Faith's Promise

 The bishop's car ran out of gas. His wife remembered passing a gas station, 1/2 mile back. He looked in the trunk for a gas can. The only thing he found was his baby grandson's potty. It'll have to do. He trudged back to the gas station, filled the potty, carefully carried it back, & started pouring it into the gas tank. As he did, the local Baptist pastor drove by & stopped to help. He was stunned to see the bishop pouring a potty's contents into the tank. "If I knew they had faith like that in the Church of England I'd convert!" Faith's heroes also trusted God to do the impossible. Let's turn to Heb 11:29-12:2. 29aBy faith Israel passed through the Red Sea as on dry land. Faith? Imagine. Look at the muddy path. Look at an 800' wall of water on both sides. God says walk between them. You gonna? I'm nervous, too? They went by faith. 29bWhen the Egyptians tried, they were drowned. No faith. 30By faith Jericho's walls fell, after the people marched around them for 7 days. So, you march once around a city-fortress with your posse, silently for 6 days. The 7th time, shout! Do you trust its walls to fall for you?? Faith. 31By faith the prostitute Rahab welcomed the spies & wasn't killed with the rest of the Canaanites. You know what God did to the Egyptians. You know they're spies. You know God promised your land to them & said, 'Wipe out its residents.' You know these spies are enemies. Will you throw in with them? Faith. 32aWhat more can I say? I don't have time to tell all their stories. Take 32bGideon. Least man in the smallest clan. He's a fraidy-cat farmer. God calls while he's threshing in a valley, in a winepress. Not on a hilltop (breeze/chaff). Why a winepress? Fear of Midianites. Remember all the proofs he needed before he'd act? He still went! Faith. Take 32cBarak. He wouldn't go to war without Deborah. But he went & won against a fearsome general, Sisera. Faith. And 32dSamson. He's a Nazirite. Set apart. (Wine? Women? Haircuts? All no-no.) Yet he liked wine & women, & got captured, blinded, & enslaved. Through faith he pulled down the pillars of a pagan temple. And 32eJephthah. An illegitimate outcast, he conquers the Ammonites & is crowned king of Gilead. 32eDavid? A shepherd boy. With only a sling & stones, he killed a lion, bear, & Goliath. Faith. In time, he became king. And 32fSamuel? Even as a boy he could hear God more clearly than the high priest, Eli, his mentor. Take 32gthe rest of the prophets. Some were killed. All endured hard challenges. Faith. 33aThrough faith they conquered kingdoms. Elijah conquered Samaria. Jephthah conquered the Ammonites. Like Samuel & Deborah, many administered justice. Through faith, they gained what was promised. In this life or the next. Why? Even under the harshest pressure, they never turned away from God & received His promise 33cThey shut the mouths of lions. Daniel, safe in the hungry lions' den. Samson, who tore a lion apart, bare-handed. 34aShadrach, Meshach, & Abednego escaped the fury of the flames. David, Elijah, Elisha, & Jeremiah all 34bescaped the edge of the sword. 34cTheir weakness was turned to strength. God enabled them all to endure and display His glory. 34dLike Moses, Joshua, the judges, & David, through faith they became powerful in battle & routed foreign armies. For Elijah, then Elisha, 35awomen through faith received back their dead, raised to life again. All these men & women of faith experienced a miraculous deliverance. 35bOthers weren't so fortunate. They had faith. But God didn't choose to deal with them in the same way. 35cLike Paul, near the time of this letter's writing, some were tortured & refused to be released. They weren't delivered. But God honored their faith. We need to choose like Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego in Dan 3:17-18. 17"If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us & will rescue us from your hand. 18But even if he doesn't, O king, we won't serve your gods or worship the image of gold you've set up." If delivering His people glorifies God, He'll do so. If He chooses to be glorified by not delivering His people, He'll do that. Regardless, keep the faith. Trust & obey God, however he chooses. Why would these faith heroes choose to endure suffering? They were looking forward, at eternity. They endured 35dso they might gain a better resurrection. That's where our greatest rewards are. 36aSome faced jeers & flogging. Paul. 36bOthers were chained & put in prison. Jeremiah & Paul. 37aThey were stoned. Paul. 37bSawed in two. Isaiah. 37cPut to death by the sword. John the Baptist, beheaded. 37dThey went about in sheepskins & goatskins, destitute, persecuted & mistreated. Even today, many preachers have to have a 2nd job to survive. Every one of them had faith. God's view? 38aThe world wasn't worthy of them. Why? The world's appetite for power, violence, sex, & every other idol runs unchecked all through history. As Hebrews was written, Nero was killing Christians in all sorts of imaginative ways. Writings from that era say he put them on stakes, covered them with pitch, & burned them to light up the Forum's games. And in the "games," he dressed Christians in animal skins & threw them into an arena filled with hungry lions. Would the world stand up for faith under that pressure? Never. Unlike the world, faith heroes stand for their faith under the severest pressure. Even death. All over the Roman empire, faith heroes fled their homes to hide. 38bThey wandered in deserts & mountains, & in caves & holes in the ground. Anywhere to escape. 39aThey were all commended for their faith. Not by the world. But by God. Why? 39bNone received what was promised. And yet they stood firm. What motivated them? Faith. They had faith that 40God planned something better for us all. Only together with us will they be made perfect. They didn't fail in their faith. Because they didn't, they passed their hope on to each 'next' generation. From every age, they're waiting with us & for us. That's faith's promise. It we persevere in faith, & God's promise is handed down to the next generation. 1aWe're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. How so? Two ways. In every age, they died for faith & are a great cloud of examples to us. But they're also watching & cheering us on. With such a great audience, how can we do less? So, 1blet's keep throwing off everything that hinders. Don't choose between good & bad. Choose between better & best. Even good weights will slow us down. So, throw off whatever slows us down. Even if it looks good to others. (Or us.) Let's also throw off 1cthe sin that so easily entangles. Especially unbelief. (That's right. Sin.) It kept Israel out of the promised land. Guess what it'll do to us? Instead, practice looking to Jesus. Don't surrender. Keep looking to Him. Walk on the waves. As Paul starts wrapping up, so will we. 1dLet's keep running with perseverance the race marked out for us. Our race is a marathon. We will hit the wall. We'll stumble. We'll fall. How can we persevere when we do? Keep our eyes on the finish line. 2aLet's keep fixing our eyes on Jesus. Literally, he is the finish line. Keep our eyes on Him. Like Peter when he walked on water. Jesus is also 2bthe author & perfecter of our faith. As the pioneer of what faith looks like, He's it's author. As we keep our eyes on Him, He'll perfect faith in us. 2cFor the joy set before him, he endured the cross. For the joy set before us-Jesus, our finish line-keep the faith at all costs. Jesus 2dscorned the cross's shame. How? Why? Because He was faithful. Because He was, He received faith's reward. He 2esat down at the right hand of God's throne. He became The Son of Man from Dan 7:13-14. Our reward? Lk 2:29-30. Not only will He clothe us in His glory, He'll set us on thrones to rule with Him. Faith's Promise - Hebrews 11:29-12:2 Page 1 of 1