August 7, 2016 - Hebrews 11 - Faith Acts - August 7, 2016
All of us believe and all of us also don’t believe. A big part of what defines our lives is what we believe and what we don’t believe. No one here believes everything.
If you did, you’d be mightily confused because of course there are opposite things, opposite viewpoints. If we embrace opposites...like we love chicken AND we hate chicken, we live in constant tension.
We have to decide. And there are a lot more things to decide on than chicken.
All of us believe and all of us don’t believe. We believe in certain things that cause us to disbelieve others. Growing up I believed there was no God. I believed what you see is what you get.
Believing there was no God left me unable to believe there is a God. This should be obvious.
What we believe really represents our faith. We all have faith in something. At all times in history, people have believed in something. In today’s passage we hear about the chorus of witnesses that has gone before us in the faith.
People who believed in God and who lived their lives according to that belief, consistently.
Our passage talks about people who lived what they believed. And because of that, they are celebrated in this passage.
None of these people was perfect. Far from it. But they trusted God, and with that trust, with that faith in God, their lives, and the lives of many others were made better, were transformed.
Now the first verse we’re looking at today defines faith for us.
11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
We see that faith is confidence and assurance. Confidence in what or WHO we place our hope in and assurance in what or WHO we don’t see.
Now this doesn’t make sense to some people.
The first part’s ok...having confidence in what we hope for. We can all understand taking a positive view toward something that hasn’t happened yet.
We can hope that we will live a happy life, and that tomorrow will be brighter. Those are worthy things to hope for.
But what’s this ‘assurance about what we do not see’? How can you be sure about something unless you can touch it and know by touching that it is real?
Well, you all came into this building today not being able to see the oxygen that you are breathing right now. But you were reasonably sure that you would be able to breathe at church this afternoon, right?
You can’t see oxygen, but you can know it’s there, frankly, because you’re breathing. That’s the evidence.
I love my wife, and I’m sure that she loves me. Can you touch love? Can you touch trust? The truth is, the less materialistic the subject that we’re talking about, the less physical it is and thus the less touchable.
The less physical something is, the greater and higher reasoning is required to comprehend it. God is not physical to us now, since Jesus returned to heaven, but God is the highest idea, the highest truth, the most perfect reality that exists.
And so to believe in God requires not hands to touch something, not ears necessarily to hear something, although faith comes by hearing, so there’s that.
Believing in God doesn’t require our physical senses, but it does require a higher sense. What is that ‘sense’?
3 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.
We’re told that it is by faith that we understand. Faith is the sixth sense. By faith we understand God’s creative super-imagination and His limitless power.
The UNIVERSE was formed at His COMMAND.
Imagine for a second what that means. I can’t even turn a light on by a command. Lights...be turned on! See.
By His command God formed, fashioned, created EVERYTHING out of NOTHING. Including you. And so, the passage goes on, we understand, through faith, that everything that is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Rather, out of no-thing, nothing, God formed the universe. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.
And God said about every aspect of creation, LET IT BE SO. And so it was. And He was pleased with His creation.
We can come to grasp that at least in part with our minds, but it is through faith that this becomes a meaningful and beautiful description of the God Who we love and serve. By faith we understand.
And it is by faith that we please God. “Without faith it is impossible to please God”. It says that in a few verses. And now here we have some examples of faith that pleases God.
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
In Genesis Chapter 4 there is a sad record of the first capital crime ever committed. Abel and his brother Cain, sons of Adam and Eve, brought offerings to God.
Abel brought the firstfruits, the best he had to offer - fat portions and some of the firstborn of his flock.
Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil. A bit of sense of Cain grabbing some stuff out of the ground on his way to worship God. Not a thoughtful or worshipful offering.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
So through and because of his faith, his faith which gave him understanding of who God is, Abel brought God a better offering than his brother’s casual offering.
Cain no longer speaks. Cain is not counted among the faithful, among the chorus of witnesses who cheer us on.
Cain murdered Abel - the first record of the unjust taking the life of the just - and he himself eventually died. His life is recorded no further than his actions and then the consequences he faced for his murder as recorded in Genesis chapter 4.
Other than in the Book of Hebrews,
when Cain’s name is mentioned in the Bible again it is in 1 John 3:12. And, of course, his faith is not mentioned. His actions are mentioned in a passage exhorting the church to love.
Cain is the opposite of what we want to be like: “Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous” 1 John 3:12.
But does Abel still speak? Yup. Jesus refers to Abel as a righteous man, and he is mentioned here and elsewhere in the book of Hebrews. He is one of, if not the, first worshipper.
He is an example to us to bring our best and sincerest offerings to God, to live life focussed on blessing the living God, and not on taking Him for granted. Abel speaks. His faith which gave him understanding, speaks. Today. Are we listening?
We’ll have to skip some of the heros of the faith listed here due to time, but let’s take a gander at Noah.
7 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 is in keeping with faith.
A couple of thoughts about Noah. Firstly, Noah didn’t flinch a God’s command to build the ark. God told Noah that the world would be ended by flood because of its absolute wickedness.
It was so wicked and people were so completely and utterly awful to each other that there remained nothing to do but destroy the world as it was.
God told Noah his purpose of judgment and instructed him to build an ark in which he and his family and the representatives of the animal creation might be saved.
With reverence and obedience Noah took God at his word. Because of Noah’s faith and his actions that accompanied his faith, actions that expressed the genuineness of his faith, he and his family, and thus all his future descendants - including you and me - were preserved when the flood came.
Noah took God at his word. He believed the message and laid aside the normal activity of his life to do what looked absurd - to build an ark on dry land.
He staked everything on God’s word, and his life was one continued and concentrated preparation for what God said would come. And the net result of his life was a massive blessing that went way beyond himself and his family.
The last comment on Noah is that he is the first person in the Bible to be called ‘righteous’.
His goodness consisted of the fact that he took God at His word, while others were deaf to God’s warning, when others laughed at God, Noah revered God; he worshipped God.
It’s been said of Noah that “he threw the dark skepticism of the world into relief against his own shining faith in God”. In an age when people disregarded God, for Noah God was the supreme reality in the world.
And so it was for the other ‘heroes of the faith’ that are listed in Hebrews 11.
Finally for today, we’ll look briefly at Abraham. Abraham, early on in the story referred to as Abram, who is considered a father of the faith, lived in the land of Ur with his family.
He was called out of that land by God with a simple command: “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you”.
To make a very long story short, the people of Israel and the whole history of the chosen people of God, including our Saviour Jesus, resulted from Abraham’s obedience to God. His obedience which was a clear expression of his faith.
I want us to read this again, because the writer of Hebrews expands beautifully on the meaning of Abraham’s life.
8 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.
Noah obeyed when it looked like foolishness. Abraham obeyed the voice of God without knowing where God was sending him.
For both of them, the faith they had, which itself was a gift from God, enabled them to understand that God exists and that God speaks.
9 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. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
There is no way to measure the impact of obeying God. Of living our lives in sync with His will.
Everyone in this room who has come to trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour - we have all experienced a seismic shift in the path of our lives, in the trajectory of our lives, when we said ‘yes’ to God’s gift on Jesus. We will never know what would have happened if we had not received Jesus Christ as Lord.
Some us can testify that without the grace of God, without the gift of faith that God gave us to trust in His Son, there’s a better than good chance we would not be alive.
If you haven’t placed your faith as of yet in Jesus Christ, one thing I can tell you is that when you do, in small ways and big your life will change. Your despair will turn to hope.
Your sadness will become a real and abiding joy that sits deep inside you and that can’t be robbed by the messiness and ugliness of life.
To receive Jesus Christ is to enter into life as a disciple - a life of love, of self-giving, of denying ourselves and taking up our crosses.
It is not an easy life. It is not for anyone looking for a way to breeze through life.
But it’s a life of profound hope and a rock solid sense of purpose and meaning.
Before I came to Jesus, my life was as empty as could be. I was an atheist who believed that nothing, least of all me, really mattered, because, I thought, we were all just a cosmic accident.
An accidental life on an accidental planet in an accidental universe.
It didn’t help that I was an unplanned ‘accident’ at birth. The jolt, the shock of learning that the precise opposite is true; that God loves me and wants so much to be reconciled to me that He sent His Son Who willingly went to the cross and suffered for my sins.
That was life-changing. And the power of that life-change has sustained me for 36 years, and I’m still going strong in Jesus.
And how does our passage end today? What does it say about all these people who have gone before us, who trusted in God and found Him faithful.
Did they ever stop living by faith? For as long as we’re living, are we supposed to keep living by faith?
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
So there’s this thing that you and I have to keep in balance. We get into trouble when we don’t keep it on balance. And what that is is this: we have to keep one eye on our true home and one eye right where we are standing. Where is our true home?
Philippians 3:20 says: “...Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ”. Canada is a pretty great country.
It’s enormous and beautiful and we’re doing lots of good things right. Other countries look to us to figure out how to be better.
I’m a proud Canadian. But there is a much, much better country. There is a much greater country that awaits us and every single person who has by the grace of God placed their faith in the Son of God and His sacrifice for them. It is a heavenly country.
How do we keep one eye on our true home? We keep our focus on Jesus Christ. We remember and meditate on He who was lifted up on the cross on our behalf. He who suffered and died for us to give us life.
We come here to worship on Sundays and join our voices and hearts with others with whom we will inhabit the heavenly city one day not so very far off.
We study the Word of God. We don’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God
'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Matthew 4:4
We spend serious time learning the thoughts of the living God Who is the primary resident and feature of our heavenly city.
And this balance, this thing we need to do, we achieve by keeping one eye on our true home, and one eye right where we live.
The Hebrews Hall of Fame, which is one way that people refer to chapter 11 of the Book of Hebrews, celebrates the one who have gone before us who were faithful in their day.
While they were on this planet they served God with their whole hearts.
That has nothing to do with any of them being perfect or ideal people. God has always used flawed people to do His will. He delights to do that.
But those people lived by faith, and they lived out their faith where they were planted on this planet.
Jesus, just before He returned to the Father, gave us the Great Commission, to go into the world and make disciples, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We live in the world, so our mission field is right where we live.
Where do you live? Kirk/Rob/Jan/etc. That’s where you are called to be faithful, to serve God, to love those who are right around you.
And when God calls you to move, to a different neighbourhood, a different city, a different country, that new place becomes the mission field that God calls you to serve Him in.
Abel and Noah and Enoch and Abraham and others listed in this chapter were faithful in their day.
May each of us here in this room rely on the grace and mercy of God. May we walk closely with Jesus. Like Abel may we bring our best and most thoughtful gifts to God.
Like Noah, may our lives be one continual and concentrated preparation for what is coming in glory.
Like Abraham may we obey the voice of God without demanding to know all the details, trusting that He has a purpose and a plan that is for blessing, that will prosper our lives and give us hope that will not disappoint.
May we keep our hearts set on the heavenly home that awaits us, and may we live with passion, with purpose, with conviction AND with faith that expresses itself through loving action, right here and now. Amen? Amen.
