Philip Yancey in his book, Disappointment with God, tells of a letter he received from a woman who was struggling with life and her faith in God. He says, “A young mother wrote that her joy had turned to bitterness and grief when she delivered a daughter with spina bifida, a birth defect that leaves the spinal cord exposed. In page after page of tiny, spidery script she recounted how medical bills had soaked up the family savings and how her marriage had cracked apart as her husband came to resent all the time she devoted to their sick child. As her life crumbled around her, she was beginning to doubt what she had once believed about a loving God.” She wanted to know, “Did I have any advice?”
This young woman is not alone in her doubts. The writer of the biblical book of Psalms often struggled with doubt that came from God’s apparent silence and inactivity. He began to wonder if God really did care about him. He cried out: “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?” (Psalm 44:23-24). There are many times when we are tempted to doubt God, but there is no more common experience than when life comes crashing down around us and things continue to get worse rather than better. We ask what it is that we have done wrong. We question whether we are really a Christian or not. We blame ourselves, and we even blame God. We begin to wonder if God cares, and then we begin to wonder if he is there. Fears begin to approach us that this whole God thing is some kind of hoax. The pain takes over our lives and we don’t seem to have the emotional energy for faith anymore. The pain of life can sometimes harden us. As Rich Mullins sings: “You who live in heaven / Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth / Who are afraid of being left by those we love / And who get hardened by the hurt.” I know many people who seem to suffer more than their fair share of the pain of this world, and when that happens questions begin to arise. No wonder the Bible says, “Be merciful to those who doubt” (Jude 1:22).
Doubting is a common experience among Christians. If you have never doubted anything, it may mean that you have never thought seriously about anything. The only way to never doubt is to never use your mind to question and try to figure anything out. So, not only can you be a Christian and still have some doubts, but you can hardly be a Christian without doubting at times. After all, if doubting was not possible, faith would not possible either. The only way there can be no doubt is for there to be no alternatives or choices. Doubting does not mean that your faith stops, it means you are trying to understand your faith at a deeper level. Rather than being afraid of doubts, we should allow them to take us to deeper experiences of faith and understanding.
So the first thing we need to understand is that: Doubt can lead to faith. Honest doubt means that we are thinking and seeking to understand. The simple answers do not satisfy us any longer and we want to understand at a new level. Honest doubt seeks to know and understand. Dishonest doubt seeks to find reasons to stay at its present level of unbelief. Honest doubt wants to know more about God and experience him in new ways. Dishonest doubt seeks to question God at the most basic level in order to avoid coming closer. Honest doubt is seeking to come to a place of trust and rest in God. Dishonest doubt seeks to find excuses for not trusting God and excluding him from one’s life.
• The first thing we need to understand is that God is too big for us to understand all that He is doing in our lives. Doubting is some cases is not a bad thing when you seek to understand more about God’s character and attributes.
• The second thing we need to understand is that We will never have all the answers. It is important to struggle with God and seek the answers to your questions. But let me sound a note of warning. If you are waiting until you have everything figured out before you come to God, then you will be waiting forever. God is bigger than you, so get over it. If God came down and sat across the table from you and explained everything, you could not comprehend it.
• The third thing you need to know is that God is pleased with those who exercise faith. Faith is like a muscle; the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes. I want to be a person who believes God for great things. I want to trust him in the most dangerous and important times of my life. I want my life to reflect the fact that I believe in a big God. The Bible says, “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” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith involves risk.
Thesis: The believers of the Old Testament teach us to anticipate heaven while evaluating earth. In other words, keep heaven in view while living in here on earth.
What does it take to live in faith day by day with heaven in view? What does it take to live in faith that sees beyond our present difficulties?
This text offers us three (3) practical principles for hope filled living in faith:
I. The Requirements for Hope Filled Living
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. - Hebrews 11:13 (NKJV)
There is something to be said relating to the opening statement of this verse; “These all died in faith…” I don’t mean to be consistently repeating myself in confronting to the doctrine, teaching, and practices of the faith healers. But the more I study the Word on this topic of faith, I realize that they’re getting it wrong and many in our churches today are listen to that junk without searching the scriptures.
Faith healers teach that healing or lack thereof is due to a lack of faith. This is very disheartening to the one hearing it because it carries a certain type of nuance that causes many of us to question our faith based on receiving the miracle of healing. I believe this study along with a total study of faith will help us to understand faith’s operation in the life of every believer.
First, keep in mind that all of us will die one day, believer/non-believer. For many of us thinking and discussing death is a scary thing. Many believers fear death when in fact we should not be scared of death but rejoice in the security of our salvation.
I believe the problem is not in the dying in and of itself but in how we die. The text says that “These all died in faith…” There is difference in how we will all die. Some will die believing while others will die not believing.
The non-believer has something to fear in that they’re soul has no assurance of spending eternity with God. But for the believer, death is nothing more than transportation from earth to glory.
How does faith in God and the teaching of faith healers relate to us? In Mark chapter 2 verse 1-12 is the recorded the healing of the paralytic man who was lowered from the roof by some friends that he may receive healing from Jesus. In verse 5 Jesus says to the paralyzed man; “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” In Luke chapter 7 verses 36-50 is recorded the story of a woman who is a sinner who brought and alabaster box of flagrant oil. Jesus says to the woman in verse 48; “Your sins are forgiven.” And in verse 50 Jesus says; “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
In both instances they received healing but it wasn’t a physical healing it was a spiritual healing. I believe God is concerned with physical well being more important than that I believe God is more concerned with our souls. It’s never a matter of rather or not God can heal us physically. God can do what he wants, when He wants, and how He wants. But I believe is concerned that we receive the gift of salvation and that is the forgiveness of sins. God doesn’t promise physical healing as much as He promises eternal life to those who will place their faith and trust in God.
These men and women died believing God for something they never received. They trusted God for something they could not see. The text is tailored to teach us that we not only live in faith but we should die in faith. Meaning our faith extends far beyond our life here on earth. In other words, how we live down here will last a life time.
What does it take to live a hope filled life?
- A hope filled life is a CONFIDENT Life – These men and women did not put they’re faith and trust in material things to be obtained as a basis for valid faith. They were persuaded not of what God provide here on earth but on what God provide beyond the here and now. Their confidence was placed on eternal security which allowed them to live confidently here on earth that what God promised He will perform. Where we are today is not our final resting place. They did not harbor the thoughts of the old world’s pleasures and desires, possessions and indulgences, feelings and comforts. The patriarchs endured to the end. In fact, they went to their grave believing in the great hope of God for the promised land. We cannot allow the comforts of life to dictate how we should live today or tomorrow.
“And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21).
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
“For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).
- A hope filled life is a GROWING Life – The text says they embraced the promises of God. They actively sought after the promise land. They did not sit back and talk about the promised land, thinking that God would take them to it when it was time. They got up and went looking for it leaving the world and its possessions behind. A growing life is a life that is thankful for where they are now while waiting for the promises of God. True growth can be seen in how live today.
- A hope filled life is an ENDURING Life – They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth. In the original Greek language the word confessed is homologeo. It’s a compound word; homou which means at the same place or time; together. And logos which means something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty or motive; by extension a computation. You put these two words together and it means for us this; “keep your mind and thoughts on things eternal.
Hymn: Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand
II. The Reminder of Hope Filled Living
For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. [15] And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. - Hebrews 11:14-15 (NKJV)
These men and women of faith did not know what was happening. God had given them no inside information, no word as to when or how the promises would be fulfilled. He only gave the promises, and that was enough. They had a sampling of the Promised Land. They walked on it and pastured their flocks on it and raised their children on it, but they were not impatient to possess it. It was enough to possess it from a distance, because their primary concern was for a better country, that is a heavenly one.
In the meantime they were quite happy to be strangers and exiles on the earth. In the ancient world strangers (zenoi) were often regarded with hatred, suspicion, and contempt. They had few rights, even by the standards of that day. They were also exiles (parepidçmoi), pilgrims or sojourners. They were refugees in their own Promised Land. But these faithful patriarchs were passing through Canaan to a better place, and they did not mind.
MacArthur, J. 1996, c1983. Hebrews. Includes index. Moody Press: Chicago
Here’s what we need to understand about our rights as believers here on earth, we don’t have special rights. We have pastors, churches, and believers fighting for our rights as if we should get special treatment because we are believers. We think that because we are believers we shouldn’t have any problems, trials, and tribulations, but the fact of the matter is that rather than wasting time for fighting for our rights here on earth we need to rejoice in God for our citizenship in heaven.
Philippians 3:20 says; “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…”
This teach, in conjunction with Hebrews, teaches us that the believer’s life is to be heaven-centered, for his citizenship is in heaven. Remember that Philippi was a Roman colony and its citizens, although in Macedonia, were citizens of Rome. The citizens of Roman colonies lived as Romans: they dressed as Romans, spoke the Roman language, lived by the laws of Rome, engaged in Roman pleasures and social affairs, and worshipped the Roman gods. Despite the fact that they lived in Macedonia, their citizenship was in Rome. (See POSB note, Citizenship, Heavenly—§Phil. 1:27 for more discussion; cp. Ephes. 2:6.)
The point to see is this: the Philippian believers knew exactly what it meant to live in one place and to be a citizen of another place. They knew exactly what it would mean to live upon the earth and...
• to dress as a citizen of heaven and not of the earth.
• to speak as a citizen of heaven and not of the earth.
• to engage in the pleasures of a citizen of heaven and not of the earth.
• to live by the laws of heaven as well as the laws of earth.
• to worship the God of heaven and not the religions and gods of this earth.
Point: As citizens of heaven we are to be different from the world.
III. The Reward for Hope Filled Living
It is people of such faith that God blesses. He is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Regardless of what we are in ourselves, if we trust Him, God is not ashamed to be called our God. “Those who honor Me I will honor,” God says (1 Sam. 2:30). The patriarchs honored God, and God honored them. Nothing is so honoring to Him as the life of faith. In fact, nothing honors Him but the life of faith.
(MacArthur, J. 1996, c1983. Hebrews. Includes index. Moody Press: Chicago)
The reward of the patriarchs were twofold.
1. They received God’s approval. God is not ashamed to be called their God. Note the present tense: they are still living, even today. And so is God. God is acting now; it is today that He is unashamed. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob today, and He is not ashamed to be called their God. Just imagine! These great patriarchs have been alive and living in God’s presence for thousands of years (cp. Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37). God loves and commits Himself to all who believe Him and His promises. He is not ashamed and never will be ashamed of those who confess that they seek Him and the country He has promised.
2. They received the promised land. God prepared a city for them, a heavenly city that will last forever and ever.
Point: Don’t settle for what you now. Keeping looking to what’s waiting for you in heaven.
My Faith Has Found a Resting Place
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.
Refrain
Enough for me that Jesus saves,
This ends my fear and doubt;
A sinful soul I come to Him,
He’ll never cast me out.
Refrain
My heart is leaning on the Word,
The living Word of God,
Salvation by my Savior’s Name,
Salvation through His blood.
Refrain
My great Physician heals the sick,
The lost He came to save;
For me His precious blood He shed,
For me His life He gave.
Refrain
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.
