Hebrews 11:1-6 – “Faith for 2007”
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
December 31, 2006
Text
11 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Introduction
I simply have to start the year off by sharing with you my favourite New Year’s cartoons…
(share Calvin and Hobbes strips)
Sometimes Calvin is closer to my thoughts than I like to admit.
Now onto more serious pursuits…
Faith
No matter what resolution you may have made,
or if you do not bother with resolutions at all,
there is one thing that I know you need this year.
Not only you, but me too,
and everyone else in this room, neighbour, city, province, nation and world.
Faith
- not just faith for faith’s sake – just because you believe something does not make true!
- you can believe that red means go all you want, but if you live that out,
you won’t live for long, and you’ll probably take others out with you
- faith in God as the Creator, Sustainer, and Judge of this world
- faith in Christ as the crucified Saviour and risen Lord of all who believe
- faith in the Holy Spirit as our connection with God,
our guide and protector, the giver of our strength
Faith in our passage is described so well as:
“being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”
Sure of what we hope for
- we hope for God’s promise to come to fruit, knowing that God keeps his word
- we hope for God’s love, knowing that he gives it unconditionally
- we hope for daily bread, knowing that God can give it
Certain of what we do not see
- we have not seen Jesus, but we are certain that he is real, and that he loves us
- we have not seen Heaven, but we are certain that God is preparing it for us
- we have not seen our lives end, but we are certain that in God’s hands we’ll be okay
That said, faith shows itself in many ways,
This chapter passage gives us many examples of faith in God at work,
Two of which I’ve already read:
Abel’s faith
- trusted God from the beginning
- as one of only three people in world for a while,
he had a pretty unique perspective on God!
- thought of as righteous because he makes an acceptable offering to God
- when it was time to make an offering, as a shepherd,
he offers up one of his prize animals
- while his brother Cain, as a farmer, offers up some of his produce
- nothing wrong with Cain’s offering, but God prefers Abel’s, and instead of trading some of his produce to make an offering God wanted, Cain slays Abel in a jealous rage.
Now what a minute – How did God reward Abel for faith? His own brother killed him!
Faith does not make life easy and care free;
rather it keeps us going in good times and bad.
Abel suffered because of something he did in faith,
God did not prevent his death, but he kept Abel’s soul and punished Cain for his sin.
When you here people telling you that to be healed/rich/specially blessed,
you just need to have faith, they are wrong.
They are misrepresenting God’s promises to fit their own desires.
Faith means sticking with God even when it doesn’t seem to “pay off”,
because you know that he has your best interests at heart,
because you know that he is more real than anything else,
and that he will see you through hard times.
Jesus didn’t ask for healing or a special miracle on the cross,
he endured it in faith, knowing that he needed to suffer through it.
Faith in God doesn’t take grief or hardship out of our life, but it helps us through it.
Enoch’s faith
Genesis 5:21-24 - 21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Enoch is one of two men who has the distinction of not dying before going to Heaven. (anyone guess the other one?)
He was one of the first few hundred people on earth,
And he lived everyday like he was simply walking with God.
He would have had to find food, have a family, cloth himself, and all the other challenges others faced in his day.
Living today, he would have held down a job, sustained a household, raised a family, and as a 365 year old man he was probably a great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent!
He did all this, walking with God.
Living as though God was simply with him all the time!
That’s faith!
- not mystic incantations, pay for prayer scams, rituals or rites
but living as though God is with us all the time!
And as his ultimate reward, God takes him into his presence, skipping the process of death that even his own Son suffered for the rest of us.
We will not all be rewarded in this way, only one other person,
Elijah the prophet, is recorded to have enjoyed this fate,
but the point is that we can live in faith by simply living as though God is with us, in good and in bad, all the time!
There are no hidden secrets to a life of faith, no codes to crack, no riddles to solve.
Faith means relying on God, trusting him for our needs,
living as though he is a very real presence in our lives.
And this our just two examples of faith in this chapter,
if you look through it you will find:
faith in the midst of tragedy – Noah
faith that takes Abraham from his homeland to the Holy land
faith from the prostitute Rahab that helps the entire nation of Israel,
and many more examples of faith in action that changed the world.
So as we face a new year on the calendar,
1. let us walk into it with faith,
knowing that the God who has brought us this far
has much more in store for us.
We may have a great year, or terrible things may happen, we don’t know.
But we can know that God will see us through everything that comes,
if we keep our faith in him.
2. Let us make sure that our lives are securely in God’s hands,
confessing our sin, our need for his forgiveness,
and our faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
as Lord of our lives and Saviour of our souls.
3. Let’s take time to cultivate our faith, actually using it,
by trying things that need it!
Doing things that we know we can do is not acting in faith,
but going a bit beyond, taking a chance,
actually relying on God and not just talking about him,
That is faith in action,
and we won’t know what fruit it will bear until we try it for ourselves!
Faith is knowing that God will reward, without always knowing what that reward will be.
As his children we have Heaven waiting for us,
but God has much more in store for us before then,
and we need to live in faith to find out what all of that is!
