A Faith to Abandon, A Faith to Hold
Notes
Transcript
Jesus may want you to lose your faith today. Here is what I mean. Consider this from Randy Alcorn:
Evil and suffering have a way of exposing our inadequate theology. When affliction comes, a weak or nominal Christian often discovers that his faith doesn’t account for it or prepare him for it. His faith has been in his church, denomination, or family tradition, or in his own religious ideas—but not in Christ. As he faces evil and suffering, he may, in fact, lose his faith.
But that’s actually a good thing; any faith that leaves us unprepared for suffering is a false faith that deserves to be abandoned. Genuine faith will be tested by suffering; false faith will be lost—the sooner, the better.
Believing God exists isn’t the same as trusting the God who exists. If you base your faith on lack of affliction, your faith lives on the brink of extinction and will fall apart because of a frightening diagnosis or a shattering phone call. As John Piper writes, “Wimpy Christians won’t survive the days ahead.”
Only when you jettison ungrounded and untrue faith can you replace it with valid faith in the true God—faith that can pass, and even find strength in, the most formidable of life’s tests. Unfortunately, most churches have failed to teach people to think biblically about the realities of evil and suffering. A pastor’s daughter told me, “I was never taught the Christian life was going to be difficult. I’ve discovered it is, and I wasn’t ready.”
Now something is going on with the faith of those who the author of Hebrews is writing to. We don’t know exact details, but we do know as we saw last week that they have need of endurance.
We saw in 10:32 that their joyful suffering, a hallmark of a robust faith in Christ, seems to have gone underground. It was in the “former days” that they joyfully accepted the plundering of their property.
I’ll tell you what I picture in this section of picture a guy with an access key—one that he’s supposed to keep safe until a particular time, one which he has been told will absolutely lead to a great reward for all of eternity---and he’s now come to a spot where the suffering is really intense, and he’s finding it hard to believe. Something like what we saw in that video earlier. And all the forces of hell are coming at him and encouraging him to abandon the faith.
And the author of Hebrews is the means that God uses to help him to see again. Don’t throw away that key. He causes him to see eternity again. To see the big picture. And so what he’s doing here in is giving this great picture of faith.
Biblical faith will endure the rocky days. Weak faith will not. And so that’s why I say that Jesus may be calling you this morning to abandon your faith—and exchange it for a lasting and biblical faith.
We will actually be looking at all of this morning but we’re going to take a birdseye view of it. 11:1-2, 11:29-12:2
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So what type of faith might you need to abandon this morning? I want us to look at some faulty views of faith that we see crop up in our culture and even at times within churches. And what I want to do is take those views and compare them to what we see in the Scriptures here. And then I want to—again big picture view—show you what the author of Hebrews is saying here about faith and then we’ll look at the exhortation in 12:1-2…where we’ll pick up again next week.
But first I want to ask the question, why does the author of Hebrews give this list here?
Honestly, I don’t know that his argument here would work quite as effective here in the West. For someone in this culture to divert from the way of their fathers was massive. It could bring great shame. And so if you can argue, “this is the way of the family” it would hold a ton of force.
But it’s not incredibly weird for us in the west to hew out our own paths. My dad was a mechanic. I’m not. Cars aren’t really my thing. And this carries no shame with it. And so this list might not be quite the rhetorical device for us as it would have been for the original hearers. I think we understand the idea of not diverting from the faith delivered once for all to the saints…we know that we are to continue to believe this body of truth. But there is a relational and familial element to this. You want to be part of this story you must be part of this story.
So when you read of all these heroes of the faith it’s a call to have their faith. This is the faith that saves. It is not just some generic faith that grabs hold of the promises of Christ it is this particular faith. You don’t want to miss out on this. John Owen is correct:
It is faith alone which, from the beginning of the world, in all ages... hath been the only principle in the church of living unto God, of obtaining the promises, of inheriting life eternal; and doth continue so to be unto the consummation of all things.… Spiritual life is by faith; and victory; and perseverance; and salvation: so they were from the beginning.
So what is this faith?
I think by considering a few missteps of faith we can get a better picture from this text of the real thing.
gives us a good definition, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
The first one is the idea that Faith is just a blind leap into the unknown. Faith picks up where reason stops. You’ve got tangible stuff and then there is stuff you can’t explain and that stuff you can’t explain is just called faith.
Hebrews Chapter 37: What Is Faith? (Hebrews 11:1–3)
It is faith alone which, from the beginning of the world, in all ages, under all dispensations of divine grace … hath been the only principle in the church of living unto God, of obtaining the promises, of inheriting life eternal; and doth continue so to be unto the consummation of all things.… Spiritual life is by faith; and victory; and perseverance; and salvation: so they were from the beginning
But doesn’t say something like this? It’s the conviction of things not seen. Does that mean that the essence of faith is believing something that you just cannot see. When you can see it then it isn’t faith.
Faith is just a blind leap into the unknown. Faith picks up where reason stops. You’ve got tangible stuff and then there is stuff you can’t explain and that stuff you can’t explain is just called faith.
Close but not quite. What is talking about is the context in which faith exists. When you don’t possess the thing you are hoping for that’s when faith comes into play. It doesn’t mean just a blind leap into the dark. It doesn’t mean that it’s detached from reason. It doesn’t mean that you’re just blindly hoping that something is true with absolutely no evidence.
The word there translated “assurance” is a rich word. It can mean substance, it can mean foundation, it can mean confidence, and it can mean something like a title deed. All of these ideas are present in Hebrews and in this chapter. So the author likely chose such a rich word for a reason. What he’s saying then is that faith is the thing that grabs hold of the promise until it’s fully ours. It’s not just some blind believing.
Faith is what connects you to the reception of the promises of God but it’s also grounded in the promises and character of God. Look at v2. That’s where I say that faith is what grabs hold of the promises—it’s what connects you. But look at verse 3. That’s where I say faith is grounded in the promises and character of God.
And notice verse 6. Without faith it’s impossible to please God—because you cannot and will not draw near to someone that you don’t believe actually exists.
And so think about this with Noah, or Abraham, or Moses. Why did Noah do what he did? Because he had a prior relationship with God. He believed God and so he started building a boat when there wasn’t even such a thing as rain. Why did Abraham leave his land and go to a place that God had for him? Because of his relationship with God. Why did Moses do what he did? Because of his relationship with God. God met him in that burning bush and so Moses developed this trust relationship with God.
So it’s not a blind leap into the unknown. But at times it might sound like that and feel like that and look like that. I heard a story that illustrates this a bit:
One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, "Jump! I'll catch you." He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: "Jump! I will catch you." But the boy protested, "Daddy, I can't see you." The father replied, "But I can see you and that's all that matters."
Now that probably looks like a blind leap. He cannot in that moment see his dad. But notice the Father’s voice. He’s trusting His Word. He’s trusting that even though he cannot in that moment see daddy—daddy can see him and so he jumps. That’s a closer picture to what you see here in Hebrews.
Noah couldn’t see a drop of rain but he knew the heart of God. Abraham couldn’t see one piece of the promised Land before he left but he knew that God was faithful. He couldn’t fathom what God was doing when he took Isaac up on that mountain but he knew the God who could raise the dead and so he grabbed his knife and went up the mountain and took that leap knowing that even if he couldn’t exactly see his Father could.
And so it’s not faith to just say, “you know I”m just gonna believe the best.” I’ve got no reason to believe this but I”m just gonna jump. You know I don’t care if the facts contradict this…I”m gonna believe what I wanna believe. That isn’t faith. Faith is grounded in the character of God and the promises of God.
How does Hebrews speak against such a thing.
But there’s another faulty view of faith that I think is the pendulum swinging too far the other way. It’s the idea that Faith is merely accepting a body of things to be true. Faith is cognitive assent. So faith in Jesus Christ means that I believe that he existed, I believe he is the Savior of humanity, I believe he can save me, I believe I am a sinner, I believe all that the Bible says.
1-6.
That’s great. But consider the book of James. Everything I just said a demon also believes. Passing a theology exam doesn’t mean that you have faith.
Examples of Abraham, Moses,
And I think that this is informative about children and believing the gospel. It’s not just a new believing of facts. For kids as they are learning and such they’ll embrace the facts of the gospel—much like they might embrace the facts of the forming of the United States and the biography of George Washington. They’ll put Jesus Christ in the same category.
It’s connected to truth about the character of God and the promises of God.
And for many faith doesn’t really rise much above that. I believe that God exists. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I believe everything the Bible says. But here’s the problem—that’s missing an absolutely vital component about the nature of faith.
Danger for those who have the feels.
Faith is merely accepting a body of things to be true. Faith is cognitive assent. So faith in Jesus Christ means that I believe that he existed, I believe he is the Savior of humanity, I believe he can save me, I believe he is a sinner, I believe all that the Bible says.
What do all of these folks have in common? Abel believed God and so what did he do. Noah believe God’s warning about coming events. And so he studied all about boats, he put together rain forecasts, he wrote a book on cloud formations, he made sure to get his belief about what God said down to every jot and tittle. But he NEVER built a boat. Would he have had faith? Nope.
Abraham believed all this stuff about God and his promises but he lived out his days in Ur. Moses stayed in Egypt. Jeremiah believed that God’s Word was like a fire in his bones but kept silent.
That wouldn’t be faith would it? But somehow we’ve come up with the idea that you can give mental assent and a head nod to the gospel of Jesus Christ—believe them as facts—and not do a single thing with them and call that faith.
This is the point of James. And the author of Hebrews is showing something similar here. If you believe in Jesus Christ then it leads to a certain way of living and responding. Faith in God is an active faith.
This next misstep I think flows from a right understanding of this second one—but it ends up being a misstep too. And I think this one is underneath much that we say in regards to faith. The most important thing about my faith is it’s liveliness.
What do all of these folks have in common? Their faith led to action. Emphasis on doctrine—believe all the right things.
This would be connected to some of the ideas within a prosperity gospel. If I believe something with enough faith then I can make it happen. In this view faith leads to success. If something bad is happening and I don’t want that bad thing to happen then I need to just believe God for better stuff. The more faith I have then the more likelihood of me getting what I’m asking for. So the most important part of my faith becomes how much faith I have.
And so this view would hold that the reason that these guys are in this list is because awesome stuff happened to them and the reason why all this great stuff happened—why they are heroes of the faith—is because they just had a ton of faith.
But is that really what is going on in this text?
Consider what happens in v32 on. You’ve got some folks who do shut the mouth of lions, some do conquer kingdoms…and then we get just absolutely jolted in verse 35. “Women received back their dead by resurrection...” and then bam. “tortured, mocking, flogging, chains, imprisonment, stoned, sawn in two, killed by the sword. They weren’t wearing Armani suits—goat skin. They weren’t living large—they were destitute. They were afflicted. They were mistreated. And THESE are the ones the world was not worthy of.
So are we going to say that they didn’t have enough faith. Take your prosperity gospel to Jeremiah—dude, why you crying? Take Paul’s thorn in the flesh—believe more, man. Or the prophet, you know you wouldn’t have been sawn in two if you believed God better, man. You should have been shutting lions mouths man but you didn’t have the faith to be a lion tamer.
You see the prosperity gospel—or even the idea that the most important part of my faith is how much faith I have—that view flies in the face of what is going on here in .
So what is it that connects all of these great heroes of the faith? Look at verse 39. They didn’t receive what was promised on this side of glory. They promise they were looking for was tied up in the same promise that we are looking for and in Christ have possession of.
You see God can work miracles but he doesn’t always. He did work miracles in many of these stories. He did rescue many times. For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—the ones who “quenched the power of fire” God did rescue them on that day. But the guy that was killed by the sword—he wasn’t.
And what faith does is it places us under God’s sovereign care. So that we talk like Shad and company. “Even if he doesn’t.” Faith says, “dad knows best”. Faith isn’t what determines suffering or not suffering. But it IS what determines how you’ll suffer.
And that’s the point of the author of Hebrews. You’ve got a group of people who seem to be about to throw away their faith…their access. A faith that says, “good things are always going to happen” isn’t going to endure in an environment where you are going to be flogged or mocked or put in chains. You’re going to compromise your faith to keep you out of those things. Why? Because such a thing has the landing zone for faith this present world.
Look at verses 13-16. Look at what this is saying about Abraham. It’s saying that his goal wasn’t the literal promised land. He was looking for something greater. It’s not about that stretch of land. It’s about what that land represents and is pointing to. It’s the rest of God. Abraham was looking for something greater.
Look at Moses. v26. How does he stare at the riches of Egypt and say, “meh”, I’ll suffer with God’s people. You don’t do that if you think the “economy of God” is your best life now. Because his best life was in Egypt. You turn your back on Egypt and suffer in a wilderness if you think that God is telling a better story—a not of this world story.
And that’s why this is here in . The most important aspect of my faith is its object. Look at . How did Jesus endure. Joy set before him.
The goal of faith is God. It’s the glory of God. And that’s really the key to this passage. That’s how you endure suffering and that’s how you remain obedient if you are the one who gets to open the mouth of lions. Because it’s not about your situation it’s about obedience, action, following God no matter what it is he is calling you to do. And you do this because you believe God is better.
The most important thing about my faith is it’s vivacity. The more faith I have the better things will go for me. The less faith then the worse.
Name it and claim it.
What is the authors point in .
Most important aspect of my faith is its object! .
That’s really the key to this passage. That’s how you endure suffering and that’s how you remain obedient if you are the one who gets to open the mouth of lions. Because it’s not about your situation it’s about obedience, action, following God no matter what it is he is calling you to do. And you do this because you believe God is better.
“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?
So what do you do if you find yourself in a place where your faith looks more like the deficient views of faith that we talked about earlier. First, we cannot be cool with it. There was an illustration I heard about a pastor who was teaching a group of kids. He had a jar of jelly beans and had all the kids guess the number. Then he polled the kids and asked them what their favorite song was. After getting both sets of data he then asked the kids now which of these is like faith. Many of the kids—raised in our iEverything culture—said that faith is a bit like picking your favorite song. Whatever works for you, whatever floats your boat. And they are just spouting out what they’ve heard adults tell them from the time of their birth. But it’s simply not true. Why is that? Because as we’ve seen the greatest part of our faith isn’t our faith. We don’t have faith in our faith. The greatest part of our faith is it’s object.
And this is incredibly good news. I am not good and righteous but Christ is. Everything He has is given to me. How? Because faith unites me to Christ. And the good news is that weak faith can lay hold of a strong Christ.
So specifically what then do I do if I find that my faith isn’t what it needs to be? Thankfully our answer is given in 12:1-2. We run the race set before us. I want to make a point about running your specific race, the one that God set before you individually to run. And I think you can make that point from . Some guy gets torched another is delivered from the flames. BUT I don’t want us to miss this word “us” here in the text. This isn’t lone ranger Christianity. You are in this long line. God is doing something. And your faith will look a certain way. There is a race that WE are running.
And the foundation everything that this is about is looking to Jesus. He is the object of our faith. That’s the key. Clinging to Christ. And as we look to Christ we have our eyes set on the “joy set before us”.
But again clinging to Christ doesn’t just mean you believe he exists. It’s not just believing him as the means to get you good stuff. It’s not just a blind leap. It’s a relationship of trust that leads to fruit-bearing action.
Lay aside the weight. Throw off the sin that clings so closely. And get to running with eyes fixed on Christ. Maybe repentance needs to happen. Lord I believe help my unbelief. Cry out that God would help you abandon a weak and maybe even comfortable faith and replace it with the real thing.
For every look at self take 10 looks at Christ. Look unto Jesus. Trust Jesus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. It’s here.
Close with the snake illustration from John and Moses. You don’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps you just fall into Christ.
So what faith do you have? Tenaciously clinging to Jesus?