Before I had to go out on medical leave for 4 weeks I had
planned to do a sermon series on faithful living based on the Epistle
lectionary readings for the 4 Sundays of August in Hebrews. Since I am unable to preach that series I am
blogging the first three sermons of the series and will preach the final sermon
in the series on August 28, 2016.
While epistle is the Greek word for “letter”,
the book of Hebrews, like the book of Romans is read more like a treatise or a
sermon. The author is not
identified. Because of it’s contents the
dating of the book can go as far back as 35 C.E. or as far forward as 90
C.E. What we can surmise from reading
the book in its entirety is that the persons hearing this sermon were people
who were of the Christian faith. These
people had experienced suffering because of their faith. They have been or have known people who have
been imprisoned for their faith. They
have known people or have experienced for themselves public abuse and
affliction as a result of their faith.
They have seen their property destroyed because of their faith.[1]
The book of Hebrews was written to encourage them and give them hope by
bearing witness to a hopeful Christian experience. The central argument of the book of Hebrews
is that in Jesus the people have a new High Priest and this high priest lives
forever at the right hand of God. Jesus
is the mediator of the New Covenant with God’s people. This covenant does not exclude but includes
all.
With this backdrop our focus over
the next 4 weeks will be on chapters 11-13, which is the 3rd portion
of the book and addresses faithful living.
This week we will explore what faith really means, for to know how to
live faithful lives we must be able to define exactly what faith is. The text we will look at is Hebrews 11:1-3
and 6-18. The first three verses define
faith. The other verses lay out an
example of faith in Abraham, one of the forefathers of faith in the one true
God. The verses from chapter 11 that
aren’t included in our focus provide more examples of faithful living in the
lives of the forefathers of our faith. I would encourage you to go deeper into
this text by going back and reading those examples at your leisure. Our focal text for this sermon reads:
Faith is the reality of what we hope for,
the proof of what we don’t see. 2 The elders in the past
were approved because they showed faith.
Acts of faith by God’s
people
3 By
faith we understand that the universe has been created by a word from God so
that the visible came into existence from the invisible.
8 By
faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was going
to receive as an inheritance. He went out without knowing where he was going.
9 By
faith he lived in the land he had been promised as a stranger. He lived in
tents along with Isaac and Jacob, who were coheirs of the same promise. 10 He was looking forward
to a city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
11 By
faith even Sarah received the ability to have a child, though she herself was
barren and past the age for having children, because she believed that the one
who promised was faithful. 12 So descendants were born
from one man (and he was as good as dead). They were as many as the number of
the stars in the sky and as countless as the grains of sand on the seashore. 13 All of these people died
in faith without receiving the promises, but they saw the promises from a
distance and welcomed them. They confessed that they were strangers and
immigrants on earth. 14 People
who say this kind of thing make it clear that they are looking for a homeland. 15 If they had been
thinking about the country that they had left, they would have had the
opportunity to return to it. 16 But at this point in
time, they are longing for a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
Therefore, God isn’t ashamed to be called their God—he has prepared a city for
them.
The first
verse of this passage is one that is quite familiar to many Christians, but I
think the meaning of this text goes much further than where we sometimes take
it. I have heard this verse quoted to
define faith as hope for that which we cannot see. I have heard faith defined in belief in something
we have not seen or experienced. While
those definitions provide us with a partial view of faith, I agree with John
Wesley who says that faith is much more than belief. In John Wesley’s Sermon 106, he uses this
chapter of Hebrews and his own experience of a growing and evolving faith to
lay out several “stages” (my word) of faith that one might go through before
giving his definition of what he believes to be the most evolved form of
faith. I think each of us would
recognize in our own faith journey at least some of these stages of faith.
Wesley
speaks of those who believe that there is nothing but matter in the
universe. These folks only believe in
what can be seen. You have to show it to
them. There has to be solid evidence and
proof. Just like Thomas who had to see
and touch the scars of Jesus. Just like
Sarah who didn’t sing a blessing to God until she actually gave birth to
Isaac. When she heard that she was going
to have a child, she laughed out loud.
She thought it was preposterous.
Wesley then
talks about those people who believe that there is a God who is distinct from
matter but this person does not believe the Bible. They have difficulty grasping the stories of
the Christian faith.
Next he
talks about those people who have the head knowledge of God. They acknowledge God’s existence and they
believe that God rewards those who seek him but they live out their faith very
little.
Then there
are those Jews who lived between the giving of the law of Moses and the coming
of Christ. We would not be among those
people. These are a specific group of
people who were serious and sincere about their faith but didn’t live to
experience Jesus therefore they could not know the fullness of faith.
There are
those who, like John the Baptist, believe all God has revealed as necessary to
salvation. These folks are good at
following rules and rituals.
Next, he
speaks of those who fully embrace the truths necessary to salvation and that
the things of both the old and New Testament which are plainly declared are of
God and are to be followed.
Past all of
these stages of faith are those people who recognize that faith is “such a
divine conviction of God and the things of God, as, even in its infant state,
enables everyone that possesses it to “Fear God and work righteousness.”[2] These folks are those persons who have a
conviction of God in their hearts. The
conviction that they have of God’s existence and the things of God is so strong
that they must act. These folks are
spurred by their faith to do good and right things. These folks can truly be called servants of
God. You would think that would be the
end of the list. What more could one ask
for than to have the kind of faith that spurs them to action? Well, it’s the kind of person that has a
faith that identifies who they are to the very core of their being.
John Wesley
says this person has the “Son of God revealed in their hearts.”[3] This person says “The life that I now live, I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and have himself for me.” This person sees themselves as a creation of
God. This person recognizes the image of
God within them. This person recognizes
their adoption as a child of God. Faith
for this person is acting within them out of love. This love is the very love that is imaged to
us by God and it is through God’s love in their hearts and lives that they take
action. It is not because it is the
right thing to do, or because they might get rewarded, or because they need to
do it to assure their salvation. It is
because of love. Pure, true, abiding
love. It is this faith that keeps us
seeking. It keeps us seeking for love, justice,
mercy and peace. It keeps us seeking for
that promised Kingdom. It keeps us praying thy Kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
What does
that kind of faith look like in action?
Well, the chapter gives us many examples and in all the examples there
are some things we find in common. This
kind of faith has people responding to small next steps, not knowing the final
destination. This kind of faith has
people who live for a promise that they do not fully see in their lifetime. We are limited by time and space so will only
look at how the author of Hebrews lifts up Abraham as an example of this
faith. Again, I would encourage you to
read the whole chapter and the stories of the Old Testament brought forth as
examples. For now let’s take a look at
Abraham. Abraham was the 10th
generation of Noah’s family and was born almost 400 years after the great
flood. God’s promise to Abraham comes in
Genesis 12:1-3:
Go from
your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show
you. I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you. I will make your
name great and you will be a blessing. I
will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you and all the
peoples of the earth will be blessed by you!”
The first thing I want you to notice
here is that God said Go. He didn’t name
the place that Abraham was to go to he only told him to go and that he would
show him where to go. Abraham was 75
years old when he received this call from God and he went. Friend’s it’s never too late to listen to God’s
voice. You say yes and then you listen
for the next step to take. You do this
because of the faith in God and the things of God that has been enacted in your
hearts.
What is the passion of your heart?
What has God gifted you for? What is the
calling on your life that you have ignored for too long? How do you, by faith, use those gifts in
service to God? Listen, I wasn’t 75 when
I began taking the next steps toward becoming a minister but I was too old by
many people’s standards to be going back to school and starting a new
career. I was 37 years old when God first
began speaking to me again about going into full-time pastoral ministry. Just like Abraham wandered around in search
for the Promised Land, I wandered around through the paths that lead to
pastoral ministry until God showed me that path that I was to take. It was 6 years from the time that I first
began wrestling with that call until the time I understood the clear path that
was ahead of me. I was 43 years old when
I made the decision to go back to school and to make formal ministry my
vocation. It was a scary time. But I said yes and I will tell you that God
was with me every step of the way. It
wasn’t easy. There have been times when
I’ve questioned if I had made the right decisions, taken the right steps. Just like God had to remind Abraham over and
over of the covenant he had made with him, he had to remind me over and over of
the covenant he had made with me. The
beauty of it is that we serve a God who does that. Our God doesn’t give up on us. He gifts us and equips us. He puts a passion in our hearts and he
waits. He pokes us and prods us and we
ignore those prods. Yet, he continues to
wait and be present, ready to walk with us as we take that next step of faith
we are being spurred toward whether we recognize it when we are 12 or when we
are 75, he is there, waiting.
The first thing Abraham did by faith was to go when told to go,
not knowing the destination.
The second thing Abraham did was to
continue to listen to God and take the next steps even when they didn’t make
sense and he did this with much patience.
Verse 9 says “by faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign
country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same
promise.” Abraham reached the Promised
Land but it was not yet his to take. God
told him to wait. He gave him the not
yet answer. He heard this from God for
400 years. I can only imagine it would
have been very easy for Abraham to get frustrated and inpatient. I mean he gave up his whole life to follow
God’s direction and nothing was happening fast.
But, he stayed there and he lived there as a foreigner waiting, waiting
for what verse 10 says is the city which has foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. He knew, had faith that,
it would be worth the wait. He knew that
the outcome was worth working toward.
The writer of Hebrews reminds us that
by faith Sarah received strength to conceive past the age she should. Now here is something I want you to pay close
attention to. The writer of Hebrews
brings out the faith of Sarah but if we know the story we know that Sarah did
not originally believe that she would conceive.
No, when the strangers came and gave Abraham the news that Sarah would
give birth to a son and that it was through that son that God would make many
nations, Sarah laughed out loud. She was
ashamed for laughing, she denied it in fact but she did laugh. Have you ever heard someone suggest something
that you thought was impossible or ludicrous that made you laugh out loud? This tells us something about faith. It tells
us something that John Wesley knew.
Faith is something that God places in us. It is a gift from God and sometimes faith
comes before we see the outcome such as when Abraham said yes and moved away
from home and his people to go toward a destination he did not yet know. Sometimes faith comes about as the result of
the outcome. Genesis 21:6-7 records
Sarah’s reaction to giving birth to Isaac:
God has
blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me. Whoever would have suggested to Abraham that
Sarah would one day nurse a baby? Yet,
here I am. I’ve given the Old Man a Son.
The faith
was there but Sarah didn’t recognize it until she actually saw the fruit of
it. Sometimes we are like Thomas and
Sarah and we have to see to really and truly believe but once we see it that
passion ignites in us and we are all in.
I think that
is the kind of faith the writer of Hebrews and John Wesley speak of. It’s an all-in kind of faith. When playing poker one of the bets you can
make is to say all in. What that means
is that you are so confident of the hand you are holding that you bet all the
chips you have on that hand. When we have
an all-in kind of faith, we are so confident of the Way of Jesus Christ that we
put all the chips we have into following that Way. Do you have an all-in kind of faith or are
you hanging out in one of the other sorts of faith that John Wesley speaks
of? What will it take to move you the
next step?
Just like the
Christians of the first century, we many times come across times when we feel
like there is no hope. We cannot see
tomorrow. Perhaps you are in one of
those times right now. In giving us all
these examples of faithful persons the writer of Hebrews inspired hope in the
people who were feeling hopeless by reminding them of the times in their history
when God had acted, where God had been present.
What is your spiritual history?
When is a time in your life that you knew the presence of God and you
knew God was acting in your life, in your community, or in your church. I would encourage you this week to think
about and write about the different times that you have seen God at work in
your life or in the life of others.
Then, when you are feeling hopeless go back and read these God stories
and remember.
In the name
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
[1] Johnson,
Luke Timothy, Writings of the New
Testament, (Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2010) kindle edition location
6375-7167
[2] Wesley,
John, On Faith, Sermon 106 1792 Edition, Global
Missions accessed August 5, 2016, http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-106-On-Faith
[3] Ibid
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