Hebrews chapter 11 verses 1 - 3 and 12 verses 1 - 3
True faith is practical faith, with examples
Everyone, even the most committed Atheist, has faith of some kind,
and that faith always has some practical outworking.
Theoretical faith is OK up to a point
but is not much good if it has no everyday use or application.
For example, when we board a bus or 'plane,
we have faith that the driver or pilot is fit and well trained.
If we did not, we just wouldn't travel.
For example, when we sit on a chair,
we have faith that it will bear our weight and not collapse under us.
If we did not have that faith, we would remain standing.
For example, when we buy something in a shop,
we have faith that it will do whatever we expect it to do, or we would not buy it.
And we must have faith, trust, confidence in our friends
and hopefully in each other gathered here, or we would live very solitary, lonely lives.
But the topic for today is religious faith, saving faith,
the faith that makes the difference between a hell-bound sinner and a heaven-bound saint.
That faith hopefully is not a theoretical or abstract belief in 'Someone' or 'Something'
or 'Life after death',
but something which is practical and which impacts on or affects
our every thought, word and action.
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According to Jesus in John 3:16,
'God so loved the world that He gace His only begotten Son,
so that whoever believes on Him, will not perish but have everlasting life.'
The key word here is 'believe' or 'have faith',
and the practical outworking of that faith
is to have no fear of what lies beyond the grave.
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According to St Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians,chapter 2,
'it is by grace that we are saved, by faith; not of works, lest we boast.'
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So believing, having faith, is at the very core of the Christian religion
and not just a vague 'fingers-crossed' faith or belief in some sort of god
or that Jesus was a good man,
but saving fath in God's sovereign grace.
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It is not my practice to deliver 3 point sermons
in the fashion of that great Calvinist preacher, C.H. Spurgeon
but today I would like to consider four people in the Bible,
2 men and 2 women, among many,
who are recorded as exercising true faith, saving faith, practical faith,
and who we should try to learn from, and be like, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
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The first is Noah, who had the kind of faith that pleased God and brought reward.
We read Genesis 6:9-22.
At this time, the people had become so wicked
that God chose to destroy the earth by a flood.
God had confidence in Noah, knowing that Noah was living a correct life
according to His commands.
God provided a way for Noah to be saved from death.
He told Noah what to do: "Build a huge boat according to the dimensions I will tell you,
using only the materials that I command."
It took a long time to finish it, but Noah carried out every instruction of God's design, putting into the boat every animal that God told him.
How the people must have laughed and called Noah bad names,
as they watched him building a giant ark, and nowhere near the sea!
Why did Noah continue to work day after day, under great hardship?
What gave him the courage to finish?
Faith!
Noah had complete and deep faith and trust in Almighty God,
and he showed this by doing exactle what God told him,
and in return God gave Noah the reward He had promised:
salvation from the flood.
What do you think would have happened if Noah had not liked the instructions of God
and decided to build the boat out of oak instead of gopher wood?
Or, if Noah had changed the dimensions or changed the number of animals?
We can be sure that God would have destroyed Noah,
along with the other disobedient people in the flood.
His faith saved him because it was a practical faith, an obedient faith.
Do we have faith like that of Noah?
A practical faith that affects our everyday living?
I hope and pray that we all do.
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The second example I have chosen is that of Abraham.
We read about his faith in Genesis 22:1-18.
His is an example of courage and faith
worthy to be recorded and read by people living thousands of years later.
Abraham, by faith, was willing to sacrifice of his son and heir
because God demanded that he do it to prove his faith.
The Scriptures do not tell us what Abraham's feelings were
when God commanded him to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering.
Like any other dad he would have loved his son,
the son God had promised his aged wife would bear.
But by faith, he rose early in the morning and did exactly as God had directed.
His trust in God was so great, that he never questioned the outcome,
or God's motive for asking.
He did exactly what God had instructed, in the exact way that God told him to do it.
At the point of slaying Isaac, God intervened.
"And He said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him:
for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son,
thine only son, from me." Genesis 22:12.
What would it tell us about Abraham if he had said,
"Let me prove my faith in a less painful way, God.
Don't ask me to give something so important to me and my wife."
Abraham shows us that true faith is a practical trust in God,
and a practical willingness to obey even when it hurts.
16th century St Ignatius Loyola prayed that he, and all God's people,
would be able to: 'give without counting the cost'.
Abraham is an example of someone who by faith, was able to do just that.
Practical faith is what enables us to obey what God says and trust Him with the future.
God will probably not speak to us as He did Abraham
and ask us to slay a loved one in order to prove our faith,
but He does expect us to have the same kind of faith as Abraham:
the kind of faith that obeys His will completely,
regardless of the cost.
In the first century, when Christianity was new,
many early Christians were persecuted and martyred (killed)
in an attempt to force them to deny their faith in Christ.
Some did give up and renounce their faith in Jesus
because of fear and a weak faith,
while others, like St Polycarp, chose to die a cruel death
rather than risk Christ denying them before the Father in heaven.
They remembered the teaching of Jesus that men can only kill the body
but cannot kill the soul.
There will always be two kinds of people:
those who will lay their life on the line in complete trust in Almighty God
and those who will try to save their life
even at the cost of losing their soul.
We do not know what the future holds for those who put Jesus before president
or emperor,
but if we have true faith, the faith that demands complete surrender,
it means that we must be prepared to sacrifice our own desires
and our own safety,
preferring to trust God's Word above that of any man or parliament or committee.
Do we have faith like that of Abraham?
A practical faith that affects our everyday living?
I hope and pray that we have.
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After looking at the faith of 2 men, let us look at the faith of 2 women.
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My third example is Rahab, a prostitute,
which goes to show that God is no respecter of persons
and can give faith to anyone, high or low,
and can use anyone, high or low, in His service.
We read about Rahab in the book of Joshua chapter 2
but we learn in Matthew 1 verse 5 that she was an ancestor of Jesus,
being the great-great-grandmother of King David
and in Hebrews 11:31 and in the Letter of James 2:25
that she was an example of faith.
A cynic could say that the account just shows that Rahab knew what side
her bread was buttered on,
and a critic could say she was wrong in protecting the enemies of her king
and fellow inhabitants of Jericho,
and could say she was a liar
by telling the king that she did not know the whereabouts of the two Hebrew men
sent out by Joshua to spy out the land,
but the reason why she did what she did and said what she said
is recorded in verse 9 where Rahab says:
'I know that the LORD has given you the land'
and in verse 11 where she says:
'the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath'.
She did not just listen to gossip and old wives tales,
but listened to the Holy Spirit
and put her faith in the one true God
rather than her own king, people, family and tribal deities,
trusting the one true God to protect her when the city fell to Joshua and the Hebrews
as she knew it would.
Do we have faith like that of Rahab?
A practical faith that affects our everyday living?
I hope and pray that we have.
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My fourth and last example is Mary, the wife of Joseph, the mother of Jesus,
not mentioned in the litany of those who possessed and exercised faith in Hebrews 11
but important, crucial for the Incarnation to take place, nevertheless.
She is given only a small mention in Matthew 1 verses 18-25,
none at all in Mark or John
but considerable in Luke, in chapter 1 verses 26-58 and in chapter 2.
We read almost everyday of what happens to women in the Middle East
who are considered immoral,
and Mary must have known what fate could befall her as an unmarried mother,
but by faith she accepted the message of the angel Gabriel,
believing he was no deceptive 'angel of light' but a true messenger sent from God.
Whereas many women would have been devastated and cried 'Oh no, God, choose someone else',
Mary showed her trust in God by praying what we call 'The Magnificat',
recorded in Luke chapter 1 verses 46-55,
which starts with the beautiful words,
'My soul doth magnify the Lord
and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour
for He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
and behold, henceforth, all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me
and holy is His name'.
Even though 'perplexed', a perfectly natural human emotion,
she had the faith to literally put her life on the line
to be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah.
We have seen in this country how the forces of secularism, humanism
and political correctness have deliberately set out to marginalise Christianity,
and we know that in the 'end times' God's people will have to face severe persecution,
but so far we have been spared what our brothers and sisters in Pakistan, Nigeria,
South Sudan, North Korea and many other countries are going through,
but if, or when, the time comes,
will we have the faith, the total trust in God, of Mary?
Do we have faith like that of Mary?
A practical faith that affects our reputation, our everyday living?
I hope and pray that we have.
Amen.
