We’re going to be starting our series on “Discovering the Heart of God” today. For the next few weeks both in the sermons and then also in several community groups we’re going to be talking about things that come from the heart of God. It’s not just that God loves us, but what impact does His love have on the world and in our lives. We’re going to look at things that show the love of God for us. We’re also going to be looking at what our lives will look like if we are allowing the love of God to flow through us. As I think about the Christian life I’m reminded of a story.
Two longstanding church members were in a boat fishing with a new Christian. Fishing is a great time for conversation and each was proclaiming his fervent faith and devotion to God. As they were discussing their faith, one’s hat blew into the water. So he stood up, calmly stepped onto the water, walked over to his hat, picked it up off the water, and walked backed to the boat. The new Christian was amazed how this Christian could seemingly walk on water. As the new Christian was pondering this, the other church member’s hat blew into the water. He also very calmly stepped onto the water, walked over to his hat, picked it up off the water, and walked backed to the boat. The new Christian was overwhelmed at how spiritual these men must be to have walked on the water as they did. Then the new Christian thought to himself, "Well, if these guys can do it, so can I", and he "helped" his hat blow into the water. He very calmly stepped out of the boat and was inhaling water instantly. As he fought his way to the surface, gasping for breath, the two long-standing church members turned to each other and said, "I think we should have told him about the sand bar on this side of the boat.
As we begin our series today we’re going to be talking about faith. Because to really know God and to really experience His heart you have to not only have faith but be willing to live by your faith. Today we’re going to be walking through Hebrews chapter 11 but we’re going to start by reading the first 10 verses. Hebrews 11:1-10, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. By faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who come to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God
What Faith Is:
We’re looking today that the characteristic of faith. If we’re going to live a life of faith then we have to know what faith is. We’re going to start by looking at a common definition of faith. I looked it up in a couple of dictionaries and a consistent definition would be this. Faith can be defined as a strong belief in God. I like that definition, I think it’s pretty good. The problem is that most people think that the word “belief” is a surface definition. The belief in the existence of God, a recent study found that 82% of people in America believe in God and want some sort of spiritual influence in their lives. That’s a lot of people who say they believe in God, but do they really? Because if you really believe in God, if you have faith in God it’s going to impact how you live.
You see Faith is more then just belief in the existence of God it is having confidence in God. As we look at this chapter which has been called the “Hall of Fame of Faith” we don’t see people who simply championed the cause of the existence of God, we don’t see people who simply didn’t do bad things, we see people who lived their lives according to what God told them to do and according to the promises that God had given them.
Look at this list of people, Abraham moves where God tells him. Moses parents hide hime, Moses grows to reject the court of the Pharaoh for the inheritance of a slave, Rahab welcomes spies instead of joining the fight with the people of Jericho, then as Paul writes we can still talk about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets. These were all people who didn’t just believe in God but they acted on that faith.
If we have God in our lives, then there is not a question of belief in the existence of God. The question is whether we really believe in Him? Do we have confidence that He can keep His promises. Do we have confidence that if we live according to His word that He can bless us? Do we live as if His advice is sound? Because if we do then our lives are going to be different because of it. And understand this point because I don’t think we talk about it in church enough, there are going to be times that we take risks, that we do things that we wouldn’t normally do, because we are believing that it is what God wants us to do. God wants us to live according to our faith, that means that there are times when He is going to call us to do things where we are totally dependent on Him. If you really believe that God is who He says He is, if you really believes that He loves you this isn’t a problem. The problem is that we don’t often do it. What does that say about us? It says that we don’t often trust Him like we should.
As we think about that there’s a part of verse one that arrested my attention long ago and has held it since. Verse one says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.” That word assurance, is translated in some versions as “substance.” In fact some translations read that way, that say “faith is the substance of things unseen.” Here’s the point The word translated as “assurance” can also be “substance” faith is tangible it changes things.”
Our faith our belief in God, when we are willing to live according to it. I think a good definition for faith in the life of a Christian is belief in action. We don’t passively sit back and simply believe that God exists, or even believe that He is great and wants to be involved in our lives we act on it. When we have faith in God He responds, He moves. There are things that He wants to do in our lives, things that He wants to show us an reveal to us, about Him, and even about ourselves, but He can’t do it until we are willing to really trust Him and put it into action. But when we do, when we have faith, God knows about it. He responds in the unseen world and in the world that we can see. When we have faith in God, when we trust Him, He proves trust worthy.
Walking in Faith:
So what does a life of faith look like? Well one of the first things that I see is that if you want to walk with God you have to walk in faith. Look at verse 5, “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took Him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God.” But his story is in Genesis 5 after gives the stats on his life and that he was the father of Methuselah we read this, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” Here’s the thing if you’ve read or heard this passage before you’ve probably focused on the the end, “he was no more, because God took him away.” This should get our attention. Think about what it means. God intervened for this man so that he wouldn’t face death. That catches my attention, I mean death comes for us all, but not this guy. Here’s what we should ask though, why? Why this guy what was special about him?
Well back up a little bit, Genesis 5 seems to be one of those lesser chapters in the Bible, it’s a genealogy, we tend to skip over those when we’re reading. That’s because they tend to follow the same format, name, who your first born was, how old you were when they were born and how many years you lived. Then the next one. But as we look at this chapter these are the 10 patriarchs before Noah. These guys have a direct line to the Garden of Eden, they knew that God created. But when we get to Enoch we find the format changes to include the note that Enoch walked with God. It means that they had an intimate relationship. He lived life with God. They were in constant communication, he did the things that God led him to do. Here in Hebrews we learn that the power that enabled him to do that was faith. If we are to live life with God and for God we have to live it with an active faith.
If you turn back to Hebrews 11 after it talks about Enoch it says in verse 6, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” If you want to live with God, it you want to walk with Him then you need His power in your life to accomplish all that He calls you to. But let me put this another way, unless you are living life with faith, unless you are doing things that require God to move in your life, unless you let Him move you out to the edge to where you have to depend on Him. If you’re not doing something that requires God intervention to be successful then you’re really not trusting Him, you’re really not living with faith and God desires that we live with faith. His desire is that we follow Him into doing things that force us to depend on Him, things that stretch us and move us out of our comfort zone. When we do that, where He leads, we will find success because God is with us.
Understand we have to be going where God leads, we don’t take risks just because, we do it when God calls us to do it. We don’t get to tell God what He is going to do. Walking with God means that you follow where He leads. God doesn’t ask us to take risks just because. With everything that God does there is a purpose, we may not be able to see it, but it is there. Every time we are taking a risk, every hurt that we feel, even every defeat, God is going to use someway some how to grow His kingdom and to grow us. We know that when we see through the eyes of faith, when we trust that He care us us, that He has a plan for us, and that He is big enough to accomplish His purpose when we let Him. We we do that we are walking with God. Enoch walked with God, he walked in faith, because of that out of all of those patriarchs he was the one commended for it, and God intervened even in the case of death for him.
What does that look like in our lives. I heard a story this week about Dan Cathy the CEO of Chick-Fill-A. If you’re familiar with Chick-Fill-A you’ll know that they not only have really good chicken, but that they are a Christian company from being closed on Sundays to having John 3:16 on their cup. One day the attorney for Chick-Fill-A walked up to Dan Cathy and told him he better back off being so openly Christian and taking such a Christian stance within the company or he was eventually going to get into trouble because of it. Dan Cathy looked back at him and said, “Your job is to keep me out of jail but if I have to do this in an orange jump suit I’m still going to do it. That is a man who is living in faith, he is out on the edge. It’s not just faith in God’s power but that God will make any sacrifice we make for Him worth it.
There’s something else about walking with God. Walking with God requires living as if His promises have already been fulfilled. If taking a risk for God, if the thought of going where He leads even if it makes you uncomfortable seems like a lot consider what we read in verses 8 to 13, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of Heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on earth.” Do you see those words, “having welcomed them from a distance.” It means they saw that they would happen in the future. It’s when your on a long journey and you can see that city lights in the distance from your car but your not there yet, but you feel as if you are. They saw what God was going to do and they acted as if it was already a reality. God called us here, God said this is the country that belongs to our family so even though we have to live in tents, even though the people here treat us like strangers and foreigners, we are going to be here and live as if it was ours, why? Because God said it would be ours so we have to live as if it is already true, because if God said it will happen then it will.
Walking with God is hard. It requires that you walk in faith that means that you’re going to have to take risks, you’re going to have to do things that are uncomfortable, that require you to depend on Him. It requires that you follow where He leads. His plans may be different from ours but we have to be willing to walk where He wants us to go. We need to act as if what He has promised has already happened.
We need to keep this in mind as a church. When we look at our finances and they’ve been tough for years what do we do? Do we focus on the budget? No, we focus on God, we lift up His kingdom. Jesus said in John 12:32, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” What do we need to do, we need to lift up Jesus. The mission of the church is repeated throughout the New Testament, Matthew tells us to go and make disciples, Acts tells us to go into Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and make disciples. Luke tells us that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Our mission is to reach people with the love and grace of Jesus Christ. It is a process but the promise of Christ is that when we lift Him up He will draw people to Him. If we will share then we will see people saved. It is a promise of God and we must live and work with the faith to see that promise as if it is already true. It is a hard calling, but if God is with us then we know that it will be successful because God is in it.
The Rewards of Faith:
We’ve been focusing on what it is to walk in faith and how difficult it seems to be. But as we look at this chapter we see that these people had a different focus then the rest of us. We tend to look at the world and the people that we see and the obstacles in front of us. These people were focused on God, they saw with eyes of faith and considered God not just as real but as able to do more then we could ever imagine. They saw God as bigger then anything, which He is.
So what are the rewards of faith? Well first, when we live in faith God will see us through the obstacles. I know what you might be tempted to say, “But pastor if God didn’t require me to take a risk then then obstacle wouldn’t be there in the first place.” Not really, do you know anyone in life who doesn’t face challenges and obstacles. They are a reality for everybody. Life is good, but life is hard. But overcoming the hard things in life is what makes it great. When we have faith in God He will see us through. Look at verse 32, “What more shall I say? For time will fail me if i tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection...” The list goes on but Paul is saying, by faith, just about anything that you can think of people of faith have been through and overcome, because God was with them. That is the promise of God when those challenges come, when difficulties arise, God will see you through. They don’t come to stay, they come to pass. I love those words of scripture and by faith we know they are true. “And it came to pass.” What are you going through today? What challenge or difficulty is there in your life? God wants to walk through that passage with you. When you live in faith you can see that it will pass.
Next, when we see with faith we see the future that God has promised. Satan would love us just to look at our problems, to just look at what is going wrong, the odds that are stacked against us, and to dwell on them. Faith let’s us change our focus, see the future and then work on what it takes to get there. Look at verse 19, Abraham is willing to offer Isaac as a sacrifice because, “He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead.” Verse 23, Moses parents hid him “because they saw he was a beautiful child.” Then in verse 26 we read that Moses followed God disdaining the riches of Egypt because, “he was looking to the reward.” In verse 27 we read, “Seeing Him who is unseen.” We see it through out this chapter, these people were able to do great things by faith, then we’re told what they did, what they over came and then the because is that they were focuses on something from or about God. When we focus on God we begin to see the promise, we see the possibility, we see that He is able, and since He is in us we begin to move because by faith we know that if God is in us then we are able. When we have faith we understand that nothing, not even death can stop us, because God is in us. We can have peace regardless of what we are going through. Isaiah 26 says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” What in your life can stop you with God on your side? Nothing, because nothing is bigger than God.
That brings us to the final reward, when we live with Christ we are promised heaven. With Christ Heaven is not just our ultimate destination, it is our ultimate reward. There is nothing greater than that. Eternity to be with God in a place that He is creating. Think of any city in the world that you’ve wanted to see, then compare that to the promise of this chapter, we will live in a city whose foundation, architect and builder is God. It doesn’t get better than that. This is a promise that we need to keep in the front of our minds as we face life. The people in this chapter did. Verse 15 says, “Indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.” But not just for them but for everyone who has accepted Him as Lord and stepped out in faith to walk with God. If you’ve never done that what is stopping you? There is nothing bigger or greater then God. If you never have, trust Him today, whatever you’re facing, whatever is stopping you from being the person you’ve always wanted to be, God can help you go through it to become more then you ever thought you could be.
Message Notes – Sunday February 19th, 2012
“Empowered by Faith”
Hebrews 11
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” Isaiah 26:3-4
What Faith Is:
Faith can be defined as a strong belief in God.
Faith is more then just belief in the existence of God it is having confidence in God.
The word translated; as “assurance” can also be “substance” faith is tangible it changes things.
Walking in Faith:
If you want to walk with God you have to walk in faith.
Walking with God means that you follow where He leads.
Walking with God requires living as if His promises have already been fulfilled..
The Rewards of Faith:
When we live in faith God will see us through the obstacles.
When we see with faith we see the future that God has promised
When we live with Christ we are promised heaven.
