“The Commendation of Faith”

Scripture: Hebrews 11:1-16

What is faith and how do we know if we have it? That’s your assignment for this week – to discover the truth of God in you. And next week, I’ll be anxious to hear what you have learned!
The truth is, though, that we don’t always know, and that just may be because faith is something that we can’t develop on our own – it isn’t ours to understand! When we don’t have it, we seldom seek it; when we have it, we seldom can define it; when we know that we have it, we seldom understand it; and when we begin to lose it, it is seldom a conscious decision.
Faith is that one thing that we can’t control, can’t create, can’t even appreciate fully – the only thing we can do is to accept it and let it work in our lives.

Faith is one of those things that we may never quite get a grasp of, and yet, for a Christian, it is not only the most important aspect of our life, it is probably the most difficult thing to hang on to. It requires confidence, assurance, vision, dedication, focus, and many other attributes, but above all else, it requires patience.

The story is told of a man who was pushing a shopping cart through a store. And in the cart was a screaming, bouncing baby boy.
As the man walked up and down the aisles, he kept saying over and over, “Don’t yell, Bobby. Calm down, Bobby. Don’t get excited, Bobby.”
A woman standing next to him noticed what was going on and said, “You certainly are to be commended for trying to soothe your son Bobby.”
The man looked at her and said, “Lady, I’m Bobby!”
- Homiletics Online

There will be those days when we want to scream at the top of our lungs “Lord – where are you and why is this happening to me?” And this may as well be a rhetorical question, because God will seldom give us the answer that we are looking for. Have patience! The answer will come – some day.

Read Hebrews 11:1-3

No wonder we can’t figure out what faith is! We can’t see it, we can’t touch it, we can’t hear it, and yet, we are to be certain of it and confident in it! And God applauds us for receiving it. You see, the Lord rejoices every time someone lets him work in their life. We don’t acquire faith, we receive it; we don’t secure our salvation, we receive it; we don’t understand grace and mercy, we can only receive it. And it all comes about when we give up trying to do it on our own, and let Almighty God do it for us.

And by the way, verse 3 is one of those things that the world has struggled with for ages – where did we come from? There is no way to prove creation, and yet folks continue to try to convince others that God did create. For the unbeliever, it doesn’t make sense that some Great Being put it all together, and for the believer, it isn’t possible to believe otherwise. Creation is a matter of faith – that all there is, seen and unseen, came from the unseen.

Martin Luther tells us that:
God creates out of nothing; and therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing of him. --Martin Luther

The world doesn’t like this one, either. Not only should we never strive to empty ourselves of all that we are, but why should we ever let someone else determine what and who we are to be? In the days when I was growing up - I like to describe it as a time of “Pre-Complication” - schools didn’t have computers or televisions or power point or dry erase boards - we had blackboards and mimeo handouts. The blackboards were used to give us all kinds of information, but after each lesson, it was erased, and after each day of classes, it was washed clean. The cleaning was absolute necessary, because otherwise, the information would be confusing.
It’s the same with God in our lives - before he can begin we have to be emptied and washed clean. Why? Well, that’s one more lesson in faith – we don’t know why, we just know that we have to be.

Read Hebrews 11:4-8

The stories surrounding the earliest faith figures are precious to the Church, but they don’t always make much sense to us. Why was Abel’s offering of fat considered better by God than his brother Cain’s offering of fruit? (Genesis 4:1-18) What was so righteous about Enoch that he was taken into heaven without the benefit of death? (Genesis 5:21-24) And Noah – verse 7 tells us that it was his faith that condemned the world! A faith that condemns others? Some faith! (Genesis 6)

What was there about the faith in these people that earned them God’s favor? Scripture doesn’t give us much of a clue, and quite honestly, I doubt that Abel or Enoch or Noah or any number of other people in the Book of Genesis knew either. There was no law and there is no indication, other than the phrase “He walked with God”, to explain the righteous nature of these people.
How did they know they were walking with God? How did they even know what God’s way was?

I doubt that they actually knew – they just did. What was the big difference between Sarah and Hagar? Jacob and Esau? Hannah and Peninnah? Rahab and her neighbors in Jericho? As well as any number of other characters in scripture? In most instances, we have a hard time finding a good solid reason for the Lord’s choices – not that I’m questioning God’s decisions mind you. But think about it.
It was Sarah’s idea to instigate Hagar’s sleeping with Abraham and she wanted her to get pregnant, but when Isaac was born, she turned viciously against her faithful servant.
Jacob was a conniving liar and, quite honestly, cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance.
Why was Hannah kept barren for so long, and Peninnah allowed to be so fertile?
The prostitute Rahab and her entire family were spared from death, just because she helped the Israeli spies escape, and her actions brought about the destruction of her own people.

We could carry these comparisons forward throughout history, and still wouldn’t find a good human explanation for the granting of God’s favor to some, and his wrath to others. Suffice it to say that God’s ways are not our ways, and we are called to simply “walk with God”, in faith.

And then there was Abraham.

Read Hebrews 11:8-12

When God called, Abraham went.
When God needed, Abraham did.
The man wasn’t perfect by a long shot, but he listened to the Lord, and he sought the truth of his God, and he followed the path laid out for him the best that he could.
And what was the result? He received the promise of a son when it was no longer humanly possible for him and his wife. His descendants would be the recipients of the Promise made to him hundreds of years before it actually happened. He gained so little personally, and was constantly challenged in his faith, and yet, Abraham ever stopped believing.

Could that be the lesson of faith? That no matter what might come against us in this life, we must never stop believing that God is God, and there is no other hope that we can depend on? Not that the Lord has to constantly prove himself to us, not that his blessings must conform to our definition of goodness, not that his promises must come to fruition on our schedule, but that he is dependable, and that his word is sure. Could that be it? Could it be that simple?

Read Hebrews 11:13-16

What is there about faith that is so important in our relationship with the Almighty? Why isn’t there more that we should be doing to prove our self to him? It wasn’t that these people were so perfect – they weren’t! But they believed, and in their belief, they received praise and reward from their God. They trusted God. They freely admitted that they were strangers and aliens here on earth, that this was not their final destination – this life was simply a stopping off point on their journey to their final Homeland.

There it is! Faith is all about our attitude and vision regarding life! How many people that we know feel that they have to build up security in this place, as if it will last them through eternity? Our vision of life has to extend far beyond what we can know, or do, or understand, or even visualize.
Our hope for life must confess that we can do nothing for ourselves, and that God can not only do it for us, but that he has already done everything for us. Our trust in life can never be in our finite and paltry abilities - it must be in the infinite and omnipotent God.

And when we allow ourselves to be the blank slate, the empty vessel, the surrendered heart and mind and soul, then “God is not ashamed to be called our God”. The faith that is given by the Incarnate God, the faith that we allow to work in and through us, the faith that we can do nothing to win or gain or improve, is the very faith that gives the Lord immeasurable joy.

May he rejoice in you today!!