Hebrews - Talk 8

The life of faith; faith is a convicted belief in Christ and his promise demonstrated in action, and expressed through perseverance in the face of death.

Introduction
In around the middle of February 2007, Kath and I found ourselves having a very odd conversation. We were standing in a beach house a Callala Beach on the South Coast, and were as I said having a very odd conversation. Now to set the context, we were having this conversation while holding a stick, and not a tree type stick, but a plastic stick, one of those ones that comes in the little packet from the chemist type stick, and not one of the ones that take you temperature either.

Now was an odd conversation, because both of us stood there in disbelief, because the stick said - negative! both of us were absolutely convinced the answer was positive. Which is a total reversal from most of the scenes of this ilk you see in the movies, but somehow which is knew the answer was positive.
Now it wasn't just some sort of blind faith on our behalf, that we just believed despite the evidence that was put before us, but it was because of other evidence we found more convincing than the stick itself.

Now my wife Kath is a fairly together kind of person, but in that last week she was exhibiting the clear and unmistakable signs, that I had seen previously in friends and family members, the unmistakable signs of - baby brain. I'm sure many of you know of this condition, where a perfectly sane woman adds a foetus, and mysteriously seems to temporarily lose 60 IQ points in the process.

Now many of you, will think that's not the most politically correct thing you've heard all week, and the rest of you (even previous sufferers of this condition) will be smiling and nodding your head in agreement.

And just a highlight this, Kath who is in fact a GP by training, stood in the chemist for a good five minutes trying to find the pregnancy kit in the first place.
When the pharmacist came over to offer a hand, she asked as she picked the test kit off-the-shelf from directly in front of Kath’s eyes, "do you think you really need it, dear?".

So on top of the categorical baby brain evidence, there were all sorts of hormonal indicators also -- but given this is a family show – we will just quietly move on!

So while we were convinced of things unseen, this stick seemed to say no! But confident in our perception of reality, Kath went and got another test kit. And after a second incidence of it staring her in the face on the shelf, and a pharmacist having to find it for her, Well this one (which will be no surprise to those of you doing the maths on Emma's age at this point) was positive.

Our reasoned belief about our unborn child prove to be true despite the appearance of contradictory evidence. Things seen do not always equally indicate the truth and reality of the situation, and sometimes your conviction about the truth, helps you to rightly assess all the physical evidence in front of you.
Today's passage in Hebrew, is about rightly assessing things seen, so we would understand the truth about things unseen. The passage today is about faith, faith is a convicted belief in Christ and his promise demonstrated in action, which is expressed through perseverance in the face of death. Faith is a conviction that leads to perseverance in the face of hardship.

In modern society, (and I mean that in a technical sense of the word), there is a pre-supposition that faith is a mystical leap into the dark, that faith is the direct opposite of reason. It is The belief that reasonable people are able to view the physical ‘seen world’ and not only interpret it correctly, but also to extrapolate from the seen to apparently explain the unseen perfectly.

Now even the most atheistic postmodernist is able to see through the arrogant facade of the modernists confidence in mankind's reason. How mankind can try and explain the unseen by the seen;
is like two guys sitting in a darkened air-conditioned room in the middle of a large building, confidently proclaiming what the weather is like outside the building, based upon their experience of the light and temperature inside this room.

Modernism and its slavish worship of its idol of rationality, exposes its own frailties, or what the Bible call its sinfulness, it is a slavish or even mystical trust in the physical and its apparent capacity to convey the truth about the immaterial. And in the end it fails its own test and prove to be illogical and irrational, because of the brokenness of sinful human minds to understand reality as God has made it.

Christians on the other hand, are rational in their belief that in order to understand the weather outside the building, you would need someone to come from the outside of the building into the room with the two men in tell them what the weather is like. To believe the witness of the man from outside the building, is not only reasonable, but it is rational;
irrespective of how passionately one of the people from inside the room defends their beliefs (they're arrogant and irrational beliefs and in the end,) their beliefs are untrue and based on uncertain grounds of human perception of reality.

Christ has come from the unseen into the seen to reveal the truth about the unseen to all who would hear his reasonable, rational, truthful witness to all that God has done.

Faith is not a mystical leap into the dark, but a reasonable, even rational, convicted belief in Christ -- the revealer of the unseen -- a convicted belief in Christ and his promise driven home by the power of the holy spirit. Faith is a convicted belief based upon what is reasonable, in a similar way to how we know anything in life, we trust the person who told us. Very little of what we know in life, we actually know because we thought of it first hand. Most of what we now we learnt from someone else.

Faith is reasonable, because the one who has witnessed to us is trustworthy. Faith is a convicted belief in Christ and his promises. Christ is the faithful revealer of the unseen to the seen.

Faith is the God-given, and God pleasing, response of reasonable people in the face of death. Death is the sharp edge that will divide the faith, from unbelief. Faith is the response that our preacher is exhorting from his Hebrew hearer's in this chapter as they shore themselves to face the hardship, trial, persecution and even death that is to come for following Christ.

1.Faith is a convicted belief (verse 1-3)

read verse 1-3
11:1 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.


The ideas of being sure of what with hopeful and certain of what we do not see, pick up the ideas of us standing upon solid foundation, and of having received the title deeds -- the proof of ownership -- of our inheritance which is to come, even though we have not physically sighted it yet. We are sure certain and confident, because we have the sure pledge of a trustworthy person, we hold the title deeds, as owners of our gift even though we have not physically taken possession of it.

To have faith is to trust, it is a convicted belief in the true word and action of a trustworthy person. Our faith is founded upon the person who is the object of our faith Jesus Christ the righteous.

And to our Hebrew hearers, the preacher pointed out there is nothing new about this, the ancients -- which is to say that patriarchs of their faith -- were commended for the same faith or trust, they are not only commended for it but they are witnesses to us of the life of faith.

In V3 we see that we are to take God at his word that he has made what is seen, from the invisible. God from nothing, the invisible if you like, has made the visible created world, and just as surely as he has made the scene from nothing, he will reveal the currently unseen to the seen. What was nothing has become something, and what is something will be turned into everything at his good time.

Faith is a convicted belief, a convicted belief on which we take our stand, our sure hope and certainty about the unseen future, based upon the Trustworthy witness who has come from the unseen and the future -- Jesus Christ Righteous.

Following on from these opening three verses where the author has sought To explain Faith, the author has three sections where he gives examples of faith and then uses them to explain Faith's benefits. So we are to gain encouragement from the witness of the faith of the patriarch's and we are to learn from their example of benefits that come to a believer from God and his promise by faith.
But also he also uses these examples and the benefits they receive from faith, to paint a deeper and richer picture of what faith looks like, of what faith means and what it brings and how it works itself out in the lives of the faithful.

The first of the sections goes from v4 to 11.

2.the examples of faith and faiths benefits -- part I (11; 4-11)

For the sake of time we are not going to re-Read versus 4-11 but just summarize it.

In this section the writer gives us four examples of patriarchs and their faith, Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, and through each we learn something of the life of faith and the benefit that comes to the faithful by faith.

Abel we learnt was a righteous man, a man with a right standing before God with regards to his sin, by faith. And his example of faith speaks to us today, even though he is dead. Able had faith in his God.

Enoch had faith, and shows us in v6 without faith it is impossible to please God.
Noah had faith in his God, and this was both a blessing and a curse; for he was blessed by his faith as he inherited the gift of righteousness, but he was cursed by the Unrighteous world, which he condemned in their own unrighteousness, because of his righteousness that came by faith. Since the days of Noah men have scoffed at people of faith, of people who trust in the promise of God, for the gift of a righteousness that becomes there is by faith.

And finally our preacher makes an appeal to the epitome of faith in the old Testament, the patriarch Abraham. Abraham expressed his faith in obedience, by faith he lived like a stranger an alien in a foreign country, because he knew that the seen he perceived was not the true reality promised. Abraham believed the promise of God, he lived as a renter amongst a nation of homeowners, because he knew that God had promised better.

How could Abraham trust God?

Abraham trusted in God's faithful character. In particular he trusted in God's faithful character through his word of promise which we read about in the book of Genesis. Abraham was able to trust in God because his character and his word were found to be true in God's action, when he saved Isaac. Faith is a convicted belief in the character of God which he has demonstrated in his word of promise and his consistent action.

The preacher wants us to consider these examples of faith and follow them, and in the process he highlights the benefits that we receive as our inheritance from God by faith.

At this point the author, stops his main argument, to break out into a short summary that calls us to action in verses 13-16.

3.Faith is a convicted belief in action (11: v13 to 16)

Read versus 13-16
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died.
They did not receive the things promised;
they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.
And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left,
they would have had opportunity to return.
16 Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

What is noticeable in the description of these people who lived the life of faith, is that they all died without receiving what was promised.
The problem with life is death.
Every life is lived with this dark spectre of a storm cloud called death that comes over the horizon and it lingers over us all. There are only two responses in the light of this dark spectre called death, denial or faith. Death is the test of faith, will we trust God or will we deny him when we face death?

You see although we've received that title deeds at our inheritance, we still have to pass through that storm cloud called death to reach out promised land.
FAITH trusts that God will be faithful to his word even in the face of death, unbelief expresses itself in denial of God and the rejection of faith to something more concrete in the face of the spectre of death.

The ancients in verses 13-16 again held up the for us as an example faith, to elicit faith from us. These people like us had only the promise and the character of God to trust. And They lived as aliens and strangers on this earth, they lived as renters in a nation of home owners, they saw what was to come from a distance, on the promissory note they accepted the gift but they were to receive in the future. Like Moses standing on the edge of the promised land, they saw the good thing that God had promised in shadow, and knew it was the promise of the real city, the heavenly city, the new creation that was to come.

Faith is a convicted belief in action, by faith they trusted God and acted upon their faith by living as aliens and strangers in this world, by not conforming to the norm but living a life of notable Obedience to God and his call upon them.

The challenge that the word here about faith about the ancient brings to us is, "do we live more for this life, or the life to come?".

All of us one day will have to face death, faith is not a spectator sport. The preacher to the Hebrews is calling us to follow in the footsteps of our examples, our hero's, who competed before us and won the prize, not of the things of this world, but they looked to a better country to come.

Faith is a convicted belief in action

4.example of faith and faiths benefits II (verse 17-31)
Reference only verses 17-31

It seems after his brief summary of faith in action in verses 13-16 the writer moves back to the example of faith which help to paint the picture of what faith looks like and Faith's benefits, through his examples of the patriarch's, and he continues with Abraham.

In fact he gives us an plethora of witnesses from Abraham Isaac to Jacob to Joseph to Moses to the Israelite people in exodus to the Israelite people in the conquest and even Rahab and we see the benefits of faith, including the resurrection from the dead in verse 19

And Moses, just like Noah before him and, in a chose to see past the temporal persecution, to see the ultimate and eternal true reality, he chose to be miss-treated for God's name, than to indulge in the sinful pleasures of this world, because by faith he did not fear the King (Caesar of the day) but he feared Yahweh the Lord, the creator and sustainer of all things, the judge of all men, instead of fearing the seen, Moses trusted the unseen, he trusted in the character of his God, because of the word of promise from his God, because of the word of promise of his God in action through the deliverance of his people.


In trusting in the character, the word of promise, and the action of God, Moses was trusting in the ultimate revelation of these things in Christ himself. Much like a pregnant woman has an unborn child which is ultimately be revealed to be a particular person, the promise of God that was trust worthy was revealed to have a particular fulfilment in Jesus Christ the righteous.

5.example of faith and Faith's benefits I II (double speed verse 32-40)

Like all preachers, getting late in the sermon he realises he is running out of time and speeds up. But it is a great section so we will read it with a brief passing comment on it.
Read versus 30-40
32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,
33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—
38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith,
yet none of them received what had been promised.
40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

You really can't understand the truth about life, unless you understand the truth about death. And you can't understand the truth about death unless you understand the truth about God and what happens after death. And you can't truly understand God unless you know Christ. Christ is the man, the god man, who has come from the other side of the curtain, from outside the building if you like, to tell us truly and Trustworthily what the unseen God is like. To know Christ is to know God, to know God is to understand death, to understand death is to understand life and to understand how to live it.

Death is a certainty, and by faith resurrection is our sure hope, just as it was for the ancients.

Brothers and sisters we have reached the last part of the sermon, a section that is possibly the centrepiece of all the preacher to the Hebrews has to say, which is to say this section is essentially the heartbeat and the description of the Christian life in four versus, which is a pretty big claim, but true to none the less.
Read 12:1-4
NIV Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,
and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy set before him endured the cross,
scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men,
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4 In your struggle against sin,
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.


5.Faith is a convicted belief in Christ and his promise demonstrated in action, expressed through perseverance in the face of death.

Christ is the author and perfect about faith, which is to say he is the beginning and he is the end of all has to do with our faith. He thought of it, he suffered it on our behalf, he endure it, and then reach his goal, which was to sit at the right hand of the throne of God, dispensing salvation for all who would believe the gospel message -- the promise of God -- by Faith.

Christ he is the means of our faith from first to last.

But in this context, he is also the example of faith par excellence, amongst all the men of faith of the Bible, there is no greater in Christ. Christ travailed the journey set out before him, not taking the easy path fitting for a king, but enduring the cross and scorning its shame. His suffering ensured his glory, his glory becomes ours, by Faith if we endure like he did, as we run the journey marked out for us with perseverance.

The preacher here exhorts us to live out two clear applications, firstly, to throw off Sin, and secondly, do not lose heart.

The first instruction, is to throw off Sin, this sin itself easily and cleverly entangles the person trying to run the race. The image the writer users is akin to seeing Usain Bolt trying to run the hundred metres Olympic final with suspect elastic in the waistband of his shorts, Sin impedes the Christian trying to run the race with perseverance. Throw off the Sin brothers and sisters that so easily entangles.

The second instruction is to not lose heart, we are to look at our forefathers who ran the good race by faith, and even more poignantly we are to look at Christ, to fix our eyes on Jesus, and draw courage that he ran the race before him, and will enable us to run ours. Not the same path a parallel and related, heading to the same destination. Christ's life tells us that hardship and eventually death is normal, but by faith we face death with confidence, not in ourselves but in our God who has acted so faithfully in Christ.

I watched the movie once, where a guy on death Row said, "nothing focuses the mind about what is important in life quite like the hangman's noose".

Now I reckon he was on to something there, but what he really meant to say was, "nothing focuses the mind about what is important in life, quite like Christ and his cross".

Christ the author and perfect of our faith has started and completed his victory by the cross, and by faith he has given us Righteousness, hope, and resurrection from the dead. We need no longer fear death, nor look longingly at the things of this world, but we are able to live at strangers and aliens, in this world, who rightly persevere as we await the real world, the unseen world, that is to come.

So consider the old Testament saints and the life of faith and perseverance, from Abraham Isaac Jacob to joseph to Moses, 18 examples in all I counted, who took God at his word and persevered.

Faith binds the believer to the reality that they do not yet see, but what they rightfully and confidently hope for.

faith is a convicted belief in Christ and his promise demonstrated in action, and expressed through perseverance in the face of death.

12:2-3
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfecter of our faith,
who for the joy set before him endured the cross,
scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men,
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.