Theme: The Plan and the Payoff of Faith
1.
Gives unknown blessings from God
2.
Grants untold ways to serve
Hebrews
11:1-12 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so
that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
4
By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through
which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his
gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
5
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not
found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended
as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him,
for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he
rewards those who seek him.
7
By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent
fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned
the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
8
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to
receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9
By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living
in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10
For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and
builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when
she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as
many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by
the seashore.
I’m
assuming most of you have some type of investment. Maybe it’s a retirement
account or a separate mutual fund. Whatever account it is, one rule applies to
all types of investments – plan for the long-term. If you do well in your
investments, it probably means you have patience. Making money on your
investment does not happen overnight. Some types of investments are better for
longer periods of time, but they all involve waiting to some extent.
You
also need an investment that has a good plan – a proper approach that will
target the right kind of investments. But ultimately, no one really cares that
much about the plan – it’s about the payoff. What are the results? The same thing
applies to every other area of life. It helps to know what’s going on and to
have a good plan, but ultimately no one remembers those things. What people
will remember is what the result of the plan was.
Here
we see faith as an investment. It takes patience to live by faith. It’s about
the long-term, not what’s happening only in the moment. And faith has both a
plan and a payoff. God describes that for us here, both by teaching us what the
plan of faith is and by reminding us of its promises at the payoff. He even
gives us several examples.
Verses
1-3 are the core of this text. They work like a root system and each example
springs forth from it like a branch. Verse 1 is the definition of faith, at
least according to the literal word. Faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen. More broadly, we define faith as
trust or believing in God. Here, we dig deeper into the word itself. What
really is faith? Simply put, in every aspect of faith, there’s a known element
and an unknown element. Something you have and something you don’t yet have.
The
world simplifies faith too much. They call it blind trust, whimsical hope, a
fanciful desire. The world’s explanation of faith only considers the unknown.
But God says faith is “assurance” and “conviction,” just not in the ways we
typically think.
So,
here God describes the plan of faith, what we might think of the gears
that make up how it works. Faith works with unknown and unseen things and makes
us sure and certain about them. We have an example too – the creation of the
world. No one saw it happen. But we can trust this unknown because God explains
how He created the world – through His Word. This is one example – a big one at
that – but every other expression of faith follows this pattern. This is the
plan of faith.
But,
like our investments, no one ultimately cares about the plan. What are the
results? Does faith live up to its plan? To answer that, God uses more
examples, this time from real, living people, found in His Word.
We
could have separate sermons on each of these people. They are all well known in
Scripture. There are many others in Hebrews 11 also. For today, however, I want
you to focus on this point: Within each example of God’s plan of faith working,
there are knowns and unknowns. In that sense, each believer is living, walking,
breathing example of faith. Their life is made up of things that display the
completion of God’s gift of faith, but also the hope of waiting for promises
that are ultimately fulfilled in heaven. It is the life of faith – a substance
of things hoped for and an conviction of things not seen type of life.
So,
the five people mentioned in our text all went through different circumstances,
but their faith worked the same purpose for them according to God’s plan.
Abel’s faith was seen in the
offering he gave God and how it differed from Cain’s. Abel’s faith in that
sense continues to speak to us today, even though he was the first person who
was killed. Those are the seen elements of his faith, yet there was also much
more beneath the surface. Abel was commended as righteous before God, a
treasure of faith not seen by human eyes. How would one calculate or quantify a
commendation of righteousness before God? It was there, as real as Abel’s
offering, yet it was unknown to others – seen and experienced only by faith.
Enoch was taken by God and
did not die. What an amazing thing! Yet, much more significant about Enoch was
that he was also commended by God as having pleased God. As the text
elaborates, this cannot happen outside of faith. There are good people on earth
of many beliefs, but only those who trust God by faith can please Him in a
completely holy way – because only believers have Christ’s perfect record in
their place. When God is well-pleased with a Christian’s thoughts, words, and
actions, it’s because God is ultimately seeing His own Son’s merits in their
stead by faith. So as amazing as it was that Enoch’s faith granted him the
ability to be taken directly to God, of much greater note was that Enoch was
actually able to serve and follow God.
Almost
the whole world knows the seen legacy of Noah. He built the ark. The
visual lesson of his faith is a constant reminder to the world. Yet, what was
below the surface of Noah’s actions, at the heart of his obedience to God’s
call? We’re told that he was an “heir of righteousness.” You can’t build that legacy
out of timber and pitch. You can’t hold it in your hands and show the rest of
the world. But it’s there, in the believer’s heart, the promise that you are an
heir of righteousness by faith in Jesus.
And
finally, the text gets to Abraham and Sarah. Their story is a great
example of the power of faith and its filled with tangible examples of what God
did for them. Abraham was too old for God’s promise. Sarah was barren. And yet,
God blessed them as the parents of the Jewish nation, and eventually of all
believers in general. There is certainly much to see there with our eyes.
But,
like the others, even greater, was the unseen features of their faith. We’re
told that Abraham was an “heir of God’s promise,” much like Noah. No number of
children or displays of familial wealth could match that. We’re also told that
Sarah considered God, the one who gave her promises, to be faithful. Consider
what a monumental thought that was and how it indicated how far she had come in
her faith.
Sarah,
who first doubted the Lord’s promise by laughing it away, an action which would
be memorialized in her child’s name, eventually trusted with complete
confidence that God was faithful in what He promised. We see the legacy. We can
count the descendants. We can measure the impact that Abraham and Sarah had on
successive generations. But the ability to take God at His Word is an unseen
gift. It manifests itself in actions, but long before that it is firmly in the
believer’s heart.
These
treasured gifts – the things we don’t see with our eyes – really capture
faith’s payoff. We may hasten after the things we can grasp with our minds or
hold in our hands, but that’s not the best of what God gives. He grants the
blessing of receiving holiness, of having a guaranteed inheritance in heaven,
of being able to accept and believe the impossible, and the privilege of pleasing
Him in the holiest way. These are the hidden treasures of faith and really what
gives purpose and rise to the actions we express as Christians and those things
that others see about our faith. This is how it was for all believers in the
Old Testament, and for you today. God’s plan and purpose of faith has not
changed, because faith’s substance has not changed. It was and always will be
about Jesus Christ, and His atonement for our sins on the cross.
And
so our text ends with the payoff:
13
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having
seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were
strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear
that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land
from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But
as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God
is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
(ESV)
We
can expect hidden gifts from faith. We seek blessings in heaven, because that’s
what Christ has earned for us. So, akin to the heroes of faith, who we’re told
were blessed with certain unseen blessings of faith, what might be said of your
life at the completion of your faith? Could you be called one who had courage
and comfort despite fearful circumstances? Are you one who obeyed and trusted
when called to a difficult task? Perhaps you conquered a trial with an extra
measure of guidance and grace from God. Things that others may not have seen.
Blessings spurred on by events that cause the world do doubt the payoff of
trusting in Jesus. Whatever it has been for you and whatever it could be, the
best of what faith offers is that which we don’t see on our own – and the
greatest purpose of all of God’s work on our behalf is to lead us we aren’t yet
– home to heaven.
Amen.
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