Now, I know none of you ever have problems when it comes to prayer, but frankly sometimes I’m at a loss for what to say. I know, I know! That’s a terrible thing to say. After all, I’m the professional!
And that’s what I get all the time: At somebody’s house for a meal, they say, “Pastor, would you pray?” And typically I’ll say, “It ain’t my home . . . you pray!” Or like a few weeks ago when Stephanie and I were at our high school reunion. We went to a Lutheran high school in Nebraska, so of course after our old class president gave his big welcoming speech and right before we sat down for a little meal, he said, “ . . . and now pastor is going to lead us in prayer before we eat.” And in my mind I went, “oh, brother . . . okay, well I can think of something.” But thankfully in the ½ second I had to think as I took a breath and opened my mouth to begin praying for all my old classmates, I suddenly realized that he didn’t mean me, but the elderly pastor who served as the school’s alumni coordinator! Dodged that bullet, let me tell you!
But okay, okay . . . maybe some of you do have that same problem. When it comes time for prayer, you’re not certain of what to say. You’re not sure of what you can pray for. Can you pray for yourself? Is every prayer supposed to be for someone else? Are there certain prayers God just doesn’t want to hear?
I think that the main problem behind our fear to pray lies with confidence: we don’t have it. We’re pretty sure that God answers prayer, we know that’s what the Scriptures teach, but we just really don’t have the confidence that He’s going to answer this particular prayer. There’s a number of different reasons for this: we’ve never been taught how to pray, so we’re not confident that we’ll say the right words to get God to hear us. We’re nervous about speaking in public, so we’re not confident that we can pray without making some sort of mistake and look foolish in front of other people and God. But even worse, sometimes we’re not confident that God even wants to hear what we have to say. We’re afraid we’re just bothering Him, and so we lack the confidence that our prayers are even something that God desires.
Now, I can’t do much about you being afraid to pray in public (unless, of course, you’re in the Discipleship class, in which case I simply force you to! J). But would it surprise you to know that the disciples—the early leaders of the church, the heroes of the Book of Acts—that there was once a time when they weren’t so confident in how they should pray, either? It’s right there in the Gospel lesson for today. Open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter eleven.
Jesus is praying—of course Jesus is praying. It seems like you can’t sneeze in the Gospels without Jesus praying—Jesus is praying, and the disciples look over and notice what He’s doing. And they realize something: they don’t know how to pray like Jesus prays. Now, these are good Jewish boys, all of them. They’ve been raised up attending the synagogue and no doubt they’ve memorized a number of prayers. But true to form, Jesus doesn’t seem to pray the way they’ve been taught. He approaches it differently. Maybe it’s just easier for Him . . . maybe His prayers sound more like He’s talking to someone that He knows personally, I don’t know. But the disciples recognize that He’s got a handle on prayer that they don’t, and so they say, “Lord teach us to pray.”
What comes next is interesting. The next words Jesus says are what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. We pray it every Sunday, really every worship service. It’s an excellent prayer, perhaps even the best, most sublime piece of beautiful, poetic prayer that’s ever been known to man.
But while the Lord’s Prayer is an excellent prayer and it is good and right to pray it, I want you to notice something: the disciples didn’t say, “Lord, give us a prayer”, but, “Lord, teach us to pray.” That means something.
It means something, because Jesus says, “when you pray . . .” “When you pray.” We could maybe even say, “whenever you pray” (that’s fair in the Greek). Jesus isn’t primarily giving them His words to pray, but giving them a model to guide their own prayers. While the Lord’s Prayer is an excellent prayer in and of itself, it also serves as a model for how to build our own prayers.
The Lord’s Prayer is a template that Jesus gives us for prayer, and it’s pretty good: approach God knowing that He is your loving Father, keep in mind that He wants us to be more and more holy, ask Him to give us all the things we need for daily living, ask for forgiveness, forgive others, and ask for strength to leave our evil ways behind. It’s simple. It’s straightforward. It’s a good prayer.
But so far Jesus has given the disciples a template for prayer, but He hasn’t necessarily given us them the confidence they need to pray. For that, Jesus offers two parables that aren’t a template for prayer, but incentive to prayer. The parables give us confidence to pray.
Luke 11:5-8 5 Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' 7 "Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
There’s three characters in the story. One character is us: we’ve had a friend come to visit and need to lay out a little spread for him, but we don’t have any bread. Bread’s important; in those days it was the staple of every meal. In fact, it was the utensil that they used to eat. Not having bread would be like you or I not having forks or knives or spoons to lay out on the table. The friend we go to get bread is God. We’re asking him to give us what we need to provide for the third character: the friend that’s come to visit us.
The way that I’ve commonly understood this story was that we go to God and we hammer and hammer and hammer on his door until He gives us what we are asking for. The moral of the story, as I’ve always understood it, is that persistence in prayer pays off.
But wait . . . wait. Look at that passage more closely. Kenneth Bailey, in his book Poet and Peasant, points out several important facts about this parable. One, there is no indication of persistence in that parable! Where does it say that the guy bugs his friend until he finally gets up out of bed, goes down to the cupboard, throws some bread out the door and says, “THERE! Are you satisfied now?!?!?” Because God’s not like that . . . He’s not doesn’t answer our prayers just because He’s irritated half to death with our asking.
Instead, Bailey points out that the custom of the time dictated that a guest be given hospitality. A host was obliged to honor his guest by setting out a meal. But we have no bread. Our friend needs a meal, he’s been traveling long and hard and he’s tired and worn out. He needs what we cannot provide. Where will we get what we lack to provide for our friend’s needs? We’ll go to the One who can provide out of His surplus.
The women of the day baked bread in a communal oven, one that was owned by the whole village. Since they all met there, they each knew who had extra and who had yet to bake some. Therefore, the host goes to the house of a man whom he knows has bread. He knows where to get the things he cannot supply for his guest, and so he goes to the only place that can provide what he lacks: he goes to the house that has a surplus.
And when he gets there, note this: he doesn’t knock. Strangers knocked. Soldiers hammered on the door. But a friend? A friend calls out. “Friend, give me what I need to provide for my other friend . . . for I do not have what he needs myself.” As we pray for the needs of others, then, we go to the house that can provide. We go to the house of our friend—we go to the Father—and we call out in prayer that from His surplus He may provide us with something to give to our friend in need.
But now that we have the confidence of where to go to receive what is needed, do we still lack the confidence that once we get there our request will be granted?
Luke 11:11-12 11 "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
Does a father love his child? One of the things that’s always impressed me about both my parents as well as Stephanie’s is that they have always been willing to give us good things that we lacked. No matter what the problem was, when we have had a need, they’ve always been willing to help out. And why? Because we’re their kids . . . and they love us. We’ve never been embarrassed to approach them with our needs, because we know that out of their love for us they’ll do what they can to ease our burden. No strings attached, just a generous gift given from the heart.
God’s the same way. When we approach Him in prayer we call Him “Father.” And because He loves us He’s not about to look down His nose at us and say, “You want whaatt?? A new car to get to work? Whattsamatta, you can’t walk, or something? Oh, heck . . . here’s this old beat-up skateboard. Now take it and go away, you’re bothering me.” No! God gives us good gifts! Why? Because He loves us! And we can have confidence in approaching Him with any prayer request, knowing that He will listen to that request in love and answer our prayers in a way that results in good.
So there it is: Jesus has taught us to pray. He’s given us an outline for prayer, and He’s given us the incentive to pray.
Do you have the confidence to pray now? God is your Father, He loves you. You only have to look to the cross to see that. That’s where this all ties together. At the cross we see God’s care and concern for us, the depths of His love for us. But we also see the enormous surplus that He has to offer, for in the cross of Christ every sin that you have ever committed or will one day commit has been paid for. All from God’s surplus of grace and mercy. The cross proves that God cares about your needs, because it was at the cross that He met your need for forgiveness even before you realized your need for it. And it proves that God wants to hear what you have to say, because the Scriptures teach us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord—everyone who looks at the cross and trusts in the forgiveness that God offers there—everyone who calls upon God to save them through the cross will be heard. The cross reveals to you the confidence you have in prayer, knowing that God will hear your prayers and answer them with the love of a father for His children.
What would happen if we all began to pray with the confidence that Jesus says we can have?
Would we pray more often?
Would we pray more fervently?
Would we prayer with greater hope?
. . . might we pray expecting?
The answer, of course, is yes. With the confidence that Jesus gives us in prayer—the model for prayer, the incentive for prayer, and with the cross as the basis for prayer—we will pray.
. . . and God will hear.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Your Questions Answered, Part Three: Strong Faith
Hebrews chapter eleven begins with this way: Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” With these words the anonymous writer of the book of Hebrews begins what is now known as the great “Heroes of Faith” chapter.
Now that very name gives birth to something in our minds. They were “heroes of faith.” They had extraordinary faith. Life-changing faith. Strong faith. The list of people in Hebrews chapter eleven reads like a “who’s who” of the Old Testament. Noah. Abraham. Moses. Each of them commended for their faith. Each of them held up as an example for us to follow.
Certainly faith is important. I remember one of my earlier seminary classes. There was one class where a professor was challenging us not just on what we believed, but why we believed. And as young seminarians, we began to trot out all the common answers that give us grounds to prove that our faith is valid. You know, good things like the scientific evidence for creation, the concept of intelligent design—where the order and structure of the whole of creation is cited as evidence that someone must have created it—and even things like the circumstantial evidence for the resurrection of Christ and the presence of absolute truth.
And this professor shocked—no, stunned—the whole class when he simply said, “What do you guys have against faith?” His point was—and although it took a few years to really get ingrained into my mind—that we as a church are a community of faith. We don’t live by evidence. We don’t believe in God because He is the most logical option. No, our existence is lived by faith. It is defined by it. The presence of faith—call it blind faith, reasoned faith, or whatever—is the thing that binds us together as a religious community.
Now if that is true, if faith is the core component of the religious life, then it must be true that strong faith is also important. I mean, no one wants a weak faith . . . “Dear God, if you do truly exist, and if you love me . . . which I’m not sure that you do . . . then grant my sister the healing she needs . . . if you can, anyway . . . anyway, if it be your will, ummm . . . amen.” No! Nobody wants a weak, wimpy kind of faith! We want a strong faith! You know, where we just walk into the room and the demons get a little shaky. The mountain-moving kind of faith; the kind that prays insanely bold prayers. “Lord, we know that it is your will that little Johnny be healed, and therefore we pray that your healing will come this hour, this minute. Cast this demon of teething pain away from this little boy and give him and his parents a good night’s rest. Oh, and while you’re at it, park a new Mercedes in my driveway by the time I get home. In Jesus’ strong name, amen!”
If we want that kind of faith, then how do we get it? What’s the magic formula for growing that kind of faith? What prayers do we need to pray? What do we need to give to get that strong, mountain-moving, world-beating, demon-terrifying, rock-solid, bedrock kind of faith? How do we become “heroes of the faith”?
Let’s turn to chapter eleven of the book of Hebrews for some answers. Open up those Bibles and let God’s word soak in a bit.
As we read through chapter eleven, I want you to notice that there are two kinds of people in there. Two groups of people, but really only one common situation. We’ll get at the common situation in just a bit, but first let’s look at the two groups. The first group is the people for whom good things happen. We’ll begin at verse four.
Hebrews 11:4, “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.”
Abel is commended as a hero of the faith because of his good sacrifice. Abel offered God his best. He gave Him the very best he had. It takes a strong faith to offer God your best, not to just give Him what’s left over after the bills are all paid, and that’s exactly what Abel did: he offered God his best, and was commended for it.
Hebrews 11:5, “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.”
Enoch was “one who pleased God.” His faith was of such character that God saw fit to even remove him from the pain of death. Enoch’s faith in this life was so evident that it literally carried him into the next.
Hebrews 11:7, “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.”
When warned of a coming flood—something that seems pretty bad on the surface—Noah trusted God in faith and built the ark. In so doing he not only saved his family, but in fact the whole of the human race. Everyone else—the people without faith—perished, but Noah and his family survived and inherited the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 11:8-10, “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.”
Abraham was called by God to go. Go where, he didn’t know . . . but in faith he went. And when he answered God’s call in faith, Abraham never had to worry about where he was going to live, because God always provided for him. He lived each day in faith, each day seeing the bounteous providence of God in his life.
Now certainly these are all good things. Offering God our best and being recognized by God Himself for it. Being spared from the agony of death. Surviving a world-wide flood on a boat made of gopher wood. Living every day surrounded by God’s blessings.
Is this what strong faith brings? No, it is how strong faith grows. Strong faith grows when people believe in the promises of God and then live to see those promises come true.
Now this just makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? After all, when people promise us something and then fulfill those promises, then we begin to trust them more and more, don’t we? It’s the same way with God; when He fulfills His promises to us, our faith in Him naturally grows stronger each time we see another promise fulfilled. We learn to trust Him more and more because of the good things that happen.
And we see this all throughout the entire chapter! The author of Hebrews rattles off name after name, telling all the wonderful things that God had done for the great heroes of the faith! He goes on for so long, telling these wonderful stories, that finally he runs out of time! Hebrews 11:32-35, “32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again.”
Who wouldn’t trust a God like that? Who’s faith wouldn’t be strengthened by seeing God’s strong hand of deliverance through trials and sufferings? When victories are won, we trust God all the more. When we become powerful through God’s workings, our faith grows stronger and stronger. That’s the first group of faith’s heroes: the people whose faith grew by seeing God’s promises fulfilled.
That all sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Having a kind of faith that is built upon a trustworthy God, where we just know . . . we know that we know that we know that God will deliver us from evil because He’s done it so many times in the past.
But there’s a second group revealed in chapter eleven, as well. If we’d back up a bit in the chapter, we’d hints of it in earlier parts, but this second group really becomes crystal clear at the end of chapter eleven. This second group is the people whose faith grew through bad things happening to them.
Pick it up half way through verse thirty-five. The author of Hebrews has just ran through those marvelous events of conquering kingdoms, shutting the mouths of lions, quenching the fury of the flames and women receiving back their dead, and then he says this rather frightening word, “Others . . .” “Others.”
Hebrews 11:32-39, “Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.” Tortured . . . and refused to be released. That’s some seriously strong faith. “36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.” What kind of faith can endure imprisonment?
“37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.”
This is the second group of people: those for whom strong faith is cultivated in the stinking fertilizer of suffering and pain and even death. And every time that these people faced a new and greater hardship, they looked to God, trusted in His promises, and believed that even if they were not to be delivered in this life, that God was more than capable of delivering them from suffering in the next.
There’s two groups of people, and although I think we all know which group we’d prefer to belong to, I want you to notice that they all have but one common situation: it is God that put them into situations where their faith must grow.
Whether your life is the pinnacle of blessedness of the pit of despair, God has put you there in order that your faith might grow. Are you living a blessed life? God is blessing you so that you may see the fulfillment of God’s promises and learn to trust Him more. But on the other hand, if you are in a world of hurt and pain, God has put you there so that you will be forced to trust in the graciousness and mercy of God despite the fact that everything that your eyes see tells you otherwise. Pain or pleasure, it is God at work to strengthen your faith in Him and His promises.
Grab a hold of that truth! Let that sink into your mind! Say it with me: Pain or pleasure, God is at work to strengthen my faith. Because once you really begin to understand this, every situation in your life begins to take on new meaning. You didn’t just happen to receive a check in the mail just in time to pay that bill that you had no way to pay: you’re seeing God’s providing hand in your life. You didn’t just happen to get bad news from your doctor, but God is asking you to trust Him despite the odds against you. You’re not just living a charmed life and it’s not that if it weren’t for bad luck you wouldn’t have any luck at all, but in each and every event of your life, whether good or bad, whether pain or pleasure, God is throwing you back to the foot of the cross where you can look up to Him and say, “Yes God, I do trust You! Do with me as you will! Bless me if you wish, yet even though you slay me, yet will I trust in you.”
One more thing about strong faith: it has to have an object. Faith doesn’t just trust, but it must have something to trust in. And the object of faith—strong faith, mountain-moving, demon-quaking faith—is the cross. The cross is the center of the Christian faith, for it is there that Christ made the ultimate fulfillment of every single promise that God ever has made and ever will make. Look to the cross . . . look in faith . . . in faith lean upon Christ’s cross, and everything falls into place.
You have riches? You have wealth of any kind given to you by God? They just pale in comparison to the riches Christ offers you on the cross. Every blessing you’ve received from God stems from that cross, and when in faith you look to that cross you are able to recognize them for the gift of God that they are, and your faith will be strengthened.
You have pain? You have suffering? That pain and suffering is absorbed into the cross through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. Every trial you face is a trial that Christ bears for you on His cross, and when in faith you look to His cross you are able to see that God is using this pain in your life to make you more like His Son . . . and your faith is strengthened.
Pain or pleasure, God is at work to strengthen our faith. It doesn’t matter which one is happening to us right now, because through all of it God is at work in all of us. But no matter what our circumstances are, we can as one body look up at that cross and together say, “Yes Lord, we do trust in you. Do with us as you will.” And in faith together we will move mountains. The demons will quake in our presence. We will pray insanely bold prayers. We will have strong faith.
In Jesus’ strong name . . . amen.
Now that very name gives birth to something in our minds. They were “heroes of faith.” They had extraordinary faith. Life-changing faith. Strong faith. The list of people in Hebrews chapter eleven reads like a “who’s who” of the Old Testament. Noah. Abraham. Moses. Each of them commended for their faith. Each of them held up as an example for us to follow.
Certainly faith is important. I remember one of my earlier seminary classes. There was one class where a professor was challenging us not just on what we believed, but why we believed. And as young seminarians, we began to trot out all the common answers that give us grounds to prove that our faith is valid. You know, good things like the scientific evidence for creation, the concept of intelligent design—where the order and structure of the whole of creation is cited as evidence that someone must have created it—and even things like the circumstantial evidence for the resurrection of Christ and the presence of absolute truth.
And this professor shocked—no, stunned—the whole class when he simply said, “What do you guys have against faith?” His point was—and although it took a few years to really get ingrained into my mind—that we as a church are a community of faith. We don’t live by evidence. We don’t believe in God because He is the most logical option. No, our existence is lived by faith. It is defined by it. The presence of faith—call it blind faith, reasoned faith, or whatever—is the thing that binds us together as a religious community.
Now if that is true, if faith is the core component of the religious life, then it must be true that strong faith is also important. I mean, no one wants a weak faith . . . “Dear God, if you do truly exist, and if you love me . . . which I’m not sure that you do . . . then grant my sister the healing she needs . . . if you can, anyway . . . anyway, if it be your will, ummm . . . amen.” No! Nobody wants a weak, wimpy kind of faith! We want a strong faith! You know, where we just walk into the room and the demons get a little shaky. The mountain-moving kind of faith; the kind that prays insanely bold prayers. “Lord, we know that it is your will that little Johnny be healed, and therefore we pray that your healing will come this hour, this minute. Cast this demon of teething pain away from this little boy and give him and his parents a good night’s rest. Oh, and while you’re at it, park a new Mercedes in my driveway by the time I get home. In Jesus’ strong name, amen!”
If we want that kind of faith, then how do we get it? What’s the magic formula for growing that kind of faith? What prayers do we need to pray? What do we need to give to get that strong, mountain-moving, world-beating, demon-terrifying, rock-solid, bedrock kind of faith? How do we become “heroes of the faith”?
Let’s turn to chapter eleven of the book of Hebrews for some answers. Open up those Bibles and let God’s word soak in a bit.
As we read through chapter eleven, I want you to notice that there are two kinds of people in there. Two groups of people, but really only one common situation. We’ll get at the common situation in just a bit, but first let’s look at the two groups. The first group is the people for whom good things happen. We’ll begin at verse four.
Hebrews 11:4, “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.”
Abel is commended as a hero of the faith because of his good sacrifice. Abel offered God his best. He gave Him the very best he had. It takes a strong faith to offer God your best, not to just give Him what’s left over after the bills are all paid, and that’s exactly what Abel did: he offered God his best, and was commended for it.
Hebrews 11:5, “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.”
Enoch was “one who pleased God.” His faith was of such character that God saw fit to even remove him from the pain of death. Enoch’s faith in this life was so evident that it literally carried him into the next.
Hebrews 11:7, “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.”
When warned of a coming flood—something that seems pretty bad on the surface—Noah trusted God in faith and built the ark. In so doing he not only saved his family, but in fact the whole of the human race. Everyone else—the people without faith—perished, but Noah and his family survived and inherited the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 11:8-10, “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.”
Abraham was called by God to go. Go where, he didn’t know . . . but in faith he went. And when he answered God’s call in faith, Abraham never had to worry about where he was going to live, because God always provided for him. He lived each day in faith, each day seeing the bounteous providence of God in his life.
Now certainly these are all good things. Offering God our best and being recognized by God Himself for it. Being spared from the agony of death. Surviving a world-wide flood on a boat made of gopher wood. Living every day surrounded by God’s blessings.
Is this what strong faith brings? No, it is how strong faith grows. Strong faith grows when people believe in the promises of God and then live to see those promises come true.
Now this just makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? After all, when people promise us something and then fulfill those promises, then we begin to trust them more and more, don’t we? It’s the same way with God; when He fulfills His promises to us, our faith in Him naturally grows stronger each time we see another promise fulfilled. We learn to trust Him more and more because of the good things that happen.
And we see this all throughout the entire chapter! The author of Hebrews rattles off name after name, telling all the wonderful things that God had done for the great heroes of the faith! He goes on for so long, telling these wonderful stories, that finally he runs out of time! Hebrews 11:32-35, “32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again.”
Who wouldn’t trust a God like that? Who’s faith wouldn’t be strengthened by seeing God’s strong hand of deliverance through trials and sufferings? When victories are won, we trust God all the more. When we become powerful through God’s workings, our faith grows stronger and stronger. That’s the first group of faith’s heroes: the people whose faith grew by seeing God’s promises fulfilled.
That all sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Having a kind of faith that is built upon a trustworthy God, where we just know . . . we know that we know that we know that God will deliver us from evil because He’s done it so many times in the past.
But there’s a second group revealed in chapter eleven, as well. If we’d back up a bit in the chapter, we’d hints of it in earlier parts, but this second group really becomes crystal clear at the end of chapter eleven. This second group is the people whose faith grew through bad things happening to them.
Pick it up half way through verse thirty-five. The author of Hebrews has just ran through those marvelous events of conquering kingdoms, shutting the mouths of lions, quenching the fury of the flames and women receiving back their dead, and then he says this rather frightening word, “Others . . .” “Others.”
Hebrews 11:32-39, “Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.” Tortured . . . and refused to be released. That’s some seriously strong faith. “36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.” What kind of faith can endure imprisonment?
“37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.”
This is the second group of people: those for whom strong faith is cultivated in the stinking fertilizer of suffering and pain and even death. And every time that these people faced a new and greater hardship, they looked to God, trusted in His promises, and believed that even if they were not to be delivered in this life, that God was more than capable of delivering them from suffering in the next.
There’s two groups of people, and although I think we all know which group we’d prefer to belong to, I want you to notice that they all have but one common situation: it is God that put them into situations where their faith must grow.
Whether your life is the pinnacle of blessedness of the pit of despair, God has put you there in order that your faith might grow. Are you living a blessed life? God is blessing you so that you may see the fulfillment of God’s promises and learn to trust Him more. But on the other hand, if you are in a world of hurt and pain, God has put you there so that you will be forced to trust in the graciousness and mercy of God despite the fact that everything that your eyes see tells you otherwise. Pain or pleasure, it is God at work to strengthen your faith in Him and His promises.
Grab a hold of that truth! Let that sink into your mind! Say it with me: Pain or pleasure, God is at work to strengthen my faith. Because once you really begin to understand this, every situation in your life begins to take on new meaning. You didn’t just happen to receive a check in the mail just in time to pay that bill that you had no way to pay: you’re seeing God’s providing hand in your life. You didn’t just happen to get bad news from your doctor, but God is asking you to trust Him despite the odds against you. You’re not just living a charmed life and it’s not that if it weren’t for bad luck you wouldn’t have any luck at all, but in each and every event of your life, whether good or bad, whether pain or pleasure, God is throwing you back to the foot of the cross where you can look up to Him and say, “Yes God, I do trust You! Do with me as you will! Bless me if you wish, yet even though you slay me, yet will I trust in you.”
One more thing about strong faith: it has to have an object. Faith doesn’t just trust, but it must have something to trust in. And the object of faith—strong faith, mountain-moving, demon-quaking faith—is the cross. The cross is the center of the Christian faith, for it is there that Christ made the ultimate fulfillment of every single promise that God ever has made and ever will make. Look to the cross . . . look in faith . . . in faith lean upon Christ’s cross, and everything falls into place.
You have riches? You have wealth of any kind given to you by God? They just pale in comparison to the riches Christ offers you on the cross. Every blessing you’ve received from God stems from that cross, and when in faith you look to that cross you are able to recognize them for the gift of God that they are, and your faith will be strengthened.
You have pain? You have suffering? That pain and suffering is absorbed into the cross through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. Every trial you face is a trial that Christ bears for you on His cross, and when in faith you look to His cross you are able to see that God is using this pain in your life to make you more like His Son . . . and your faith is strengthened.
Pain or pleasure, God is at work to strengthen our faith. It doesn’t matter which one is happening to us right now, because through all of it God is at work in all of us. But no matter what our circumstances are, we can as one body look up at that cross and together say, “Yes Lord, we do trust in you. Do with us as you will.” And in faith together we will move mountains. The demons will quake in our presence. We will pray insanely bold prayers. We will have strong faith.
In Jesus’ strong name . . . amen.
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