Sunday Night Notes 7/19/2015
Hebrews 11:1-4 - Faith Fall: Abel’s Faith
A Recap of Faith:
1. What faith is NOT:
a. Faith is not a set of warm fuzzy feelings that tell us everything will turn out ok.
b. Having faith doesn’t mean that you never have tough questions for God like Habakkuk.
c. How you feel:
i. You can feel faithless and have a lot of faith in God.
ii. You can feel full of faith, and actually have no faith in God.
iii. This is true because faith is not first and foremost an emotion, it is a choice
2. What faith IS:
a. Faith is simply acting like God is telling the truth.
i. Faith believes that God is too wise to make a mistake.
ii. Faith believes that God is too kind to be cruel.
iii. Faith believes that God always knows what’s best and does what’s best in His time
iv. Faith believes that God has everything in His control so nothing is ever out of control.
v. Faith believes that when our circumstances seem bleak, we can trust the heart of God.
b. Faith is always seen in our actions.
i. What you really believe can always be seen in the way you live.
c. Faith is not about what we believe, it’s about who we believe in.
i. You can have a lot of faith in the wrong person, and it won’t help you at all.
ii. You can have a little faith in the right person, and it will help you a lot.
d. Faith is the one thing necessary to please God.
i. If you’re not living in faith, then you’re not pleasing God.
ii. If you’re not pleasing God, then you’re displeasing Him.
iii. Why do you think it’s displeasing to God when we don’t live by faith?
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Hebrews 11
1. Last week we saw that the writer of Hebrews was writing to discouraged Christians who were about to
give up.
2. These guys were disheartened like Habakkuk, and they were wondering if the Christian life is really
worth it.
3. He assures them that their faith will be worth it in eternity, where they will receive rewards based on
how they live.
a. Remember, faith is all about how you live, that’s why they call it living by faith.
b. After encouraging the Hebrew Christians, the author of Hebrews writes about a huge list of Old
Testament characters that lived by faith.
c. Today, we call this chapter the “Hall of Faith.”
d. His point is to show the Christians that faith worked in the Old Testament, and it’s what will
work for us today as well.
Abel’s Faith
1. In verse 4, the first person listed is Abel, who brought a better sacrifice to God than his brother, Cain.
2. What do you think made Abel’s sacrifice better than Cain’s?
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3. When you take a look at Genesis 4:3-4, what you see is that Abel gave God the firstfruits of his
offering, but Cain didn’t.
a. In other words, Abel showed greater faith by giving God the best of what he had, rather than
just giving God his leftovers.
Discussion Questions:
1. Think of the person in your life that you think has the most faith in God: What was it about them that
makes you think their faith so strong? ________________________________________________
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2. Think of a time in life when your faith in God hit a low point…how did that affect the way you lived?
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3. Based off of that, what can we learn about the relationship between faith and obedience?
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