Some of us are old enough to remember a simple song that used to show up on the radio and in cartoons. It wasn’t trying to be profound. It wasn’t aiming for insight. It was lighthearted—almost silly. And yet, it stayed with people far longer than you’d expect.
--- High Hopes
Next time you're found
With your chin on the ground
There a lot to be learned
So look around
… Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant can't
Move a rubber tree plant
… But he's got high hopes
He's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie
In the sky hopes
Everyone knew how that was going to end. An ant can’t move a rubber tree plant. The song even admits that outright.
There’s no suspense, no false optimism. And yet the refrain keeps returning to the same idea—the ant just keeps going.
He doesn’t stop to calculate the odds.
He doesn’t pause to ask whether success is likely.
He doesn’t quit because the task is too big.
The song celebrates persistence, not success. Refusal, not strength.
The strange thing is that people remember it decades later—not because they believed ants could move trees, but because somewhere along the way, many of us recognized ourselves in it.
Especially as we got older.
Life has a way of putting every one of us in front of our own rubber tree plants—things larger than we are, heavier than we can lift, and more complex than we can fix. Situations where effort doesn’t guarantee progress and sincerity doesn’t ensure results.
When we’re younger, we tend to assume that belief will be rewarded quickly. That doing the right thing will lead to the right outcome. That faith is a kind of leverage—something that tips the scales in our favor if we use it correctly.
Time teaches us otherwise.
Time teaches us that some prayers linger unanswered.
Some problems refuse to budge.
Some hopes remain unresolved.
When that happens, believing begins to feel exposed. Not heroic—exposed. Faith no longer feels like confidence. It feels like risk.
That’s when many people quietly begin asking a different question.
Not “Is God real?” but “Is it reasonable to keep believing when nothing seems to change?”
That little ant matters because he doesn’t answer that question with success. He answers it with persistence. He keeps going, not because he’s confident the tree will move, but because stopping would mean surrendering hope altogether.
And that’s closer to biblical faith than we often admit.
Scripture does not define faith as optimism.
It does not define faith as certainty.
It defines faith as trust—lived out over time—especially when outcomes are delayed.
Which brings us to the deeper issue many of us face today.
A lot of people are not living in active crisis. They’re living in quiet strain. Life keeps moving, responsibilities continue, and faith is still present—but something feels thinner. The confidence is quieter. The expectations are lower.
Not because belief has disappeared, but because disappointment has accumulated.
We still believe.
But we believe cautiously.
We still hope.
But we hope with our fingers half open.
Over time, faith can begin to feel heavy—not because it has failed, but because we’ve learned not to expect too much from it. We adjust our hopes downward to protect ourselves from being disappointed again.
That’s not rebellion.
That’s fatigue.
And Scripture does not shame that experience.
The book of Hebrews was written to people who knew that tension well—people who had believed, obeyed, endured, and were still waiting. People whose faith had not collapsed, but had been stretched thin by time and uncertainty.
Hebrews does not scold them for that.
It honors them.
Hebrews 11 is not a chapter about people who always won. It is a chapter about people who trusted God when winning was no longer guaranteed. People who faced silence, disappointment, and contradiction—and still chose to remain loyal to God.
This message begins there.
Not with triumph.
Not with certainty.
But with belief that refuses to walk away when all is not well.
That is the kind of faith Scripture takes seriously.
And that is the kind of faith we need to talk about.
--- Faith When God Seems Silent
One of the most difficult tests of faith is not suffering itself, but silence.
Pain we can understand. Loss we can name. But silence unsettles us in a deeper way.
When God seems quiet, faith feels exposed. There is nothing to lean on except trust itself—no reassurance, no explanation, no clear sense that anything is moving in the right direction.
The Bible does not shy away from that experience, and few stories capture it more honestly than the story of Job.
Job was not confused about whether God existed. He was not rebelling against God. He was not careless with his faith.
Scripture goes out of its way to tell us that Job was faithful, upright, and sincere. And yet his life collapsed without warning.
He lost his livelihood.
He lost his security.
He lost his children.
His health followed soon after.
But the deepest wound was not the loss itself. It was the silence that followed.
Job searched for God and could not find Him. He looked forward and backward, to the right and to the left, and there was no response. His prayers felt like they rose into empty space and fell back unanswered.
That kind of silence can be deeply unsettling, because it challenges one of our quiet assumptions—that if we are faithful, God will at least explain Himself.
Job does not pretend this is easy. He speaks honestly. He argues. He laments. He voices his confusion out loud. But he does something else as well—something essential.
He refuses to let go of God.
At one of the lowest points in the book, Job acknowledges that he does not understand what God is doing and that his situation makes no sense to him. And yet he declares that even if trusting God costs him everything, he will still trust.
That is not resignation.
That is allegiance.
Job’s faith does not depend on answers.
It does not depend on relief.
It does not depend on clarity.
It depends on relationship.
This is where faith is often misunderstood. Silence tempts us to interpret God’s quiet as absence. But Scripture never equates silence with abandonment. God may be quiet, but He is not disengaged.
Faith, in moments like these, is not loud or confident or triumphant. Faith is the decision to stay.
To keep praying even when prayer feels unanswered.
To keep trusting even when reassurance is delayed.
To keep holding on even when the grip feels weak.
Job never receives an explanation for his suffering. God never answers the “why” questions Job asks. But God does something more personal—He reveals Himself.
In the end, that is enough.
Job’s story reminds us that faith does not require constant affirmation. It requires commitment.
Sometimes the truest expression of faith is not believing that God will fix everything, but believing that God is still worthy of trust when He seems silent.
That is faith when God does not speak.
Hebrews takes that kind of faith seriously—not faith that wins quickly, but faith that remains steady when answers are slow.
--- Faith When God Seems Unfeeling
If silence tests our faith, then disappointment refines it.
There are moments when God does not seem distant, but indifferent—moments when we believe He hears us, yet the answer we hoped for never comes.
Moments when obedience is not rewarded with fulfillment, and faith feels costly rather than comforting.
Moses understood that experience deeply.
Few people in Scripture gave as much of their life to God as Moses did. He answered the call when it meant leaving security behind. He endured rejection, misunderstanding, and exhaustion. He carried the weight of a restless, fearful people for decades.
For Moses, the Promised Land was more than a destination. It was meaning. It was the assurance that the sacrifice had purpose. Through forty years of isolation and forty years of leadership, that promise sustained him.
And then, near the end of his life, God told him he would not enter.
Moses would see the land.
He would stand at its edge.
But he would not cross over.
It is hard to imagine the weight of that moment. Moses had not abandoned God. He had not turned aside to other loyalties. He had not stopped believing. And yet the longing he carried for most of his life was withheld.
Scripture records no protest from Moses at this point. No bargaining. No bitterness. He entrusts himself to God’s judgment and God’s future.
That response is not resignation.
It is trust.
Faith, at this stage, is no longer about reward. It is about surrender. It is about believing that God’s purposes extend beyond our understanding and beyond our lifetime.
Moses dies outside the Promised Land, but Scripture makes something clear—his story does not end in loss. God Himself buries Moses. God honors him personally. And later, centuries afterward, Moses appears in glory, speaking with Jesus.
The promise Moses did not experience in his lifetime was not denied. It was transformed.
This reminds us of something we often forget: God’s faithfulness is not limited to the chapter we are living in.
We are tempted to measure God’s care by what we receive now—by the doors that open, the prayers that are answered the way we hoped, the dreams that come true on schedule. But faith looks further.
Faith trusts that God’s story is larger than our moment and longer than our lifespan.
When God seems unfeeling, faith does not demand immediate compensation. It rests in the conviction that God sees more than we do and that
His promises are not confined to what we can experience now.
Moses never walked into Canaan, but he did not die without hope.
He died trusting that God keeps His word—even when fulfillment comes later and in ways we do not anticipate.
That kind of faith does not cling to entitlement.
It clings to God Himself.
Hebrews honors that faith—not because it is rewarded quickly, but because it trusts deeply.
That prepares us for the final test of faith—the moment when God’s promises appear to contradict one another altogether.
--- Faith When God Seems to Contradict Himself
If silence tests faith and disappointment refines it, then contradiction stretches it to the breaking point.
This is where Abraham’s story brings us face to face with the hardest question of all: What do we do when God’s instructions appear to unravel God’s promises?
Abraham’s journey begins with a promise so expansive it almost defies belief. God tells him that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Nations will come from him. Kings will bear his name. His life will echo far beyond his own lifetime.
For years, nothing happens.
Abraham grows older. Sarah grows older. The promise remains, but the reality does not change.
Faith, at this point, becomes socially awkward and internally exhausting. Abraham carries a name that means “father of many” while living without a single child. Each year stretches the distance between what God said and what Abraham sees.
Then, against every biological expectation, the miracle finally comes. Isaac is born. Laughter replaces waiting. The promise takes shape. At last, the future seems secure.
Then God speaks again.
This time, God asks Abraham to offer Isaac—the very child through whom all the promises were supposed to flow.
Now faith is no longer about patience. It is about obedience under confusion.
This request appears to contradict everything God has already said.
How can God fulfill His promise if Isaac is gone? How can obedience require the surrender of the very gift faith waited decades to receive?
Scripture does not record Abraham’s internal struggle in detail, but Hebrews gives us insight into how he reasoned.
Abraham believed that God could raise the dead. He trusted that even if he could not reconcile God’s command with God’s promise, God Himself would remain faithful.
This is a crucial distinction.
Abraham does not cling to the promise as an object.
He clings to the God who made it.
That difference matters more than we realize. Because faith can quietly shift from trust to protection.
We can become more attached to outcomes than to obedience. We can begin to treat God’s gifts as guarantees rather than as trusts.
Abraham teaches us that true faith is willing to place even God’s gifts back into God’s hands.
Not because God delights in sacrifice.
Not because faith requires cruelty.
But because faith is relational before it is logical.
God ultimately provides a substitute. Isaac is spared. The promise continues. But Abraham’s faith had already reached its full expression before the outcome was resolved. He trusted God when obedience made no sense.
This is where Hebrews 11 turns sharply.
After recounting story after story of triumph, the chapter reminds us that not all faithful people were delivered. Some were tortured. Some were imprisoned. Some were mistreated. Some died without receiving what was promised.
They were not failures.
They were not deficient in faith.
They were commended.
This is the summit of Hebrews 11.
Faith that is not rescued.
Faith that is not explained.
Faith that is not rewarded in the moment.
And yet, faith that is honored by God.
This is where many modern understandings of faith quietly collapse. We assume faith exists to produce results.
Scripture tells us faith exists to produce allegiance.
Some trusted God and escaped the sword.
Others trusted God and died by it.
The difference was not faith.
The difference was outcome.
Hebrews refuses to let us build theology on outcomes alone.
Instead, it honors those who trusted God without guarantees—those who believed that God was still good, still faithful, still worthy, even when obedience led into loss rather than deliverance.
That kind of faith is not naïve.
It is courageous. When faith reaches its limits—when silence, disappointment, and contradiction converge—
Scripture does not tell us to look inward and measure ourselves.
It tells us to look outward.
To lift our eyes.
To fix our gaze on Someone greater.
--- From Faith to Focus
After Hebrews 11 has walked us through story after story of faith—faith that waited, faith that endured, faith that obeyed without guarantees—the writer does something intentional.
He changes our focus.
“Therefore,” he says, “since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…”
In other words, look around.
Look at the lives of those who trusted God when circumstances were unresolved.
Look at those who believed when outcomes were unclear.
Look at those who held on when deliverance did not come.
These people are not presented as spiritual celebrities. They are witnesses. Their lives testify to something essential—not that faith makes life easier, but that faith anchors a person when life is hard.
And then the writer tells us what to do.
“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Notice what he does not say.
He does not tell us to run faster.
He does not tell us to run harder.
He does not tell us to prove ourselves.
He tells us to run with perseverance.
This is not a sprint. It is not a competition. It is a long, faithful journey that requires endurance.
Then comes the key instruction—the interpretive center of the whole message:
“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
This is where we often get turned around.
We spend a great deal of time thinking about faith—whether we have enough of it, whether it feels strong or weak, whether it’s holding up or starting to slip. We analyze it. We measure it. We worry about it.
But Scripture never asks us to fix our eyes on faith.
It asks us to fix our eyes on Jesus.
Faith is not the object.
Jesus is.
Faith is not measured by quantity.
It is measured by relationship.
Faith is not confidence in confidence.
It is trust in a Person.
When Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, it reminds us that Jesus is not just an example of faith—He is its source and its finisher. He does not merely show us how to endure. He carries endurance to completion.
Jesus faced silence.
Jesus faced disappointment.
Jesus faced apparent contradiction.
For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. He despised its shame. He trusted the Father when rescue did not come in the moment.
And because He endured, our hope is secure.
Many of us learned this truth long before we could explain it. We learned it through a simple hymn:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
That hymn does not promise that the world will disappear.
It promises that something greater will come into view.
When our eyes are fixed on Jesus, the circumstances do not always change. The questions are not all answered. The weight we carry is not instantly lifted. But our perspective shifts. What once filled the entire horizon slowly takes its proper place.
That is what Scripture calls hope.
Not optimism.
Not denial.
But the quiet confidence that God is still at work, even when the evidence is incomplete.
There is a story told of a Christian man who traveled to Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. As he walked the streets of Moscow, people stared at him openly. He couldn’t understand why. His clothes were ordinary. His behavior was unremarkable. And yet he stood out.
Finally, he asked his friends what was giving him away. After a quiet discussion, they answered him honestly. It wasn’t his accent. It wasn’t his clothing. It was his face. They told him that people could see he had hope.
Hope shows.
In a world that has learned to manage expectations downward, hope becomes visible. It shapes how we speak, how we endure, and how we treat one another—not because life is easy, but because our confidence is anchored somewhere deeper.
Another believer once explained his steady spirit by saying he had read the last book of the Bible. He knew how the story ended. And that knowledge shaped how he lived now.
That is the hope Hebrews invites us into.
Not a hope that denies hardship, but a hope that outlasts it. Not a hope that demands immediate resolution, but a hope that trusts God’s faithfulness beyond the present moment.
So if all is not well right now, this message is not asking you to manufacture stronger faith.
It is inviting you to look again.
To lift your eyes.
To rest your trust.
To fix your gaze on Jesus.
When your eyes are fixed on Him, you are not lost.
You may be weary.
You may be uncertain.
But you are held.
And that is enough to keep going.
--- Appeal
This message is not an invitation to try harder or believe louder.
It is an invitation to look again.
If your faith feels thin right now…
If your questions remain unanswered…
If all is not well in ways you never expected…
This is not a call to measure your faith.
It is a call to place your trust—once again—in Jesus.
Faith is not about how tightly you hold on.
It is about who is holding you.
So wherever you are today—steady or uncertain, hopeful or weary—hear this invitation quietly and personally:
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Not on your strength.
Not on your outcomes.
Not on your understanding.
On Him.
That is where faith begins.
That is where hope holds.
And that is enough.
--- PRAYER
Gracious Father,
We come to You with honest hearts.
Some of us come confident, others weary, and many somewhere in between.
We thank You that You do not ask us for perfect faith, only for trust.
When You seem silent, help us remain faithful.
When answers are delayed, help us remain hopeful.
When all is not well, help us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.
Thank You that our hope does not rest in outcomes, but in Your faithfulness.
Thank You that even when we struggle to hold on, You never let go of us.
Teach us to trust You more deeply—not because life is easy, but because You are good.
As we go from this place, may our lives quietly reflect the hope we have in Christ.
We place ourselves in Your hands, confident that You will finish what You have begun.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
