Faith in the Gap

Big idea: Faith is not the certainty of getting what we asked for — it is the certainty of belonging to the God who promised, and that is a faith that holds on even when the outcome is withheld.

Introduction: The Unfinished Story

Today we conclude our Living By Faith mini series in Hebrews 11. We have followed one witness after another, from Abel to Moses. Their lives have shown us what it means to trust God. Now the writer brings the whole company together: people who experienced remarkable victories and people who endured terrible suffering. God commends them all through faith.

Near the end, he tells us that these faithful people did not receive the promised fulfillment in their lifetimes. Their stories were part of a saving purpose that reached its fulfillment in Christ.

Look at verse 39 with me. "All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised."

That is a startling sentence. These are people whom God commended. Yet their lives ended while the fulfillment they awaited still lay ahead.

So here is the question for this morning: how do we live between what God has promised and what we can currently see? We must distinguish that promise from an outcome we have hoped or prayed for. God has not promised everything we ask. But He has promised salvation and a future with Him through Jesus Christ.

That gap between promise and fulfillment is where faith lives. Our passage shows us how to trust God there, both when He grants deliverance and when suffering remains.

Faith is not the certainty of getting what we asked for — it is the certainty of belonging to the God who promised.

That is a faith that holds on even when the outcome is withheld.

Open your Bibles to our passage for today.

Hebrews 11:30–40 CSB

30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after being marched around by the Israelites for seven days. 31 By faith Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies in peace and didn’t perish with those who disobeyed. 32 And what more can I say? Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the raging of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead, raised to life again. Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. 39 All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

The Word of God.

Prayer for Illumination

Let us pray. Gracious God, by Your Holy Spirit, teach us to hear Your Word faithfully. Give us gratitude for Your mighty works, courage to remain loyal to Christ, and love for Your people wherever they suffer. Help us recognize the grace that gathers us into one people through our Savior. In His name we pray. Amen.

1. Faith obeys before it sees the outcome (vv. 30–31)

The writer begins with two examples of trust that came before the outcome. Look at verse 30: "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after being marched around by the Israelites for seven days."

God had given Israel a particular command and a particular promise. They marched while the walls still stood. Their obedience expressed trust in His Word; God brought the walls down.

Joshua's name does not appear in this verse. The writer directs our attention to the people following God's command together. Their obedience was shared, and the victory God gave them belonged to the community.

Verse 31 gives us the same pattern in a single life: "By faith Rahab the prostitute welcomed the spies in peace and didn't perish with those who disobeyed."

Rahab is a Canaanite woman and a prostitute, living in a city facing judgment. Yet she is named among the witnesses of faith.

In Joshua 2, Rahab tells the spies that she has heard what the Lord has done. She acknowledges Him as God over heaven and earth. She receives His messengers and seeks mercy for her household. She protects the spies before the city is taken, trusting the God whose power she has heard about.

Her response was costly. By welcoming the spies, she identified herself with the people whose God she had come to trust. She was living in Jericho, but her allegiance had changed. Verse 31 describes the people who perish in terms of their disobedience. Rahab shared their city, but she did not share their response to God. The walls could not make unbelief safe. Rahab's background could not prevent God from receiving her through faith.

Consider what that means for a church like ours. We can become comfortable with the idea that God's people look like the people we already know. They come from familiar families. They understand our customs. They know when to stand, when to sit, and where to find the passage.

Rahab unsettles those expectations. God receives her through faith, and the church must welcome those whom Christ receives. Imagine a visitor who has never attended worship before. The language and service are unfamiliar. That person may carry a history we do not know and worries we cannot see. Will we help that person hear the gospel, learn a name, make room in the pew, and offer patient friendship?

Faith in Christ creates a belonging deeper than familiarity. We are gathered by His grace. And that belonging involves allegiance. Rahab did not simply admire Israel's God from a safe distance. Her actions identified her with Him and His people. The same is true when we confess Christ. We are received by grace, and we begin to live as people who belong to Him — public worship, fellowship, taking our place beside other believers, even when doing so brings a cost.

So Israel and Rahab trusted God before the deliverance came. But Jericho is not a formula guaranteeing that every obstacle will collapse if we persist long enough. Faith responds to what God has actually said. In the gap, we obey His Word while leaving the outcome in His hands.

And that raises the harder question. What happens when the deliverance never comes? What do you do when you have obeyed, and marched, and trusted — and the wall is still standing? That is where the writer turns next.

2. Faith holds on when the outcome is withheld (vv. 32–38)

Watch what the writer does here. He starts naming names — and then he stops, almost as if he has run out of room. Verse 32: "And what more can I say? Time is too short for me to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets."

The list brings together judges, a king, and prophetic servants. Their inclusion does not endorse every decision they made. Scripture tells the truth about their failures. Hebrews points to acts of faith through which God accomplished His work.

Then come the victories, verses 33 and 34: "who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight."

These are stories we gladly tell our children and grandchildren. They give us reason to praise God for His power and mercy.

But hear the range of that list. Some victories occur on a battlefield. Others occur in a place of danger where a believer has no army at all. And among these mighty works is the practice of justice. Faith serves God through doing what is right as well as through surviving what seems impossible.

This passage makes room for glad thanksgiving. When a persecuted believer is released, a church receives protection, or wrongdoing is exposed and justice is done, we should thank God. But a victory gives us no permission to rank ourselves above believers whose circumstances are harder.

The person who comes home from prison has much to tell the church. The person who remains in prison still belongs to the church.

That distinction matters because we can turn a testimony into an expectation. Someone describes how God delivered them, and soon we begin assuming He must deliver everyone in precisely that way. Hebrews teaches us to celebrate what God has given without turning His gift into a rule He has never stated.

And that is exactly why the writer does not stop with the victories. Verse 35 begins with women receiving their dead alive. Then the sentence turns, and we hear about others whose experience is very different.

Listen to the second half of verse 35 and the verses that follow: "Other people were tortured, not accepting release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Others experienced mockings and scourgings, as well as bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they died by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, and mistreated."

The writer has placed the rescued and the tortured beside one another. Some escape the sword; others die by it. Both groups receive God's commendation through faith.

And then verse 38, one of the most haunting lines in all of Scripture: "The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and on mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground."

These believers suffered poverty, rejection, and displacement. Some were killed. Others wandered in deserts and mountains, seeking shelter in caves. They lacked the visible signs of a successful life, yet God honored them.

And God says of them — and this is the astonishing part — the world was not worthy of them. Do you hear the direction of that sentence? It is not a verdict on their worth. It is a verdict on the world that cast them out. God commends what the world despised.

Church, hear this: an earthly outcome is not a reliable measure of a believer's faith. Hebrews commends both those delivered from danger and those who remained faithful within it.

So if the outcome cannot tell us whether our faith is real, what can? The writer answers that question in his final two verses — and he takes us past the witnesses themselves to the One their faith was resting in all along.

3. Faith rests in the promise fulfilled in Christ (vv. 39–40)

Here is where the writer lands, and it is the most important turn in the whole passage. Verse 39: "All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised."

And then verse 40: "since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us."

God had not forgotten them. Earlier, verse 33 said that some obtained promises; verse 39 says they did not receive the promised fulfillment. They experienced particular promises being kept, while the fullness of God's saving purpose still lay ahead.

God's promise to Abraham included blessing for the nations through his offspring. That saving purpose reaches its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The Son of God gave Himself at the cross for sinners and rose victorious. These earlier believers trusted God before that fulfillment came.

Here is the distinction we need: God's promise is secure, but our preferred outcome is not automatically His promise. We may pray for healing or relief, and some losses may remain throughout this life. Faith rests in the salvation Christ has accomplished and the future God has pledged to His people.

Verse 40 adds something beyond the truth that God's promise outlasts one life. God provided something better for us so that His people would be brought to completion together. The earlier believers and we share in one saving purpose through Christ. They looked forward to its fulfillment; we look back on His death and resurrection. Together we await its final fullness.

Throughout Hebrews, that better provision centers on Christ: His priesthood, His covenant, His sufficient sacrifice. Chapter 10 declares that His single offering accomplishes what the repeated sacrifices could not. Being made perfect here concerns the completion of God's saving work and access to Him through Christ. These earlier believers were not waiting for us to improve their salvation by becoming impressive Christians. Their salvation and ours rest in the same Savior.

So the witnesses have done their work. They have shown us that faith obeys before it sees, holds on when the outcome is withheld, and rests in a promise that only Christ could fulfill. Now the question comes to us.

Application: What Do You Do in the Gap?

What does it mean to live in the gap? Let me leave you with two applications.

First, name your burden honestly.

You may tell God that you are grieving, frightened, or weary. You may ask for relief. Hebrews does not require suffering believers to disguise their pain. But when you speak about an unanswered prayer, remember that the answer you requested and the promise God made may be different things. Bring Him your desire while resting in what He has actually promised.

Second, honor those whose suffering continues.

Some among us carry a cost few people know: illness, grief, or years of prayer for someone they love. Make room for their testimony without requiring a triumphant ending. Listen, pray, and offer practical help. Remember also believers persecuted for confessing Christ. Pray for their protection and release, and ask God to sustain their loyalty while danger remains.

Conclusion

As we finish Living By Faith, remember the company this passage places before us. Israel and Rahab trusted God. Some believers experienced deliverance. Others suffered and died. God commended them all through faith, and their hope reaches its fulfillment in Christ.

If you are in Christ, you belong to that same company. The gap between God's saving promise and its final fulfillment will close when He brings His people into the fullness of life with Him. Our hope rests in the Savior who died, rose, and will come again.

Faith is not the certainty of getting what we asked for — it is the certainty of belonging to the God who promised.

That is a faith that holds on even when the outcome is withheld.

If you have never trusted Christ, hear the gospel. You do not earn a place among His people through your record or background. Jesus bore the judgment we deserved and offers forgiveness to those who come to Him. Turn from your sin and trust Him. He receives those who come.

For those who belong to Him, carry this faith into the week ahead. Welcome those Christ receives. Give thanks for deliverance. Stand beside those still suffering. Next we move into Hebrews 12 and the larger message of this letter: lay aside what hinders us, turn from sin, and run with endurance, looking to Jesus. These witnesses have prepared us to hear that call. Let us hold fast to the Savior and help one another persevere.

Let us pray.

Father, help us trust You in the gap between Your promise and its final fulfillment. Keep us from confusing our wishes with Your Word. Give us gratitude when You grant relief and steadfast trust when suffering remains. Help us welcome those Christ receives and stand beside those who bear a cost for His name. Fix our eyes on Jesus, whose sacrifice is sufficient and whose resurrection secures our hope. In His name we pray. Amen.