What does First B Jackson teach about hebrews 11?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First Baptist Jackson, the teaching on Hebrews 11 begins with what faith actually is. Pastor Brian walked the congregation through the definition the chapter itself offers: the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not yet seen. He was careful to point out that the Greek word for faith carries both directions at once. It is the trust we place in God, and it is the faithfulness of God himself. That means faith, as the Bible uses the word, is never something a person generates. It is a gift, something God works in a person, and it only becomes what Scripture means by faith when it is placed in the faithfulness of God rather than in anything else.
Pastor Ray spent time with the specific people on the list, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and the others, asking in each case what they actually did and what came of it. The pattern he kept returning to was that these people acted before the outcome was certain. Abraham left without knowing the destination. Sarah trusted the one making the promise even after she had laughed. Joseph, dying in Egypt, gave instructions about bones that would not move for generations. None of them received the fullness of what was promised in their own lifetimes. They died looking forward. Ray pointed out that this is exactly where the Old and New Testament experience meet: God planned something better, not just for them but for us, so that together the whole family would be made complete.
The chapter does not promise an easy road, and the preaching at First Baptist Jackson does not soften that. The same list that includes people who conquered kingdoms and quenched fire also includes people who were tortured, imprisoned, and sawn in two. Both sides of that ledger are in the text, and both were treated as equally valid expressions of faithfulness. In the final message in this series, Pastor Ray brought the list forward into the present, naming people from this congregation and from his own life who lived out their faith and have since died, tying their stories directly to the ancient witnesses the writer of Hebrews names. The cloud of witnesses, the teaching made clear, is not a figure of speech. It includes people these families have buried.
Taught from Hebrews 11:1 · Hebrews 11:32 - 12:3 · Hebrews 11:39-40 · Hebrews 10:36-39 · Genesis 15:6
The passage taught · Hebrews 11:1
1 Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- January 5, 2020 By Faith: People of Whom the World Was Not Worthy Hebrews 11-12 sermon on living by faith, honoring those who ran before us, and fixing our eyes on Jesus as we endure the race set before us.
- December 15, 2019 When He Was Called, Obeyed Ray walks through Hebrews 11, showing how Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph each stepped forward in faith toward a promise they never fully received in this life.
- December 15, 2019 When He Was Called, He Obeyed Hebrews 11 traces Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph as ordinary people whose forward-looking faith in God's promises shaped history and still speaks today.
- December 1, 2019 By Faith: The Bread That Holds It Together Hebrews 11 shows that every believer across all time is united by faith in God's faithfulness. That same faith is what God calls us to live by today.