Pastor's Bible Study

Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all lived very different lives. Yet they shared one defining characteristic. They trusted God enough to wait. They obeyed when they didn’t know where. - They trusted when they didn’t know how. - They persevered when they didn’t know when. - They surrendered when they didn’t know why. And because they did, they left a legacy that continues to encourage believers thousands of years later.

The question for us is no longer what Abraham did. The question is: What kind of faith will characterize our lives while we wait on God’s promises?

Have you ever asked God "How are You going to...?" Or, "When are you going to...?" Faith is about more than trusting God for the "What." Faith also waits for the "how" and "when." Abraham didn't know how God would fulfill the promise of giving him a son, but He trusted that He would. And Abraham didn't receive in his lifetime the fulfilment of every promise God made to Him. But, he trusted God for His timing on when to fulfill His promises. Abraham and Sarah teach us what it means to wait by faith when you don't how God will fulfill His promises or when He will fulfill His promises.

Faith waits because faith trusts that God always keeps His promises—even when His timing doesn’t match ours. Waiting is not the absence of faith. Patiently waiting is often the greatest evidence of faith. - The world says, “Seeing is believing.” The Christian says, “Believing enables me to keep trusting even when I cannot yet see.”

In this lesson we explore how faith trust God even when it doesn't know where God is calling us to.

Chapter 19 of Exodus records one of the greatest worship scenes to ever take place.  We learn from this passage that worship is not something we go blundering into. The practice of worship isn’t haphazard or without discipline. In this passage we learn how to successfully go about the practice of worship. 

God is the Person we worship. He is the only person we should worship. When we truly stop and contemplate His attributes displayed toward us, His authority which He righteously rules over us with, His actions of longsuffering and love which he lives among us with, we can’t help but bestow upon Him supreme worth and reverence. We can’t help but bow our lives before Him and serve Him above any other. 

Chapter 11 is God’s illustration of the statement: the just shall live by faith. It is a hall of fame (gallery) of ordinary men and women who trusted God and obeyed Him. - These men and women are not remembered because they were perfect. They are remembered because they trusted God enough to obey Him. They are examples of what it looks like to live by faith.

Big Idea: Faith is trusting God’s Word enough to obey Him, even when we cannot see the outcome.

From chapter 1 to chapter 10 the author has essentially hammered away at one message: Jesus is Better. But now he in essence asks an important question: What are you going to do with that truth? Doctrine always demands a response.

Because Jesus has opened the way to God, believers must draw near in faith rather than draw back in unbelief. Will we draw near to God, or will we draw back from Him? Every believer is moving in one of those two directions.

Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenant. The central truth of this passage is this: Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice secured eternal redemption and opened the way for sinners to enter God’s presence forever.

The conscience is that inward awareness of guilt before God. It is the knowledge deep inside us that something is wrong between us and Him. And here is the great truth of Hebrews 9: Religion can cover guilt temporarily, but only Jesus can cleanse the heart completely.