Looking forward in faith
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
On Friday I received a letter from the Church in Zambia, asking: “would you be in a position to write an article that can help our ministers in their faith together with me.
As it happens I had woken that morning, deeply in need of an article that would help me in my faith.
I suspect you have been there as well?
Nevertheless, after some brief thought on what I might write to them, that would encourage them, a glance towards my daily planning list, reminded I had another, more pressing mission. It was marked as my top priority on my list - writing this sermon!
And so, entrusting the church in Africa Africa and it’s ministers to my mind’s memory bank, I focused my attention on this sermon:
I started the process of sermon writing:
I prayed
I read God’s Word (the passage which in which we pause today)
I read Hebrews 11: 11-13, again and again ...
I looked up Cross references (turned to Genesis, and Romans, Revelation …)
Until I realised what I was doing: I, too, was hoping for “an article that can help our ministers (help this minister)) in our faith!
And so, together with the ministers in Zambia, I turned to God:
1 I lift my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from?
The faltering faith of the Hebrews
The faltering faith of the Hebrews
Which was pretty much what the receipients of our letter may have been asking themselves!
To be sure, they found themselves in difficult times!
Life in the Roman overlord world would not have been easy for them!
And as there men were dragged of to prison; as they laboured under the Roman yolk, second rate more or less permanent residents; as they hardly had the same rights and privileges the Romans had,
they too may have written to Paul, asking him to write them an article,
to give them some certainty, some hope,
that their faith in this recently executed Jesus was not in vain!
And so Paul writes to them - this letter … (this article)
And we see that Paul is saying:
Turn your hearts and minds to Jesus - He is your hope! (Heb 1)
Believe in Jesus! He is our omnipotent, omniscient salvation, superior to the angels and to Moses! (Heb 1 continued)
He is our Great High Priest who has made the sacrificed the perfect sacrifice on our behalf, so that we may be sure of forgiveness and salvation!(Heb 3, and 4: from verse 14, and chapter 5
Trust in Him, He is faithful! (Heb 6: 13, 14)
He made a new - everlasting - covenant with us, (c.f. Heb 9: 11), promising He would be with us, forever!
In short:
Your faith (in Jesus!) is your hope; and your hope (that God will be faithful) is your faith!
Look for your hope (in Jesus) and you will find your faith (in Jesus) there!
Having said all of that in the earlier parts of this letter, this article of help,
Paul now offers a closer explanation of what this faith is, and what it looks like.
And so he takes us on a tour through a gallery, we might say, showing us the pictures of the exemplars of faith
A tour along a passage of portraits on a wall, we might imagine:
And there, over recent weeks, we have come to feast our eyes on:
Abel
Enoch
Noah
Abraham and Sarah ...
Who, you will remember, in their conduct and in their hope and faith
- walked with God!
This morning, Paul beckons us to not rush along too quickly, to take a step back, and look just a little closer at the picture of Abraham and Sarah!
Sarah’s faith becomes sight - in part
Sarah’s faith becomes sight - in part
Can you imagine the picture, friends?
Look, there is Sarah!
Does Sarah remind you of someone?
Yourself, maybe?
11 By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the one who had promised was faithful.
Our author, as he presents Sarah to us as a picture of faith, takes the positive line:
He starts of with the by now familiar words, “By faith ...”
“By faith, even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive!”
The story we read in Genesis is somewhat more comprehensive, and the bigger picture shows Sarah, with her faith, yes, but also with her human incredulity:
9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he answered. 10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 So she laughed to herself: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I have delight?” 13 But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ 14 Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.” 15 Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid. But he replied, “No, you did laugh.”
And such, sometimes, often, perhaps, is our faith, is it not, loved ones?
We pray, and we long for the fulfilment of our prayers, but we have secretly made our our minds that even God is incapable of delivering that which we pray for!
Then, like Sarah, we find ourselves expressing a nervous giggle: Can it be? Wow! I didn’t really think God would answer my prayer! I though it was impossible!
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
But Sarah did have faith!
As sure as she laughed, she did have faith!
How do we know?
Because God gives her faith!
By the time she denies, nervously, that she laughed, she might not know it yet, but as she waits to see what God would do in that old 90 year old body of hers ...
she would soon swallow her smirk and be amazed at what God can do!
Because God has a plan, which started with Adam and Eve, which found a course in history through Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Jacob, and David and Jesus - and you and me ...
and it had a beginning in Sarah, who would laugh at the though that she could be so blessed that she would be remembered as the mother of the ones who walked with God!
And now you , and I, are the continuing fulfilment of that promise of God, that He would be our God and we would be His people, forever ...
do you still feel like laughing, loved ones?
Abraham’s faith becomes sight - but not in fulfillment
Abraham’s faith becomes sight - but not in fulfillment
Abraham, also laughed!
He laughed when God told him of his inclusion, his election, to be the father of the faithful, as he would be known even today, even among Jews and Muslims to this very day!
He laughed, too, although, perhaps a somewhat different kind of laugh:
15 God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, do not call her Sarai, for Sarah will be her name. 16 I will bless her; indeed, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she will produce nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 Abraham fell facedown. Then he laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a hundred-year-old man? Can Sarah, a ninety-year-old woman, give birth?”
His laugh is a laugh of picturing the fulfilment of this promise of God: imagine that, he seems to be thinking; imagine how people are going to react when they see with their own eyes that God has made a 100-year-old man fertile, and his 90 year-old-wife able to conceive an offspring (as our author in Hebrews describes it). Man, are they going to be surprised!
And he laughs at the thought! (You have to laugh, don’t you, friends? Can you imagine you great grandfather coming to you and announcing, with his wife, your great grandmother, that they are expecting a baby, twins, perhaps! I can imagine it will take quite a heavy duty forklift to lift my bottom jaw back to a my surprised face!)
He laughs, he struggles to understand, but he does believe!
We know that, because by then he had already shown through his life and actions that he believes and will do what the Lord calls him to do:
In Genesis 15: 1-6, we read
1 After these events, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great. 2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 Abram continued, “Look, you have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house will be my heir.” 4 Now the word of the Lord came to him: “This one will not be your heir; instead, one who comes from your own body will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.” 6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
And as we find ourselves standing in front of this picture of Abraham and Sarah, and we see their humanity in this portrait we have of them, there humanity, there fears, there hopes, their occasional doubt (read of it all in the Genesis account of their lives, friends) perhaps we see a reflection of ourselves there, I hope!
Because we are in that story, friends!
We may laugh at the thought (considering our lives of fear and worry and quick doubt, and our lack of control over so much)
but if we have put our trust in the Lord,
walking with God, like Abel did, and Enoch, and Noah
and Abraham and Sarah,
we are part of the fulfilment of God’s promise!
Can you see it?
Your picture is up there on this gallery wall of faithful ones!
Your picture is on that wall as sure as your names are written in the book!
3 Yes, I also ask you, true partner, to help these women who have contended for the gospel at my side, along with Clement and the rest of my coworkers whose names are in the book of life.
The book of life!
The Scroll:
1 Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides, sealed with seven seals.
Who are they?
9 After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb! 11 All the angels stood around the throne, and along with the elders and the four living creatures they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen. 13 Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people in white robes, and where did they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” Then he told me: These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple. The one seated on the throne will shelter them: 16 They will no longer hunger; they will no longer thirst; the sun will no longer strike them, nor will any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb who is at the center of the throne will shepherd them; he will guide them to springs of the waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Then, having read this passage, I suddenly remembered the request from the Church in Zambia:
“would you be in a position to write an article that can help our ministers in their faith together with me.
And I thought: I would!
I just did!
I will send it to them!
And now I have sent it to you, too, loved ones!
All is well!
And soon we will be together again!
Amen!
