Faith Lived Out

Paul was writing to a group of his kin back home who had accepted Christ.

This was the second generation of believers, who had experienced persecution and maybe even some disillusionment with the promises of the kingdom of God.

Even the promise of Jesus’ return was delayed, for some, disappointment may have crept in, while some left the church altogether.

They had become distracted or misled by other teachers.

Like with Colossians, some had taught that they should return to a strictly Hebraic faith, while others advocated a return to their naturalistic religions.

They seem to have lost sense of the uniqueness of Christ and the life lived in Christ.

With all the persecution and disruption of their lives, they might have felt a longing to return to what was familiar, what they were comfortable with.

The truth is, it’s difficult to trust in something or someone that isn’t immediately apparent to us.

We hope for a lot of things in life:

We hope to find food and shelter.

We hope for a loving family.

We hope for an easy life.

Some of us hope for being known as someone who was good or has done good things.

When we become disillusioned by not achieving those things, we lose hope in them.

This is necessary for us to understand before we come to faith in Christ.

As Christians, we try to live out life in Christ, when our lives don’t work out as we had hoped, we can become disillusioned, questioning whether it’s worth it.

We mistake certainty for faith.

Paul encouraged the Hebrew readers to understand what faith in God looks like and to understand who Christ is in light of the Hebrew scriptures.

Paul wrote about faith as it functions in the lives of God’s people.

“Now faith is the reality of what we hope for and the evidence of what we do not see.”

We need to know what we hope for.

We hope for the reward that God has promised His people, “rest” (4:1-11), heavenly city and homeland (11:9,11, 13, 26, 39-40), and eternal fellowship with God.

What is faith?

Faith is living life depending on the fact God’s promises, and hope for, are real.

Faith is the means by which God’s promised rewards become “reality”.

It is by trusting in God that we begin to experience them now and will experience them ultimately at Christ’s return.

Faith is also the “evidence” of God’s unseen being and power because when we trust Him we experience His power in our lives.

Thus, faith involves living life on the assumption that God’s promised rewards are real and that His power is active in the present, He is “the living God.”

Paul started with “By faith we,”he is commending their faith to strengthen it.

The faith of the ancients demonstrated the “reality” of God’s promises and is “evidence” of God’s power in the present. They were commended for their live of faith by God.

“by the word of God,” Paul affirmed the same word who:

the world was called into being;

whom Abel worshipped;

whom Enoch walked with by God’s pleasure;

whom Noah heard from and built an ark to save his family;

called Abraham with the Promise and revealed God’s law to Moses and His people;

This same word that revealed the way of salvation is through the Son leads us from heaven.

Jesus is the Word, and it is he who will speak the final word of judgment.

By affirming that God created the universe (what is visible) from that which is not visible, we affirm that God all reality is from God.

Faith is living on the basis that God is the ultimate reality.

Because God is the ultimate reality, we do not need to worry about what we have, or what we will gain, we live in the reality of God. Living another way would be trust in what is fleeting and false, in what will ultimately not exist.

Faith is living out our lives for God.

We believe that God exists, and God’s Word brings us to ultimate reality.

Living this way can make others feel uncomfortable because we believe God has final judgment. Because of this, we live as foreigners or strangers, alienated, and occasionally persecuted in the world today.

Who are we trying to please, those who hold temporary power over us in this world, or the one releases reality in us?

God’s promises never reached final fulfillment in the Hebrew scriptures.

The land that was promised, never found fulfilment.

Everything within the Hebrew religious tradition pointed to fulfillment in Christ.

God became reality in the life of his people. Literally, as one of them. One of us, in Jesus Christ.

Then, God took away the power of sin’s infiltration of the world, through Jesus Christ.

Those who have faith in Jesus Christ have nothing to fear by the judgment of Jesus Christ. Indeed, we have everything to hope for in Jesus Christ.

A heavenly homeland – at home with God.

A better homeland through the better way of grace through Christ on the cross.

We have faith in the one who has the power to overcome even death.

Faith transcends death.

Now that is someone to have faith in.

Will you invite others in that faith in God as well?