Running with the Cloud
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
End of the Hall of Faith
Faith is active - these people lived it out and acted on the basis of God’s Word.
But their faith was pointing somewhere - to a Hope that bouyed them along even when they suffered greatly.
Have Faith in the midst of Suffering
Have Faith in the midst of Suffering
Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
Elijah raised the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17–24), and Elisha raised the son of a Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:18–37) -The ESV Study Bible, 2382.
Tortured - Like Eleazar who wouldn’t eat pork (tradition)
Jeremiah was beaten and put in prison. He was famously put into a cistern for a while. What for? For prophesying the downfall of Jerusalem to Babylon.
But they treated other prophets badly too:
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Zechariah (among others) was stoned to death.
The Jews had a reputation for killing their prophets when they did not like what they had to say. It is a hard thing to be a mouthpiece for God’s word, because the Word of God confronts and offends the heart that is turned aside from God.
These heroes of faith didn’t look like heroes - they were poor. They were unpopular. They were often exiled.
Yet these destitute and dirty, these loyal followers of YHWH were a blessing to the world, a blessing the world was not worthy of. Yet God in his mercy sent them and they withstood their suffering in such a way as to be examples to us.
They are not suffering based on vibes and vague ideas - they suffer knowing that what God has in store is greater than their present pain. They suffered as they looked forward to the fulfilment of the Promises of salvation and rescue.
We will talk in a moment about how they waited without receiving, but dwell on this for a moment: to be heroic in faith often looks like suffering. While this passage is focused on Old Testament this is a pattern that has continued through the Cross even to our present experience.
Jesus warned us regularly that when we join him, we get a target painted on our back. We become opposed to the world as it is. And for people in the world we are a threat, we are mocked, we are often perceived as the undesirables, the disruptors, the holier-than-thou, the backwards, and so on. In every age there is a reason to persecute and attack the followers of God.
We see as we pray each week for the persecuted church through the World Watch list, we see that their sufferings are ongoing.
Yet we are not immune here brothers & sisters. It is true that we are not likley to be stoned for preaching God’s truth, but we will be persecuted. It will be more subtle, but it will be spear in your side.
If you have a platform you will be mocked and ridiuculed in the media for saying Biblical truth.
You will be falsely accused of “hating people” because you call out their sin.
You will be charged with hate speech for saying that homosexual cross-dressers should not be reading stories to your children at state-sactioned events.
If you point out that that person on the womans soccer team is really a man you will be convicted of inciting hatred and serious contempt
You will be called disrespectful for refusing to participate in pagan rituals.
You will be reprimanded by HR departments for not giving the right answers on your sensitivity training.
You will be denied the opportunity to foster children in need because you will not agree to feed a child’s delusion about their gender.
Other Christians in this very town will sneer at you because you actually want to follow God’s word when it comes to matters of worship, gender and obedience.
These are not hypotheticals. These are things that have happened.
But here is where you must demonstrate your faith.
Despite all that the world would throw at you, true faith rests with confidence on Christ.
You are founded on the rock, here is your refuge. And there you can withstand all the pangs of this world, even unto death.
Whether they confiscate your property, whether they force you into years of court cases, whether they fire you or just ridicule you, whatever they do to you, cling to Christ and rejoice that you are worthy to suffer for his cause!
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Follow the example of the Hall of Faith
Unlike the OT saints, we don’t suffer looking forward into a misty future, we suffer in the reveleation of Jesus Christ. Christ has been revealed, our hope is here! And that’s what we must talk about next.
Their’s & Your Faith fulfilled!
Their’s & Your Faith fulfilled!
Part of the nature of faith is that it is unseen. This does not mean it is not sure, just that the fulness of it hasn’t been seen or received. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have lunch today, i have faith that it will be the case based on all my previous knowledge - yet until I eat it, I still have hope, I still live in faith that I will receive it.
The saints of old did not have the immediacy of lunch to see their faith fulfilled - they were living in the unfolding of salvation history that would not see fulfillment for generations and generations:
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Consider Abraham - promised so much and receicved so little in his first life.
The OT sainst are with us - their salvation is in Christ. They looked forward, we look back.
We have received something better, because we have seen the substance revealed - Jesus.
The OT saints, as great as they were, were incomplete, because they did not have Christ.
We are one people of God from begining to end, all perfected in Christ.
Have Faith in the Run
Have Faith in the Run
What are we to do with all these names? And all these examples?
We are to act. We are to live like they lived.
We need to move forward in life living in Faith and for Jesus. And this exactly what Hebrews compels us to do:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
Run - advance, progress, move! pursue God’s mission and righteousness
Run with Cloud of witnesses - with us and an example to us.
Lay aside every weight
Run with endurance
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
So What?
So What?
Have faith in the midst of your suffering
You are perfected with the OT saints in Christ
Because of the saints, and looking to Jesus - run!
