For our review I begin with Hebrews 11:6 “Now without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who approaches God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”
That means we can say that the Lord is pleased when we know Him, believe in Him, and trust Him and His Word… that is faith.
From our study so far in Hebrews 11:1-6, we learned that through faith, we can be certain of what others cannot be certain – confidence in God’s promises for the future. By faith, we can understand what others cannot understand – a conviction of God’s principles in life. And by faith, know what others cannot – a confirmation of God’s approval. And by faith, do what others cannot do – a capacity to please God.
And it is through faith that we know how to worship God. When we worship Him, we are giving Him our gratitude for His salvation. It is those kinds of worshippers, that please God. We must worship God from a heart full of faith in Him, like Abel and unlike the men in this story:
In an article from the 1970’s recorded a story about two men in a backward mountain church who died in a self-inflected test of faith. They were determined to prove their strength of faith to their congregation by handling snakes and drinking strychnine. Incredibly, they survived the bite from copper head snakes but when they drank the poison they died a few hours after. These men failed the test of faith in more than one way.
Now it is true that people of faith are often described as “crazy,” but people that live their faith in the right way, will often see God do some amazing things!
The question is: How do we live by faith? I invite you to Hebrews 11, where we see three people who proved their faith in God.
Hebrews 11:7 “By faith Noah, when he was warned about things not yet seen, with reverent regard constructed an ark for the deliverance of his family. Through faith he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
By faith, Noah trusted in God’s deliverance not only for himself, but for his family, as well. Certainly, the unbelievers of his day thought Noah was crazy! But his faith was based on God’s explicit instructions, it wasn’t a crazy idea to prove his faith.
Here is a synopsis; in Genesis 6:13 God told Noah to build an ark for his family to be spared. And in Genesis 7:4, God told Noah it was going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Here is Noah’s faith statement that is recorded in Genesis 6:22 “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”
Also, in Hebrews 11:7 we have one verse that focuses on Noah’s faith in the midst of a condemned world, when God warned Noah of the impending flood – “things not yet seen” (Hebrews 11:7 / 11:1). He built the ark in obedience to the Lord. Noah’s faith is more remarkable when we remember how depraved and wicked the people were in his day and it took 55-75 years to build the ark (answersingenesis.org). Genesis 6:5 states that all of His contemporaries -all of them- were wickedly evil. Talk about being out of sync with the world.
I’m sure Noah and his family were ridiculed. Nevertheless, Noah trusted and obeyed God. He had faith in God’s Word over public opinion and man’s words.
It was not until thousands of years later in 1609, did anyone have a clue as to the reason for the ark’s shape. Peter Jansen, a shipbuilder in Holland, reasoned that if God had designed the ark, it should be the ideal plan. So, he built a ship on the plan of Noah’s ark – not as large, but with the same proportions – six times as long as it was wide, and the height one-tenth of the length.
People laughed at him then like they did Noah. But when the ship was launched, they found that it would carry one-third more freight, sail faster, and be difficult to tip over unlike other builds of ships. As a result, still today, freighters are built much like the shape of the ark God told Noah to build. (Pacific Marine Review, Volume 15, page 109)
God knew exactly what He was doing when He gave Noah the plans for the ark. Though Noah couldn’t possibly understand it all, he did exactly what God told him to do. He believed God when God told him of a place of safety beyond this corrupt and deceitful world.
Noah believed God when it didn’t make sense, and that faith saved not only himself, but his entire family. The whole world drowned, but Noah’s family was safe, because Noah, by faith, obeyed God. Noah’s faith brought his entire family to a place of security on the other side of a world-wide cataclysmic event.
By having faith in God and His Word we will find His promises to provide and protection as true. When you trust God and follow His Word, God will provide for yourself and your family. So…
BY FAITH, PURSUE GOD’S PLAN.
By faith, go after God’s refuge.
By faith we can look beyond the problems of today. By faith we can look beyond the corruption and alarm all around, and trust God. Believe Him Like Noah, trust and obey God, even when everybody else thinks you’re crazy.
Henry Cloud a Christian author wrote a book, “How People Grow.” In it Cloud, wrote about the time when he came down with a leg disease that left him bedridden. He was four years old at the time. He got around in a wheelchair, and then in braces and on crutches for two years. Henry Cloud says, “I went overnight from a very active child to one with a serious disability.” His doctor urged his parents to make him do things for himself and not spoil his character by not doing everything for him, so that’s exactly what they did.
On one occasion, at church, his parents made him climb a long flight of stairs on his crutches. He was struggling and taking a long time, but they were prodding him on. He stumbled, got redirected, and continued on one slow step after another. It was painful to watch.
Then suddenly, from behind, they heard a woman say to her husband, “Can you believe those parents are making that child do that?”
Henry Cloud says his mother was “one of the most caring people” he knows. She had difficulty even making the dog go outside in the rain, so it must have been very difficult for her to watch her child struggle through tasks with which she could have helped.
But she knew what she had to do, and she did it despite the criticism, despite the struggle. As a result, God brought her and her whole family through some very tough times, and they became better and stronger people for it. (Henry Cloud, How People Grow, Zondervan, 2001)
By faith we might be required do something difficult. During those times by faith, we need to obey God and His Word despite the struggles, despite the criticism, despite the ridicule. Of course, people won’t understand it when we put God first in our life. Neither will people understand it when we choose to obey God. Most certainly people won’t understand it when you obey God rather than how the world responds to circumstances. But that doesn’t matter, because you’re not going where they’re going. You have a different destiny than the rest of the world.
So, by faith, pursue God’s plan. By faith, pursue God’s refuge not only for yourself, but for others as well. Then…
BY FAITH, PURSUE THE CITY OF GOD.
By faith, don’t pursue the distractions in life. Instead, by faith, pursue the promises of God, which point to heaven. That’s what Abraham did, the second man of faith we’re going to look at.
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, and he went out without understanding where he was going.
Unlike the two preachers who foolishly and fatally handled snakes and drank poison, the faith of Abraham was neither sensational or superstitious, from the worlds perspective it was undoubtedly viewed as risky and ridiculous. Please note how Abraham’s faith walk began. The Bible says “the Lord had spoken to him”- Genesis 12:4. In Hebrews 11:8 the depths of his faith are shown. God said to Abraham, “GO.” And Abraham went, not knowing where he was going. He obeyed God without having all the information.
It’s like an operation under orders in the military. When you open those orders, they tell you where to go next without giving you the overall details. They say, “get to this point” and “fly to this place” or “take the ship to that place.” Then when you get there, you get further orders as to your next stop.
That’s the way Abraham lived, and that’s the way God calls His people to live. Trust Him enough to obey Him even when you don’t have all the information.
God’s Word calls you and me to live righteously and to do the right thing even if it is not to your advantage. God shows you the next step without giving you the details. That’s what faith is all about.
It may be called foolish but it’s not “crazy.” Our trust in Him should be enough to obey even if God doesn’t give you all of the information.
Then trust Him enough to provide for all your needs. Have faith in the Lord to live as an alien among people who do not live for God. That’s what Abraham and his family did.
Hebrews 11:9 “By faith he lived as a foreigner in the promised land as though it were a foreign country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who were fellow heirs of the same promise.”
But notice that Abraham lived by faith depending upon God and all the while yearning for a permanent heavenly city.
Hebrews 11:10 “For he was looking forward to the city with firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Abraham’s focus wasn’t on the hardships of his journey through life, but was set on an eternal destination.
But what about Sarah his wife?
Hebrews 11:11 “And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered Him faithful who had made the promise.”
Like Abraham, Sarah, is found to have faith in God’s Word. It was not easy since it was 25 years after God told them, that she became pregnant. Remember she laughed too, with the idea that she would be pregnant at 99 years old (Genesis 18:9-15). Praise God, that HE is merciful and faithful to His people! Though initially she laughed, she came to embrace faith in God’s Word.
Hebrews 11:12 “So in fact children were fathered by one man—and this one as good as dead—like the number of stars in the sky and like the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.”
Please see God’s provision for Abraham and Sarah in the midst of insecurity and uncertainties Abraham and Sarah raised their son Isaac. Nevertheless, the following verse states:
Hebrews 11:13 “These all died in faith without receiving the things promised, but they saw them in the distance and welcomed them and acknowledged that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth.”
The truth is that Abraham, Sarah and Isaac, “all died in faith without receiving the things promised.” However, the phrase “in faith” notes a difference in their faith compared to others. The phrase “in faith” can be translated to mean that “they lived and died according to faith.” (Guthrie, Hebrews page 328). This simple word changes the meaning to show that faith was the rule by which they lived and died in spite of not having received the promise. It was through faith they had a measure of experiencing God’s promise.
God records in Hebrews chapter 11 the important aspect of their faith-walk: they were seeking the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise beyond the horizon of this world.
Hebrews 11:14-16 “For those who speak in such a way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. In fact, if they had been thinking of the land that they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they aspire to a better land, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
That’s where our attention needs to be – not on the trinkets of this world, but on heaven. Abraham regarded himself on a journey to a land that was truly his according to God’s Word. He did not return to his earthly country even to bury his wife. Because “he lived and died longing for a better country that is a heavenly one!”
Journalist Hampton Sides, in his book ‘The Kingdom of Ice’, tells the compelling story of the failed polar expedition of the USS Jeannette in the 19th Century. Lieutenant George De Long was the captain, who used faulty maps drawn by Dr. August Heinrich Peterman. Peterman’s maps suggested a “thermometric gateway” through the ice that opened onto a vast “polar sea” on the top of the world. His maps showed a fair-weather passage beyond all the ice, and De Long’s entire expedition was staked on those maps.
As it turned out De Long was heading to a world that didn’t exist. As perilous ice quickly surrounded his ship, Hampton Sides said his team had to “shed its organizing ideas, in all their unfounded romance, and… replace them with a reckoning of the way the Arctic truly is.” (Hampton Sides, In the Kingdom of Ice, Doubleday, 2014, page 163; www.PreachingToday.com)
In a way, our world sells us faulty, fantastical maps of “the good life,” which many people pursue with every sail unfurled. It’s not until they’re shipwrecked and often almost too late when they realize they have trusted faulty maps.
Our initial trust in God begins by trusting in His death for our sin. The map from here to heaven is through Jesus’ death and resurrection. “But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation.” – Romans 5:8-9
Trust God and seek His Kingdom and His righteousness above anything else. (Matthew 6:33). It may not seem as rewarding as what the world offers, but ultimately it will be worth it all.
When we pursue “the City whose designer and builder is God,” it may involve long periods of patience, discipline, and waiting on God, but the wait is worth it!
The way George Palmer a Baptist pastor put it before he died. “I’m homesick for heaven. It’s the hope of dying that has kept me alive this long.” (Vance Havner, from The Vance Havner Quote Book/On This Rock I Stand. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 16; www.PreachingToday.com)
What is a life of faith all about? We might be uncertain at times, but faith in God is not “crazy.” By faith, we must persevere in righteousness and pursue God’s promises like Noah, Abraham, Sarah and Isaac did.
Merhan Nasseri, found himself stranded at the International Airport in Paris, France. He had been expelled from his native country of Iran, and his Belgian-issued refugee document was stolen. He had no passport. He had no citizenship. He had no papers that enabled him to leave the airport or fly to another country.
The French officials refused to let him leave the international terminal because he lacked documentation. So, he flew to England and was denied entry there and they forced him back to Paris. When he was returned to the Paris airport, the airport authorities allowed him to live in Terminal 1, and there he stayed for eleven years, writing in a diary, living off handouts from airport employees and travelers, and cleaning up in the airport bathroom.
Then one day the situation was cleared. The French government presented Nasseri with an international travel card and a French residency. Suddenly he was free to go anywhere he wanted. But when the officials handed him his walking papers, to everyone’s surprise, he simply smiled, tucked the documents in his folder, and resumed writing in his diary. (Chicago Tribune, 9-21-99, and New York Times, 9-27-99).
He had lost sight of his destiny and gotten comfortable in a meager airport terminal.
By faith trust Christ and keep traveling with Him to Heaven. This old world – is like an airport terminal which is no comparison to heaven. By faith we have a destiny and by faith, we must pursue eternity. It will make our journey through this world a whole lot more interesting.