Hope Church LV Sermons
Not by Sight :: Faith's Big Picture
A.W. Tozer was a speaker, author, and pastor who was very influential in the early to mid 1900s. And in one of his books called "The Pursuit of God," A.W. Tozer made this statement about faith. He said, "Faith is an indispensable must in our pursuit of God." If you and I are going to know God and walk with Him on the earth, we are going to do so by faith. Scripture teaches us that the righteous believers, Jesus followers, will live by faith. And for almost four months now as a church, we've been studying verse by verse through Hebrews chapter 11, a section of Scripture that outlines and clarifies biblical faith We've entitled this series "Not By Sight," ordinary people, extraordinary faith. And believe it or not, we are in our final two weeks of this series. This weekend and next weekend, we will conclude this series "Not By Sight." And during this series, it's been really good for us as a church to remember and learn these principles of faith. As we prepare to make a transition to a permanent home here in Las Vegas on Cactus Avenue, it's been good for us to recognize our great need for our Heavenly Father. That despite our budgets and our crowds and our soon-to-be permanent campus, we are still called as believers to live our lives by faith. And during this series, there's been one question that we have brought up every week. And I hope by now you're sick of hearing it. But here's the question. Every week we've asked the question, "What does it mean to live by faith?" And I hope you know the answer without us even putting it up on the screen. And as you read about faith in the Scriptures or as it comes up in conversations, I hope this principle surfaces in your heart and mind. And here's been our answer, "What does it mean to live by faith?" Well, it means to live life. Not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in his very life in me. That's what it means to live by faith. And every week in this series, we've looked at an example of faith from a believer out of the Old Testament, an Old Testament character. And we've read about and learned about God's activity as they live by faith. But this weekend, as we come to the last two verses in Hebrews chapter 11, we're not going to examine one specific example. We're going to pull back this weekend and look at faith from a 30,000-foot view. This weekend from the Scriptures, we're going to look at the big picture of faith. And here's why that's good for us. Here's why that's healthy, because it's natural for us to think that a life of faith is limited to our life and our church and our city and our country and our generation. But this big picture of faith that we're going to learn about today, this grand eternal plan that God is playing out, is so much bigger than just us and our church and our generation. But He's invited us to play a part in this grand story. So if you have your Bible, would you turn to Hebrews chapter 11? And in just a moment, I want to read for us verses 39 and 40. If you don't have a Bible this morning, we're going to put these verses on the screen. And we would love for you to read along with us as we read this text. Hebrews 11, verse 39, here's what the Bible says. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better for us so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect. Now in just a moment, we are going to rip this text apart and pull out some principles as it relates to the big picture of faith. But before we do that, there's something about this text I want to clarify because you see verse 39 talks about Old Testament believers not receiving a promise that there was something that was promised to them that was not fulfilled in their lifetime. Here's my question. What promise is verse 39 referring to? Because it's very important for us to understand which promise is being referred to because it affects our entire interpretation of the passage. All through Hebrews 11, we see numerous promises. For Abraham, it was land. For Abraham and Sarah, it was a child. For Noah, it was salvation for Moses, it was safety in a foreign land. For the children of Israel, it was escaped from their enemies. For Joshua and Gideon, it was victory in battle. And there are many, many other promises that were made. But specifically in verse 39, the promise that is being referred to is the overarching promise of God that brings everyone and everything together in his eternal plan. It's the promise of a Savior who would come to the world to bring salvation. And it is the most significant promise in all of the Scriptures. You see after the fall, which is recorded in the book of Genesis, humanity had been separated from a relationship with God and humanity became spiritually dead. And shortly after that, God began to share about a plan of redemption, a way that he was going to restore a relationship between him and his cherished creation. But nobody knew when and nobody knew how. But what humanity did know is that the weight and the curse of sin was fatal and it was terrible. Look at this passage of Scripture from Isaiah 59, speaking about the weight and the curse of sin. The Bible says, "Behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save, nor is his ear so dull that it cannot hear." But your iniquities or your sins have made a separation between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. And it's into that reality, that weight of the depth of sin that caused humanity to be dead spiritually and separated from a relationship with God, that God gave a promise. The overarching promise of the Bible, I want to put a summary of it up on the screen. Here's the promise. God is on a mission to redeem and restore a people to himself. That's the promise. Now don't miss the significance of this. This wasn't a promise that I made. This wasn't a promise that your favorite Christian author made. This is a promise that the God of heaven and earth made to humanity so that we would never doubt his heart and for generation after generation after generation, we could know that our God is on a mission and he is passionate about redeeming and restoring a people unto himself. Think about the words that are on there in that promise, the word redeem. It means to purchase. It means to buy back through the death of Jesus. He paid the penalty for sin. We were bought with a price, all of the payment, the debt that must be paid for our sin, Jesus paid so he could redeem us. The word restore means to bring back into proper status. It means to reconcile. Here's the picture. Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin so that you and I could find forgiveness. And he desires to reconcile, to restore us back into a relationship with God, buy grace through faith and plant his very life inside of us. That is the promise of God to the people of the world. And we should never doubt. We should never question that is the promise that is God's heart and that is his mission. And that promise was not fulfilled during the lifetime of these believers that we read about in Hebrews 11. So with that in mind and that context and that understanding of this promise and mission of God, I want us to unpack this text by looking at three dimensions of the mission. And they all three come right out of this passage and here's the first one. The first dimension of the mission is the past. And for each dimension, I want to give you just a clarifying statement that I hope will help us all understand it a little bit more. Here's the clarifying statement for number one. Past believers lived by faith in anticipation of the promise. Past believers. Old Testament believers. Lived by faith in anticipation of the promise. You see, believers in the Old Testament were saved by faith just like you and I are saved by faith. But they were saved by faith in a Messiah who was to come. We are saved by faith in a Messiah who has come. That's very important. John MacArthur said it this way. They knew very little about the nature or the time or the means of God's salvation. But they knew it was coming and this was the basis of their trust. And verse 39 in Hebrews 11 is dedicated to giving us some clarity about the past. About this past dimension of the believers. The first two words, all these. It's referring to those who we've read about for the past four months. It's referring to Abraham and Abel and Enoch and Sarah and Jacob and Moses and Joseph and many who we know, but also others that we don't know. And it says that these believers had a testimony. They had a reputation in the world and here is the reputation approved by God. When God looked at them, He said those are mine. And when the world looked at them, they said those are righteous men and those are righteous women. That was their testimony. That was their reputation. And verse 39 also tells us how they gained this reputation. Wasn't because of their wisdom. Wasn't because of their skills or performance or because they executed a great feat for God. No, they were messed up just like we're messed up. They were emotional. They got in arguments. They made bad decisions. They were inconsistent. They were just like us. But the Bible says the way that they gained this approval by God was through faith. As they rested their whole weight on God, the Bible says they gained approval through their faith. Eric Swindall said this, he says, God didn't grade these believers on the basis of how successful their lives were, but how faithful. Scripture goes on. As it shares with us, these believers had gained approval by God through their faith. It moves on to tell us that there were some promises. They saw fulfilled, but also some promises. They did not see fulfilled. And I'll be honest, as I read through this passage, I did not expect that phrase to come. As you read through Hebrews 11, it is story after story after story of God's activity in the midst of men and women who live lives of faith. And then it comes to verse 39 and it says, and all of these have been gained approval by God through their faith. And I'm expecting the next statement to only heighten the intensity of the chapter. But it doesn't. It says there were some promises that were made but weren't fulfilled. That's a hard pill to swallow. I mean, these are righteous people. These are the people of God. These are the ones you expect to get everything. These aren't terrorists. These aren't mass murderers or people who are trying to destroy society. And I would imagine for those believers, there was some confusion. That at some point about God's plan and God's timing, have you ever been there? Were there some things about the plan that God is playing out and His timeline that are just a little bit confusing? Let me ask you a question. When you don't understand God's timeline, what do you do? Do you get mad? Do you get angry? Do you throw your hands up? Do you begin to question God? Do you rebel? Maybe it sounds something like God. It makes no sense to me why you didn't allow me to have that job. Or God, I thought this relationship was the relationship, but it didn't work. Lord, if I could have had that opportunity, Lord, that was the opportunity of a lifetime and you did not allow it to happen. Have you ever said something like that? Listen to this. Just because something does not happen on my timetable does not mean it is not going to happen. Because here's what we assume. We assume the only timetable is our timetable. And that if it doesn't work the way I think it needs to work, then it's just over. Look at this reality on the screen. God is not limited or obligated to fulfill His promise on my timetable. That stings a little bit. But He's not. He's not limited to just what I can come up with or what you can come up with. And He doesn't owe us anything to fulfill what He wants to do in the way we think it should happen. And that's tough. I know there's some things for me in my life that I say, God, if this were to happen, Lord, I would honor you with it. Like this would glorify you. God, I've been praying about this for a season and it's just not come to pass. And God, I don't understand. And I can't explain everything to you today, but I do want to give you two encouraging reminders about God's timing. Very quickly, here's the first one. God's timing is always perfect. The timetable that God is operating from, His timing is always perfect. There's nowhere that you can find in this book where God is late or where God is slow. Now, there are some moments when humans thought God was late or God was slow, but there's nowhere in this book where God was late or God was slow. Let me give you a great example. If you would flip over very quickly to Luke chapter 8, I want to read just a couple verses from a story in Luke's gospel. Luke chapter 8 verse 40, I want to start here. Here's what the Bible says. And as Jesus returned, the people welcomed Him, for they had all been waiting for Him. And there came a man named J. Iris, and he was an official of the synagogue and he fell at Jesus' feet and began to implore Him to come to His house, verse 42. For he had an only daughter, about 12 years old, and she was dying. But as he went, the crowds were pressing against him. I want you to see the picture. Jesus has people all around him. Everybody wants them in Jesus' time. And J. Iris has a daughter who's dying. And so the first thought for J. Iris was to go and find Jesus. So imagine J. Iris pressing through the crowd, getting through the people, and He comes to Jesus, "Jesus, you've got to come with me. My daughter's 12 years old, and she is going to be dead any moment. I need you to come, and I need you to perform a miracle for her or to heal her in some way." Well verse 43 through 48, after the passage we just read, another phenomenal miracle takes place in the Scriptures. All these people are gathered around Jesus, and a woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years reaches out and touches Jesus' garment, and she's automatically healed, a phenomenal miracle in the Scriptures. And all that is taking place, the people are rejoicing, the people are celebrating, and then look down at verse 39. While He was still speaking, someone came from the house of the synagogue official saying, "Your daughter has died. Do not trouble the teacher anymore." But when Jesus heard this, He answered Him, "Do not be afraid any longer. Only believe, and she will be made well." Verse 51, "When He came to the house, He did not allow anyone to enter with Him except Peter, and John, and James, and the girl's father and mother." Now they were all weeping and lamenting for her, but He said, "Stop weeping, for she has not died, but is asleep." Verse 53, "And they began laughing at Him, knowing that she had died. He, however, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Child, arise." And her spirit returned, and she got up immediately, second half of the story. These people come from the house to find J.R.S., and say, "J.R.S., listen, don't worry about it. Your daughter's dead. Let Jesus go do something else. It's over. It's done. God was too late. God was too slow in this situation. And Jesus says, "No. Let's go to the house." So Jesus and J.R.S., and His disciples walk to the house, Jesus chooses who He wants to be in the room with Him, and He looks around at the house, and everybody's crying. And He says, "Listen, stop crying. She's not dead. She's asleep." And the Bible says, "People start laughing. They start laughing at Jesus because they think, "This is impossible. You're too late. There's no way this is going to happen." Jesus walks in the room and says, "Child, arise." And the girl gets up. Can you imagine the look on the faces of the people who were laughing when that little girl walked out of the room with Jesus? And Jesus just winked at Him. I can't prove that. Here's why I tell you that. He must be careful not to view our circumstances as if God is like us, because He's not like us. And as long as He is in the equation, the word "impossible" does not need to be in the conversation. His timing is always perfect. He has never been slow, and He will never be slow. His timing is perfect, and we have a history of records that show He is faithful. He has a plan for you. He has a plan for your family. And listen, it's thought out. He's thought through it. And listen, it's better than your plan. But as people of faith, there's got to be a moment where we trust that, where we entrust to our Heavenly Father and say, "God, I don't understand it all. It doesn't make sense to me. Almost one will laugh because it seems so impossible, but God, I believe by faith that your timing is perfect." Here's another encouraging reminder for you about God's timing. God has an eternal view of the world. That's very important. Our God has an eternal perspective on the world, meaning He's not wrapped up in time like us. He is the Alpha, and He is the Omega. He doesn't have a beginning, and He doesn't have an end. He is, in fact, eternal. He sees the first day, just like He sees the last day. It's a film strip for Him, to the point that before the foundations of the earth, He saw every event happening that's recorded in Hebrews 11. He saw all of it happening from the foundations of the earth, but He even saw beyond that. He saw it in 2012 to a church meeting in a high school about to make a major transition, and He knew He was going to use what happened with Abraham and with Isaac and with Moses and with Joseph to encourage those believers in 2012 because He knew they were going to need to be reminded about God's faithfulness and God's provision. And He did that because He's eternal. He's not caught up in time like we are. And so, as we pray, as we think about God's plan and God's timeline, understand He has a perspective that you and I don't have. But understand that through the lens of the mission, that everything He does, He does because He wants to redeem and restore a people unto Himself. That changes everything. This timing is perfect, and He has an eternal view on the world. Verse 39 is not the first time in Hebrews 11, we see a mention of believers not receiving what was promised. We also see it in verse 13, it says, "All these died. They died. The time on earth ended, but it says they died in faith." Here's what that means. That means when they were taking their last breath, they're thinking, "Well, I'm not going to be here to see it, but God's still going to accomplish what He promised He would do." That's what it means to live by faith and to die by faith, that even though I'm not going to be here, God is still going to accomplish His promise and fulfill His purpose on the earth. And here's what else that means. It means that He can take what happens in your lifetime and my lifetime and use it in future generations, even though we'll be gone, and we won't be here. What a challenge for us as a generation of believers. That we would live such a life of faith that generations from now, God could still use what happened with us, even though we're not going to be here, significant. The first dimension of the mission is the past. Here's the second dimension of the mission, the present, the present. Here's a clarifying statement about the present. Believers today live by faith in the revelation of the promise. Here's what that means. That means for you and I, we live in a time when we can celebrate that salvation has come, that the King has come, that rescue has come, that God became a man and dwelt among us. We get the opportunity today in the present to celebrate that reality. Verse 40, the first part is dedicated towards explaining the present. Here's what the Bible says. It says, "Because God had provided something better for us." Throughout Hebrews 11, we see example after example of Old Testament believer, Old Testament believer, Old Testament believer, but in verse 40, the language changes. It's not saying them anymore. The Bible uses the word us, meaning you and I, believers today are included in Hebrews chapter 11. It's referring to believers throughout history who followed this writing. Specifically, here's what it says. It says, "God provided something better for us." The word provided means to foresee that God made the promise, but He foresaw what it would take to fulfill that promise, and He said, "I'll do it." Now ultimately, He provided the fulfillment of the promise in His Son for His own sake and for His own glory, but you and I, we also get to benefit from it. You provided something better for us, but specifically, what's better? What is it that's better for us? Very quickly, I want to give you three statements that will just give us some substance to that phrase. First of all, they, meaning believers in the Old Testament, had the promise of what the Messiah would do. We have the reality of what Christ has done. That's better. Believers then had the promise of what the Messiah would do. We have the reality of what Christ has done. You see, they had a promise, but we live in such a time that we can look back and see the way He came, the way He lived, the way He died, the way He was buried, and the way He was brought back to life. John MacArthur says, "Their faith looked forward to promise. Hours looks back to historical fact." The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 1, that God revealed Himself in many forms and many ways to the prophets, but in these last days, He's revealed Himself in one way, through His Son, Jesus. And we live in a time that we can celebrate that. Listen, that's better. The other way that it's better is that they had glimpses of God's redemptive plan. We see the full picture of the gospel. You see, through the Old Testament, God was giving glimpses into His character, glimpses into what He was like, but it raised a lot of different questions. Chuck Swindall said, "They lived by faith that looked into a dim, distant future while we live by faith that looks back 2,000 years with crystal clarity." And I love this because the way God provided His Son to fulfill this promise and be a means of salvation for the world, no one can ever look back and say, "God doesn't care about the world." You can. In any conversation, when someone says, "God doesn't care," you take them to Jesus. Jesus is in all clarity, we can see it now. He is the example that says, "God loves the world." And in the Old Testament, here was the message, "Law and the promise." For us today, here's our message, grace and hope. That's better. We live in a time that we can point to Jesus and say, "He came to the earth to die. He invites us into a love relationship with the Father and into a life of purpose. And He doesn't expect you just to live a good life for Him. He actually wants to fill you with His Spirit and press His very life out through you, church. That's better. That's the something better. One more statement I want to give you around this phrase. They embraced the vision of establishing a nation. We have been empowered for the expansion of the kingdom. They embraced the vision of establishing a nation. We've been empowered for the expansion of the kingdom. You see, the people in the Old Testament, they bought into what God was doing. They just really didn't understand what it was going to look like. For a lot of them, they thought the goal was just the nation of Israel. That's what they thought the goal was. Even just before Jesus' ascension in Acts chapter 1, look at what the disciples ask Him. They said, "So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, 'Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom of Israel?' He said to them, 'It is not for you to know times are epics which the Father has fixed by His own authority.' But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth." Here's what we understand, that this thing Jesus is doing, it's bigger than Old Testament believers, it's bigger than New Testament believers, it's bigger than just a single nation. It is about people from every tribe, every tongue, every people and race, being brought into a kingdom that Jesus has empowered us on the earth to expand, and we play a role in the mission, the global mission of God being expanded to the ends of the earth. Church, that's better, that's better, that's just something better that God has provided for us. There's a past dimension, there's a present dimension, but thirdly, there's a future dimension. Here's a clarifying statement, 'By faith one day both past and present believers will experience the completion of the promise.' The last part of verse 40 says this, 'So that apart from us they would not be made perfect.' The word perfect means to complete, it means to reach the goal. There's coming a day when the overarching promise of God will be fulfilled for all eternity. The Bible captures it in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, here's what the scripture says. It says, 'For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.' I hope you know this, but this thing called the kingdom is headed somewhere, and it's headed somewhere glorious. We are moving to a reality where there will be no more death, no more pain, no more flesh, and you and I will experience unhindered intimacy with God. That is the future dimension of the mission that God promised us thousands of years ago. We need all those on our mind as we think about this life of faith. It's bigger than just us, it's bigger than just hope, it's bigger than Las Vegas, it's bigger than America, it's bigger than this generation. God has an eternal plan, and the scope of His eternal plan is beautiful. William M. Dyke was a young man who grew up in the United States, but at age ten he became blind. But he continued to study and went to high school and on to college, and then for graduate school, he traveled to England to study, and while he was there he met a young lady and he fell in love, and he determined that she was to be his wife. So he went to her father and asked for her hand in marriage. Well, the father agreed on one condition. He said, "William, I want you to have a surgery, even though it's very risky to restore your eyesight before you marry my daughter." So William agreed, and he said, "I'll do the surgery, but I do not want the bandages taken off my eyes until I'm standing at the front of the church with my bride." So they began to plan the wedding, and William went on to have the surgery, and the day of the wedding came, and there was both excitement and nervousness, because no one knew if the surgery worked. So William was escorted to the front of the church, and then the music started, and the people stood, and his future bride and her father walked down the aisle, and when she stood in front of him, they began to take the gauze off of William's eyes. And once again, everybody was nervous. And they got to the last piece of bandages, and they took him off his eyes, and William looked up at his bride for the very first time. And then he began to cry, and he said, "Sweetheart, you are more beautiful than I ever imagined." Here's what I tell you that story. There's a day coming when that moment is going to be recreated, only the roles are going to be reversed, because the bride of Christ, the church, we're going to stand before our bridegroom, Jesus. And at that moment, we will no longer need faith, because we will see Him just as He is. And I assure you, in that moment, our heart and our worship will declare with great passion. Jesus, you are more beautiful, you are more glorious, you are more wonderful, and more amazing than we ever imagined you to be on earth. The big picture of faith tells us this thing is headed somewhere. And we are to live with passion, understanding the mission of redeeming and restoring the people unto God in which we will live with Him for all eternity. [BLANK_AUDIO]