12th Sunday after Pentecost
August 22, 2004
Hebrews 11:1-16

^11:1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ²This is what the ancients were commended for.

³By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

⁴By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

⁵By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹By faith Abraham, even though he was past age-- and Sarah herself was barren-- was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹²And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

¹³All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (NIV).

Faith Gives the Power to Persevere.

  I assume that all of you have watched some of the Olympic Games on television this past week. It is truly amazing what some of these athletes can do! Ever think about how much time they must spend training? They repeat exercises and motions thousands and thousands of times for hours a day almost every day of the year. They have great perseverance! They must persevere if they are to reach their goal of an Olympic medal.

  Such perseverance is a must if you want to attain a lofty goal. If you want to be a great athlete, musician or singer, if you want to get top marks at school or have the best rock collection, you must persevere in your efforts or you will never reach the goal. And for some of those things, perseverance is very hard: long hours of seeking, practicing and training.

  Now there is one goal for which we all need great perseverance: eternal life. Anyone who wishes to see the resurrection of the dead must persevere in faith in Christ. Jesus warned us that it would not be easy. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22). The apostle Paul spoke of his struggle to persevere in the Faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, . . . But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philemon 3:10-14).

  You see that it's not always easy to persevere in the faith, to stand firm against opposition or to forget the past and forge ahead on the road of holiness. Many people fail to persevere in the faith. For example, for many years, the Missouri Synod has averaged so called back-door losses of about 50,000 communicant members per year. Some of them go to other churches, but that still leaves tens of thousands of people every year who cease to persevere in the faith and leave the church. Furthermore, only about 50% of the children we baptize ever get confirmed. Again, tens of thousands of children annually no longer persevere in the faith. Our culture makes it very easy to just quietly slip out the back door of the church and never come back!

  Now you may wonder why I'm talking about perseverance when the reading was about faith. That's because the context—the reason for the whole chapter on faith—is the need for perseverance. The letter to the Hebrews, like Paul's letter to the Galatians, was sent to people who were beginning to give up their trust in Christ. So the author wrote to demonstrate the superiority of faith in Christ above any other faith, and to urge his readers to persevere. Here are the words leading up to our text. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. (Hebrews 10:36-39).

  Living by faith in Christ is the way for us to persevere and reach our goal of the promised eternal life. That's why the writer of this letter discusses faith. Faith is the power that allows us to persevere.

  Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. Here is the nature of faith: being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not yet see. Being sure of what we hope for means that we are not making wishes upon a star. Neither are we choosing one of a billion possible combinations of numbers in some lottery. Those things are not faith; they are dreams. You could never have any rational feeling of assurance that Pinocchio will turn into a real boy or that you will win the big lottery. You may wish and dream those things, but you can't be sure of them, you can't count on them.

  Faith is the assurance that what Christ has promised he will do. Faith is an inner knowledge that God keeps his promises. It is then a sort of inner proof that things yet unseen will materialize. Being a sort of certainty, knowledge and proof, a trust in God, faith acts. It is a power that makes us live in accord with our hopes and press on to attain the resurrection from the dead. Faith is a power that enables us to do amazing things and for which God commends us. Consider the examples we just read.

  By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Augustine said, "I believe that I might understand." Faith allows us to understand things of which the world is ignorant. Confidence in God, the assurance that he speaks only truth gives us the proof we need to understand that God is the Creator of all things. Because we understand that God created all things, we understand that he is all powerful. He can do all things including that for which we wait, the resurrection of the dead.

  By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. Abel offered a sacrifice to God sure of his hope that God would accept it. He had that inner proof that the unseen God would be gracious to him. Cain apparently had no such certainty and hope. He merely did what Abel did but without faith. So Cain's offering was rejected and Abel's was accepted. God commended Abel for his faith and that faith still speaks to us today as we hear of it.

  People often wonder if Abel's offering was acceptable because it was a lamb and Cain's unacceptable because it was only vegetable matter. What they offered was of little importance. Faith made the difference. Abel made his offering by faith whereas Cain made his by some other attitude.

  By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Enoch pleased God because of his faith, that is, his confidence in God. So by faith Enoch just went to heaven!

  By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. Faith allowed Noah to believe God's warning about the flood and do something! Noah was sure God would do what he said even though it was something that had never been seen before. If we are correct in interpreting the Genesis text to mean that there were 120 years between the time God warned about the flood and the actual flood, then Noah had a long time to persevere! Yet by faith he did persevere and build what everyone else must have considered a useless tub. So by faith, Noah and his family lived and everyone else was condemned. By faith he was declared righteous.

  By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age-- and Sarah herself was barren-- was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

  Look at what Abraham did by faith. Sure of what he hoped for, certain of what he didn't see, he answered God's call and went to a land he didn't know. That same faith enabled him to live there as a foreigner and later to have a child by his sterile wife Sarah. Abraham considered God faithful to his promise and so attained the promise, at least the part that could be had at that time.

  All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

  Here is the most surprising aspect of all these people. They died waiting for something. They died in faith, that is, sure of what they hoped for, certain of what they didn't yet see. They hoped for a heavenly city. They hoped to be taken into God's presence, to be freed from the effects of sin and to become immortal. That hasn't happened yet. But they all lived and died fully certain that it would! They lived and died by faith, sure of what they hoped for, certain of what they did not see. That is why they were commended by God and presented to us as examples to imitate.

  And there is the key to our own perseverance: imitating these others. The resurrection of all people has not yet taken place and that causes people to doubt and abandon faith in Christ. We get tired of waiting. Others mock us and say, "Where is this Christ who is coming to judge the living and the dead?" We need perseverance. And so we are told to look on these examples of people who lived by faith. They are only part of the list in Hebrews chapter 11. Yet they show us that confidence in God is not misplaced. They show us that faith gives the power to persevere and attain the goal.

  Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Why can we be certain of what we hope for? Because the Scriptures tell us of God's faithfulness in the past. And we have more information that Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham! They were waiting for the Saviour to come. We know of his life, death and resurrection. Since Jesus rose from the dead, our own hope of resurrection is made certain. We are sure of that for which we hope, certain that what has not yet happened will happen. That's faith! That faith is what gives us the strength to persevere.

  Understand that such faith is based on God's words and deeds. It's not confidence in ourselves or even the heroes of the past. It's confidence in God. But note also that this faith does something in us. It enables us to keep the faith even when the world around us hates it, denies and ridicules it. Being sure of that for which we hope allows us to confess Christ, to confess the truth of the Gospel in all circumstances. This faith causes us to think, speak and act in ways consistent with the truth. Certain of Christ's promise to return for us, we consider ourselves strangers on earth. We are people looking for a better world, a heavenly perfect one. Our attachment to this world is very loose. Our peace, hope and joy don't wax and wane with our fortunes here. Treasure here means very little in the end. We're waiting for the city God has prepared.

  Yes, you and I need to persevere in faith in Christ. We need to boldly maintain our confession of the truth. To do so, we need to be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That certainty comes from God's Word, his promises and his acts. So consider Abel, Enoch, Noah Abraham and the others in this chapter. By faith they lived and died and now wait for us!