Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Some of my favorite days growing up were when my dad would stop by the school just to stop by and be with me.

When I was in fifth grade, I had a man named Mr. Russ as my teacher.

He told stories about telling kids their parents had died.

This was the most unimaginably frightening thing to me.

Every time I got called down to the office, the thought would cross my mind, “What if it’s one of my parents telling me that the other one was gone.”

It was a haunting thought.

Thankfully, nothing like that ever ended up happening to me.

But mine is only one story of several million.

And the fact of the matter is that unimaginable tragedy is playing out in the lives of so many people right now as we speak.

The world that we live in is full of pain and difficulty.

And there’s this sense that inevitably it will come for me as well.

And for me, that truth at times left me with a lot of “What If” questions.

What if my parents did die?

What if my heart condition does get worse and take my life?

What if I make a mistake and really do mess up my life as I know it?

What if my depression really doesn’t ever go away?

What if I never win the war against sexual temptation?

What if my daughter does have developmental issues?

The reality is that, because of sin, we live in a “What If” World.

It’s a world in which these are legitimate questions.

And yet, you guys have been learning about faith, hope, confidence.

So, what does it look like to have faith in our “What If” World?

Review

Our passage for this afternoon is in Hebrews chapter 11—go ahead and turn there.

If you remember about one million years ago, you guys had been working through this chapter in Hebrews, learning about what faith is, and who our faith is in.

In Hebrews 11:1, it says “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

And so in this chapter you looked at the lives of people who have displayed that kind of confidence, that kind of assurance, and when we pick things up in verse 13, the author is going to give a little summary of what he’s covered so far.

So let’s begin reading in chapter 11, verse 13.

All these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opporunity to return.

Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.

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

Dive into the Text

“These people”

Let’s be reminded, who are “these people” that the author is talking about?

Well we can look back at verses 1-10, and we find it’s Abel (as in Cain and Abel), Enoch (the guy who got swooped up into heaven), Noah (not your Bible teacher), and Abraham and his wife Sarah.

These are people whose stories are recorded in the Old Testament.

“were living by faith”

And the author is saying that “all these people lived by faith” or “according to faith”—meaning that they lived, they reasoned, they made decisions not based on what they could see with their eyes, but based on what they had been promised by God.

“the things promised”

And what had God promised them?

Well, you might recall that God promised Abraham that he would become a great nation, and inherit the land of Canaan, and that all the nations would be blessed through his family.

But these other people—Abel, Enoch, Noah—they came before that promise.

So what’s the author talking about here?

Well, while I do think that God’s promises to Abraham are in view in a sense, there is an earlier promise that would apply to all.

The story of Cain and Abel is found in Genesis 4, but in Genesis 3 God makes a promise to Adam and Eve and to us.

Genesis 3

Now, can anyone tell me what happens in Genesis 3? I’ll give you a hint: It isn’t great.

The Fall!

The Fall of mankind happens in Genesis 3.

And yet we also find what theologians call the protoevangelium.

(Everyone say, “protoevangelium.”)

This is just a fancy way of saying “the first (proto) giving of the good news (evangelium),” or “the first proclamation of the gospel.”

What we find is that as soon as Adam and Eve fell, and as soon as God had announced the consequences to them, God also promised to save them.

In the NIV God says to the Serpent, “the seed (or child) of the woman will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

”

Jesus Storybook Bible

Here God promises a child to Eve who would do battle against Satan, and who would defeat Sin and Death.

I absolutely love the way that the Jesus Storybook Bible portrays this text:

God loved his children too much to let the story end there.

Even though he knew he would suffer, God had a plan — a magnificent dream.

One day, he would get his children back.

One day, he would make the world their perfect home again.

And one day, he would wipe away every tear from their eyes.

You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children — with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

And though they would forget him, and run from him, deep in their hearts, God’s children would miss him always, and long for him — lost children yearning for their home.

Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: “It will not always be so!

I will come to rescue you!

And when I do, I’m going to do battle against the snake.

I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here.

I’m coming back for you!”

And he would.

One day, God himself would come.

This is the promise: I will come back, and I will bring you home.

It’s a promise almost too good for words: God will conquer sin and death!

The curse of sin will be removed by the seed of Eve!

“All these died in faith, not having recieved the things promised”

And yet!

And yet.

“All these died in faith.”

They had high hopes!

And yet “they did not receive the things promised.”

What?

How can this be?

Didn’t God promise to conquer sin and death?

What’s going on here?! Do you see the tension here?

God has promised something so great, and yet this life can be so difficult.

What’s going on?

I’ll tell you what’s going on: It’s disappointment.

It’s difficulty.

It’s the “What If” world coming frighteningly true.

Learning from their example.

So what do we do with faith in the face of disappointment and difficulty?

What can we learn from the example of these men and women?

Faith doesn’t always become sight in this life.

There are two things I want us to walk away with from this Text.

The first is that Faith doesn’t always become sight in this life.

Even for these heroes of the faith that we read about, they never recieved what God had promised in full.