August 12, 2007 Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
Sermon Title: “By Faith”
Series: Practical Christianity (God’s Promises)
Text: Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Dr. Steve Jackson
Delivered on August 12, 2007
“By faith we
understand…by faith Abraham obeyed…by faith he received power.
Hebrews 11
By Faith
Saturday a week
ago (Aug. 4), the Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted its newest members. The
Class of 2007 included Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin,
Nowadays it
seems as though practically every organization has its own hall of fame. All
the major sports have one including baseball, boxing, football, golf, hockey,
racing and tennis. Most types of music have one: the rock-and-roll hall of fame
is in
The original hall of fame, the first one ever—and the greatest—is the “faith hall of fame,” whose inductees are listed in the 11th chapter of Hebrews, from which I read this morning. After calling God’s people to persevere in Hebrews 10:19-39, the writer of Hebrews illustrates the nature of faith by describing a group of people who have answered this call. You don’t have the entire 11th chapter in your hand-outs, but if you have your Bibles with you then you can read the names of the legends in that hall of fame: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel. Each one of these examples’ stories begins with the phrase “by faith,” and then goes on to tell how they acted on the basis of faith.
Verse 1 identifies what faith is. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is not wishful thinking, it’s is the confident assurance that something is going to happen and is there even now, waiting on us, even though we can’t physically see it.
The key verse in the whole chapter for me—I guess I’m spilling the beans on my sermon too early here—is the second half of verse 11. One of the great heroes of the faith, in fact, the one who gets the most ink in the faith heroes hall of fame, is Abraham. Abraham made the hall of fame because even though he and Sarah were past the age of child-bearing, they had a child, Isaac. The key to how they did that is given in the second half of that verse after the word because: “because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”
What the author is telling us with that statement is that it’s faith that activates the promises of God in our lives. Our faith in God’s faithfulness is what guarantees that what we need to have happen in our lives will happen. The Apostle Paul restated this in Romans 4:16-25. Let me read that for you:
16Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. 18Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:16-25 NIV)
Faith, the Bible says, is what activates the promises of God. And so as we continue our series on Practical Christianity, what we’re going to talk about this morning is perhaps the most practical aspect of all. We’re going to talk about what faith can do for you. I’ve titled this message “By Faith” after the five instances of those two words in the verses we read today. I can’t give you faith this morning, but I can encourage you to have faith. I believe with all my heart that faith and faith alone will help you fill five of the greatest needs each one of us has as human beings. Let’s look at these together.
Need #1 - Approval
The first need faith can fill is the need for APPROVAL. And not just for approval in general, but approval from the only One that really matters, God. Look at verse 2, “By faith our ancestors received approval.” The NIV reads, “This (faith) is what the ancients were commended for.”
Let’s face it, you and I spend a great deal of our time seeking the approval of someone. It may be a parent, a spouse, our children, our boss, a teacher, or even a preacher. But we all want to feel as though we’re acceptable; we all want to be commended. We all want to make the grade.
I’ll tell you who knows this better than anybody else; the credit card companies. It seems like every time I go through our mail I have two or three envelopes with the words “APPROVED” stamped in red or blue ink on the front. I tell you what, if I was seeking the approval of credit card companies, or magazine subscriptions, or life insurance, I’d have it made. They’ve ALL approved me! Know what I mean? And let’s be honest, if they’re willing to approve a middle-aged, broken down, unhealthy, poor preacher man like me, they’d approve anybody! Have you noticed how easy the world’s approval comes sometimes? That’s because it’s not worth much in the grand scheme of things.
Far too often we get sidetracked by seeking approval somewhere other than the only source we have for this precious commodity: God. And we do it for a variety of reasons: ignorance, fear, temptation, sin.
When it comes to Christianity, the Bible teaches there is only one way to make the grade, only one way to get “approved” stamped on your envelope, and that’s to have faith; to believe in God and in “Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord who was born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. The third day he ascended to heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty…” Right?
Let me ask you this morning, who are you trying to please? Are you trying to please an audience of One, or are you trying to please everyone? Dirk Heinen is a famous German soccer player and a Christian. He summed up his philosophy like this: “My motivation is to live my life in a way that pleases God. So when I’m playing in a stadium and there are 80,000 spectators, I still think, there is actually only one that I would like to please. His name is Jesus.”
Is your goal to please God? Then have faith in his son, for that, and that
alone pleases him. In fact, Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” We all have an
intrinsic need for approval. It’s faith that activates God’s approval of you.
As the rest of Hebrews 11:6 says, “anyone
who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek him.”
Need #2 – Understanding
The second need faith can fill—a need that we all share—is for UNDERSTANDING. Look at verse 3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”
I don’t care who you are, eventually you will find yourself asking questions like, “Why am I here?” “What’s it all about?” “Where did I come from?” and “Is this all there is?” When you do, you start looking around for answers. But being educated people many of us have problems with Christianity—come on now…Virgin birth? Miracles? Resurrection? They don’t fit our scientific world view, and so many of us discount them and look elsewhere for answers, for understanding.
I’ll admit it, I
did for a while. I just couldn’t reconcile the Bible stories of my childhood:
The Garden of Eden, Noah’s flood, and the walls of
No the answer is what the writer of Hebrews teaches here—it’s our faith that actually gives us the understanding we are searching for. Faith activates the promise of understanding in our lives. And, mind you, this battle between the mind of reason and the mind of faith is not a new one. Augustine, speaking only 400 years after Christ walked the earth advised: “Do not understand that you may believe; believe that you may understand.” Taking up the idea, Anselm offered one of the guiding dictums of theological inquiry: “I believe that I may understand,” (Credo ut intelligam), and described his search for understanding as “Faith seeking understanding” (Fides quaerens intellectum). The point is, you don’t have to check your brain at the door to become a Christian. In fact, without faith you’ll never have true understanding. It’s like Amy Mohr read last week in her message, “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” 1 Cor. 1:25. It’s faith that activates God’s promise of understanding in our lives.
Need #3 – Courage
The third basic human need that our faith in God’s faithfulness provides is the need for COURAGE. Look at verse 8, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”
I read a lot of books, especially books about the old days when life seemed riskier, more dangerous. You never knew if a wild Indian was going to try to kill you, or if some wild animal was going to attack, or if some deadly disease was going to claim your life. Life in general was just more fraught with danger. And so for a while I was under the mistaken belief that life today somehow calls for less courage than it did “way back then.” But you know what, life today calls for a lot of courage too. Courage to take a stand for what you believe in. Courage to speak truth and confront when the easier thing to do would be to overlook or ignore behaviors, words, and attitudes that are harmful or downright wrong.
Living today, and being a Christian in particular, means taking risks, and for those risks we need faith that God really is the loving, gracious, all-knowing, all-present being we claim he is in our creeds. Many times the only thing we really need to do as far as courage is concerned is to live up to who we say we are.
I saw an
interview last week of a firefighter—a woman—who was off-duty when the bridge
collapsed in
Faith functions the same way. When you know that your faith is activating the promises of God you don’t constantly run through the “what if” scenarios—your training just kicks in and you go. I’ve read the story of Abraham’s setting out from his homeland many, many times, and not once does it talk about him being scared, or fearful, or worried about where God might lead. He just went. Faith gives us the courage to confidently step out and obey God.
Need #4 – Perseverance
A fourth basic human need faith provides is PERSEVERANCE. We find that in verse 9, “By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.”
Living as a believer in this world it will often seem like you are living in a foreign land. Have you ever done that—lived in a foreign country? I have. Being from a military family we’ve lived overseas before. Everything there is different. The food, clothes, language, people, everything. Nothing feels like “home.”
I also experienced this doing mission work. I remember being in Africa a year ago and being so hot, so dirty, missing my own bed and my air conditioning so much. And the main thing that kept me going was the thought that in only a few more days I’d be getting on an airplane and heading home to the modern conveniences and comforts here.
Here’s a challenge that Hebrews 11 throws at us. Are you real comfortable in this world? It seems to me that if we’re too comfortable, then that’s a sign that we’ve got a little too much of this world in us.
In fact, that’s one of the problems with sharing the gospel with Americans and Europeans in the modern world. If we’ve got everything we need, who needs God and who needs heaven? Look at verse 10 though. Abraham needed God and heaven, he “looked forward to the city that has foundations whose architect and builder is God.”
Do you have any
use at all for such a city? Or are you totally comfortable here? No doubt
Abraham was pretty comfortable in
Need #5 – Power
The last human need that I’ll mention this morning that faith provides (and there are more) is POWER. Power for living. Verse 11 says, “By faith he [Abraham] received power of procreation, even though he was too old…”
In Abraham’s case the power was the power to have children, but that may or may not be the power God wants to infuse into your life through your faith. It was the power of procreation in Abraham’s life because that was the promise God had made to him—that he would be the father of many nations.
God has made promises to you too. And to activate those promises you need the power that God alone can give to accomplish them. And to receive that power, you must have faith—faith that the God who has promised something to you—whatever it is—is faithful enough to provide it.
Our God is a God of power. Do you know that? Back in April Evel Knievel, known the world over for his daredevil motorcycle stunts, spoke at Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral. Knievel, known for stunts with his motorcycle in the 70’s, had a reputation as a wild man for many years. Drugs, alcohol, women, partying…and there he was telling the congregation of the Crystal Cathedral about his new relationship with Jesus Christ.
Knievel said, “I don't know what in the world happened,
the power of God in Jesus just grabbed me. All of a sudden, I just believed in
Jesus Christ. I did. I believed in him. And so I got down on my knees and
prayed that God would put his arms around me and never, never let me go.”
The power of God was so strong in the room during Knievel’s testimony, Schuller’s son Robert, Jr. interrupted the service and asked if anyone wanted to trust Christ and be baptized right then. People started streaming forward. This continued for more than half an hour and the church estimates that somewhere between 500-800 received Christ and were baptized in that service.
My friends, that’s the power of God, activated by one man’s faith and testimony about Jesus Christ and what he’s done for him.
Could you use some of that kind of power in your life? The power that enabled this icon of the 70’s who used to brag he didn’t need anybody or anything in his life to tearfully confess his total dependence on a loving God?
It’s faith that activates that power—the power you need along with the other four needs we all have, approval, understanding, courage, and perseverance.
How do you get such faith? Well, oddly enough, that comes from God too. That’s the greatest thing of all about God, you can never get in front of him when it comes to providing what you need—even faith.
The way you get such faith is you humble yourself before God just like Evel Knievel did and you tell God you believe in Christ and you ask him to hold you and to never, never let you go. And he won’t.
Have you ever done that? If so, how long has it been since you told him how much you love him? Have you started taking back your heart from him, piece by piece? Have you started closing doors in your life declaring them off-limits to God? If so, why not change that beginning right now—here—today. God is waiting…will you respond? Let’s pray.