Sunday
Morning Bible Study
November
11, 2018
Veterans Day
Today is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of World War I. The holiday used to be known as “Armistice
Day”, but in 1954 the Congress changed it to “Veterans Day”, to honor all those
who have served in the armed forces.
I would love it if all those of you who have served in the military stand up so we can say “thank you”.
Introduction
The book of Hebrews was written to Jewish believers.
The author expects the
readers to be well acquainted with Levitical worship and sacrifice.
He will constantly quote the Old Testament in a way that expects that the
reader understands what he’s talking about.
We also know that these believers were encountering very strong
persecution.
Times were so bad that some were beginning to wonder if they shouldn’t quit
following Jesus.
We will see three elements woven throughout this letter to the Hebrews.
1. Both Testaments
Even though the Old Testament has become “obsolete” (Heb. 8:13), the entire
book of Hebrews is built upon the clear foundation of the Old Testament.
(Hebrews 8:13 NKJV)
In
that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what
is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
You aren’t going to understand Hebrews, or even the New Testament correctly
unless you learn the Old Testament.
2. Jesus is superior
He’s superior to angels, Moses, and the Torah.
He’s superior to the Levitical priests and their sacrifices.
3. Don’t quit
The ultimate goal of the book is to encourage those who are struggling with
difficult times, and help them to endure.
We’ve seen that their survival is going to require faith.
Definition: Faith is trusting
something you don’t see.
Faith is trusting when you don’t understand what’s going on.
We talked about other words for “faith” being “belief”, “trust”, or even
“counting on”.
Our author is going to show over and over again
how the great men and women of the Old Testament survived their difficulties
because of their “faith”.
11:13-16 A Distant Hope
:13 These all died in
faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were
assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth.
promises – epaggelia – announcement; promise
afar off – porrhothen – from afar, afar off
confessed – homologeo – to say the same thing as another,
i.e. to agree with, assent; to concede; to confess; declare; to profess; to
declare openly, speak out freely
This is the same basic word translated “profession” in:
(Heb 10:23 KJV) Let us hold fast
the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that
promised;)
We are to hold fast to our confession that Jesus is Lord.
Abraham held fast to the confession that he was a stranger and a pilgrim.
strangers – xenos – a foreigner, a stranger; alien (from
a person or a thing)
pilgrims – parepidemos – one who comes from a foreign country
into a city or land to reside there by the side of the natives
:13 These all died in faith
We’ve talked about Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah…
They were all men and women who trusted God up until the time they died or
were taken to heaven.
:13 not having received the promises
Lesson
Faith keeps going
We’ve been talking about how important faith is when it comes to making it
through difficult times.
How many of you have been challenged over the last couple of weeks to work
at handling your difficult situations through “faith”, through trusting in God?
How many of you are still struggling with those same difficult
circumstances?
Last week we read that Abraham …
(Hebrews 11:10 NKJV) …waited for the city which
has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
The verb tense of “waited” carries the idea of “continually
waiting”.
Abraham had been promised the entire land of Canaan, yet
he died without owning anything more than a cave in Hebron.
There are those who teach that with “faith” we can twist God’s arm into fixing
any problem we might be in.
But what do you do when God decides not to change your circumstance?
Is it because you didn’t have enough faith?
Did these great men and women lack faith, and that’s why
they didn’t “receive the promises”?
Faith may bring change to your circumstances, but faith also helps us
endure our circumstances.
:13 assured … embraced …
were assured – peitho – persuade;
be persuaded; to believe; to trust, have confidence, be confident
This word doesn’t appear in BYZ, NA27
embraced – aspazomai – to draw to one’s self; to salute one,
greet, bid welcome, wish well to; to receive joyfully, welcome
:13 confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth
Lesson
Defining Home
We call it a “homing instinct”.
Sea turtles emerge from their eggs, make their way into the ocean, and will
return after maturity to the very same beach they were hatched on.
The sockeye salmon will spend its life out in the ocean, but when it’s time
to spawn, will make its way up freshwater streams to where it was originally
hatched.
The Pacific golden plover might winter in sunny California or tropical
Hawaii, but it spends its summers breeding in the Alaska tundra, 3,000 miles
away.
We human beings also have a “homing” instinct, but it’s not tied to
something on the planet. The Bible says,
(Ecclesiastes
3:11b NLT) …He has planted eternity in the human heart…
We aren’t drawn to Hawaii, we’re drawn towards heaven.
Once Dorothy finds herself in “Oz”, there’s only one thing on her
mind. She wants to go home.
There are times in our lives where we get this sense of being “home”.
It might be the house you live in.
It might be enjoying a sunset at the beach.
It might be snuggled up in your honey’s arms.
Yet all these things are only a faint taste of our real
home, and we aren’t going to find that deepest satisfaction we long for until
we get to that final destination.
Illustration
There’s a story about an old missionary couple coming home from spending
years in Africa. They were booked on the
same ship as President Teddy Roosevelt who was returning from a successful
big-game safari. As the ship pulled into
the harbor, the crowds were lining the docks to cheer on the President. But nobody was waiting or cheering for the
missionaries.
That night the man was so depressed that nobody seemed to care about how
they had spent their life. The man’s
wife said, “Why don’t you go in the bedroom and tell that to the Lord?” A short
time later he came out from the bedroom, but now his face was completely
different. His wife asked, “Dear, what happened?” “The Lord settled it with
me,” he said. “I told him how bitter I was that the President should receive
this tremendous homecoming, when no one met us as we returned home. And when I
finished, it seemed as though the Lord put his hand on my shoulder and simply
said, ‘But you’re not home yet!’”
-- Ray Stedman, Talking
to My Father
:14 For those who say
such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.
:14 declare plainly that they seek a homeland
declare plainly – emphanizo – to
manifest, exhibit to view; to show one’s self, come to view, appear, be
manifest; to indicate, disclose, declare, make known
They make it very obvious
seek – epizeteo – to enquire for, seek for, search for,
seek diligently; to wish for, crave; to demand, clamor for
Present active indicative
homeland – πατρίς – fatherland; one’s native
country
The word comes from the word for “father” (πατήρ)
Again, the important thing is to identify just who your “father” is. Ultimately God is our father.
:15 And truly if they had
called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would
have had opportunity to return.
called to mind – mnemoneuo – to be
mindful of, to remember, to call to mind; to think of and feel for a person or
thing; to hold in memory, keep in mind
to return – anakampto – to bend back, to turn back; to return
opportunity – kairos – due measure; a
measure of time; opportune or seasonable time
:15 they would have
had opportunity to return
If you spend too much time
looking back, you won’t be going forward.
If Abraham had his eyes on where he came from, he might not have ever left
there.
Instead, he had his eyes on Canaan.
If you spend your time looking at what non-Christians are doing and wishing
you could be a part of it, you’re going to fight a losing battle.
We need to be looking forward to what God wants for us.
:16 But now they desire a
better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
:16 they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country
better – kreitton – more useful, more serviceable, more
advantageous; more excellent
comparative of kratos
(force, power, dominion)
heavenly – epouranios – existing in heaven; of heavenly
origin or nature
they desire – ὀρέγομαι – to stretch one’s
self out in order to touch or to grasp something
Their desire for a better country wasn’t just a momentary bit of “wishful
thinking”.
They were stretching out to get a hold of heaven.
Like the scene in a movie when one character is hanging on to the edge of a
building, and someone stretches out to grab them and pull them to safety. Kind of like …
That part where Jeremy Renner’s character is stretching
out to catch Tom Cruise – that’s oregomai.
These men and women of faith weren’t just sitting back in their tents
daydreaming about heaven. They were
stretching forth to grab it as if their lives depended upon it.
:16 God is not ashamed to be called their God
ashamed – epaischunomai (“upon” + “dishonor”) – to be ashamed
Lesson
Family Pride
to be called – ἐπικαλέομαι – to put a name
upon, to surname; to be named after someone
Do you have family members of whom you’re a little bit embarrassed to admit
you have the same last name?
God is not ashamed to be considered “family” with those who are learning to
live by faith and look towards their heavenly home.
When you’re younger, sometimes it’s your parents that embarrass you a
little.
But to be honest, sometimes it’s the other way around.
Video: Kids
Embarrass Parents - AFV
On September 11, 2001 the US had the wind knocked out of it when terrorists
flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York City.
A month and a half later, the World Series was played in that same city of
New York. The nation was still
struggling with what had happened.
Before the start of the game this happened...
Video: 2001
WS Lee Greenwood sings “God Bless the USA”
Our nation, constantly divided by politics, came together
and for a time we were all proud to be Americans.
So do you have a healthy sense of pride as being
considered part of God’s family? Are you
proud to be a Christian?
Jesus expressed the same sentiment when He said,
(Matthew 10:32–33
NLT) —32 “Everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will also
acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But everyone
who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.
When you are proud to stand up for God, He is proud to stand up for you.
He’s not embarrassed to consider you a part of His family.
:16 for He has prepared a city for them
prepared – hetoimazo – to make ready, prepare; to make the
necessary preparations, get everything ready
He’s talking about heaven. Jesus used the same language when He said,
(John 14:2 NKJV) In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so,
I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
When John caught a glimpse of heaven, he wrote,
(Revelation
21:2 NKJV) Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband.
11:17-19 Abraham’s Sacrifice
:17 By faith Abraham,
when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises
offered up his only begotten son,
:18 of whom it was said, “In
Isaac your seed shall be called,”
:19 concluding that God was
able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received
him in a figurative sense.
:18 In Isaac your
seed shall be called
This is a quote from Genesis
21:12.
Even though Abraham had other
sons, God only considered Isaac to be the special son of promise.
God had promised Abraham many
descendants, yet year after year his wife Sarah was unable to get pregnant.
Finally Sarah got this idea of letting Abraham
have sex with her handmaiden Hagar, and Sarah would somehow claim that the
child was her child.
And that’s how Abraham’s oldest
child, Ishmael was born.
Yet God wasn’t thrilled with all
of this. God had other plans for
Abraham.
Years later Abraham did have a
child with his wife Sarah, and Isaac was born.
When things got difficult
between Sarah and Hagar…
(Genesis 21:12 NKJV) But God said to Abraham, “Do not let it be displeasing in your
sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said
to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called.
God had a specific promise for
Abraham of not just having descendants, but having descendants through God’s
methods, not man’s.
God considered
Isaac to be the son of promise, not Ishmael.
:17 he who had received the promises
promises – epaggelia – announcement; promise
received – anadechomai – accept, welcome, entertain anyone
hospitably
Abraham didn’t just open up message, read it, and
toss it.
He opened up the message and cherished it.
While Abraham never received the fulfillment of the promise of inheriting
the entire “Promised Land”, there was a promise that he did “receive”.
He did become a father of a promised child.
:17 offered up his only begotten son
The story is found in Genesis 22 when Isaac was probably a teenager.
God tells Abraham
(Genesis
22:2 NLT) “Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom
you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt
offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you.”
And the wild thing about it is that the old man took his son up to Mount
Moriah, tied him up and was about to plunge the sacrificial knife into him when
he is stopped by the Angel of the Lord.
(Genesis
22:12 NLT) “Don’t lay a hand on the boy!” the angel said.
“Do not hurt him in any way, for now I know that you truly fear God. You have
not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”
only begotten – μονογενής–
single of its kind, only
This is the same word used to describe Jesus.
(John 3:16 NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
:19 concluding that
God was able to raise him up
concluding – λογίζομαι (“logic”) – to
reckon, calculate, count; to deliberate
Aorist middle participle
It’s a word about thinking. It’s an
accountant’s word.
Faith doesn’t demand that we put our brains on the shelf. It’s okay to do some thinking when it comes
to our relationship with God.
This is very much an “Abraham” word.
The word is found 41 times in the New Testament, 19 times in the book of
Romans alone (it’s a thinking-man’s book), and 11 of those times it’s in Romans
4, a chapter all about … Abraham.
(Romans 4:3 NKJV) For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it
was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Most of the time it’s used to describe how God has
“calculated” Abraham’s faith, and deposited “righteousness” into Abraham’s
account.
In our passage we see that Abraham has been doing some “calculating” on his
own.
How in the world could Abraham do such a thing like sacrificing his own
son?
He has figured out that if Isaac is the promised son, and Isaac doesn’t
have kids yet, then God will have to raise Isaac from the dead if He’s asked me
to sacrifice him.
:19 from which he also received him in a figurative sense
in a figurative sense – parabole – a
placing of one thing by the side of another, type, figure, parable
It was meant to paint a “picture” of the other “only begotten” son.
:17 By faith … when he was tested, offered up Isaac
offered up – prosphero – to bring to, lead to; to bring a
present or a thing, to reach or hand a thing to one
Perfect active indicative (1st time used)
Imperfect active indicative (2nd time used)
he was tested – peirazo – to try
whether a thing can be done; to try, make trial of, test: for the purpose of
ascertaining his quantity, or what he thinks, or how he will behave himself
present passive participle
Lesson
Tests require faith to pass
What a strange test for Abraham.
I believe God’s whole purpose for Abraham sacrificing Isaac was to simply
paint a picture of another Father who would
one day sacrifice His Only Begotten Son for us.
Some tests aren’t quite what we expect.
Illustration
Four college students were taking Organic Chemistry and doing well. They
thought they were doing so well that the weekend before finals they decided to
go out and party with some friends in another city.
They had a great time. However, after all the partying, they slept all day
Sunday and didn't make it back to school until early Monday morning. Rather
than taking the final then, they decided to find their professor after the
final and explain to him why they missed it. They explained that they had gone out
of town for the weekend with the plan to come to study, but, unfortunately,
they had a flat tire on the way back, didn't have a spare, and couldn't get
help for a long time. As a result, they missed the final.
The Professor thought it over and then agreed they could make up the final
the following day. The guys were elated and relieved. They studied that night
and went in the next day at the time the professor had told them. He placed
them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet,
and told them to begin. They looked at the first problem, worth 5
points. It was something simple about free radical formation. "Cool,"
they thought at the same time, each one in his separate room, "this is
going to be easy." Each finished the problem and then turned the page. On
the second page was written: (For 95 points): Which tire?
There are situations in life where we misunderstand what the test is all
about.
A relationship goes bad and so we begin to plot and plan about how we’re
going to manipulate the other person to fix the problem.
Yet maybe there’s something we’re missing.
Maybe we’re missing the issue of trusting God.
And if we’re trusting God, maybe we need to consider doing
things His way.
Instead of manipulating, perhaps we need humility.
Instead of having the better argument, perhaps we need to
forgive.
Are you being “tested”? Are you
willing to trust God in this test? Will
you do things His way?