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The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews opened the eleventh chapter of his letter with some words that are very familiar to most of us here:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen”.
Throughout that same chapter he gives us historical examples of people who lived by that same faith; and each account only confirms the depth and the truth of that opening line.
He tells us that Abraham was willing to live in tents in the land that God had promised to him, because by faith he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (meaning Heaven, his eventual eternal home). Then he says that Abraham believed that God was able to raise the dead.
Later, talking about Moses, he says, “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen”.
There are other examples in that chapter, and in verse 38 the writer asserts of them all that they were “men of whom the world was not worthy”.
All of them, in fact, all who have placed their faith in God throughout history, have lived by this same defining creed:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen”.
They have heard God’s promises and placed such deep and abiding faith in those promises, that the things they looked forward to were more real than the things they could detect with the senses.
“He endured, as seeing Him who is unseen”. What gave him strength to endure and persevere through all trials, was that by faith he saw the unseen God with spiritual eyes; and bowed down to THAT king, and no other.
In these few verses from Luke we are given yet another example of this same kind of faith. Faith does not change, folks. It is what it is; and no matter where you turn either in the scriptures, or in the examples of men and women of faith around you, if it is true faith, it will fit the definition of faith given for us in Hebrews 11:1
It is assurance in our heart that the thing hoped for is real and imminent, and it is life-changing, life-guiding conviction that what is yet unseen is very real indeed.
Simeon, described by Luke as “righteous and devout”, is a mystery to us, except for this one brief moment in time; but my, what a moment it was.
We know nothing of his life except that he was old and had constantly looked and prayed for the ‘consolation of Israel’; meaning, the coming of the Promised One...Messiah.
We don’t know about his family life; we don’t know what his occupation was; we don’t know what things he suffered in his long life; we know nothing of his joys or his sorrows, his failures or his triumphs;
It is almost as though to honor his faith, the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write the man’s epitaph for all who came after to read: “He was righteous and devout”.
What a wonderful testimony!
I wonder what kind of things God would write on our tombstones...? Or on the hearts of those we leave behind...?
Unless the Lord comes first, believers, each of us will lie down and breathe our last; and we will leave friends and family behind. What will be engraved about us on their hearts, is being written now. Food for thought.
But God blessed this man in another very special way. In honor of his faith and his devotion, he allowed him to stay until his eyes could behold the thing he had prayed for.
More than that though, we can get the sense that God required him to stay. The wording in these verses almost indicates to us that Simeon would have wanted to go home to be with the Lord, but was assigned as a watchman; told to wait and keep vigilance; until he saw Israel’s hope arrive on the scene.
I want to talk about WHAT FAITH IS (and in light of our present world’s usage of the word; what it is NOT), WHAT BENEFIT FAITH GIVES OVER THOSE OF NO FAITH and then, THE GLORY OF ISRAEL.
What is Faith?
I’ve already talked about that, haven’t I? The definition is in Hebrews 11:1 But let’s make a more personal application here.
I suppose it would be best for me to begin by clarifying what faith is NOT. We’ll scrape away the murk from the surface, so we can see deeper into the pool
Faith is not expecting something to happen because we convince ourselves that it will.
People say, “It’s been a rough year, but I have faith that if I hang in there things will get better”.
Or, “I have faith that everything will work out ok”.
Or they encourage with, “Keep the faith, baby!”
My question for them is; faith in what...or whom?
What is the foundation of your faith? You may hope for such and such to happen, but in order to exercise faith, there must be something to place the faith in (or on).
Here is an example.
If I stand, looking across a deep canyon and needing to get to the other side, and before me is a rope bridge, I may say, “I have faith that the bridge will hold me and I’ll get to the other side”.
But there must be some reason for me to have faith in that bridge. Either I have just witnessed someone much heavier than I crossing with no problem; or I’ve seen several people go at once and make it just fine.
Or, I can see that the wood and the rope are relatively new, and they seem adequately anchored on my side, so it is a good guess that they are anchored similarly on the other side.
Or, I myself am the engineer that built the bridge, and I have confidence in my own work.
There must be a basis for faith!
If I was standing at that same chasm and could see that the ropes are frayed, and some boards are missing out of the bridge and others look rotten, and one of the anchors on my side of the bridge is about to come out of the ground,
then to say, “I have faith that I will make it across” would sound very foolish to a bystander. They might either say to me, or think to themselves, “Well, I have more faith in the law of gravity than in that bridge, so I think I’ll just stay right here; thank you very much”.
Y’know what’s really silly? People use the word ‘faith’ as though they were saying, “I’ll make it across to the other side”, when there is no bridge there at all! When they’re saying, “I have faith that this or that will happen”, but do not base that faith on anything, they have perverted faith and an empty hope...’cause they ain’t goin’ nowhere.
People put their faith in a lot of things, friends, when they don’t put their faith in God. Most of those things are not worthy of faith. They cannot bear us up long. When we trust in the world’s foundations; the world’s bridges; the world’s standards; we will be in for a long fall. It may not come right away. Sometimes we’ll get pretty far along. But sooner or later the world’s foundations crumble like one of those rotten boards, and we are disappointed; if not destroyed.
Faith is also not a tool we use to make something happen.
There was a fad-doctrine going around Southern California while I was in Bible College, and I know it has spread it’s ugly net around the country since then. I haven’t heard it much lately; I hope it is dying off, but I’m sure it continues to live on somewhere. Satan works hard at keeping his lies alive.
It was what I termed the “Magic Mouth” doctrine. You may have heard it referred to as the “name it, claim it” doctrine.
People were saying, “Jesus said that if we ask anything in Him name believing, we shall have it. Are you sick? Claim healing. Are you poor? Well Jesus doesn’t want us to be poor, so claim financial prosperity. Is your son or daughter straying from the Lord and living in sin? Claim them for the Kingdom and He will bring them back”.
There are many problems with this doctrine; the primary one is that those touting this name-it, claim-it doctrine are forgetting (or ignoring) what Jesus really said in that portion of scripture.
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you”.
You see, every promise of scripture comes with a condition. The condition for this promise is: If you abide in Me and My words abide in you.
What Jesus was telling them was that if they dwelt in Him like the branch dwells in the vine, and if their hearts were filled with His Word, then their desires would be His desires! Whatever they wish would be what He wishes!
So you see, faith is not getting what we want because we’re princes and princesses in the Kingdom of the Almighty and can therefore have anything our minds can dream up...like spoiled children. Faith is being so close to Him that we know His promises and we know His character and can discern His will, and being confident that we will receive all things that are according to His will when we ask.
Faith is not mental assent to truths of the written word. We all say (I trust) that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and it is as absolutely true and relevant today, as ever.
Yet we often fail to walk according to what we know; that is, we read scriptural truth and nod our heads in understanding and agreement, then go out and do otherwise. Why? Because faith is not just mental assent to truth.
So what IS faith?
Faith is believing to the point of a settled conviction of the heart that translates into the attitudes and actions of life. More, faith itself is evidence of that which is invisible to the physical senses. When faith translates into action, all who see witness the evidence of that which is not seen by their eyes.
When you were baptized it was an act of faith, if you understood the meaning of baptism. You have not physically died, yet by going down into the waters you testified that you have a settled conviction that through faith God reckoned you crucified with Christ. You have not been glorified, but when you came up out of the waters you testified to all, that you have a final realization that you have been raised into newness of life in Christ. You BELIEVE AND KNOW by faith, that you are a ‘new creation’.
Faith is looking with spiritual eyes at spiritual things, and knowing in the heart that those things are more real and lasting than the physical world, with all its pleasures and temptations and stimulation.
Faith is looking past excruciating pain and knowing that His Spirit “will give life to your mortal body” (Rom 8:11)
Faith is being content with what you have in this world, not jealous of those who have more, because there is laid up for you the crown of righteousness, “which the Lord will award ...to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim 4:8)
Faith is a belief in God and His Word, that influences every action and decision of life.
Well, I’m getting wordy, so we have to move on. Let’s talk briefly about WHAT BENEFIT FAITH GIVES OVER THOSE OF NO FAITH.
Well, the most important benefit, of course, is salvation.
That is; the kind of real faith that I’ve been talking about, is the kind of faith that saves from the penalty of sin and secures for us a place with God in His eternal home.
What is that faith based on? The shed blood, death and resurrection of Christ. The firmest of foundations.
As I said, it is not just mental assent. There are many in our churches; in fact, there may be some even here in this church, who are in the very dangerous position of thinking that if they believe with their human reason that Jesus is God, and involve themselves in the church, they are safe. When the awful truth is that they have never experienced saving faith.
Here is the difference. Simeon was a righteous and devout man, who prayed constantly for the consolation of Israel. He was devoted to God, and because of his devotion, the Holy Spirit revealed to him that with his own eyes he would see the Redeemer.
The day finally came, and Simeon was impressed by the Holy Spirit to go and wait at the temple. When Mary and Joseph brought the Child into the temple, Simeon’s spiritual eyes were so trained to look past the physical and see the unseen, that he recognized the Messiah even in His infant state.
In sharp contrast, were the religious leaders, the Pharisees, who, even when Jesus was an adult, teaching as one having authority, healing the lame and the leprous, giving sight to the blind, feeding the multitudes miraculously, they didn’t recognize Him.
Now let me clarify something. The Pharisees DID know who Jesus was. I don’t have the time to go deeply into this today, but there is plenty of scriptural evidence that they knew who He was.
The difference between them and Simeon was that they saw
with physical eyes, but their hearts were in rebellion and they rejected their Messiah.
Simeon saw with spiritual eyes before Jesus was able to walk or talk, much less fulfill His divine task, yet He recognized Him, rejoiced to see Him, and then asked to be dismissed as a servant who has successfully completed his task. “Now Lord, let Thy servant depart in peace; for my eyes have seen Thy salvation”.
Peter wrote: “...and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, OBTAINING AS THE OUTCOME OF YOUR FAITH THE SALVATION OF YOUR SOULS”.
Another benefit of this kind of faith over those who don’t have it, is that we have the ability to be a witness to them.
Do you think there were others standing around who heard Simeon’s declaration that day? I’ll guarantee it. The temple was always a crowded place. There were priests and Pharisees and worshipers coming to make sacrifice, all around him and this little family. What they were hearing may not have sunk in then, but I feel confident that later some remembered and were influenced.
If your faith is this same kind of faith, your very life will be a witness to those around you. They may see some things in you that they don’t understand, but later some will remember and be influenced.
When our spiritual eyes strain at the horizon for a glimpse of the Crystal City, because our heart is constantly crying, “Home, home!”, and we are not led aside by the trappings of this world, nor hindered by its obstacles, nor frightened by the darkness on either side and behind, then people see our determination to continue on. They see a face set ‘like flint’ toward the Eastern sky, and when they look there they see nothing; but when they gaze back into the eyes of faith they want the vision, or they reject it entirely, but they cannot deny that they have witnessed faith!
The last benefit I want to mention here, is that when we have this kind of faith, God is pleased with us. The bible says that without faith it is impossible to please Him. But putting that in the affirmative; Faith pleases Him, always!
If we are saved, not of works, but through faith in Christ’s atoning work on Calvary’s cross, then we have to believe that God is pleased with us. Not through our own merit, but through the perfect, redeeming work of His Son.
Believer do you still suffer with doubts about God’s acceptance of you? Do you flounder in your walk because the accuser harasses your mind with thoughts of your past and your present imperfections and fear of future failures?
That is faithlessness. Stop it.
GOD HAS BUILT A CITY FOR YOU! GOD HAS PROMISED YOU A PLACE THERE, NOT AS A VISITOR, BUT AS A CITIZEN! GOD IS FAITHFUL, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT! AND THROUGH FAITH IN THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST, YOUR HIGH PRIEST...YOUR FORERUNNER WHO HAS GONE THERE BEFORE YOU AND CALLS YOU IN, GOD IS PLEASED WITH YOU...GOD IS NOT ASHAMED TO CALL YOU ‘BROTHER’...GOD IS NOT ASHAMED TO BE YOUR GOD!
GOD IS THE BUILDER AND PROVIDER OF ALL THINGS. GOD PROMISES THOSE THINGS TO THE FAITHFUL. GOD HIMSELF IS FAITHFUL, THEREFORE THE PROMISES ARE SURE. AND IF GOD IS NOT ASHAMED TO BE OUR GOD, THEN HOW CAN WE THINK HE WILL HOLD BACK ANY GOOD THING FROM US?
Let us learn from the men of old, like Simeon, who gained approval with God through their faith.
They saw the promises from a distance, they welcomed them, they confessed them, they shall receive them. So shall we.
Finally, let’s talk about the GLORY OF ISRAEL.
Now I’m not going into a definition here of “The Glory of Israel”; and some deep theological meaning of the term.
I put it that way because Simeon put it that way. “A light of revelation to the gentiles, and the glory of Thy people, Israel”.
If you want another scripture reference, you can look at I Samuel 15:29, where the prophet Samuel, talking to King Saul, refers to God as the Glory of Israel.
But since this is the last Sunday morning sermon of the year; of the century; OF THE MILLENNIUM; I want to end it talking about Jesus.
Once again, Jesus is referred to as Light. Isaiah prophesied that those who walk in darkness would see a great light. During His own ministry, of course, Jesus referred to Himself as the light of the World.
John, in his gospel, said that He was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.
We sing the song:
“The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin,
The light of the world is Jesus;
Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in,
The light of the world is Jesus!
In Acts 26:23 Paul told King Agrippa what the prophets and Moses had said was going to take place, “...that the Christ was to suffer, and THAT BY REASON OF HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD” (in other words, as a result of His resurrection), “HE SHOULD BE THE FIRST TO PROCLAIM LIGHT BOTH TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND TO THE GENTILES”.
Friends, has His divine light shined in your heart? Is there true, saving faith there? Do you have that God-given faith in your heart that is based on Christ’s death and resurrection?
Jesus said to His disciples that they were the light of the world. He is the source of light; His followers are reflections of that light.
If you really belong to Him, His light guides your way, and His light reflected in you shows the way to those still walking in darkness.
Ask God to heal your mind and add the kind of faith to your heart that is defined in Hebrews 11:1 ...the kind of faith by which men of old gained approval, and received the promises.
Wouldn’t it be grand, somewhere in the eons of eternity, when all of this has passed away and we are glorified and reigning with Christ, to be gathered around His throne and have Him call us “Men and Woman of whom the world was not worthy”?
Well you know what? He’s already said it.
“And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect”.
All of these great men and women of faith in the bible waited for their reward, because God wanted to include us so we wouldn’t be left out. What a wonderful, gracious God we have!
Serve Him faithfully, IN faith, believer. Serve the Author and perfecter of faith, our Lord Jesus Christ; and one day He will take you home in peace, as a servant who has successfully completed his task.
Endure as seeing Him who is unseen; and one day you will see Him; and you will be instantly transformed into His glorious image, as you see Him as He is; the radiance of the Father’s glory.
Some of you may have noticed that my sermon is ending very much like last week’s sermon on hope...with the reference to being transformed into His image.
You see, that is what the Christmas message is all about, and we’ve spent the last four weeks looking at it in detail.
The angel’s message of JOY for all people, was that through the sending of His Son God has made PEACE with us. Having Peace with God, our HOPE is for eternal life in His presence, and if we have FAITH in that HOPE; FAITH in His shed blood and resurrection and His promised return, then we will spend eternity reflecting the Father’s glory, as we will be transformed into the image of His Son; the One who IS the radiance of the Father’s glory.
WOW! SO SIMPLE! SO PROFOUND!
