Sermon Study Guides

It’s easy to begin something. Finishing something, however, is hard. That’s because finishing what we begin requires us to endure the setbacks we face along the way. ...

Forty years before the walls of Jericho fell, God had brought the nation of Israel to the brink of the land of Canaan. Most of the spies who scouted out the land had returned in despair, saying the land’s inhabitants were too strong for them (Numbers 13:25-14:4). In response, the people refused to enter, and God in turn punished them by causing them to live in the wilder...

The recipients of Hebrews would have thought highly of Moses. So the author devotes several verses to showing them that the difficult road of faith they were tempted to turn off was the same road their hero walked. ...

Faith is “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Sometimes, what is “not seen” is how God is working in our present circumstances. Other times, what’s unseen is future realities. ...

Abraham’s faith was demonstrated in his obedience to leave everything behind and follow God to a land yet to be revealed: “he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8; Genesis 12:1). ...

You can’t have a discussion on faith without mentioning Abraham, a man known specifically for his faith. Because of this reputation, the author devotes several more verses to him and his family than he did to Abel, Enoch, or Noah. ...

Noah is the third and final example of the author’s point that walking by faith is something God’s people have been doing before even Abraham, the man of faith. And again, Hebrews 10:38 (quoting Habakkuk 2:3-4) is prominent in the author’s mind: “my righteous one shall live by faith”. Anyone “righteous” or pleasing to God (v 6) are, by definition, people of f...

The author now mentions a second pre-Abraham example of faith, Enoch, whose story is told in Genesis 5:21-24. We’re not told much, but after Enoch’s son Methusaleh was born, he “walked with God” (Genesis 5:22). The last thing we’re told about him is that he “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:24) That is, this man who walked with G...

In Hebrews 11:4, the author begins his journey through the Old Testament’s many examples of faith in action. And in verses 4-7 he shows that walking by faith is something God’s people have done even before Abraham’s time. ...

Hebrews was written to believers whose enthusiasm for the gospel was being worn down (10:32-34). Following Jesus was costly, and the idea of giving it all up and returning to their former life of Judaism was starting to look appealing. ...