Waiting Faith
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Context
Context
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
We have looked at Jesus and his superiority, now the author turns to our response to our Great High Priest.
We have faith and are saved.
So what does that mean?
What Is Faith?
What Is Faith?
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
What Faith Is Not
What Faith Is Not
Misconceptions of unbelievers
Faith is believing for no reason at all
"Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions." -- Frater Ravus
Faith is something to be ashamed of
"Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life -- except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men for surrendering our 'godly gift' of reason when we cross their mental thresholds?" -- Christopher Hitchens
Faith requires us to choose to reject evidence
"The Way to see by faith is to shut the Eye of Reason." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." -- Richard Dawkins
Faith means not wanting to know what is true -- Frederick Nitzsche
Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are our intellectual slaveholders keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think they do. –- Bill Maher
Misconceptions of believers
Faith is a feeling
Optimism
Faith is justification for stupidity
Faith is merely a mental exercise
Faith is moral perfection
Faith is a vending machine where God fulfills promises we’ve made to ourselves
So what is it?
Confidence and Assurance
Confidence and Assurance
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
Confidence in Hope
Confidence
The foundation or stepping stone
Internal (subjective) & external (objective)
What we hope for
The concrete promises of God
Assurance about we do not see
Assurance – certainty, proof
What we do not see
Because it belongs to the world of the unseen
Because it belongs to the future
Faith is evidence – it is accepting the unseen reality which what is seen points to
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Objective Faith
Objective Faith
Objective v. subjective
Faith Grasps Christ
Faith is like a train coupling
It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. (Keller)
What Does Faith Look Like?
What Does Faith Look Like?
Movement 1: Anticipating the Promise
Movement 1: Anticipating the Promise
Abel
Abel
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
Enoch
Enoch
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Noah
Noah
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
Abraham
Abraham
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 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. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
Interlude: Living for a Better Country
Interlude: Living for a Better Country
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Movement 2: The Advance of the Promise
Movement 2: The Advance of the Promise
Abraham
Abraham
17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
Isaac
Isaac
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
Jacob
Jacob
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
Joseph
Joseph
22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.
Moses Parents
Moses Parents
23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
Moses
Moses
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
The People
The People
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
Rahab
Rahab
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
Wrap-up
Wrap-up
32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
Observations about our examples
Observations about our examples
The object of their faith matters
God’s ongoing faithfulness to his covenant promises
Anticipating Jesus
They have linked themselves to God’s plan and rest in him to accomplish it
Their faith was imperfect
It was the faith of flawed individuals
Before and after their faith was expressed
It was the faith of individuals who sinned after their faith
What Does Faith Accomplish?
What Does Faith Accomplish?
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Commendation not fulfillment
Even the deceased examples of faith away its ultimate fulfillment so do we
God’s plan of something better
Conclusion
Conclusion
This chapter marks a shift in Hebrews but the central theme remains - Look to Jesus
The Hebrews weren’t going to make it because they followed the Law that pointed to
