Hebrews 11.1 Part III
MEAT
July 6th 2014
Communion
Welcome.
Let’s begin with prayer and then join together and commemorate the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on our behalf.
PRAYER
In Matthew 26, after Judas is exposed as the traitor and he leaves the room, Jesus is left in the upper chamber with the remaining eleven disciples.
They were having a meal together – eating food, drinking wine.
And we read:
Matthew 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it (many Greek mss say that He gave thanks for it here), and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink ye all of it;
28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
Later, the Apostle Paul, who was not present at this gathering of the original eleven, added His personal testimony of this practice saying in 1st Corinthians 11 –
“For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”
From the beginning of Church history the practice of communion has had all sorts of applications, hasn’t it?
The Church institutions have taken ownership of it in many cases, allowing and disallowing people to ingest the elements depending on all sorts of factors and fictions.
You may have noticed that we have not been taking communion “religiously” here.
Part of the reason is built right into how I just said what I said.
When people do things religiously it tends to remove some of the meaning and importance – and if we know anything about God He wants us to do things with all of our heart toward Him . . . not rotely, not perfunctorily. He seems to hate that.
Additionally, I am of the biblically based opinion (and stand on this opinion as strongly as I stand on the opinion that Jesus was born) but I am of the opinion that the New Testament books unitedly confirm that Jesus returned for His church in 70 AD.
Since Paul wrote that Jesus instructed His disciples to “do this” (do communion till He comes) I am of the opinion that thereafter the memorial is wholly open and believers are free to do it as often (or as least often) as they’d like.
I do not see the practice as deleterious or damaging but uplifting and encouraging and one of the few material applications believer have in their walk with Christ (water baptism is another) but I am of the opinion that man has taken this simple gesture of the Lord in that simple upper room gathering and, like it does with so many other things, turned it into either a spectacle, or a thing that should not be.
(long beat)
The bread is unleavened – without yeast – making it flat and un-putrified – without corrosive bubbles, typifying the Lord’s life of humility, or a life void of sin.
Lacking all pride.
The wine is regular juice of grapes or it’s fermented meaning it contains alcohol.
We do that because that is the best symbol of His life’s blood – it’s what He drank, it’s what He turned water into, it’s alcohol typifying an ability to cleanse and sanctify.
These elements are here for you to decide to take in remembrance of Him. It’s your decision. In so doing you are admitting to yourself, to God, and to others that you believe – to some degree or another – that He gave His life – in eating and drinking you are showing a faith that His death was real and for the world.
Why don’t we begin with singing or reflecting on the Lord’s words as He offered up His life for us.
Afterward we’ll sit in silence and reflection and then when His Words spoken about taking and eating you are all invited to come forward and do exactly that.
Play the seven statements of the Cross.
Silence, then
“Play Take Eat”
Communion
Alright last week we entered into Hebrews 11 – the big chapter dedicated to faith.
We started off with the first verse in the King James with says:
“Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for the EVIDENCE of things not seen.”
After consulting a number of varied translations I created an amalgamated definition that said:
“Faith is the well-grounded realization of things hoped for, a conviction that unseen things are true.”
That last line – “a conviction that unseen things are true,” is translated this way in the King James:
“The evidence of things not seen.”
The word translated “evidence” here in the King James
(and
“A conviction”
“the sign”
“the putting to the proof”
“the proof”
“a confidence”
In other translations comes from a Greek word that is used only twice in the New Testament – here and in 2nd Timothy 3:16
Where it is rendered reproof.
Here it properly means proof.
And to make the line easy to understand, we would read verse one as:
“faith is the confidence of the promises of God hoped for, the proof of things not seen.”
Don’t see God? Faith is our proof.
Don’t see heaven? Faith is our proof.
In a court of law if we were cross examined and asked to bring evidence for the existence of God we would hold up . . . our faith.
It is the proof of things not seen.
The question of the millennium remains, however – is faith good proof?
Naturally, even Christians admit to a thing called bad faith. We see it in the lives of individuals who use their faith in Manson, and Jim Jones, in Est or the Forum or Scientology and readily call them fools.
So, when the atheist says the same of us, likening the faith we possess in an invisible God to believing in Santa or the tooth fairy, what are we to say?
How is our faith (our proof) any better? How is it any different? Why do we think OUR faith (which serves to proof to us that God does exist) is superior to the faith of say, someone who trusts in the Buddah, Mohammed, or Smith, for that matter?
(long beat)
It’s not an easy question.
I know, I know many of the defenses we give –
We’ll our God rose from the grave and Buddah never . . .
Or we have the Bible which was written from material locations by many men but the Koran was composed in cave by one man.
In the end, I wonder if faith is faith is faith is faith – and no matter how much we try and articulate WHY our faith is superior, why what we have chosen to believe in is a superior “proof” than what other non-Christians have chosen to believe in.
But in the end, faith is faith.
It is NOT knowledge.
It is NOT verifiable.
We do NOT see the results nor do we know the results.
According to the first verse, faith is
The confidence in the promises of God we hope for, it is the proof (we respectively cling to of things not seen).
In other words I would suggest that the Militant Muslims faith that that there are seventy virgins waiting for him on the other side of a burning world trade center cannot be deemed superior or inferior to the Christian faith that we will die and inherit a place in the Father’s house.
As a means to protect our house of faith we admittedly argue (sometimes vehemently) that our faith is real and all the other faiths are not – but I think this is errant.
All faiths are real – the question is are all faiths good, eternal, and of God?
So, we seem to be faced with a couple decisions in our lives relative to faith.
First, we have to decide how much of a part in will play in our existences.
The consummate cynic faith is ridiculous (even though they certainly embrace elements of it in life) and do all they can to mock it.
At the other end of the spectrum there are people who have lived by faith at levels almost beyond comprehension – some very good (like the people the writer of Hebrews mentions here in chapter 11) and others very bad – like the followers of Po and Halle Bop or Jonestown or Manson.
This brings us to another point or question about faith – to whom or in what or where do we chose to place our faith?
In my opinion this is probably the better question to ask rather than to try and prove one person’s actual faith is wanting and another’s is superior. That argument is futile.
In fact, when we think about it, the “faith” it took those guys to fly planes into the Twin Towers was astounding – I would just say it was entirely and badly misplaced.
So first, are we going to choose to walk by faith in the promises of something unseen and secondly, where will we decide to place our faith?
In my seventeen lost years (a time when I became unmoored from the faith of my youth – Mormonism – and branched out to find truth with a capital T – I embraced many, many, many things to place my faith in – ultimately deciding that none of them had merit.
It was as if they all made promises, they all claimed to have the capacity to answer my queries and needs, but every one of them proved to fail when it came to passing the litmus tests for reliability.
Ultimately I became a nihilist, believing in nothing at all, and that is a state of a Faustian hell, complete with a tee-shirt that says:
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
It seems that God has so constructed humankind that we have to have hope in our lives – hope in something.
It’s really quite ubiquitous when you think about it. I mean there is hope that the ice cream cone we are buying is tasty.
There’s hope we will achieve things, hope our children will be wise, hope that the grim reaper or cancer or accident will pass us by.
The writer of Hebrews ties faith right into this hope we all require, saying:
“Faith is the confidence in the promises of God hoped for”
In the biblical sense when faith is tied to hope – hope becomes more of an expectation rather than just a wish. Faith seems to somehow empower the hope to transition to this form.
So we know that we first decide if faith will play a major role in our lives.
Then we decide where to place the faith we choose to live by.
It seems that faith placed in God and His promises pleases Him because those who respond to Him in this way place Him in the primary position of power and honor.
There appears to be a connection to faith and where we place it and the fact that whatever is the recipient of our faith tacitly is the thing we deem the most worthy, the most reliable, and deserving of our allegiance and trust and devotion.
Trust in the promises of a wooden idol and you prove that in your life, the wooden idol takes preeminence, is the most adored and trusted thing in your mind.
Have confidence in the promises and security of family over the living God, and you prove to Him that you have established other God’s before Him.
You name it –
Art, philosophy, science, medicine, careers, children, spouses, material, money, power, a bong, alcohol, a little pipe filled with powder
whatever and wherever we “have our confidence in it’s promises hoped for” proves we trust in it most.
Naturally, and from the Biblical perspective, God longs for, looks for, approves of, rewards those who look to Him and Him alone and say:
“My confidence in your promises that I expect to see fulfilled at some point, it is the proof (to me) that you and your word is true.”
Having created us in His image and thereby equipping us with an ability to both reason, and choose, and decide things on our own, the writer of Hebrews goes on to tells us how important faith is in verse
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
It is passages like this (and many more) that cause me to automatically throw out ideas and teachings that suggest human beings do not have a choice when it comes to faith – that God’s gifts of faith and redemption to humankind are irresistible.
Just theological mincemeat.
Hand in hand with expressions of faith (which please Him) we know that it is seekers of truth – diligent seekers of truth (who, in the end prove to be nothing more than diligent seekers of Him) will find Him.
Some seek and are satisfied with the promises of this life – that to please the flesh makes life better – and live lives satisfied with faith in such promises.
Some seek and find themselves satiated with the promise of a meaningful career, a 401 K, and house they can call home. And there is ends.
Some adhere to the idea that this man or that man have the answers to eternality and are satisfied to stop there.
But Jesus said plainly in John 4:23-24
“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
I would suggest that from this we see a tie to good faith (or faith God rewards) and that it comes from seekers who are not satisfied with the temporary answers and promises provided to them by Man, but comes to those who seek to worship the father in spirit and truth.
From here we have to admit that all faith (in anything but the true and living God) ends up as bad faith – NOT because it cannot provide solutions to adherants and NOT because the promises such things make are wholly errant and failing, but because such faith is NOT on the ultimate source of all things, and therefore it is by definition faulty.
It’s like six people going out to restaurants in search of a steaming hot bowl of chicken noodle soup.
And the first restaurant serves you up only noodles soup – but no chicken – and one remains there satisfied.
And the next restaurant serves up chicken soup but no noodles – and another of your party is satisfied with that – and remains.
Of course the remaining restaurants serve up a plate of chicken and noodles but not in a soup, and a soup without anything in it at all . . . there’s even a restaurant that serves up soup with chicken and noodles . . . but it’s cold and not steaming hot.
Along the way all of your friends have compromised and embraced (put their confidence in each varied restaurants promise of delivering up a steaming hot bowl of chicken noodle soup but the seeker in the group – you – refuse to accept any of these representations and wait (diligently seeking Him) to show Himself.
In the Book of Hebrews the writer says to His readers in the previous chapter who were tired of waiting and suffering for real Godly chicken soup:
“For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”
This is the premise and principle of the entire chapter of Hebrews 11.
That the reader (then and us) have need of patience, that “God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him,” and that “after they or we have done with will of God we will receive the promise.”
In the meantime, we all walk by faith.
Which is the confidence in His promises we hope for and it is the proof (to the beholder) that they things God promises (which are unseen) are legitimate and real.
To prove (to ourselves) and to show others (and maybe God in some strange unknowable way) that we do trust Him above all others, that we will cling to His promises over the promises of Man and His philosophies – even when they are not realized in this world.
Upon this premise the writer will go on and provide us with all sorts of examples of people who had gone before his reader (and who have certainly gone before us) and who lived and walked by faith in spite of all the obstacles and enticements that tend to suggest other approaches to living life and handling difficulty.
I would reiterate that there is no thing more important in the lives of believers in God – even love.
Let me add a qualifier to this – love is the end of the commandment and if human beings could love as God loves without faith I wouldn’t say such a thing but there is no capacity in the human world to love as God loves without the presence of faith.
When God tells us to forgive all people all the time, we have to first trust in His wisdom and ways and promises before we could be convinced of such action.
This holds true of all of His promises and commands – there must be true faith present for there to be true compliance.
Therefore true compliance to fulfill the two great commandments is first founded on
“the confidence in His promises hoped for, the proof of things not seen.”
In this we discover a reciprocity. Now stay with me.
We are taught at a young age that London is a real place.
We base our faith (because that is what it is for us at that age – faith) we base our faith in such statements on the testimonies of those who claim to have seen London, who claim to have experienced it, who testify that it is real.
A consummate cynic might say, I refuse to believe in the place called London – no matter what people say.
But most reasonable people will consider the reasonableness of the data, the testimonies of people who attest to it’s existence, and the other data surrounding the existence of London – pictures, people who moved from London, expert witnesses of its literal physicality – and by faith have
Confidence in the witnesses claims that the London we hope for does exist, and accept it as proof of things not seen.
And so before going into our text, we now add an element to faith:
Testimonies, witnesses, substantiated proofs of the things hoped for (that remain unseen).
When a man who has never seen London believes it’s there he has believed in the numerous testimonies respecting it – the witnesses, the substantiated proofs.
With matter of faith relative to proofs we start small and this is the case with all faith based proof texts – whether they be Christian, Muslim, Mormon, or Marxism.
It’s part of our biology and human nature to take things in one step at a time and as we receive one evidence or proof as reliable we are ready to assume another.
Because it is the way we are wired I would suggest the process is not one bit different between someone coming to know the true and living God and someone coming to the point where they believe Walk Disney had the answers to life.
What makes up the difference (listen) WHAT MAKES UP the difference is whether a person is a genuine seeker of truth – because when it comes to God those who seek will find if they diligently seek Him – and will refuse to remain satisfied where they are if “where they are” cannot hold up to scrutiny.
So with humanity, God begins by providing simple proofs of His promises.
To Adam – amazingly enough – God provided an actual garden paradise.
God provided him a wife.
Animals all around.
Vegitation.
AND a direct relationship with him.
But God wanted Adam to receive one promise by faith. He gave him plenty of proofs that He was a good God and powerful and loving.
But He gave Adam a promise – don’t eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because in the day that you do you will surely die.
Adam did NOT have faith in God’s words.
Either He thought that he knew better or maybe he thought God’s warning wasn’t any big deal and he could eat the fruit anyway. Maybe Adam chose Eve over God, but Eve didn’t create the garden – God did.
But Adam chose to look to his own wisdom or to Eve instead of God.
We all do the very same thing when we fail to live by faith in His promises.
Like the Garden God has given us small proofs of His existence.
Every time we acquiesce to them as being real and of Him, we move deeper into our walk of faith.
Faith begets faith.
Doubt begets doubt.
And so we can see that the greater the challenges we have to our faith are actually indicators of where our faith has risen or fallen to.
But we have to be mindful of the witnesses and testimonies around us upon which we place our faith.
I would suggest that God give all humans testimonies or witnesses to help substantiate lives of faith and to get on on the path of faith.
I think he begins, as He did with Adam, with a physical world and all the amazing facts and fundamentals about it – from the micro to the macro – the heavens to the sub-atomic level.
Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
So, we can decide – Did God create all things or did something else.
It’s a decision taken by faith either way we want to look at it. Faith in God or faith in aliens or nothing or science. We choose.
We then have the gift of conscience – tough one to rationalize off to evolution. Romans says that because of it we are all without excuse.
I would submit that in and through conscience God calls constantly – just like He does through nature – but again, the personal subjective decision to choose to look and believe on Him . . . or not.
Those who choose to believe in the cosmological evidences and conscience are often more open to relate to the historical story from antiquity if ten commandments, resonating to them, convicting them, wondering about them – or not.
Sometimes the presence of these ancient laws – taken on faith by a real people in real time and space – act upon a person before cosmology or conscience.
In the end I would suggest God uses all of it all the time to bring all to Him.
Then of course we have the Bible as a whole, which is often reduced to nothing more than the writings of men.
But within them we have a narrative that is based on history, on prophesy, on real people, with real cities and real DNA. Just another step in the accumulation of faith, or an accumulation of
Confidence of His promises hoped for.
Then, because God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son – again, a real person, in real time, doing real miracles, dying a real death, rising from a real cave.
Certainly, just as the faith-haters do with creation, there is the renouncement of Christ as a genuine historical figure.
Or that his resurrection at least was farcical.
But for those who receive Him and have confidence in Him, there are promises that they have been forgiven of sin past, present and future.
Like Adam, we can look around and see the cosmos, look to our conscience, then look to the ten commandments written on stone (and discover ourselves failing in one way or another as a result) read the apostolic testimonies about their lives following and being taught by Him and choose to believe and act accordingly – or not.
The writer of Hebrews tells his readers that God has written His laws upon their hearts, yet another testimony but one far more intimate.
Finally, at such heights of faith, God has us look to others who have come before us, who too have lived and walked by faith, whose lives were lived as living sacrifices and we bolter our faith in what we see, read and hear.
This is where the writer of Hebrews has brought us – to the lives of others who have chosen to walk by faith, and, as a means to keep them in the faith, he says:
Hebrew 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10 For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.
15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: {of: or, to}
19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;
25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
28 Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
29 By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.
31 By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.
32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:
33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect
Verse by verse next week.
Q and A
