Hope Church LV Sermons
Not by Sight :: The Outcome of Faith
For 13 weekends, we have been on a journey together, studying through one chapter in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 11. If you have your Bible, you can go ahead and turn over to Hebrews chapter 11. As we've been walking through this chapter, we've been examining the lives of ordinary men and women of God who, by faith, have experienced God in their everyday lives in extraordinary ways. We've been talking about what it means to live by faith. Each weekend we've asked you a question, "What does it mean to live by faith?" And we've given you an answer to that that I hope by now has become rooted deep in your heart and in your soul. I want to put it up on the screen, and I want us to read that definition out loud together this morning. You ready? To live life, not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in his very life in me. That's what it is to live by faith. All wrote it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7, for we walk by faith, say the last part of the verse, out loud, not by sight. The word walk there doesn't mean simply to put one foot in front of the other and go on a stroll. The word walk there is a word that literally means to live one's life. This journey of faith is not just a moment of decision, it's a lifestyle that we live. We've said it this way, "Faith is not just a decision that you make, faith is a life that you live." It is true that every one of us who are followers of Jesus Christ had a moment of faith, a point in time when in response to the gospel we surrendered our lives to the control of Jesus Christ and by faith believed in the gospel. But for many people they believed that you put your faith in Christ, then you hit Paul's and you wait for heaven when you die. But that's not the way we live the Christian life. The Christian life is to be lived moment by moment in faith and dependence on the person of Jesus Christ, now living his very life in and through us. Now if you believe that faith is a way of life, if you agree with that statement after all these weeks say amen. If you desire to live by faith, I want to hear you say amen. Now let me ask you a question. Have you ever stepped out in faith trusting God and things did not turn out the way you thought they would? They give that testimony this morning, right? Stepped out in faith, trusted God, believed God and things just did not turn out the way I thought they were going to. Well as we continue in Hebrews chapter 11 this weekend, that's exactly what the writer of Hebrews begins to talk about. He begins to talk about the outcome of faith. And I want to give you a disclaimer up front this weekend. The verses that we are going to cover today are heavy verses. They are verses that are difficult for us to swallow. They are not seeker-sensitive, warm and fuzzy, let's feel good and go eat nachos and watch the super bowl verses, all right? But they are next. So it is time for us to deal with them. He opens in verse 32 and says, "And what more shall I say for time will fail." I mean here's what basically the writer of Hebrews is saying. "I could go on and on, but I'm running out of time." He's been giving us this list of men and women of God and he's saying here, "I could continue this list forever, but time is running out." So let me just summarize. He says, "For time will fail me if I tale of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jeptha of David, and Samuel, and the prophets." He'd been up until this point giving us names like these, but he'd at least been giving us one verse, sometimes two or three verses of context, to tell us the story of the names that he was giving us. Now, we understand that even in the one or two verses that he's been giving us, he's been giving us an extreme overview of these lives because some of these lives are described in chapters and whole books of the Bible in the Old Testament. Now in verse 32, he gives us nothing. He just starts running through a list of names because he knows the audience that he was writing to. This is the book of Hebrews written predominantly to Jewish Christians. He understands that when he throws these names out, the people that were listening and reading this letter immediately in the oral culture that they lived in were stories lived on and they passed them down from generation to generation. And he dropped the name they knew the story, but we don't have time to tell you the story of all of these people. So let me just give you two things about all six of them that they have in common. Number one, they all faced overwhelming odds. They faced overwhelming odds. If you were to go and study and you can do it on your own, just use your cross references and go find the chapters in the Old Testament and read these stories, Leon Morris said it this way. The writer does not go into detail about what these men and women did, but if we examine the Old Testament record, we find that each man battled against overwhelming odds so that, humanly speaking, there was a little chance of his coming out on top. For men in such positions, faith in God was not a formality. It meant real trust when odds seemed stacked against them. One of the great problems we have in our culture with walking by faith is oftentimes faith is a formality. The comforts and the ease with which we live in our culture does not create the desperation that some of our brothers and sisters in Christ live with on a global scale. So for us, sometimes faith is a formality when you wake up and have nothing. When you face odds that are overwhelming, when the Red Sea is in front of you and the Egyptian army is behind you, at that point, faith is no longer a formality. These men and women of God faced unbelievable situations and circumstances, some of them extremely difficult. Let me tell you the second thing we know about all of them. Their faith was not perfect. It's interesting as you study these six individuals, Gideon, for example, the first that was mentioned, he was called by God to go into battle, but he was very slow to go into battle. As a matter of fact, he said, "God, I need a sign." God gave him one. He said, "Lord, how about one more?" You ever been there? "Lord, I need a sign here." Barak hesitated to go into battle to lead the children of Israel. It was only when Deborah, the prophetess, came and spoke truth into his life that he said, "Okay, I'm willing to go," but even then he said, "I'm only going if you go with me." Samson was a man whose flesh was out of control. He was overtaken by it and seduced by a woman named Delilah. We all know that story. Jephthah, the Bible, tells us in a moment of passion made a rash vow. Samuel, when he came to find the next king of Israel, first went through all eleven sons of Jesse because he looked through the eyes of the flesh, trying to pick the biggest and the strongest and the sharpest and the wisest and God had to bring him through a process of helping him see his God sees, not licking on the outward appearance, but on the heart. Then we get to David, his Bathsheba Ringabelle. These were not superheroes. We read these stories and we think that these men and women of God were faith giants. Let me tell you what they were. They were ordinary people like you and me with fears and struggles and anxieties. They were people who struggled day in and day out to put their faith and trust in God. Let me just say this morning, it is imperative that the American church return to a biblical worldview in our application of faith. I'm going to say that again because it's so important. It is imperative that the American church return to a biblical worldview in the application of our faith. Unfortunately, in our culture, we teach a philosophy that says this. In our culture, we say, if you just have enough faith, then God will and you fill in the blank. We teach people, if you just have enough faith, you can go on television. You can go on the internet. You can go into any Christian bookstore and you can buy books and you can listen to preachers. You can even find them right here in our own city that will teach you if you just have enough faith, then God will and you fill in the blank. Let me just say to you this morning that is a dangerous philosophy that is causing much harm and damage to the reputation of Christ in our own country and all over the globe. I want to just say to you definitively that this list of people in Hebrews was not a list of people with enough faith. This was a list of people who had little faith in an enough God. The issue is not the amount of my faith. The issue is the object of my faith. It's not about how much faith I have. It's about the God that I'm putting my faith in. There are people all over our city who are laying their head down on their pillow tonight who have lost a job in losing a home and they're laying there with guilt because they think for some reason it's happening to them because they don't have enough faith. They're believers in parts of the world that are suffering. Men and women of God who have faith that would put you in me to shame and because of the lies that we are propagating out of our country through television and the internet and books, they've bought into a lie and they live with a spiritual guilt and an anguish that is wrong and is false and is not the teaching of Jesus Christ. I want to tell you two reasons why this philosophy is so dangerous. Number one, it's dangerous because it teaches a wrong motive for faith. Here's what it teaches. It teaches a mentality that faith is a tool for me to manipulate God to accomplish my desire. That if I just have enough faith, I can make God move on to my agenda. I can make God do what I want him to do because ultimately I know better than God anyway. I know what my life ought to look like. So God, I'm just going to muster up enough faith to move you on to my plan because my plan is better in your plan. When in reality, God gave us faith as a tool not to manipulate him onto our plan, God gave us faith to trust him to accomplish his desires because he knows better than we know. Listen, I have a seven year old daughter, four children, my seven year old would love to eat ice cream at every meal. Eating course, forget the meats and vegetables, why? Because it tastes better. She thinks I've lost my mind that I don't think that's okay. What does she have to do? She has to trust me that there are things that I know that she doesn't know. But sometimes in our situation in life, things don't look the way we want them to look. And it is not in that moment that we try to use faith to manipulate God onto our plan. It's in that moment that we say, "Father, you know better than I know and come hell or high water, I trust you." Let me tell you a second reason why this philosophy is so dangerous because it teaches a wrong object of faith. You see, if you believe, if I just have enough faith, then God will. Your faith's not in God, your faith's in faith. Do you hear that? You're not putting your faith in God, you're putting your faith in your faith. Your belief is not in what God can do, your belief is in how much faith you have. These people in Hebrews did not have a perfect faith. The consistent reality was not the amount of their faith. The consistent reality was the object of their faith. They all put their imperfect faith in a perfect God and trusted Him. Now, after giving us this list, the right of Hebrews, then in verse 33, begins to move into what faith looks like in its outcome. Let's read on, "What more shall I say, for time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepth of David, Samuel the Prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection. We're all doing okay so far, right? Moving on, and others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection, and others experienced mockings and scourgings. Yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in tune. They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheep skins and goat skins being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. The first thing that we understand as we read those verses is that faith has an immediate outcome. Sometimes it is what we would call the expected outcome. Faith in God, miracle happens. Faith in God, victory. Faith in God, deliverance. We love the words in verses 33, 34, and the first part of 35. I mean, did you hear those action words? He said they conquered kingdoms, put their faith in God, and they conquered kingdoms. They performed acts of righteousness. They obtained promises. They shut the mouths of lions. They quenched the power of fire. They escaped the edge of the sword. They became mighty in war. They put armies to flight. They received back their dead by resurrection. That's what I'm talking about, amen? Give me some of that. Sign me up, preacher. The Old and New Testament is full of stories of men and women of God who put their faith in God and saw miracles happen. This chapter alone in Hebrews, chapter 11 is full of stories of men and women of God who put their faith in God and saw barren wombs be open. They saw red seas be parted. They saw Jericho walls come falling down. Sometimes, sometimes the immediate outcome of faith is the miraculous wonder, miracle of Almighty God. However, that is not always the case. And listen to me. If you don't understand that, you will live in disillusioned and frustration about God and His relationship to you because this text teaches us that there is also an unexpected outcome of faith. You see, the last half of this text is still included in the Hall of Faith. This last half is just as much, men and women of God, who lived by faith and who trusted God and who lived moment by moment in dependence on Him. But it's not what we think. The tone begins to change in verse 35 when He says, and others. Leon Morris said it this way. "It is not for men of faith to dictate. They trust God and know that whether in life or death, all will ultimately be well." You see, these men and women of God in Hebrews 11, 35 and following? They lived by faith in difficult circumstances. You say, "Wait a minute, a pastor, hold on right there. Are you telling me that following Jesus doesn't mean that all of my difficult circumstances go away?" That's exactly what I'm telling you. You see, the mission of Jesus sometimes requires risk. The mission of Jesus sometimes means, "I am willing to lay my life on the line for the cause of the gospel." These people lived in difficult circumstances. He says, first of all, they suffered persecution. He says they were tortured. It's a word that describes the human being being stretched out to their skin, is completely taught, and then they are beaten with a rod or a whip. The implication is that the torture would have stopped if they just simply renounced their faith in Christ. He said they were tortured not accepting their release, meaning that their release had been offered to them, if you would simply renounce Christ, if you would denounce this faith in the gospel, then we'll let you go, but it said they were tortured, not accepting their release. Why? Because they were waiting on a better resurrection. The Bible says they experience mockings and scourgings, describing physical and mental and verbal abuse. The Bible says they were chained up and imprisoned, meaning that they were shackled and held in the most unimaginable circumstances. Here's what I want you to realize today. As we sit in the comfort of this room, making the great sacrifice of being in a high school gymnasium, we are standing on the shoulders of men and women of God who have suffered much and lost everything that you and I could hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm not just talking about something that happened in the past. I got an email Friday, Friday I checked my email and this was in my inbox. I'm a friend, a partner in Southeast Asia. He said, "After we have labored tirelessly to stand with our sister and assist her while her husband is in prison, two days ago he was released from prison after serving twelve years and eight months. He was convicted of treason and sedition against the government for two things." Listen, receiving Bible training and leading 70 people to faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you for standing with us in prayer. Then he closed the email with these words. We are now co-laboring with them to see more people saved in their area and more churches started. Twelve years and eight months in prison and day one out, he put his hands right back on the plow. He went on to tell me that a year or so ago they came to him in prison and said, "If you will simply renounce your faith and leave your wife." You see, while he was in prison, twelve years and eight months, let me tell you what his wife did, she became the leader of the church in their village and began to plant churches and reach more people with a gospel while he's in prison for twelve years. Now listen, they said, "If you'll renounce your faith and leave your wife and family, we will let you go." He said, "I will stay." He chose torture, not accepting his release. Not only do we stand on the shoulders of men and women of God throughout history and we've received the gospel because they've sacrificed much, but listen to me, today we're locking arms with men and women of God today who this very morning woke up and laid their life. None of you had to think, "If we go to church today, will we be killed?" If I go to worship this morning, do I run the risk of twelve years imprisonment and separation from my family? Unfortunately, in America, it takes much less than that to keep us out of church. These people lived in difficult circumstances and I want you to hear me say something. These are not men and women of God who don't have faith. Listen to me, they'll make your faith and mind look silly. I've been around these men. I don't even like calling myself a pastor when I get around them. I'm being honest with you. During doors is a ministry that works among the persecuted church and here's what they say that routinely in over fifty countries around the world this morning, Christians are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. I want to put a list of fifteen countries up on the screen. These fifteen countries are the top fifteen countries in the world when it comes to persecuting Christians. They're the worst. North Korea is at the top of the list. One-fourth, it's estimated one-fourth of all evangelical Christians in North Korea live in labor camps because they will not renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. You see these countries, most of them are countries that you know the name. You hear them in the news. When you see them in the news, may you think differently about these nations, may you begin to pray that the gospel would expand and that believers would be granted the grace of almighty God as they stand in the middle of the most incredible circumstances. These men and women of God, because of their faith, sacrifice the comforts of this world. He goes on in these verses to tell us that they suffered difficult circumstances. They went about in sheep skins and goat skins being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated. Do you hear that? It means they basically had to bear necessities in order to survive. He says they lived in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. It angers me. It angers me with a righteous indignation. When I hear American preachers preach a philosophy that if you will just have enough faith, you can have a bigger house. You can have newer cars. You can have more money in your bank account. You can have a stronger portfolio. It is a lie from the enemy himself. Listen to me, and it is a slap in the face of men and women of God who by faith have suffered much for the cause of Jesus Christ in the world. It is true. It's true that following Christ means that I have an abundant life, but an abundant life does not mean American materialistic success. Some of the people in the world that I know that have the greatest joy in their life are people that have nothing but Jesus and have come to the great discovery that Jesus is enough. The philosophy that says you can have your best life now is not true. You can have His best life now. These people not only suffered in life, but they died in faith. Listen to that phrase again, they died in faith. The Bible says some were stoned like Stephen in Acts chapter 8. The mob came with boulders and rocks and threw them at him until he died. The Bible says some were sawn into Jewish scholars and historians tell us that Isaiah the prophet who wrote the book of Isaiah was sawn in half with a wooden saw. The Bible says they were put to death. How many times have you had the thought, man it would have been great to be one of the disciples who lived when Jesus lived? Did you know post-Judas all 11 disciples died for their faith? Six of them were crucified. Peter according to Tertullian and Origen was crucified upside down because he didn't consider himself worthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus. James the son of Alphaeus was beaten and stoned to death. James the son of Zebedee had his head cut off. Matthew and Thomas were speared to death. John the only one to die a natural death was exiled to the Isle of Patmos and spent the rest of his life in isolation and died alone. Paul who wrote most of the New Testament, Paul in Rome had his head cut off for preaching the gospel. And again I'm not just talking about things from history. January the 5th of this year, 2012, January the 5th of 2012, Islamic extremists walked into the deeper life Bible church in Gombe, northern Nigeria. They'd been in a prayer service for over an hour. This sweet little church that's right next door to an Islamic mosque in a very Muslim part of the world, praying for their nation. Islamic extremists walked in the doors with an automatic weapon and an open fire and killed nine of those Christians on their knees that were praying for them. The saddest reality is it was the second time in a month that this little church had lost one of its members because of those that are willing to kill to stop the message of Christ. How dare, how dare, some fair haired preacher in America say they did not have enough faith. How dare, they are recorded in the Hall of Fame when it comes to fame. In Hebrews chapter 11, how do they endure? I look at my life, it doesn't take a lot for me to complain, how do they endure? They endured the same way the people that experience victory endured by faith. There's a little phrase in verse 34 that you don't need to miss. It says, "From weakness, they were made strong." It's one of the few of those victory statements. It's one of the few that's in the passive voice. Most of them are in the active voice. The passive voice means the subject receives the action. Here's what it means, they were weak and somebody else acted on them and made them strong. It wasn't them, it was somebody in them. We know who that somebody is. That's why when we defined faith, we defined it as resting moment by moment in His very life in me. Listen, before Paul was beheaded, Paul wrote a letter in 2 Corinthians, "Listen to what He said, and He the Lord has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you. For power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.'" Listen, "Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am." Hey, there are two phrases in there. I don't know how that verse hits you, but there are two phrases I just can't get past. Most gladly and well content. As I hold those up to my life, that's not where I live a lot of times. It's where I want to be, but it's not where I live. No content, with difficulty, Lord, if it's hard, it's okay. I trust you. Lord, if it's not the way I want it to be, that's okay. I trust you, up until this point, the writer of Hebrews has been talking about the reality that faith has an immediate impact, but he closes and I want to close with the reality that faith also has an ultimate outcome. You see, the immediate outcome is not the same as the ultimate outcome. The world would look at these men and women of God and say, "They are fools." How can you choose prison, torture, over freedom? The world would say, "They are fools," but I want you to know God has something to say about them, and he says, "They are men of whom the world is not worthy." It may have been a soldier's spear, a rugged cross, or an angry mob that ushered them out of this life, but it was the king of glory that welcomed them into the next life. Paul, before he died, wrote a letter to Timothy right at the end of his life, and here's what he said in 2 Timothy 3, it's not on the screen, you just got to listen. Verse 7, he says, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith in the future. There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day." Oh, but don't miss this, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. January 31, 1993, three missionaries and their families serving with new tribes' mission on the border of Columbia and Panama were taking the gospel to the Kuna Indians that had never heard the gospel before planting a church among these people. January 31, 1993, Colombian guerrilla soldiers armed with automatic weapons broke into these three families' homes. They took the three men, bound their arms, marched them out of their homes, forced the women and children to pack everything they had, even their Bibles, and begin to get out. The last they saw of their husbands, these three families, was them walking into the darkness of the Panamanian jungle with machine guns to their heads and their hands bound behind their back. One of those men was a man named Rick Tenenoff. To this day, they've never found the bodies of those three men. Rick's 15-year-old daughter, Dora, wrote a poem that I want to close with. She said, "There once was a man, a man I once knew, who told me stories every night laughed at my jokes and held me tight. He told me, 'Don't quit, always fight the good fight.' He said, 'Love the Lord with all your heart and serve him with all your might. He begged me, do right.' There once was a man, a man I once knew, who taught me how to tie my shoe and gently smiled at every picture that I drew. He told me, 'When you start something, don't stop until the job is through.' He said, 'I love you.' There once was a man, a man I once knew. I saw him in my dream and it made me scream. I called out Daddy, but he told me nothing. He had nothing to say for what can you say when you're far, so very far away. 'Daddy,' I said, then a voice echoed in my head, 'I lay quiet and still in my bed. Again the voice, your daddy made a choice, a choice to serve me with all his might, to not give up, to fight the good fight. He is doing a job for me and is not yet through, so remember, I love you.' There's now a man, a man I now know, he lived and he died to save men from their sin. He made it possible for us to be born again, I know because my daddy told me so. And even though he's no longer here, my God will always be near to fill in the gaps and show me which way to go. I miss my dad so much, but God has a plan, so for now I'll just wait and watch the work of his hand. There once was a man, a man I once knew, he's now just a memory slowly fading away, dead or alive you ask, I don't know, I say. So I beg you, please pray. Pray my daddy knows that every night I whisper, 'Daddy, I love you.' There's now a man, a man I now know, every day he becomes more real to me, every day in him I grow. Every day I pray that my love for him will show. I've made a choice to serve him with all my might, to not give up to fight the good fight. Here on earth, I may not see my dad again, but that's all right, because when my life is through, I'll finally hear them both say, 'My child, I love you.' From weakness, from weakness made strong. That's what the Bible teaches about the outcome of faith. [BLANK_AUDIO]