Hebrews 11:1-2
Please turn in your copy of the
Holy Scriptures to the New Testament book of Hebrews. Today we’ll
be in the passage of chapter 11 verses 1 and 2. Last week
we looked at 1 and 2 and two major phrases in that passage,
two key words, conviction and assurance. And we looked at what
is basically a description of faith. Today, from maybe a more
topical standpoint, we’ll be looking with resources like other
scriptures and our Westminster standards, more of a definition
of faith. And so today, let us give our
attention to God’s holy word from Hebrews 11, chapter verses
one and two. Now, faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, for by it
the people of old received their commendation. Amen. This is God’s word for us. Let’s
pray now and ask for his grace. Our God and heavenly father,
we thank you that you speak. We thank you that you speak with
thunder clarity. And we pray that as we sit under
the ministry of your word today, that we might leave this place
like Moses did upon the mountain with faces glowing from having
been in your presence, faces glowing from having been spoken
to by the God of the universe. We pray now that you would give
us ears to hear. eyes to see and hearts that understand
and perceive all that you mean for us so that we can live lives
of godliness before the watching world. And most of all, that
we may be found faithful when you come and that you may land
us safely on heaven’s shore, having finished the race faithfully
because our eyes were fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter
of our faith. Help us give us grace and bless
this hour in Christ’s name we pray. Amen. Well, Christmas is
four months away, and I’m sure that you don’t yet want to think
about it. But think of some of the songs we sing around Christmas
time. We sing, oh, little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie. And there’s a wonderful phrase
in that Christmas hymn, the hopes and fears of all the years are
met in thee, met in Jesus, met in thee tonight. Or we sing the
wonderful Christmas hymn, joy to the world, the Lord is come. And we sing that phrase in that
wonderful Christmas carol, no more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground. For Jesus comes to make his blessings
flow as far as the curse is found. These Christmas hymns remind
us of centuries of prophecy, centuries of God’s voice speaking
to his people, speaking to his church, speaking to his redeemed
ones, reminding them of the of the promises of the things that
would come to them. These things which the people
of old, these things which the people of old mentioned in Hebrews
11 were promised to them, they were far off. They were a twinkle
in their eye. They were a distant sight. And
hardly any of the things and blessings that we know related
to Christ, his coming, His person, his work, his life, his ministry. Hardly any of those things these
people knew of, yet they firmly believed in Messiah. They firmly
believed in Jesus who would come as the son of God and the savior
of sinners. We sing another Christmas song
that sort of characterizes what they must have gone through.
We sing, come thou long expected Jesus. born to set thy people
free. From our fears and our sins,
relieve us. Let us find our rest in thee.
Israel, strength and consolation, hope of all the earth, thou art. Dear desire of every nation,
joy of every loving heart, born thy people to deliver. Friends, this is what the people
of old looked to They look to Jesus, the little glimmer that
he was, the weak understanding of all that he would be and all
that he would do that they had. They look to Jesus by faith. And verse two tells us that by
their faith, by their belief in Jesus, by their hoping in
the promised Messiah, they received their commendation. God accepted
them as righteous in his sight because of their faith in Jesus.
And chapter 10 of the book of Hebrews reminded us over and
over not to shrink back, not to waver in our faith. In fact,
it challenged us to hold unswervingly to the tenets of the faith that
we once laid hold of, to continue to believe in Jesus. And after
chapter 10 comes chapter 11. It speaks of Abraham and Moses,
of Abel, of Sarah. It speaks of all the heroes of
the faith that we know of. It calls them the great cloud
of witnesses. And it says these people received
their commendation because they had faith in God and they maintained
their faith in God. They looked for the promises
that were to come and that when the going got tough, when life
got hard, when the promises of God seemed far enough, far off
or even never to come, they kept on believing in Jesus. They kept
their eyes on him. They trusted in God. And so after
we get through chapter 11, we’ll land on chapter 12, where it
tells us now, therefore, people of God, keep your eyes on Jesus. shed away any of the sin and
weight that clings before us and run the race that is set
before us, looking to Jesus, the author and the perfecter
of our faith. Last week, as we looked at chapter
11, verses one and two, we considered a description of faith. Faith
is the conviction of things not seen. Faith is the assurance
of things hoped for. And remember those two descriptions
basically told us this, we hold in our hand a deed to heaven. We don’t yet possess heaven,
but that deed, that title deed, that assurance of things hoped
for is ours. And as we make our way to heaven,
we have that deed in hand, the promises of God. And as we make
our way to heaven, we are assured that what God has said will be
true, that what God has promised will come to pass. But also that
faith is assurance of things not seen. It’s evidence. It’s proof. And God in his holy
word and by his precious promises and by the power and testimony
of the Holy Spirit at work in each of our lives and in the
life of his church throughout history, he promises us that
we have both title deed and evidence and proof that what he promises
will come to pass. It was a description of faith.
Today, we want to look at maybe a little bit more of a technical
or theological look at faith. And I want us to do so by reminding
ourselves of the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus was the long
expected Messiah. Jesus was the promised one. Jesus
is the one that the prophets, the law, the Psalms, and all
of the Old Testament spoke of. And though people knew very little
of who he is or what he would do, he was the promised one that
they must put their faith and hope in. Well, we live on this
side of the cross. We live on this side of the full
Bible written by God, by holy men of old who were inspired
by the Holy Spirit. And so we have the gospels. We
have Matthew, Mark and Luke and John. We have the testimony of
eyewitnesses who declare to us under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit that this is Jesus. This is who he is and what he
has done. One of the things we read of
in the life of Jesus, and we read it with great interest,
are all the miracles that he performed. If you take out your
copy of God’s word, just in 15 minutes, you can scan the gospels
and you can see that Jesus did two main things. He touched and
he healed, or he spoke and he healed. He healed blind eyes
and deaf ears. He fixed withered hands. He made
legs and feet that did not work walk again. He made blind eyes
see. He fixed mouths that were mute
and dumb. He healed the sick. He lifted
up the oppressed. He healed the chronically ill.
And he removed demons from those often for many years possessed
by them. He commanded the wind and the
waves and they stood still. He cast demons out and unclean
spirits. He made the dead to rise again.
He took bread and fish and fed 5,000. On another occasion, he
fed 4,000. He served the poor. He served
the desperate. He served the rich. He served
the old and he served the young with his touch and with his voice. And in many of the cases in the
Gospels, when you read of Jesus performing these miracles, he
would often say to the person who came to him for this salvation,
he would say, go, your faith has made you well. And so we
see over and over in the Old Testament, as well as in the
life and ministry of Jesus, that it is our faith in Jesus that
makes us well. It is our faith in Jesus that
commends us to God. The way that sinners are saved
is by faith in Jesus Christ. Now we look at these miracles
Jesus performed. The feeding of the 5,000 inspires
us to be caterers, doesn’t it? Or healing the sick. It sends
out all these wackos, I guess we have to call them, who are
touching people in Jesus’ name and becoming richer by the moment.
But why was Jesus doing these things? Was he the first televangelist? Was he the first one to perform
signs and wonders and to make good money off of it? No. He
was showing the power of God. And God, through Jesus, doing
these things was showing that Jesus is truly the son of God. But even more to the point and
to our own natures, to our own lives, Jesus was healing us of
our real problems. You see, it’s one thing to be
blind and not see. but it’s another to be blind
and not see Jesus. It’s one thing to be leprous
and to be cast out of the people of God because you are unclean
and you will infect the rest of the church. And it’s one thing
to have your skin healed and to appear before the high priest
and him to declare you clean, but it’s another thing to be
made clean inside. And so we see that the miracles
of Jesus, yes, he healed bodies. Yes, he moved heaven and earth.
But his real miracle is that he saves sinners. His real miracle
is that he gives our souls, which are dirty and stained and destroyed
by sin, he gives them new life. He heals us of our sin and our
diseases, and he declares us righteous in the sight of Almighty
God. He saves us. And so the real miracle is that
he gives new birth. The real miracle is that he takes
dead people and gives them life. Do you remember in Ezekiel chapter
37, there was the valley of dry bones and God says to those bones,
live. And as we’ll see in next week’s
passage in verse three, God can speak. And he can create the
world. God can speak and he can sustain
the world. God can speak and he can give
new life to that which is dead. And friends, we have an amazing
savior who performs these miracles. And God says to us, have faith
in him. That’s why every Sunday we pray
before we preach, God give us eyes to see. God, give us ears
to hear. God, give us hearts that understand
and desire the gospel truth. God, fill us full with your grace
that we may live out of it until we land safely in heaven. So
what is faith? Well, faith, I believe, is three
things today that will help us understand our walk with Jesus.
The first thing about faith that we should understand is Faith
is seeing Jesus. Faith is seeing Christ Jesus. How did you first hear of Jesus?
How did you first hear of Christ? How did you first know that he
is the savior of sinners? For some people, they picked
up a Bible and they read it. For others, they heard it from
their parents. They were in Sunday school in
church. They never knew a day when they were apart from their
savior and his people. For others, it was under the
ministry of an evangelist, maybe someone like Billy Graham. For
others, it was a friend who took you to lunch or coffee or pulled
you aside and said, you look miserable. I have hope for you. And that hope is in Jesus Christ.
But how is it that you came to the knowledge? of who Jesus really
is. How did you actually see Jesus
and perceive him? Well, maybe you read of him in
the Bible and realized he’s the savior of the world, that he
is the Christ, the anointed one. He’s the son of God. He is the
king of the universe, the king of all kings. He’s the substitute
lamb who died in the place of sinners. He’s the Messiah. He’s
the promised one. He is the ultimate Davidic king
where we see failure after failure in Saul and David and Solomon
and all the rest who would follow. But Jesus is the ultimate king. We see him as our shepherd, our
mediator. We see him as the second Adam,
where first Adam failed to bear the image of God and to obey
God fully. Jesus bears the image of God
well and has obeyed God perfectly. We see in Jesus the love and
mercy and kindness of God, as well as his justice and his wrath
and his punishment. As one writer in our modern day
times has said, we see God as a prodigal God, a God who is
prodigious in pouring out his love upon us. But what did it
take for you to see Jesus? What did it take for you to see
that Jesus was the solution to your problems? One of the questions
we ask for membership in this congregation is, do you recognize
yourself to be a sinner in God’s sight? and that you justly deserve
his wrath and his curse and his judgment and the eternal pain
and punishment and separation from God and hell itself? That’s
a big question. And only one who sees Jesus can
answer that question and say, I know the solution to my problems. Think about blind Bartimaeus
calling out for Jesus. He couldn’t see him, but he knew
that he needed him. Or how about Zacchaeus? He climbed
a tree so that he could see Jesus and call out to him. You see,
these were those who knew they had a problem. And their problem
was sin. Their problem was wickedness.
Yes, it may have manifested itself in blindness or cripple or withered
hand or chronic illness, whatever the case may be. But they saw
Jesus as the solution to life’s greatest problems. I mean, yes,
Jesus healed their blindness. He stopped their flows of blood. He unwithered their hands. He
made their legs and feet work again. But he saved their souls. eternally. But these people saw
Jesus. They ran to him. They called
out to him by the roadside. They climbed trees in order to
see them. Their friends let them down through
the roof in order that he might touch them and heal them. Friends,
I hope you see Jesus. I hope you see that he has performed
a miracle in your life. If you recognize him as the savior
of sinners, is the king of the universe and the one who died
in your place for your trespasses. If you are a Christian, you have
been made alive in Christ. You are no longer dead in your
sins and trespasses. God has given you eyes to see
and ears to hear. And for each of you who truly
knows Christ, this happened to you personally. You saw Jesus
and you called his name. And like blind Bartimaeus, you
said, Jesus, son of David, come and heal me. Well, seeing Jesus
is one of the aspects of faith we should understand. And it’s
a great one. But embracing Jesus is the second
aspect of faith that we should call attention to and put forever
in our minds and hearts. We see Jesus, but then we embrace
him. Think on all who came to Jesus,
the blind, the leprous, the possessed, those unable to walk or to even
get off of their mats and come to him. People came to Jesus
on their behalf and said, save my friend, heal my daughter. My daughter has died. Come raise
her from the dead. My servant has fallen sick. On
and on and on. We see people coming to Jesus
because they have a need. They’re sick. They’re weary.
They’re wounded. They’re dying. Oh, they’re dead. And they come
to Jesus because not only do they see Jesus with their eyes
and their spiritual eyes, they come to him because they have
embraced him as the only way of salvation. He is the solution
to their problems. You think about a friend or a
loved one or maybe even you who have been diagnosed with cancer. You know, when cancer strikes
or some great illness like that, we get on our computers And we
go and we research and we find the best physician who has a
track record of healing. We do not entrust our cancer
to the amateurs. We do not entrust our potential
life and death issue with one who may or may not be able to
heal us. We go and we find the greatest
physician possible. We go to MD Anderson in Houston. We drive to Charlotte. We go
to Baltimore. We go to John Hopkins. We go
far and wide to the right place with the right person, with the
right answers to our great problems. And friends, the only place we
can go for salvation is to Jesus, but we must see him. and then
embrace him. One of the songs we very often
sing in this congregation is come ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore. Come ye thirsty, come ye weary,
come ye heavy laden, lost and wounded by the fall. Jesus stands
ready to save you, full of pity, love and power. If you tarry
till you’re better, if you Look at your own fitness. You will
never come at all for all that he requires. All the fitness
he requires is that you feel your need of him. And so, friends,
we see Jesus as our savior, but we embrace him as the God of
the gospel, the savior of sinners, the mediator, the substitute,
the lamb, the only one who can save us. The chorus to that hymn
says, I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in
his arms. Friends, we must too embrace
Jesus. We must say with all our heart,
I am sick, I am sinful, I am weak, I am wounded, I am broken
by the fall, and there is no hope, no help for me save Jesus
Christ. And we must embrace Jesus as
he is offered in the gospel. I don’t want to get off on a
soapbox, but I think I feel I must say this. We live in a world. In a culture that is reinventing
Jesus, just read the editorials in our newspaper, just read the
mission of every church that has gotten off the railroad tracks
in our nation, they have made a designer Jesus. But friends,
the only Jesus we know and can embrace is the one offered to
us in the gospel. It’s the one who comes to us
and says, yes, you are blind. Yes, you are leprous. Yes, you
are oppressed by demons. Yes, you are wicked and weak
and wounded and busted and broken and beat up by the fall of man
and the curses of sin. And Jesus is both able to save
your body but especially your soul, but not the designer Jesus
that’s out in the world, not the Jesus that we have invented
in our own minds. Remember the 10 commandments.
God says, do not make an idol for yourself. And do you remember
what happened when the Israelites left Egypt? They formed and fashioned a golden
calf and they bowed down before it, dancing and whooping and
hollering. And it sounded like the war cry and Moses heard it
up on the mountain and Aaron too. And they were angry because
they were dancing and singing before this mute, still inanimate
object. And they were saying to it, you
are the one who brought us out of Egypt. What an offense to
Yahweh that is. What an offense to Almighty God
is. And friends, what an offense it is to Jesus to reinvent him. He is the savior of sinners.
He is the savior of sinners who see their sickness and their
sin and their need of a savior. He is the savior of those who
see and embrace. Have you noticed every week there’s
some things that I say the same way over and over. And you may
say, gosh, the preacher said the same old thing today. Well,
sometimes I’m just gonna say the same old thing. But after
we confess our sins, I say, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who truly by faith are resting in Christ alone for your
salvation. God absolves you. He forgives
you of your sins. So if you truly embrace the Jesus
of the gospels, the Christ of the Bible, he is indeed your
savior. And he says, we only must trust
in him. We only must rest in him alone
for our salvation. This Jesus is the Jesus of the
covenant of grace. This Jesus is the one who has
come in his person and in his work has saved you. And so, friends,
do you see Jesus? Do you pursue him down the path?
Do you climb the tree in order that you might call out to him?
Because simply this, he can meet your needs and you embrace him
as he’s offered in the gospel. So one aspect of faith is that
we see Jesus. Another aspect of faith is that
we embrace Jesus. But there’s a third aspect of
faith, and it’s the one our passage in Hebrews for week after week
has been persuading us to do. And it’s simply this. We walk
with Jesus. Yes, we see him. Of course we
embrace him, but friends, we walk with Jesus. And that’s what
we do the rest of our lives. Jesus said to his disciples when
he met them, follow me. He didn’t say, I’m glad you’ve
recognized me as savior. Go on your merry way, live life
as you were living and keep on doing. You’re doing a great job.
No, he said, deny yourself. take up your cross, leave your
father and mother, put aside your riches, put aside every
worldly gain and follow me. And so seeing Jesus, embracing
Jesus, but walking with Jesus are important aspects of our
faith. Did you notice if you read through
the gospels and you’ve read account after account of Jesus healing
the blind and making the lame to walk, healing the leprous,
many of them, It says very specifically. They followed Jesus, and so we
are able to tell from that not only do they receive healing
from their leprosy or their blindness or whatever the case, but they
then followed Jesus. They could not stay away from
the one who saved them. They could not live a life apart
from him without serving him. And so, friends, we have to have
the faith to follow him. We have to see and embrace Jesus,
but we have to hear him say, go, your faith has healed you,
and follow him. We sing, I have decided to follow
Jesus. No turning back. If anyone is
in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the
blindness, the crippledness, the witheredness, unhealthy skin, all those things
are gone and new has come. He’s given you everything new.
And so what is our task in following Jesus? Well, it’s to worship
him. It’s to get in the word, to receive the sacraments, to
be a praying Christian, to be a suffering Christian, to be
an obedient Christian, to be a Christian who trembles when
God speaks, to be a Christian who over and over embraces the
gospel, to be a Christian who repents when he’s wrong. It’s
to be weak. It’s to be strong, it’s to be
growing and it’s to be moving on towards victory. One of the
things you notice in the New Testament, when the Apostle Paul
preaches the gospel and people get converted out of pagan Roman
era culture. He essentially says to them what
we say in our modern language, bloom where you’re planted. He’s
saying to them, be who you are, where God has already had you. Serve the Lord, but now as a
converted person, as a new creation. Yes, we hate what is evil. We
forsake our past ways. We hold fast to that which is
good. We repent. We turn from those evil ways.
But there is an endeavor to follow Jesus. In our shorter catechism,
it says what is required by God to escape his wrath and curse?
Well, it’s faith in Jesus Christ. It’s repentance unto life. And
it’s an endeavor, a new endeavor, a desire to serve and live for
him. And it’s also included in that
shorter catechism that we put ourselves in the path of the
ways God grows Christians. And that’s word, it’s sacrament,
it’s prayer, it’s fellowship, and it’s suffering together as
the church. And so we bloom where we’re planted, but we move together
with the church. We love God, we love neighbor,
we worship, we serve in our various callings. One of the things,
though, we notice that the Bible teaches is God calls us to a
fruitful life, a life that bears fruit before the watching world.
And so what is this challenge from Hebrews 11? It’s to live
by faith. A faith that sees Jesus. A faith
that embraces Jesus. but a faith that follows Jesus
wherever he sends us, wherever he goes, we go with him. And
friends, he gives you that faith as a gift and he gives you the
tools and the food and the energy and the fuel for the journey
by giving you his church, his word, his sacraments, his prayer
and fellowship and suffering together. And so let me encourage
you by words from the book of Hebrews from chapter 10. Let us consider how to stir one
another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together. This is the habit of some, but
encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing
near to keep our eyes on Jesus and to stay near the one who
has healed us. Pray with me. Our gracious God,
we thank you that you give us eyes to see and ears to hear
and hearts to understand. Thank you for showing us Jesus.
and giving us the grace to embrace him as he so freely offered to
us in the gospel of our holy scriptures. And we pray now that
you would help us to live lives of faith as we follow him through
the world on our way to heaven. We ask for your help and blessing
and grace in Jesus name we pray. Amen.