LAUGH 'N LEARN

An Encouragement Ministry of Verde Valley Christian Church Of Cottonwood Arizona
http://vvchristianchurch.net

Issue # 363    February 22,  2010

LAUGH

LEARN

Jim's Manuscript

February 21, 2010

"A Twist In The List"

"Better In Every Way"-- Hebrews (Part 11)

Text:  Hebrews 11

A Video Riddle (created by Matt Shires based on this idea):  What pleases God more than the sight of 10,000 butterflies in flight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom, or Beethoven's ninth Symphony, the Sistine Chapel, or any number of great human achievements offered to God?  Answer:  The splendor of a human heart that trusts God.  Trust is our gift back to God.

Focus:  There is nothing that pleases God more than your trust.

Visual Illustration:  The Trust Fall, a demonstration of trust with an 8 year old child, blindfolded and willing to fall backward to be caught, first from the floor, then even from a chair.

Hebrews 11 Presents The "By Faith" List of Examples (3-38)

The phrase "by faith" occurs 22 times in this chapter in the New International Translation.  As I read the chapter, notice the phrase "By Faith".  You might also look for what I call the "Twist in the List". 

READ HEBREWS 11

I.        Trust Is Confidence In What We Cannot See (1-2)

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

Even when things seem hopeless, faith is confident. 

The term translated "being sure" in the NIV, translates the Greek word "hypostasis".  Here is the meaning of the word from The Complete Biblical Library Greek-English Dictionary:  The Underlying essence, nature, reality; confidence, conviction, assurance, steadfastness.  This "being sure" denotes the "reality behind the appearances".

The meaning is that though what we see on the outside that the apparent evidence is hopeless, we know, and are sure, that there is more to it than what we can now see.  There is an underlying essence of what God is doing that is REAL and gives us hope, an assurance for the future. 

Though the blessings promised are not yet fully revealed, FAITH is CONVINCED these are realities that will be revealed.

What is permanent and eternal?

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV) So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV) We live by faith, not by sight.

o      By Faith We Believe God (3)

³ 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.

We believe God is our creator.  God formed the universe by command.

This statement was in contrast to the prevailing views of the Greco-Roman world that believed matter was eternally preexistent.  The Bible view fits more closely with the modern scientific view that the Universe has a beginning.  In the beginning God said, and "Bang" it was!  This makes much better sense to me than, "Once upon a time, there was nothing, then "Bang!" everything came into existence by an explosion we can't explain, that was caused by ....nothing.  It just happened that way."

By Faith WE understand that the universe was formed at God's command.

By Faith THEY understand that the universe began without explanation.  How?  They don't know.  Why?  They don't know.  What was before the universe?  They don't know.  They say these questions are not answerable by science.  Yet, they try to tell us their answer is fact, not faith.  I don't think so.  It is faith. 

What do you trust?  And why?  Who do you trust?  And why? 

Atheistic Scientism views the universe as a closed system of empirical evidence that can ONLY be observed and studied by our 5 senses.  They view the universe as a closed box.  This is their presupposition.  But the moment they say the box had a beginning and we ask the question what caused the box, the lid is off the box.  You can't answer these questions within a closed system.  There must be answers outside of the system.  That's precisely where the Bible begins. 

Genesis 1:1 (NIV) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

You must begin with this presupposition also if you want your faith to grow.  God is not in confined to the box.  He is eternal.  He stands outside the box, created it.  And entered it, and cares for it.  There is more to life than meets the eye, or ear, or any other of our limited senses. 

o      By Faith Abel (4)

⁴ 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.

Genesis tells us so little about why Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's was not.  There are many guesses.  One guess is that God commanded animal sacrifice, and Cain resented it, since he was not a herdsman but a tiller of the ground.  Cain wanted to offer the best he had, not the best Abel had. 

What we do know is that God approved of Abel's offering and disapproved of Cain's offering.  But how did Cain know that?  Did he know it because the approval was audible?  Or was the approval manifested as it was in later history by fire from heaven, consuming the one offering and leaving the other untouched.  Whatever happened, it was obvious to Cain that his offering was rejected, and Abel's was accepted.  Why?  The Bible tells us Abel responded by faith, Cain did not.  Abel pleased God, and Cain did not.  I think Cain was making up his own way.  A do it yourself approach that "seemed" right to him.

We do know this truth:  The way of WORKS is NOT approved, and the way of obedient trust/FAITH is approved.  It is quite possible, Cain's do it yourself approach ends up being a manmade effort, a works, to gain approval.  Abel's faith/trust approach was approved.

Cain in his jealousy kills Abel.  And although Abel died, he still speaks.  What Abel could not seem to teach Cain in life, while dead his life speaks loudly to the whole world.  If you want God's approval, trust God, do things God's way, don't make up your own way.

o      By Faith Enoch  (5)

⁵ 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.

Genesis 5:18-24 tells us in the genealogies that Enoch "walked with God, and he was not, for God took him."

The Septuagint (a 250 BC Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) which the writer has quoted consistently throughout Hebrews translates "walked with God" in the Greek with "he pleased God".  That's why we read what we do here in Hebrews 5:5.  God wants a walking talking relationship with us.  Walking with God pleases him.  Walking our own path, going our own way, displeases and dishonors our creator.  We are not our own god to determine our own path.  We are creatures who live best when we live according to God's design, walking with God, depending on God, talking to God, trusting God.  Enoch did this.  God approved.  Enoch was ushered directly into heaven bypassing death's door as a manifestation of God's approval.  This happened to only two people in history.  Enoch and Elijah went to God without dying.  Some early church fathers believed these two are the two witnesses that return to the Earth in the end times as described in Revelation 11, where they are slain and raised to life, but that's another study and theory. 

The main point here is that FAITH is TRUST and dependence, doing things God's way because you trust him.

II.       Trust Pleases God (5-6)

"Without Faith... (6)

⁶ 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.

Demons "believe" God is one, (James 2:19) but Hebrews 11 kind of "FAITH" is not merely a mental belief or understanding.  It is a trust, a dependence, earnestly seeking God, rewarded by connecting with God and "walking with God".  All of this, God determines to reward.

Put in the negative:  Without this kind of faith-trust it is impossible to please God.

It is impossible to please God with ONLY academic theological mental assent that does not change our hearts, or does not cause us to want to draw near and come to him as a way of life.  It is impossible to please God if we do not come to him, draw near to him, and connect with him. 

How can such a pleasing connection with the Holy God happen?  How can we draw near to God?  Hebrews has been showing us how, and it is on God's terms, through the once for all perfect sacrifice that we draw near.  These are HIS terms.

Yet, Drawing near to God is not to be viewed in narrow terms as only coming in worship like in a worship service, or a tabernacle service.  Drawing near, or coming to God is something we do like Enoch, in our everyday walk.  And it is made possible because of Jesus.

Do we come near to God at work, and in leisure?  Do we draw near to God in how we do life?  It is impossible to please God if we are just doing our own thing, as if we are our own gods.  We are not.  He is God, we are creature, and faith expresses itself in right trusting relationship, depending upon God for all God's gifts of grace. 

A.      God Rewards Trust

⁶ 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.

Sometimes God's Rewards are Now

Every other Tuesday, Maria Lopez would come to clean my house.

Maria always arrived like a bubble of energy determined to restore order to my universe, scrubbing as though it were an act of worship.

As we became acquainted, I learned that Maria was a pastor's daughter from Peru who had no family in the United States. I had only been a Christian a few years and appreciated Maria's enthusiastic faith. She prayed out loud while she cleaned, and sang praise songs in Spanish while she scrubbed. She praised Jesus everywhere she went.

One Tuesday, Maria didn't show up for work. I anticipated seeing her cheery face the following day. But no one came.

When she didn't arrive the next day, I called. No one answered the phone.

This is so unlike her, I thought. She's so reliable. There must be a good reason.

On the third day, a nurse called to say Maria was at the hospital. Alarmed, I cut some flowers and drove to Northridge Hospital to find out what was wrong. I found Maria sitting up in bed, rocking back and forth with her head encased in a heavy iron cage resting on her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Touching her arm gently, I held out the flowers. She clutched them to her chest.

"What's that around your head, Maria?"

"Oooh, Meessus," she moaned, touching the iron contraption, "it is the torture of Satan."

Puzzled, I turned to the nurse. She explained, "It's called a halo. It's screwed and bolted directly into the skull in four different places. It isn't pleasant."

"How long must you wear it?" I asked Maria.

"Five months, my doctor say, maybe. But Meessus, you tell him, Maria, she no live five months with thees in her head. She die. You tell him, yes?"

"I'll talk to him, Maria. Anything else I can do for you?"

"Yes, Meessus. My Bible." She pointed to the bedside table. "Please, you read to me."

"Sure, Maria."

I started reading John 14. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

Out in the corridor, I found Maria's doctor. "Why is she wearing that hideous device?" I asked him.

"Because, to put it simply, if she didn't," he said, "her head would fall off. Maria has cancer. Her neck bones have degenerated to the point where they can no longer support her head."

"Can they be repaired? Or regenerated?" He shook his head gravely.

"It means we can't ever take it off. Maria will have to get used to living with it."

Every week when I visited, Maria asked me to pray with her and read from the Bible. She always requested the same chapter from the New Testament: John 14. Weeks turned into months. The heavy metal halo was crippling.

During one visit, months after being admitted to the hospital, Maria clutched my hands and whispered, "God tells Maria it won't be long. Soon, he say, we take this off."

Before I left the hospital, I stopped at the nurses' desk to ask how much longer Maria would be there. A nurse said they were preparing papers to release [her]. Maria doesn't have insurance of enough money to stay in the hospital. That's why they're releasing her.

Maria panicked when the doctor told her she must leave. "No! You take new x-ray." Touching the halo she cried, "You take this torture from me! I no leave with this!"

"There is really no point," he insisted. "Nothing has changed."

When I returned to the hospital two days later to pick up Maria, I was surprised to find her sitting in a chair, beaming ear to ear. "I no leave today," she said.

"Why not, Maria? Have you had your x-ray?"

"Yes. But I stay until they take this off." She rolled her eyes toward the halo.

Hasn't anyone told Maria what will happen when they take the halo off? It was my turn to panic. I can't tell her. Her despair will be overwhelming.

I cornered the doctor. "She won't leave until you take the halo off. What do we do?"

"We'll take it off," he replied.

"You said her head will roll off without it!"

Suddenly, Maria's doctor began acting strangely. He looked left and right, then muttered in low tones, "It won't roll. The x-ray we took this morning indicated her neck bones have regenerated."

"You said that was impossible."

"It is impossible."

I shook my head, confused. "Were the original x-rays a mistake?"

"Not at all. They're here for anyone to see."

"So?"

Before answering, the doctor sighed. "So there are things I can't explain. Her bones have regenerated, and they are strong enough to hold her head. That's all I know."

"Doctor! Is this a miracle?"

"I don't know about miracles, that's Maria's department. She tells me Jesus healed her."

Adapted from Barbara Royce Extract, "Maria and the Halo," Christian Reader (Jul/Aug 2001), p. 63

B.      These Rewards Are Gifts not Merits

He rewards this kind of faith.  These rewards are blessings, gifts, elements of grace received because of Jesus and our connection with him.  All the merits are his.  We simply trust.

Now in this chapter you will notice that Faith and Obedience work together.  You will even see the connection between this Faith/Obedience with reward.  However, we must be careful here.  This does not mean that our faith/obedience MERITS reward, even though rewards are given.  Faith/Trust is the appropriate response to the Good that God has done, and the promises God gives us.  Faith is the appropriate connecting response to God's Grace.  It is not a work that merits anything.  Nevertheless, God has determined to reward such a response of trust.  Rewards are also his Grace.

o      By Faith Noah  (7)

⁷ 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.

Noah trusted what God said.  Noah trusted enough to look like a fool.  He had to build a huge boat on dry land, far inland.  Also, it is probable that in Noah's day, the earth was vastly different from the earth as it is now.  Genesis 2:5-6 tells us there was a period of time on earth where there was no rain.

Genesis 2:5-6 (NIV) ⁵ and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶ but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground--

Things were watered from the waters beneath, and the "waters above" formed kind of a greenhouse canopy over the earth.  So when God said it was going to rain, this was a new thing.  He was bringing down cataclysmic changes upon the earth with the bursting of the waters below, and the waters above. 

I tell you all this, because to the unbelieving people of Noah's day, Noah's behavior was strange to say the least.  I'm sure he tried to explain, "God is going to judge the earth and it will rain and flood".  His neighbors scoffed, "What's rain?" 

It is very dangerous when our "understanding" gets in the way of our believing God. 

C.      Trust is Better Than Understanding

Noah didn't "understand" before he believed and trusted.  He trusted God, without any idea how and what God was going to do.  His trust directed him to action--hard laborious action in the face of the jeers of the crowd!  They thought the story Noah told was ludicrous.  Here he is, far inland, far from water, building this monstrosity of a ship.  They did not believe.  Noah believes.  He is not deterred.  It was by contrast that Noah's life condemns the generation that rejected his warnings!

Like Noah, the believers that this epistle to the Hebrews addresses have received new information from God.  What they believe seems strange to their neighbors.  "You believe what?  How can a man be God?  How can you believe he rose from the dead?"  They scoffed, and mocked.  The question was, would these believing Hebrews now persevere as Noah did, or would they clam up, shut up, and drift back quietly into being "normal" instead of sticking out?

Consider Noah.  Faith and obedience are not two different things, they are one in the same.  If you trust God, you will do what he says.  If you don't, you won't. 

God warned Noah about what was coming.  Nobody saw it coming but God.  Noah believed God about things unseen.  Noah was sure about things hoped for (that God would save him) and he was certain about what he couldn't see (judgment was coming).  Do you believe God?

APPLICATION:  Do you believe God?  If you are not sure whether you believe in God or not, here is what you do.  Get to know Jesus.  Start to obey what he says.  While you start to do what he says, try to figure out who he is.  Then God says let's talk.  If you start living the way Jesus says, you are going to start to trust him.  And as you start to trust him, you are going to begin to believe his claims.  Everything is going to change. 

o      By Faith Abraham (8-12)

⁸ 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. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  ¹¹ 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. ¹² 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. 

o      By Faith Abraham (continued) (17-19)

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸ even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." ¹⁹ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

Like Abraham, we too will be TESTED (11:17)

And the Hebrew believers were being tested for their faith.  Would they obey? 

Did not the test God put to Abraham sound outrageous and destructive to the promise?  So also, the test being put to the Hebrew believers felt outrageous and destructive. 

As Abraham obeyed without calling into question God's goodness or wisdom, the Hebrews also ought to obey without calling into question God's goodness in the midst of their persecution.  The same reasoning applies.  God has a plan; he can raise from the dead those who are being killed.  Was it right for God to allow such anguish?  Abraham's triumphant faith encourages us to fix our faith on hope whatever the trial that befalls us. 

D.      Trust Produces Obedience

⁸ By faith Abraham, when called ..., obeyed and went

·       Faith produces obedience even when you don't know what will result from your obedience.

·       Even when you don't know the where, or the why, or the how, trust obeys.

·       True faith leads to decisive actions.

·       It wasn't just a command to obey, it was a promise to lay hold of the yet to be seen fulfillment of God's promise.

·       It is hard to give up what we have, to grasp what we cannot see, but that is what Abraham did.

·       It is the same call Jesus issues: 

Luke 9:23 (NIV) Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Abraham is the illustration of 11:1,  He was "sure of what he hoped for" and this was combined with a "certainty of what he could not see."

Genesis 23:4 (NIV) "I am an alien and a stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead."

Abraham did not have land.  He was a sojourner.  He believed he would receive his inheritance, yet, while he lived, he didn't yet have the promises in hand.  He had no inherited land yet, to call his own. 

Acts 7:5 (NIV) He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.

It is one thing to leave everything and strive toward a goal, but think how difficult it was for Abraham when he arrives at his goal, the land of promise, but it is still not really his.  He gets there, but he is considered an outsider, a nomad, he still has no "inheritance" till the day he dies.  Yet, he is certain of the promise, though he cannot see it.  The land itself seems unpromising.  The pilgrimage is not over when he gets there.  It is a pilgrimage of faith, and he knows there is something solid coming from the promise that is bigger than the land, and bigger than his one son.  His pilgrimage was heavenward. 

If we follow Jesus' call,  we too demonstrate that we are "sure" where we place our hope, and we place our confidence in what we cannot see by denying ourselves, taking up the difficult cross, and following Christ anyway.

When we trust God's Word more than what we have in hand, and follow God's plan, we are operating by faith, as these in Faith's Hall of Fame.   

III.       A Twist In The List:  (13-16; 39)

¹³ 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.   ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ 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.

Today, some preachers are teaching about Faith, "just name it and claim it" or "Believe it and Receive it".  These are not biblically balanced ideas.  The twist in this list shows us otherwise.  What is the twist?  Although all of these had exemplary faith,  they did not receive the things promised.

Earlier, we looked at one of Maria's miracle story where everything came out just according to faith, as if someone named it and claimed it, believed it and received it.  I love stories like that.  You do to.  But it doesn't always go that way.  It did NOT go that way with these Heroes of the Faith.  That's clear from scriptures like these.  This is the twist in the list of faith examples.  None of these heroes of the faith received the things they longed for in this life. 

Sometimes God's Rewards Are Not Till Later

God allows good and bad into our lives and we can trust him with both.  God wants us to trust him when the miracle does not come.  God wants us to trust him when the urgent prayer is not answered the way we want it to be answered.  God wants us to trust him even when it seems like the light of hope just went over the horizon, and it is getting darker.  He wants us to trust that he will bring the dawn, even if it isn't till our life journey ends.  Having a steadfast faith in God does not guarantee a happy, carefree life.  It guarantees something better than that!  It guarantees that God will never leave us or forsake us, and ETERNITY with him will be our reward.

The Twist In The List: Repeated For Emphasis (39)

³⁹ These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

IV.      The Goal Of Faith Is Perfection (40)

⁴⁰ God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Don't settle for forgiveness only.  When we have Christ, we have life...not just forgiveness.   Connect with God, connect with life, connect with the life changing life that will not be complete in you till you are made perfect.  This life changing life is making you fit for heaven.  Walk with God, trust him. 

(C) Jim Hammond

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