Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Faith, Heaven, and Your Future, Part 2 of 20
TEXT: "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones" (Hebrews 11:20-22).
IDEA: Faith while exercised in the present focuses on the future.
PURPOSE: To help listeners recognize that the promises of God have to do with what is ahead.
How much do you think about the future?
How much do you think about the future beyond the future?
I. Do you think that living comfortably in the United States affects our concern about the future?
Christians in many other parts of the world hold on to hope for the future far more tenaciously than most of us do. Why?
We tend to live in a Disneyland fantasy world. We don't live with the reality that most other people know.
When you think of the people to whom the letter to the Hebrews is addressed, there is a great deal about keeping the future in view. Why?
II. In Hebrews 11: there are three verses that cover large sections of the book of Genesis and hundreds of years. Hebrews 11:20-22.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews has devoted 12 verses to Abraham whose record takes up 12 chapters of Genesis. Why do you think the writer of Hebrews devotes so little of Hebrews 11 to three men who took up so much of the book of Genesis?
It may be that unlike the previous people mentioned in Hebrews 11, these three men did not hear directly from God about the promises that God made to Abraham and his descendants. They received God's promise through the blessing of their fathers.
They lived by faith in a word that was given to people who lived before them.
III. The one thing they do have in common is that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews noticed how they were focused on the future.
Whenever we lose interest or confidence that our future belongs to God, we are more often living by sight rather than by faith.
