Faithful Love
Hebrews: A Story Worth Sharing • Sermon • Submitted
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Good morning!
For those of you that are visiting with us today, we have been studying the book of Hebrews this year.
I think it would be helpful for me to give you a brief introduction because it informs what we will learn today.
The book of Hebrews was written to several churches in Rome that were struggling with persecution.
Not just from the Romans, but primarily and most significantly from their fellow Jews.
As these Christians chose to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, they were cut off and disowned from their families, lost their jobs, their friends, and were left in a foreign land to try and survive.
This letter was written to encourage the church by reminding them of what they choose to believe and why.
This letter was delivered and then passed from one congregation to another and read aloud as a way to bolster up and renew their commitment to Christ.
It was written to exhort them to continue in their faith.
Last week we finished up chapter ten where the author reminds them that while they are struggling now, the day would come when sin would be destroyed and removed from the earth.
The peace that was promised by the prophets of long ago would arrive when Jesus returned.
He finishes the chapter by saying…
But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.
It is in the context of that reminder that we approach this next chapter about faith.
Church, I went back and forth this week on how to go through this chapter.
On one hand, it is good and beneficial to hear and digest it all in one setting, but it is also good to take a close look at each example and gain a greater understanding of faith from each scenario.
In chapter eleven of Hebrews, we see the author using a teaching style called exemplia, which is an extensive list of examples.
The purpose of this style of teaching is that by the end of the list, the hearers are shaking their heads in exhausted affirmation.
Once the list of examples has been read, there is no doubt that everyone fully understood the point that the teacher is trying to make.
As I studied and prayed, I decided it would be best to not roll through the whole chapter today.
We are going to just cover the first several verses.
Let’s start off this morning by reading the first three verses of Hebrews 11.
Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. For by this our ancestors were approved.
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
Over the last few weeks, I have pointed towards this chapter and specifically to the relationship between hope and faith.
Hope is a desire for something to happen with an undertone of uncertainty.
When you hope for something, you want it, but simply that you don’t know if it will happen.
For example, you may put something on a Christmas list and hope that you will get it, but you don’t know for certain that you will.
Faith, from a modern secular viewpoint, is a blind leap and is often understood to be the same as hope.
You hear people talking about making a blind leap when they start a new job or business.
There is a business plan and they are told to “have faith in the process.”
They want it to work, but again, they aren’t certain that it will.
While they intend to give it their best effort, there is still the chance that they will fail.
This is not what the author of Hebrews is talking about.
He is referring to what we would call Biblical Faith.
Biblical faith is the certainty that it will happen, not based only on hope or hard work, but on the revelation of God’s truth and character.
This is the kind of faith that the author of Hebrews is calling our attention to.
Biblical faith isn’t based on what we want or what we can do, but on certainty found through God.
Biblical faith isn’t based on what we want or what we can do, but on certainty found through God.
When Wes Renard shared his testimony about changing his job, he didn’t just hope it would work out, he had faith that the move would be a success based on God speaking for him to do so.
He even communicated that the success wouldn’t be found in the job, but in his obedience to go where God sent him.
To completely swap industries would typically be risky, to say the least, but when God is the one guiding the move, we can have faith, based on previous experiences, that God will bring the success.
Look at this example with me.
When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and scribes disputing with them. When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran to greet him. He asked them, “What are you arguing with them about?”
Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you. He has a spirit that makes him unable to speak. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they couldn’t.”
He replied to them, “You unbelieving generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring him to me.” So they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, it immediately threw the boy into convulsions. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. “How long has this been happening to him?” Jesus asked his father.
“From childhood,” he said. “And many times it has thrown him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”
Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”
When Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you: Come out of him and never enter him again.”
Then it came out, shrieking and throwing him into terrible convulsions. The boy became like a corpse, so that many said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus, taking him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up.
In this recounting, the disciples believed in Jesus and knew for certain what was possible through him.
Prior to this event, they had seen him heal, walk on water, and feed thousands from a few loaves.
They knew, by experience that God was working through Jesus.
While Jesus is on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, a man brings his son to be healed.
This is where our narrative begins.
The disciples hoped they could help as they had seen Jesus do so many times, but they were unable to.
The father too had hope and but he was not certain.
We know this because of his response to Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief!”
The father’s hope had not yet been transformed into faith.
He had hope, but not yet faith.
In order for his faith to grow, he had to have an experience with God that would transform his hope into faith.
This is how it works for all people, not just this father.
I was thinking about his last night and I can’t help but draw our attention to how God worked this process in my family.
With us today is an example of how God increased the faith of my family.
Lily’s chances were slim, according to what we knew prior to her birth, but as God’s people prayed, God worked a miracle.
Didn’t he Lil?
I can tell you this for certain and without a shadow of a doubt, God is still in the healing business.
I can say that because I saw him do it!
Because of the work that we have seen God do in healing and sustaining a baby, our faith is greater.
God’s love produces faith in his people.
God’s love produces faith in his people.
Since the beginning of the world, God has been working to reveal himself to his people.
That includes you and I.
His goal has always been for us to know him as well as he knows us.
As we read through Biblical history, we see over and over again some that choose to believe what God is telling them and respond in faith and others who hear the same thing and choose not to believe.
The choices people have faced are the same choice that the father of the demon-posed child faced.
Do I choose to believe that God can do what He says He can do?
For those that chose to trust, their trust is based on previous experiences they have had with God.
Their faith isn’t a blind leap because they have seen and experienced God’s work in their life or in the life of someone they know.
We will see this as we work our way through all of the examples listed in chapter eleven, God is the one that initiates the faith.
(Again, we are doing that over the course of several weeks, not all today. Y’all can relax.)
Faith is not something we can conjure up, rather, it is the result of us experiencing God’s activity in the lives of his beloved.
Our hopes are transformed into faith as we hear God and act in response to what we have heard.
Through God working in our lives, starting with the little things and then moving to bigger things, God reveals himself to us and our faith grows.
This is why I have been saying over the last few weeks that God’s goal is for our hope to blossom into faith.
In just a moment we are going to read the author of Hebrews first example of faith.
It is a story about two men.
One who loved God and responded out of that love and gave accordingly, and one who did not love God and gave out of obligation.
By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith.
As we learned previously in this study, both Abel and Cain gave an offering that was based upon their occupation.
Abel tended the flocks and Cain plowed the ground.
God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s.
God's approval of their offerings wasn’t based on the value, quantity, or kind of sacrifice.
God’s acceptance was based on the posture of the giver’s heart.
God approved Abel’s offering because he gave his very best.
Abel gave a gift with the desire of showing his love and gratitude toward God.
You and I know what it feels like to receive a heartfelt gift.
For much of my life growing up on the farm, bailing hay was a significant part of the year for us.
We would spend all summer cutting and bailing hay that we would feed our animals and sell to support the expenses that come with having a farm.
One year after hay season was over, my dad surprised my brother and I with matching shotguns as a thank you for working all summer.
My dad wasn’t required to do that.
There wasn’t a predetermined rate of pay or even and expectation of that.
He did it out of love.
That gift has always stood out to me as significant because it wasn’t required and it wasn’t expected.
When I read this passage and think about Abel’s offering, I get that same sentiment.
God rejected Cain’s offering because he gave it out of obligation, not love.
I would bet that everyone in this room has also experienced getting a gift that was not heartfelt.
I remember one Christmas my extended family gathered at my grandparents house in Lake Charles.
We did a gift exchange game that many people play. It wasn’t a Dirty Santa game where you purposefully give bad gifts.
It as supposed to be a gift that you would be excited to get.
When it was my turn, I choose an unwrapped gift from under the tree and opened a fondu set that had made it’s way around the family a few times.
Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled.
While this is a silly example, it does illustrate the significance of being thoughtful and loving.
Cain and Abel were born into sin, just like you and I are.
Both were loved by their parents and both benefited from their parent's experiences with God.
They no doubt heard and understood the results of Adam and Eve’s disobedience.
Yet one of them responded to God in faith and love and the other with disobedience and anger.
In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent?
Many biblical scholars believe that the phrase “in the course of time” shows that there was some sort of regular offerings being made.
It is likely that these two brothers grew up watching their parents make such offerings and Genesis 4 tells us of that offering.
While God’s love can produce faith in his people, it is entirely dependent upon his people choosing to let God work in them.
We see in this story that Abel responds to God’s love with love, whereas Cain responds because he is supposed to.
While this is not your typical Christmas message, it does have some important applications to it.
As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we can do so in response to the love that God has revealed through his son.
Or, we can respond out of duty.
It’s easy to respond out of duty or tradition.
The challenge we all face is to not let the season overwhelm the reason for it.
With all the expectations that come with Christmas, it is all too easy to allow the busyness to overtake us.
How we choose to celebrate doesn’t just affect us, but all those around us.
Jump with me back to Hebrews 11:4.
By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith.
Our faith reveals God’s love to the world.
Our faith reveals God’s love to the world.
How we respond to God’s activity tells the world and God what is most important to us.
In the case of Cain and Abel, their story has stood as a reminder for all of history of the significance of sincerity.
Now, your responses to God may not last for all time, but they will have a significant impact on your circle of friends and family.
Christ gave all for us.
In celebrating Christ’s birth we have an opportunity to share with a broken world the incredible gift we were all given.
The story we can share is not just the birth of Christ, but what that means for us personally.
Each of us has experienced the love of God and it has changed our lives.
Each of us has also been asked by God to share our faith with those around us.
11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another, 12 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters. The one who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. 16 This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
The faith we have is the result of God’s activity in our lives.
The odds are that we first experienced God’s activity through someone else.
Spend some time this week thinking through your story and how you came to salvation and how you began to see God working in your life.
Consider the time that the people in your life invested in you so that you could come to know the truth about who God is.
God used a follower of Christ to speak and act in order to reveal His love for you.
This could have been a parent, pastor, youth pastor, evangelist, neighbor, or friend.
Regardless of who it was, your hope was transformed into faith because of a believer who obeyed God in sharing their faith.
That person’s faith and faithful love revealed God’s love to you.
Whomever that was in your life, lived sacrificially so that you could know the love of Jesus.
It could have been through word only, but chances are good there was some action involved as well.
Offerings are no longer required in order for us to be made right with God.
Jesus took care of that on the cross.
The offering we make today is by walking in obedience to what God tells us to do.
God intends to use each one of us to reveal his love to the people that he has put in our lives.
There are people in our lives that don’t have faith.
They hope that when they die that God will accept them, but they don’t know for sure.
There are other people around us every day who feel hopeless.
They have never experienced the love of God.
God has you in their life so that your faith can help them to see how much God loves them.
God is going to reveal His love for them through you.
You are God’s plan for them to learn about who he is and there is no backup plan.
It may be that you need to share the gospel with them.
Or it could be that you invite them to coffee, sharing a meal, or inviting them over for Christmas.
More than likely you know who those people are and you already know what God wants you to do to love them.
Don’t ignore those nudges from the Holy Spirit.
You have the opportunity to be the person that shows them that they are seen and loved.
What a wonderful time to share with someone else the greatest gift that has ever been given.
In celebrating Christ's birth we are celebrating how much he loves his children.
We all know the message of why he came.
We memorized it as children.
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
Now we need to commit to memory and action our role in God’s plan for his children to know that love.
This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
In the great commission, Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples.
He didn’t say for the pastors and evangelists to go and make disciples, he told the disciples to go and make more disciples.
The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
We make more disciples by teaching them everything that we have learned about God.
We don’t do this alone but by the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.
This is what Christmas is about.
It is about the followers of God being faithful in love.
God’s faithful love drew us to him and it is his faithful love flowing through us that will draw our friends and families to know Him.
Today I want to end out our service by sharing together in the Lord’s Supper.
Joshua, do you remember why Jesus did this with his disciples?
It was to be a reminder to them of how great his love is for all people.
When we eat, not just when we do this, but anytime we eat, it is to be a reminder of God’s love for us.
While they were gathered around the table, Jesus took the bread and he broke it.
He told them that this represented his body, which would be broken for them.
Then he took the cup.
He called it the cup of the new covenant.
It represented the blood that he would shed on our behalf.
He was taking the punishment that we deserved.
Today, I would like to invite all of you to come forward and partake in this reminder of God’s love for all people.
Children are welcome to join you and our goal in that is for you to have a purposeful conversation with them about what this means.
Please come.
Bonuses
Budgets
Thanks to all who participated in the Christmas party.
Christmas Eve Service at the farm.