Let’s take our Bibles together and turn to the Book of Hebrews. Our passage today is Hebrews 11:8-22, and I hope you noticed the refrain in that reading of Scripture, “by faith… by faith… by faith… by faith.” It’s a memorable and poetic refrain. It’s a point of emphasis here. Abel had faith. Enoch had faith. Noah had faith. And in our passage today we see that Abraham also had faith. But not just Abraham. He’s the central character in this passage. But he’s not the exclusive person of faith in this passage. Also Sarah had faith. And Isaac had faith. And Jacob and Joseph had faith. 

“Had faith in what Pastor Tony?” Had faith in God’s Word. Had faith in the promises of God. And had faith, ultimately, in a better country than what they left behind in the Ur of the Chaldees. 

I heard Alistair Begg once summarize the entire Bible with this statement. He said it was something that he learned back in Scotland from his Sunday School teachers, and I thought it was good. He said, “In the OT, we have Jesus predicted. In the Gospels, we have Jesus revealed. In the Acts of the Apostles, we have Jesus preached. In the Epistles, we have Jesus explained. And in Revelation, we have Jesus expected [in his return].” That’s a good way to summarize the Bible in a few, short statements. But the problem with summarizing the Bible like that with hard categories is that sometimes those categories bleed together. 

For instance, sometimes in the Gospels we have Jesus expected too. Jesus talked extensively about his coming return. The Olivet Discourse (Matt 24-25) is all about that. And in the book of Hebrews, which is a NT Epistle, we definitely have Jesus explained. We’ve been explaining Jesus for almost ten chapters. But we also, Hebrews 11, have Jesus expected. We have a reference to a “better country.” What country is that? The United States of America? No. That’s the land of my sojourn, but it’s not my final destination. 

In this section of Hebrews, we have one of the great affirmations in the Bible that even the OT saints were looking forward to a post-death future. We see that their faith was truly, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1).

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And part of that faith involves what the author of Hebrews calls “a God-built city.” Write this down as #1 in your notes. Three statements about faith today, and here’s the first.

1) Faith looks forward to a God-built city (11:8-10) 

Let’s explore this. The author of Hebrews says in verse 8, 

8 By faith Abraham obeyed 

Notice here the sequence of faith followed by obedience. Everyone see that? Faith precedes obedience. Or you might say it this way, obedience is subsumed under the overarching statement “by faith.”

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.

I said last week that Abraham’s faith was placed in God’s Word. God told him to go, and he went. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t see and then believe. No, he heard God. He believed God. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

By the way the place that Abraham left, the Ur of the Chaldees, was not an outpost in the ancient world. This was a city that was right in the middle of the fertile crescent in Mesopotamia. Archaeological records have shown that this was a region with sophisticated learning. They had written language. They had advanced agricultural techniques. They had massive architectural structures called ziggurats. This was no podunk outpost. And Abraham left all this to wander into a land he didn’t know.

Also in the ancient world, your safety was determined by your clan, your tribe, and your nation. You stayed close to those who knew you and could protect you. You didn’t venture outside of that network, because outside of that safety zone, you could get yourself killed. Abraham was called out of that safety net. He was called to leave that place of comfort and protection and wander off to a place that he did not know. Why would anyone do that? Why did Abraham listen to God and obey God? 

Well there’s a reason Abraham is called the father of faith. And there’s a reason we sing silly songs about how Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham… and I am one of them. Paul says in Galatians 3:7, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” So we are the sons and daughters of Abraham if we believe God’s Word. Abraham had nothing other than the bare word of God, and he believed it. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

Look at verse 9.

9 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. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 

Let me state the obvious for you here—tents don’t have foundations. Tents do not constitute a city. And Abraham lived in tents his whole life. Abraham’s nephew Lot tried to occupy a city that was definitely not made by God. That turned into an unmitigated disaster for him and his family (see Gen 19:1-38).

And that’s what’s remarkable about Abraham’s life. God promised him a great land, the land of promise. And Abraham wandered that land, but he never owned any of it. It never belonged to him in his lifetime. It belonged to Canaanites and Hittites and other “-ites”, but not to Abraham. In fact the only plot of land that Abraham ever actually purchased was the cave of Machpelah that he used to bury his wife Sarah (Gen 23:1-20). That’s where he was buried too a few years later. 

Abraham never built a city that had foundations. And Abraham never found the city whose designer and builder was God. But according to this, he looked forward to it. Abraham died in a tent and was buried in a cave. What city was he looking forward to? Was it New York City? Was it San Antonio, Texas? Was it Rome? They once called Rome the “eternal city.” Is that the city whose designer and builder is God? No.

Is this a reference maybe to Jerusalem? Was it that beautiful and ancient city on a hill where the son of Abraham, David, ruled as king of the Jewish people? Is that the city Abraham looked forward to? Well, not exactly. That city had a tabernacle, and later a temple. That city had splendor and glory. That city was great, but its designer and builder wasn’t God—unless you want to say that the hill that Jerusalem was built on was built by God. 

No, the city that Abraham looked forward to is in fact the New Jerusalem described in the book of Revelation. That city is the eternal city designed and built by God. When your read about it in Revelation you see that: 1) It is shining with the glory of God, 2) Its brilliance is like that of a very precious jewel, clear as crystal, 3) Its size is immense—1,400 miles long, 1,400 miles wide, and 1,400 miles tall, 4) The wall of the city has twelve foundations, named after the twelve apostles, and decorated with every kind of precious jewel, 5) The river of the water of life flows through the city; it flows from the throne of God, 6) On each side of the river is the tree of life (see Rev 21:9-22:5). 

The book of Revelation says, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (22:3-5). And representatives from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, will stand before the Lord and worship him (Rev 7:9). What a great manifestation of the promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him (Gen 12:3)!

This passage is fascinating to me, because this is one of the greatest links in the Bible between Genesis and Revelation. The patriarchs of Genesis (Abraham in particular) anticipated at the very beginning what is revealed to us in the book of Revelation. They were longing for the Garden of Eden 2.0 that we all long for. And what the author of Hebrews is saying is that Abraham’s ultimate hope is our hope. His city is our city. His eternity is our eternity. 

Al Mohler says this, “We may not be wandering tribesman in the desert, but all Christians are pilgrims in land that is not our own. The sandcastles of this world must not distract us from the heavenly city that awaits. In that city we put our hope.” In other words, we’re all looking forward, OT and NT saints both, to a new country and a God-built city that will last forever.

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And speaking of forever, go ahead and write this down as #2. Faith looks forward to a God-built city. But also…

2) Faith looks forward to a never-ending homeland (11:11-16)

Look at verse 11. Abraham had faith but look who else had faith.

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 

We don’t think of Sarah as someone who manifests great faith in the OT. And to be honest, she’s not presented in the most positive light in the book of Genesis. Neither is Abraham, by the way. They both had feet of clay. 

The best example of that is when God told Abraham that he and Sarah would have a child in their nineties (see Gen 18:1-15). Sarah laughed at the possibility. Actually Sarah said sarcastically, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” (18:12). And then when God confronted her for laughing, she tried to deny it! 

But God’s got a sense of humor. He decides to call the miracle boy that Abraham and Sarah conceive in their nineties “laughter.” The Hebrew word “laughs” is שָׂחַק and the Hebrew name “Isaac” is יִצְחָק (“he laughs”). Sarah laughed because it was utterly ridiculous that they would have a child in their old age. And so, God laughs too and calls the baby יִצְחָק or “laughter.” God says, “That son of promise of yours, his name will be laughter.” God got the last laugh in that episode.

But despite that failure in Sarah’s past, she still manifested faith according to the Book of Hebrews. She followed her husband to the Promised Land and she “considered him faithful who had promised.”

Look again at verse 11. 

11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 

The thing about faith is that it’s kind of like learning to ride a horse. You fall off from time to time, but you get back up again. When you read the OT and learn about these people recorded in the “Hall of Faith,” metaphorically speaking there’s a lot of people falling off of horses! But they keep getting up again. Sarah laughs at God’s promise. That wasn’t her best moment. But afterwards she believes. And that correlates with our own faith. 

I read a Hebrews’ commentator this last week that said this, “Our faith often fluctuates and falters. The brutally honest record of Genesis shows that theirs fluctuated and faltered also. Yet their experiences of God’s faithfulness and power bear witness to us from the pages of Scripture, and their testimony must fortify our fragile faith.” 

Look at verse 12. 

12 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. 

We’re back to Abraham here. Remember the promise God gave Abraham? From a human standpoint, it is utterly absurd. From a logical standpoint, it’s unbelievable. This old man—who’s ability to procreate is as good as dead, because he was as good as dead—is going to be a father of a great nation! He’s going to have descendants like the stars of heaven and the grains of sand by the seashore (see Gen 15:1-5; 22:17; 26:4; see also 13:16). That’s a ridiculously impossible promise! Why did Abraham believe it? Should we believe ridiculously impossible stuff too? Not unless God promises it! 

Now look at verse 13. This is key to what the author of Hebrews is saying.

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, 

Who are the “these” in this statement? Well it includes Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Joseph, etc. They all died as wanderers in a strange land. They didn’t receive the things promised in their lifetimes. And Joseph died in Egypt! 

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, 

They saw a glimpse of these promises, but not the full manifestation.

and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 

Hmmm… that’s how I feel. I feel like a stranger and an exile here on earth. So did our OT forefathers. And if that’s true of me in the United States of America, how much more would that have been true for the Jewish Christians living in the Roman Empire in the midst of a hostile land where their faith in Christ was opposed by Jews and Gentiles both!

14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 

Look, this is so fascinating to me. The patriarchs traveling around in the wilderness felt like strangers and exiles on the earth. They confessed that they were seeking a homeland. But they never found it in their lifetimes. They never experienced the rest that comes from being home. They were looking for something better. And God had promised them something better. And they kept that faith all the way till death. “These all died in faith.” Everyone see that? They finished in faith. 

15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 

So they didn’t feel at home in their tents. But they also couldn’t go back to their home in the Ur of the Chaldees. When they had come to the Promised Land, they proverbially burned their ships. There was no going back. They were looking forward. Jacob tried going back for a little while to his uncle Laban, and that was an unmitigated disaster. He got raked over the coals by his two-timing uncle, and he got out of there with his two wives and his kids as soon as it was feasible. 

So they couldn’t go back home to Ur of the Chaldees. And they didn’t feel like their new home was home. They were still wandering around in tents. And Joseph had to flee to Egypt. What was their hope? What were they looking forward to? 

Well, here’s what the author says. Look at verse 16.  

16 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.

God has prepared for them a city, a New Jerusalem. God has prepared for them a better country. God has prepared for them a heavenly homeland, an eternal homeland, where they don’t have to travel around in tents like nomads looking for a place to camp. They desired something better than that. We also desire something better than that.

You know I have these friends who bought a house in Illinois, on the other side of town from where we used to live. And I went to visit them once in their new home. And they kept saying to us, “This is not our forever home.” And here’s what they meant by that. “This is just a fixer upper. This is just a starter home. Someday, when we have more financial wherewithal, we’ll buy our forever home.” 

And I know what they mean by that. And I don’t want to clobber them for their poor use of terms. But I do want to clarify that no home on this side of eternity should be described as your “forever home.” That house that you own or rent right now…that house that has a foundation made by man… that house will be rubble someday. And this world, that’s not our home, will burn up with intense heat and melt away (see 2 Peter 3:10-12). And God will design a new heaven and a new earth, and a New Jerusalem will come down from heaven and will be our forever home.

And we’re going to live next to each other in a city built by God. So you better get along with your brothers and sisters here, because we’ll be living together forever! Nobody’s going to be floating on a cloud in isolation playing their harp. 

Notice if you will the end of verse 16.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

By the way, this is not something that is isolated to Hebrews. Paul tells us in Philippians that “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3:20). Paul says in Ephesians, “[Y]ou are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (2:19). Jesus said in John 14, “I go to prepare a place for you” (14:2; see also Luke 16:9; 1 Cor 2:9). All of those passages look forward to what Revelation 21 tells us about our citizenship in the New Jerusalem. And as part of this constellation of passages that speak about our heavenly citizenship, the author of Hebrews writes in verse 16, 

16 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.

I’ll say two final things about this verse. Why is God not ashamed of them? Because they believed God’s Word. They, by faith, obeyed the Lord. That’s true of every person on this list—all sixteen men and women. So God is not ashamed of them, because they had faith. 

But secondly, there is a clear inference that we can extract from this statement. Ostensibly, in light of this passage, there are some people that God is ashamed of! There are some people who refuse to believe. And for them, let’s be clear, God has not prepared a city. There’s an entirely different eternal destination for those that God is ashamed of. And it’s not Revelation 21 and the New Jerusalem. It’s Revelation 20 and the Lake of Fire. 

Let me be crystal clear about this. There are two eternal destinies available to us. There is Revelation 21 or Revelation 20. There is the New Jerusalem, and there is the Lake of Fire. Both of those are eternal. Both of those will be full of people both well-known and unknown. For those in our day who have faith in God’s Word and his revelation of Christ, they will spend eternity along with the OT saints who put their faith in God’s Word too. Our saving faith in Christ looks forward to this future hope. Our saving faith in Christ looks forward to this eternal home in this eternal city. 

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So, saving faith looks forward to our future hope. It looks forward to a God-built city. It looks forward to a never-ending homeland. And finally, it looks forward to a post-death future. 

3) Faith looks forward to a post-death future (11:17-22)

Now this last section is a little more indirect in the way that it talks about faith and death and eternity. So the author is pretty creative in the way that he describes the faith of our forefathers and how it relates to ours. But let’s unpack what he is saying here and tie it to the broader context. 

Back to Abraham. Look at verse 17.

17 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, 

God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love and offer him up as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah.” It’s one of the most chilling and disorienting passages of Scripture—Genesis 22. If you didn’t know how the chapter would end ahead of time, you would be on pins and needles all the way to the end of the chapter.  

And what makes the narrative so gripping is that God spent years confirming his promise to Abraham and many chapters in the book of Genesis setting up the birth of Isaac. Now conceivably, the Lord wants to undo all the things that he’s worked to accomplish!

And the amazing thing is that Abraham did it. He offered up the promised one. Follow the flow of the sentence in verses 17-18.

17 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, 

Knife in hand, ready to slay him…

18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 

He was ready to kill him. He was ready to kill the promise and his prospects for the future. Why would he do that? How could he do that? Well, look at verse 19. By faith…

19 [Abraham] considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. 

Remember Abraham’s body was as good as dead. Paul tells us in Romans that Sarah’s womb was dead (Rom 4:19). They had already seen God raise the dead figuratively speaking, because their dead bodies conceived and birthed a son. Now, Abraham concludes, God can raise the dead again.

This is amazing. This is like inside baseball for the OT. This is the author of Hebrews, by the power of the Holy Spirit, giving us insight into what Abraham was thinking in that moment when he was about to sacrifice Isaac. “God can give him back.” That’s what Abraham was thinking. “God can raise him from the dead.” That was part of Abraham’s faith. “God has power over death.” 

And we know this even better than Abraham because God actually did raise his Son, his only Son from the dead. Abraham had his son, figuratively speaking, given back to him from the dead. God the Father literally had his son given back to him from the dead! And our resurrection is linked to his resurrection. Paul says in Romans 6:7-11, “For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Abraham believed that God would figuratively speaking raise Isaac from the dead. We believe that God literally raised his own Son from the dead. And his resurrection is the first fruits of our own resurrection (1 Cor 15:20). Abraham believed in a post-death future. And we also believe in a post-death future.

And speaking of Abraham’s son, Isaac, look at verse 20. 

20 By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. 

Isaac was a flawed individual by the way. He was like his daddy in good ways and in bad ways. Abraham travelled to Egypt and pretended that Sarah was his sister to protect his own skin (Gen 12:10-20; see also 20:1-18). Isaac did the exact same thing with his wife Rebecca (Gen 26:6-31). Like father; like son. 

But Isaac also saw past his own life and death and believed God’s promises for the future. And that faith was evidenced in his invoking of future blessings for his sons Jacob and Esau. Isaac believed in a post-death future. We believe in a post-death future.

Likewise Jacob. Look at verse 21.

21 By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. 

Jacob believed in a post-death future. We believe in a post-death future. By the way, Jesus said that God is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not God of the dead, but of the living (Matt 22:31-32).

Likewise Joseph believed in a post-death future. Look at verse 22. 

22 By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.

Joseph was sold into slavery at age seventeen (Gen 37:2). And he lived in Egypt till he was 110 (Gen 50:26). It’s amazing that he lived his whole life in Egypt, but he still linked his future offspring to the Promised Land.

These men all had faith in a post-death future. Joseph believed so much in the promise of the Promised Land that he made his children promise to carry his bones back. That’s an amazing leap of faith. But that “leap” was founded on God’s promises. It was founded on what God had said to his great-grandfather Abraham, that “I will make you into a great nation” (Gen 12:3).

And what’s the refrain that’s repeated for all the great OT heroes? “By faith… by faith… by faith… by faith.” “By faith Abraham” (11:8, 17). “By faith Sarah” (11:11). “By faith Isaac” (11:20). “By faith Jacob” (11:21). And “by faith Joseph” (11:22). How does God want us to live our lives? By faith. How does God want us to anticipate the future? By faith. How does God receive us into his eternal kingdom forever? By faith. “Faith in what, Pastor Tony? Faith in crazy things that we just pull out of thin air?” No. He wants faith in his promises. He wants faith in his Word. And faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1).

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I’ll close with this. In his exposition of Hebrews 11, Kent Hughes tells the story of a missionary named Henry C. Morrison. And just after the turn of the twentieth century, Morrison returned to New York after spending forty years in Africa. Forty years! For forty years he was a stranger in a strange land serving the Lord, and then he came home. And through a twist of fate he was actually on the same boat as the wildly popular President Theodore Roosevelt. 

And as they entered New York harbor together, the President was greeted with a huge crowd and much fanfare. And Morrison felt dejected by this. He had spent more than four decades in the Lord’s service. And now as he was coming home, nobody was there to cheer him. But then a small voice came to Morrison. And that still small voice said, “Henry… you’re not home yet.” “And was the voice ever right, for God had “prepared a city” far greater than the Big Apple for Henry Morrison.” This world is not our home. Right church? Not as presently constituted. We are sojourners in a strange land long for a better country.

Here’s how one songwriter describes it. 

This world is not my home

I'm here for a moment

It's all I’ve ever known

But this world is not my home

The fight is not my own

These burdens aren’t my future

The empty tomb has shown

I am bound for glory