Two Faces of Faith - the Crown and the Cross
Text: Hebrews 11: 13, 32-40; 12: 1-3
What an inspiration to faith we’ve found in this 11th chapter of Hebrews! It’s one of the great passages of the Bible, worthy of a commitment to study and meditation. I hope you that the Word has fired up your faith. In these messages we’ve met --
∙ Abel whose faith caused him to offer a pleasing sacrifice to God.,
∙ Noah whose faith led him to believe God’s command and to build an ark which saved his family,
∙ Abraham, the father of the faithful, who clung to the promises of God when impossibilities were all that he could see on life’s horizon,
∙ Moses, whose faith led him to seek the eternal treasures of heaven without a single glance backwards at the treasures of Egypt where he had been a prince!
In the great stories of the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction Jericho, we learned that God led His people into places where all they could do was look up... and see His deliverance. And when they responded in faith, they saw God working mighty miracles on their behalf. My prayer that is you have looked up often this week.
The greatest evidence of a living faith is an ongoing dialogue with God. IF we love and trust Him, we will inevitably share our lives and needs with Him. IF faith is just a concept, a novel idea to us, we will have to be reminded and prompted to prayer and praise. Have you turned to Him often this week, praying as naturally as you breathe? By that measure, are you a person of faith?
In our final message on faith, we come to the paradox of faith – that which seems to find no response from heaven. In the text that we will read in a moment, we learn that there were people of great faith whose prayers for deliverance were not met with a spectacular miracle. It’s easy to trust God when the sea is parting, when the walls are falling, when His voice is clearly coming through to our spirit. But what about those days when He falls silent?
We can all identify with the Psalmist who wrote of God’s wonderful acts for others but who wonders where God is at the present. He, in a time of spiritual agony, cries... Psalm 44
We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago.
2 With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; you crushed the peoples and made our fathers flourish.
. . . 9 But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies. 10 You made us retreat before the enemy,
and our adversaries have plundered us. 11 You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations.
. . .17 All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. 18 Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. 19 But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness. 20 If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, 21 would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? 22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
23 Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. 24 Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? 25 We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. 26 Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love.
In our text this morning we see that there are two faces of faith. One is triumphant, the other patiently enduring suffering. One is the face of Jesus of the Cross, the other the face of Christ, the Crowned King of Heaven. We love the latter while fearing the former. Who wants the suffering of the cross? We all want the triumph of the Resurrection.
There is a popular form of Christianity loose in America today that is focused on faith a ticket to the American dream. Emphasizing just one face of faith, the preachers of health, wealth, and happiness tell their congregations: “Claim your rightful place as King’s Kids. Claim your healing now. With enough faith, you can unlock the treasure house of God and live rich and successful lives.” And there is enough truth in this kind of preaching that it isn’t immediately detected as the heresy that it actually is. Faith IS a key to receiving God’s blessings. Faith is a personal choice, a response I can choose in times of difficulty that often leads me to healing and success. However, it is a real mistake to think of God as a vending machine of favors that releases His gifts to us IF we just believe enough! Such ‘faith’ is centered on me, myself, and I rather than on the purposeful, plan of a loving Father God.
On the other side, there is a practice of Christianity that expects little from the God worshiped. The role of suffering is so emphasized, that the Believer does not pray for deliverance or healing. A kind of desperate resignation to fate is mistaken for genuine faith. God becomes a remote, even cruel deity, that abandons His children to tough it out through life. This practice is as wrong as the first though at first glance it seems to be very spiritual and deep, it is – in reality – a serious deviation from Biblical, world-changing faith that wrestles with the sin and suffering in the world.
Faith is a way of life that surrenders to God and allows Him to do as He wills with us and for us. Genuine faith trusts Him to accomplish His eternal purposes which are sometimes beyond our finite ability to understand. It allows for periods of time when there is no outward evidence of God at work. Yet, genuine faith causes the Believer to continue to resist temptation and to overcome the Evil One.
Faith has two faces... the cross and the crown. They are inseparable parts of the whole of faith.
Turn with me to Hebrews 11 once again. Let’s read the text to discover what God says to us this morning. Hebrews 11: 13, 32-40; 12: 1-3 [ READ ]
What we’ve just read is so very difficult for us to accept, indeed, to even understand given our success oriented culture. We evaluate most things quite pragmatically... Does it work? What’s the end result?
So we develop a half-understanding about faith.
∙ If we pray for healing, but do not recover... we generally assume that something is wrong with our faith.
∙ If we pray for a wayward child or spouse and that one does not change, we think our faith must be weak
and ineffective.
∙ When our financial situation does not turn around, somehow we conclude that our faith and prayers were
wrong.
AND many, many times that is absolutely true. Jesus was unable to many miracles in his hometown. Why? Matthew 13 says it was because the people didn’t believe in Him. The people’s faithlessness blocked the work of God among them! James says that our prayers go unanswered because we “ask with wrong motives.” In Psalm 66:18 we are warned that sin destroys the effectiveness of our faith, breaking our close connection with the Lord. So it is important to understand that the way that we exercise faith does have some significant part in the response of God.
HOWEVER!!!!
In light of our text, we also must understand that there are times when no matter the quality of our faith, no matter our careful surrender of motives, no matter that we have examined our hearts and lives for unworthy thoughts and actions; our prayers will seem to be unheard and unanswered. [ re-read v. 13, 16, 39 ]
Twice the Holy Spirit inspired the writer to remind us that even men and women of great and real faith suffered and some died only hoping for the promise of God.
Why?
V.40 gives us insight into the mind of God. “God had planned something better. . .” In His wisdom and purpose, He looked past their immediate comfort and desire. How hard it is for us to accept that our immediate comfort is not the highest priority in God’s will. Yet, each of us knows that there are times when a greater good prevails.
What good parent enjoys seeing his son or daughter in a tough time in life? When I see my kids wrestling with the consequences of an unwise decision, my first desire is to rush in and make it better. BUT, if I do that all the time, they never learn. The pain can produce character, the experiences can produce wisdom. So our Father in heaven sometimes allows us to go through difficult moments when HE does not rush in with a fix.
In this text, God allows us to see that there is a future place... a heavenly home that we all will share.
∙ In eternity there is no deferral of promises to the future, for there is no future!
∙ In heaven, there are no lessons in faith for we will have perfect knowledge.
∙ In heaven, there are no consequences for sin, for sin is banished and we are perfectly holy.
∙ In heaven, our Father no longer has to say no to our requests for our minds and His mind are one and all our requests of Him will be perfectly in synch with His purposes!
So, how does this understanding that faith has two faces.... one triumphant, the Crown; one suffering, the Cross ... effect us? What is our response?
Go back to the text once again. {READ Hebrews 12:1-3}
This conclusion urges us to stay the course regardless of short-term moments of doubt and of frustrations. The whole reasoning of chapter 11 rests squarely on this passage.
The Christian life is set in the metaphor of the athletic competition. The writer asks us to imagine ourselves in an arena, running a race surrounded by tiers of enthusiastic fans that once were runners themselves. These people are urging us on to complete the race. They offer their experience as testimony that God is faithful. Look at our lives, look at the way things worked together for good for us... and don’t quit. “Don’t give up just because you don’t see the finish line yet! Stay the course!” they yell to us.
∙ The experience of Abraham on Mt. Moriah when he obediently took his son for a sacrifice, only to find a ram caught in the thicket to offer as a substitute, should teach us to recognize God as Yahweh Yireh – the LORD, our Provider! Abraham urges us on in the race from the bleachers of heaven.
∙ Moses is there too. He wrestled with the tough decision to reject his princely fortune in Egypt to become the leader of a new nation. He traded a privileged life for 40 years of intense struggle, but he also brought us a completely new understanding of the nature of the holy God. He urges us to live with eternity’s values as our goal and guide.
Each of the heroes who went before us offers their life story to show us that living is about choices. Picking up one thing means laying down another. Whatever hinders the growth of faith needs to thrown to the side of the track, so we can run swiftly. Listen friend. YOU cannot say “YES” to Jesus Christ without saying “NO” to someone/something else.
Before we see the triumphant face of faith, the Crown.... we will experience at least some of the suffering face of faith... the Cross. There is some dying to do before we gain eternal life.
Paul declared....“I die every day.” 1 Corinthians 15:31
Jesus said “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25
We do not only have the example of the men and women of the Bible. We should also know the lives of faithful Believers through history. Read the story of Martin Luther who struggled with a religious system and helped to return Christianity to a personal faith in Jesus Christ. Get a book about Dwight L. Moody, the great revivalist preacher who lived at end of the last century, a man who sold shoes for a living until God challenged him to take up another calling. If you’re serious about serving God, you’ll be inspired by the journal of Jim Elliott, a brilliant man. He was a normal college in the post-WWII years here in the US. He loved a good time, loved a great practical joke and being with people. He liked pretty girls and wrestled with his desire for fame and wealth. And he ultimately let God guide his life. When he was just 30 years of age, he was killed by the Amazonia Auca natives he went to share the Gospel with.
Read the story of LeTourneau whose brilliance in designing construction machinery made him a fabulously wealthy man. Yet he remained deeply committed to Christ and invested millions of dollars to build Christian colleges and support Christian ministry. He eventually choose to live on 10% of his income and to give 90% to ministry!
But am I suggesting that we need a steely grit, a determined set to our jaw to be successful for Christ. Don’t hear it that way, friend. The secret to faith is not just guts! It is spiritual transformation. It is allowing the Spirit of God to live in us, to give us a new vision of life’s meaning.
It is the experience of the Lord Jesus is offered as the greatest model for us. He lived out His challenge. By faith, he embraced the will of His Father that took him to the Cross. He ‘scorned its shame.’ He took no note of the shame of dying as a condemned criminal and of the horror of becoming a sinner for us WHY? Because he had the joy of a greater goal than comfort, ease, or immediate pleasure in his sights. The Spirit of God showed him that beyond the Cross was the Crown.
Consider Him! The Message says, “When you find yourself flagging in your faith, go over the story again, item by item. Remember all the hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenalin into your souls!”
The secret of a life that embraces both faces of faith – the cross and the crown – is found in v. 2. “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.” Do you have Him in site? Is he the pace-setter in your run for Heaven? OR have you started to look around so that you are distracted?
Let’s not have a half-understanding of faith.
Don’t be seduced in your thinking by that presentation of faith that proclaims only the health, wealth, and spectacular miracles of God’s intervention. By contrast, don’t be misled by the proclamation that only allows for endurance of painful suffering with no expectation of victory.
Instead, invite the Spirit of God to work in your mind so that you are steadfast hopeful in the fullness of faith. Invite Christ to inspire you and to live in you.
Then you will live in faith and be able to say .... Philippians 4:11-13
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. (KJV -- I know how to be abased and to abound!) I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Amen.
Father God, we thank you for a living Jesus who, unlike the heroes of our text, is no distant person.
You are our living Lord. Help our hearts and minds to be open to the Spirit who brings us your Presence.
Strengthen the resolve of faith in us. You are all that we need in every hour. Give us focused spiritual vision that keeps you always in sight as our pace-setter.
When we are times of abounding and triumphant faith, help us to remain faithfully committed to your work. When we are enduring suffering and self-denial in your will, keep us from moaning and complaint. May we always live with the desire to see your Kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
In Christ’s name, Amen.
