the one whom David called my Lord to God in Psalm 110 that Jesus taught about so often, or the suffering servant in Isaiah 52 and 53, or the one like a Son of Man who was worshiped, Daniel chapter 7.

God's Old Testament people received all of these promises, but they themselves did not live to see this great overarching promise of the Messiah that all of the smaller provisions of Hannah's baby and Abraham's land and the word that came to the people through Moses, all of those smaller fulfillments were pointing to the great fulfillment of the word of God made flesh, the Son of Man, Son of God, coming incarnate to live and die for us. That was the great promise that all of theirs were foreshadowings of. They didn't get to see that. We have. We have seen that.

That's what the last verses of this chapter are about, verses 39 and 40. And all these, and this is really, this is, if you want the key to understanding this chapter, it's kind of that word us in the last sentence of the chapter. You get that and you'll understand what he's doing. With this whole chapter. Verse 39, and all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

This is perfect, not in the sense of morally you don't sin, perfect in the sense of complete. So if you imagine these first century Christians that he's writing to, and the writer is presenting them as part of this whole people of God that stretches back through Moses and Abraham and even back to Abel, right on the very edges of the Garden of Eden. So that's the people of God. That's the us. And the writer to the Hebrews is including the people listening to him, preach this letter, write it, reading it, and they're reading the letter that he's written.

They are included in this. And they are the ones who have been made perfect in the sense that their hopes have been completed and fulfilled in the coming of Christ. So the Messiah has come. He has taught among us. He has lived and loved and been killed, borne our sins and transgressions on the cross and been raised again.

And as the writers of the Hebrews said back in chapter 1, Verse 4, He has made purification for sin and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He has begun to reign. So if we are part of this people of God, because of us now, they are made complete, because we have seen this. And the whole book of Hebrews really has been one long exposition from chapters 1 to 10 of the advantage that we have over even the most highly commended Old Testament models of faith, because we have received the Messiah. We have seen the cross.

It doesn't mean we had to be in Jerusalem and actually saw it with our eyes, but I mean, it's happened in space, time, and history. We now have seen how God would do this. We have heard testimony, reliable testimony, and we have experienced the effects of it. Their faith in the Old Testament, their faith was real and important and inspiring, and yet when it comes to the consummation of their hopes in the coming of the Messiah, we read in verse 13, the writer's moving words, these all died in faith, not having received the things promised. But wait, didn't Sarah have Isaac?

I mean, didn't Abraham get to Canaan? I mean, I thought this whole thing was full of promises. Yes, yes, the smaller promises, the specific promises, those were fulfilled. Those were all down payments of and testimonies to this greater promise. And that's what he's saying here.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised. But having seen them and greeted them from afar, having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, what touching imagery greeted them from afar. You know, we can make the outlines out. We can read about the Messiah in part in the Old Testament. Nothing compared to the vivid record of the Gospels, but still something is there.

God, by His Holy Spirit, has given them knowledge of it, and they can see and so believe and so trust what God has revealed. And yet, it's like seeing it at a distance. Imagine seeing a dearly loved friend or family member that you would love to embrace, but you only get to see them from a distance. But it is them! you!

see them, you wave, But that's all there is right now. That's the way it is with these dear saints of the Old Testament.

I love the way Graham Goldsworthy summarizes the message, really the whole Bible. God's people in God's place under God's rule. Write that down if you want. God's people in God's place under God's rule. Every prophecy in the Old Testament, you can negotiate into that structure.

Every fulfillment is pointing toward that final heavenly summary. But we, our writer, has exalted and instructed in Hebrews chapter 1 and Hebrews chapter 2 and Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 and 5 and in 6 and in 7 and 8 and 9 and in 10 that we were in last time. Have seen the Son come and be crucified and be raised and be exalted and begin His heavenly reign. So why would we, here's the question of the whole book of Hebrews that he has just put this whole chapter on to be a big exclamation point to them, why would we who have received all of this turn away from the fulfillment of it all that we have in Christ? And go back to the mere longing, O come, O come, Emmanuel, that people had before.

Why would you do that? Why would you leave the church to go to the temple? It makes no sense. You have the fulfillment of everything that they've longed for for ages. So keep going.

So endure, he's going to say. The rest of our studies in Hebrews for the rest of the year are Endure. That's chapters 12 and 13. But here he has just this long haul of faith to show us that specifically what they lived for and toward we have been given. Why leave this for that?

He's urging them. He's pleading with them. Why? Why would we turn away from the fulfillment we have in Christ to the mere longing God's people had before He came? Well, we shouldn't.

We wouldn't. We won't. As I say, we've been studying this all year. We will not turn away from Christ. We will glorify the great God of the Bible by enjoying the reign of His Messiah and being indwelt by His Spirit and praying in His name and following Christ's teaching and example.

Our discipleship is a fulfillment of the Old Testament vision of God's people being a kingdom of priests, a living temple for a living God. That's the local church, brothers and sisters. You know, when we weren't able to meet here for a while, do you even remember that? It's like a bad dream, isn't it? You know, but a bad dream that God did some good things through.

But it was, you know, Capitol Hill Baptist Church kept meeting. We just weren't meeting here. This is, as the Puritans would always call them, this is the meeting house. It's our current meeting house. It's the third meeting house our church has built.

But it's just a meeting house. The Capitol Hill Baptist Church is a living temple filled by the Spirit of the living God. This is the local church. This is the great privilege that we're called to above what Abel or Enoch or Noah or Abraham knew in this life. Our peace with God has been made by Jesus Christ and He has called us to live our days in that reconciled state with our heavenly Father here below in anticipation of that even more perfect reconciliation coming with Christ's return.

So in that sense, we are not like these people that we're reading about here in Hebrews 11 or in our Old Testament. Okay, I hope that's clear. There are only two points to this sermon, and that was one of them. Here's the other one, and it's not logically complicated. We want to go on and notice the other half of this, and that is how we are like the people in the Old Testament, how we are like these people that we're reading about.

Because you understand, we still are in the position where we hear God's promises that we can't yet see. We are still a people of faith. That's why we too can sing, O come, O come, Emmanuel.

Our faith is not a faint hope which grows into some kind of emotional certainty within us. No, friends, it's our perception of the reality that inspires our hope. We grasp the unseen because we're grasped by it. That's what Paul's teaching us in Ephesians 2. He refers to faith as God's gift to us.

It's a gift that we then give back by responding to God's promises and believing them. So if you're here and you're not religious, and to you faith is just a word you use to mean like some kind of positive thought you can get up, you know, like I just have faith we're gonna find a better apartment. Well, okay, that's not what the Bible's talking about. When the Bible's talking about faith, it's talking about responding to promises that God has made by believing them and acting on them to show that we really do. So I'm exercising faith in this platform by getting up here and standing on it.

I'm showing faith in this platform in a very small way. It's that kind of weight bearing idea. It's not mere wishful thinking. It's being sure of a promise. Now, friend, is this what you understand faith to be?

If you're trying to understand Christianity, you need to understand what the Bible means by faith. So we Christians are all about not just trusting our feelings, but trusting the truth of what God has said and believing what he said. The things that are wrong in the Bible that the Bible means to teach us are zero. The Bible is totally trustworthy. It is the inerrant word of God.

We believe in it. We give our whole lives leveraging us on its truth. Now friends, part of what that means is that we come to understand ourselves negatively. And this is what maybe if you're here and you're not a Christian, you don't like about Christians. We do speak negatively.

We talk about sin, we talk about failure, we even talk about God's justice and his wrath. But all of that is true. We don't say it because it's the way we like to write the story. We say it because it's what God has revealed. So we want to tell you the truth, that you have lived in such a way that you deserve not God's applause, but God's condemnation.

Maybe you've never had a friend that loves you enough to tell you that, but it's the truth. You're not unusual in that. You're like every other person sitting here in this room and even the one standing. It's true of all of us. The Bible tells us that clearly.

But God in his amazing love has decided to not treat us as we deserve, but instead he has sent his only Son to live and die a life of complete goodness. And when he died on the cross, he died as a sacrifice in the substitutionary place of all of us who would believe in him. God put his punishment that we deserved on his only Son. Who willingly bore it for all of us who would turn from our sins and trust in him. And then God raised him from the dead.

Seeing that he accepted this sacrifice, he ascended to heaven, where we read in the beginning of Hebrews, he presented this sacrifice to his heavenly father. And so he began his reign. Friend, you should believe that. If you want to know more about what it means for you to believe in Jesus, you've got to be in one of the best rooms in DC this morning. Just talk to one of the people around you, particularly if one of them has a name tag on, they would love to talk to you about this.

Any of us at the doors would love to talk to you about what it can mean for you to be trusting in Jesus Christ, to have faith in him, and so be saved from God's wrath and come to know him as your father. Faith's nature is to look to the future. Like many of these saints of old, we have yet to see the fulfillment of all of God's promises. So we've seen the fulfillment of great promises of God, but they have not all been fulfilled. Reminds me of Isaac Watts' hymn we occasionally sing, Am I a soldier of the cross?

There's a stanza that goes, Thy saints in all this glorious war shall conquer though they die. They see the triumph from afar and seize it with their eye.

That's the state we're in now from a distance. Though looking into the past now shows us not only all the examples of the Old Testament saints with God making and fulfilling His promises to them, but also the supreme promise of God's love sending His own Son to be our Messiah, King and Deliverer. And He has done just that to bear the dreadful curse for all who would repent of our sins and believe in Jesus Christ. All of this He has done. And yet, He promises us even more.

Every Christian here has already experienced the new birth, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, and yet, we have not yet gotten to the bottom of all of the goodnesses that God has promised us in Christ. There is yet more still to come. More, more, more than any of us here have yet experienced. Sin and death are finally to be banished from God's new creation as the Messiah bodily visibly returns to rule and reign. Oh, won't that be a good day?

No more memorial services for Emma then. No more needing to part with dear friends and family. No sin and its cursed death will be removed. If you want to sing Gloryland, we're singing it tonight, five o'clock. Come right on back.

This is the land that we are moving toward. Look again at verses 14 to 16. That's the little teaching about faith in the middle of the chapter, verses 14 to 16. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. And then He reasons.

Now, if they had been thinking of the land they came from, where they're from, they would have just gone back. Abram would have just gone back to Ur. But no, as it is, He says, 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. You see, we Christians are not defined by our common past.

But by our common future. That's where those of us who are in like educational systems for my lifetime and you've been taught Marxism and materialism, it's just not true. It's a reductionist misunderstanding of people. And we Christians of all people should know that. We're defined most fully not by those attributes that we have by birth We're defined by those attributes we have by the new birth.

We are defined by the country not we're from, but that we're going to. That's why we have greater unity with brother pastors here from all around the world today than we do with you, friend, if you're here as a citizen of Washington, D.C. But not a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful hope. We have been given, sin and death finally being banished from God's new creation.

We've come from many places here this morning, many different situations, from many different groups, that in the world's eyes, many of these groups are indifferent to each other or even opposed, but we have come together as pilgrims all on the path to the same destination. Our past doesn't define us, our future does. It's not where we're from, but where we're headed to. We can read all of God's fulfillment of His promises to His Old Testament people in its pages and we know of His fulfillment of His great promise to send the Messiah for us on the pages of the New Testament. And even in this very letter to the Hebrews, we do have still more promises of the good which Christ will bring when He comes again.

Sin's penalty has been paid. But we are now still contending with its power. Christ has promised to remove us even from its very presence when he returns. Beloved, there are still promises that we have had made to us on the pages of Scripture which we are praying to see fulfilled to us just like Samuel and David knew in their day. Just think of some of them.

This afternoon at lunch, just talk of some of the promises. That you're still waiting to see fulfilled. Perhaps there's some that are on your mind this morning, desiring God would do this or that in your life, or hoping for this, or working on that, or you've been praying for this other thing. Share that with somebody. Let them know what it is that you're praying for.

This is why the writer to the Hebrews was writing to them in such a dynamic situation in the first century, this church, people who called themselves Christians, who were wondering about going into the kind of Judaism with its temple sacrifices and other rituals, but without such a prominent Jesus, it would be an easier faith to hold, socially probably. And so our writer is reminding them of how God has always been keeping His promises, always encouraging them to consider that they should continue to have faith in Him and that He will fulfill all of His promises. And we can know this especially because of what we've already seen Him do in Jesus. You remember why just a few verses earlier in chapter 10, He encouraged them to get together. Look at that back in chapter 10, verse 23.

It's just a few verses before. This is for all you people who say you're Christians and you're not a member of a healthy local church. Listen up. Hebrews 10:23, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

That's what we do here as a church. We encourage one another and all the more as we see the Day drawing near. Drawing near, back in our chapter, chapter 11, look at verse 13. See what the faithful are called? Strangers and exiles on the earth.

I wonder if you understand yourself as that today, if you're a Christian. Do you understand that you're a stranger and an exile? I mean, in some ways you're not. You're born here, you're human, you have a body, you know, you move around in space and time, you use language to communicate. So, okay, there are a lot of commonalities we have, all of us, whether we're here as Christians or not.

But there are ways in which those of us who are Christians are strangers and exiles here. That is, there are things that we care about more than we care about anything we can see with our eyes.

There are things that we love more than anything that we can hold with our hands. There are things that we fear more. Than the greatest loss in this world. And our friends who are not Christians, those are the parts of our lives they don't understand. And that's because we are strangers and exiles here.

We're still, as it says in verse 16, desiring a better country. That is a heavenly one. We long for it. We work for its approximation in our church. In other communities we've been providentially placed in our family, our school, our neighborhood and city, our company.

We're providentially placed in all of these things, our country. And yet we know that these desires will only be met when we have a new and perfect king ruling over us who will never run as a Republican or a Democrat. We are still living in faith on Christ's promise for that day of His coming. That last night, you remember, Jesus promised His disciples in John 14, verse 3, I will come again. Simple promise.

What did He mean? That He would come back, that He will fulfill all the promises, and we still live today on that simple promise. We're remembering it in our last study up in chapter 10 in verse 37 where the writer was quoting the Old Testament prophet, we read, the coming one will come and will not delay. Or as Joseph Thigpenn reminded us a few Sunday nights ago of how we're to use every Lord's Day to help us prepare for the day of the Lord that's coming. That's what we do here.

We understand Sunday is not like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday is the market day of the soul. It is the Christian Sabbath. It is the time when we commit to meet together, not just to take more naps, though maybe we can get those in, but we commit to be able to work in God's word for ourselves and for each other, for our good, in order to see people built up and encouraged.

These days of faith can be very tricky and trying. Look there, verse 17. The writer recounts one of the most vexing situations in all the Bible. I'm sure you know this story. On the one hand, God had made the most amazing promise to the pagan, childless couple, ancient Abraham and senior Sarah.

He promised this barren couple that were almost a hundred years old, descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky or the sand of the seashore. And then, amazing, amazing, God fulfills His promise, they have a child. Then, 20 years later, after that child has grown up, God in Genesis 22 calls Abraham to offer that only son up as a sacrifice.

That son who has had no children, that son in whom all of God's own faithfulness to His own promise seems to reside. What on earth is Abraham to do? Oh, friends, that's a great sermon. Just go read Genesis 22. That's a different one.

But it's such a remarkable event that three of the verses here are dedicated to that one day out of all the vast stretches of Old Testament history. And you see why. I mean, in this fallen world, it is not always clear to us how God's commands and God's promises hang together. Sometimes they look like they just smack run into each other. And when that's the case, we should be obedient.

We don't have to figure it out. We don't have to see how he's going to do it. We just know if he says to do this, we will do it. So here in verse 19, the inspired writer points out Abraham's obvious faith, his confidence in God as the Lord and giver of life. Who evidently, if he's going to make Isaac dead, well he has the ability to raise the dead because he pretty much raised the dead in giving me and Sarah a child at our age.

So I know he can create life, thinks Abraham, so I can trust him. Each step of the way, God is to be trusted and obeyed. He will prove himself faithful if even the death of God's only Son, Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah who would save his people from their sins, proved not to have stopped God's plan of salvation even though none of his disciples seemed to understand. They were all confused, terrified, and scattered, but instead it was part of his plan of salvation. Friends, if that is the case, then surely even the most challenging of circumstances that you and I are facing are less puzzling and confounding to God.

God makes the poor rich, the ugly beautiful, the weak strong, the guilty really innocent. Your circumstances and mine are not so far gone that we shouldn't continue to believe God's promises to us even in our current difficulties. So much more we could observe here for the consolation and encouragement of the saints' endurance. Let us do notice especially, not only are we still people of faith, but a second similarity and really the summarizing similarity, the pointed one, is there is still the challenge of waiting and suffering. Not only are we still people of faith, but there is specifically the challenge of waiting and suffering.

This is the hardest part. Of Christ having not yet returned, there is still sin. There is still sin's curse, death. You remember these first century Christians who were the original recipients of this letter were feeling the pull of leaving Christ. Theirs were days of danger spiritually, even with all the blessings that God had heaped on them that this whole letter was about.

We can't know what all these early Christians were facing for continuing to be faithful to Christ. But we do know that Peter, around the same time, wrote a letter, 1 Peter. To some early Christians referring to their life in the fallen world as their time of exile. And he wrote in chapter 2 verse 11, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. He refers to suffering for righteousness' sake and being slandered and having your good behavior reviled.

If you look over at 1 Peter 4:3-4, particularly if you're in college, if you're a younger Christian, look at 1 Peter 4:3-4, very useful for you. For the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this, they're surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. I wonder how many of you have faced that challenge even this week in your following of Christ. I pray that you will heed the message of this book of Hebrews and that you will be inspired by the examples of those who have gone before you and who have endured.

Embrace present loss for future eternal gain. Embrace present loss. Don't close your eyes and pretend it's not there through some positive thinking. No, acknowledge it. Embrace it.

And realize that you just offer it to the Lord because you get future eternal gain. Even if the losses are as serious as we see here in verses 35, 36, 37, 38. Did you notice those? Just look down at those verses. Hebrews chapter 11 beginning at verse 35.

Notice especially verse 38. It'll help you understand some of the difference we hope you'll notice between the church and the world around us here on Capitol Hill. Around us here in the Capitol Hill community, people value great houses. They value ease, they value wealth, they value station and status indicated by clothes and cars and jobs and salaries and titles. They are the ones who are said to have the highest net worths.

But here at CHBC and other Christian churches, We have categories for others that are much, much higher. Much more value. Much greater esteem that we would use this phrase here in verse 38 of them, of whom the world was not worthy. And that might include some today who are wandering around in deserts. Who are so weak in this world's eyes that they suffer mistreatment and even torment and can do nothing about it.

Even in our congregation this morning we have pastors who have lost everything in their home country, including even members of their own family as part of their continuing to follow Jesus.

Brother pastors, may I just say, this world does not seem worthy of you.

We are honored to have you here with us today.

So if you're here and you're not a Christian, consider what you're living life for. Consider what life is for. In verse 25, the writer reflects on Moses' choice to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin I wonder how fleeting sins pleasures seem to you. Maybe you found a sin that seemed really good for three whole weeks. Maybe you've got one going that for two and a half years now has been very pleasurable.

Or maybe you think you've got a sin going that'll work for your whole life. And you wonder, well, how could those pleasures be called fleeting? Because, my friend, this life is fleeting. If you have found a sin that really will be pleasurable to you for your whole life, and mind you, that is an extremely rare variety of sin. You will find when you get to the end of it, how short and fleeting this life was.

There is another longer lasting life that will return far better rewards than any pleasures sin is offering you today. My Christian friend, it is your faith in Christ that can help to repair you for suffering that we do face in this world. Verse 26 says, Moses, consider the reproach of Christ's greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. To be associated with Christ even by faith, even if it would cost you all the treasures of Egypt, it would be worth it because of the reward of eternal life through and with Christ forever. Remember, we are finally strangers and exiles here, caring for our temporary home being good stewards, but not mistaking this world, this life for a permanent address.

Pray that God help you to realize that this morning, if you're starting to wrongly settle in Vanity Fair before you get to your long home in heaven. Continued faithful following of Jesus Christ will involve you in waiting and in suffering in this world in the same way that it has so many before us. And we too are still people of faith as we await Christ's return. So if you are going to suffer for Christ, friends, don't do it alone. Come suffer with us.

We actually covenant together to bear each other's burdens and sorrows. And you don't have to do it with us. There are thousands of churches like this around the world. Thousands. They're all over the place.

God in His kindness has called together people into churches where we are strangers and exiles in the world, but we're at home on the Lord's day with each other, rejoicing in these promises, singing about them from our hearts. Praise God that He gives the gift of faith. Our desires and affections are set on God and His promises, and we believe Him, and He is not ashamed to be called our God.

You understand what that means, don't you? How our faith can please Him? Let's say you've got a kid. Let's say your kid knows you've lost your job. And let's say you promised your kid a new bicycle for his birthday.

And let's say some of the other kids around are making fun of your kid for believing what you say. Let's say a birthday comes around and somehow you pulled it off. You got him that new bicycle he wanted. And on his birthday you give it to him. How good is that?

How pleased are you in the joy he has in that bicycle? I'll tell you, you are not as pleased as you were in the faith that he had in you, that you would be as good as your word that he knew not about your bank account, but he knew about your faithfulness. And he knew if you made that promise, he could trust you. You're happy seeing him on the bicycle, but what's made you really happy is how he's talked about you to his friends. That's us with the Lord.

The Lord has made us all kinds of promises, richer promises than anything that we're gonna be called to give up. And members of this congregation, just like every congregation in the world, face hard things. Don't be mistaken by the youth of the congregation or the wealth of the area of Washington, D.C. But friends, nothing that you or I are called to give in this life begin to approach what we're given in Christ. So trust the Lord.

Have faith in His promises. That brings Him pleasure. I first preached this passage, this very passage here 22 years ago. And my guess is that though much has happened since then, 9/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, trials and troubles in our church family, births and deaths, we've seen people saved and lives transformed. We've seen a few people fall away.

But I praise God that though I'll bet you if you were here 22 years ago when I preached that sermon, though I bet you not a one of you remember that sermon, you're still enduring and following Jesus. And that was the point of that sermon. I am a happy man. It's just wonderful to be able to have a flock that loves the Lord and believes His promises. And continues on through whatever comes.

That's what we're called to in Christ. We keep believing in our hearts what we haven't yet seen with our eyes, because God has promised it in His Word, and because He really is worth trusting. Just like those people here in Hebrews did, or even Jesus, who we'll read in our next study, chapter 12, endured the cross for the joy set before Him. He didn't avoid death, but He knew of something better beyond death.

I pray that God will will cause your faith in Him and all of His promises to endure. Let's pray.

God, we praise youe as being good.

And we confess our own short-sightedness, and we pray that yout would correct our vision with faith. Give it out freely now. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.