FAITH, HOPE AND LOVE
FAITH
EASTER SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
JOHN 20:26-31, HEBREWS 11:1-16
MARCH 31, 2013
Arlington National Cemetery is one of the most famous burial places in the world. Former President John Kennedy is buried there. The eternal flame burns there. The Tomb of the Unknowns and recipients of the Medal of Honor are buried there. Recipients of the Navy Cross are buried there along with those who have received a Purple Heart or a Silver Star. Many people whom we would deem great are buried there.
Yet, the greatness of Arlington National Cemetery pales when compared to the greatness of Westminster Abbey, in London, England. Kings and queens are buried there. Some of the greatest poets in world history are buried there. Some of the greatest historians, the greatest authors, the greatest theologians, and the greatest physicians are buried at Westminster Abbey. Many whom the world would deem great, at least the British would deem great, are buried there.
Have you ever wondered who is great in the sight of God? Who does God deem great? There is a list. There is a list in the Bible in Hebrews chapter 11, part of which I shared with you this morning. This is the list of those who are great in the sight of God. They all have one thing in common. That one thing is faith. They are all people who placed their faith in God, and therefore were deemed great by God. From Abraham the patriarch to Rahab the harlot, they placed their faith in God. He deemed them great. Today on this Easter morning, we look at faith. We looked last week at hope, and next week we are going to look at love, but today: faith.
I have two simple teachings. The first teaching is this: faith is greater than works. This is what we are told in the book of Romans 4:3-4. Faith is greater than works. This is what we are told in Ephesians 2:8-9. Faith is greater than works. We are saved by faith, not by works lest anyone should boast. Faith trumps works.
We all acknowledge that works are important. In this life and in this world, many great things occur only because people have worked hard. In the year 1804, Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States, commissioned Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition. He wanted them to find the land passage to the Pacific Ocean. He wanted them to secure our claim to the Oregon Territory. He wanted them to accumulate data and information about the Indian nations. In all these things, Lewis and Clark were successful. It was because of hard work, a whole lot of hard work Everyone who went on that expedition worked hard. They traveled thousands of miles, much of it on foot, over a period of two years and ten months. It took them almost a year and a half just to reach the Pacific. They experienced disease and illness, many dangers, and even death. They prevailed and they worked and they accomplished something great.
That is true in this world. In a sense it is even true about another world. It was May 20, 1969, when the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle set down on the Sea of Tranquility on the surface of the moon. For the first time in human history, man walked on the moon. That was deemed great. It was a giant leap for mankind. It was deemed great in the sight of humanity. It took place because of hard work by the astronauts, hard work by Armstrong, Aldrin, and by Collins. It was countless hours of conditioning. It was hard work by the scientists. Hard work by the tech people. It took hundreds of thousands of hours of hard work to accomplish that great thing. We acknowledge that in this world, and even on other worlds, hard work accomplishes great things.
What about heaven? Why shouldn’t it be that way with heaven? Why shouldn’t hard work get us there? Why shouldn’t good works get us there? That is the message the religions of the world give us. The religions of the world tell us that we are saved by works, we are saved by good works, we are saved by working hard at good works. This is true of Hinduism, this is true of Buddhism. This is the means of attaining Nirvana, and this is the means of attaining moksha. Good works.
In Hinduism there are many deities within Brahman. There is Brahma, there is Shiva, there is Shakti, there is Kali, there is Krishna, who is described in the Bhagavad Gita with his conversation with Arjuna. There is Yama, another deity in the Hindu godhead. Who is Yama? Do you have any knowledge of who Yama is in Hindu theology? Yama is the one who is lord of the underworld. Yama has control over the seven underworlds, and as many as 8,400,000 hells. Yama decides who goes where. In some hells people have their bodies devoured by birds pecking at them year after year. In some hells, people are force fed excrement.
Yama is portrayed as a green being. He wears a red robe and a sombrero. He rides a buffalo and he has a lasso, perhaps to keep people from running away when they hear about their diet. What is it all about? It is all about good works. All the hells in Hinduism are temporary; they are temporal. They are meant to be remedial. Then you have to come back and live another life on earth. You live a countless number of lives and then you spend some time in hell in between. Maybe you get to spend a little time in one of the seven Hindu heavens, but you still come back and live another life. Then it is all about karma, whether your good karma is trumping your bad karma. It is this process of samsara that just recycles over and over and over again. Birth. Life. Death. Birth. Life. Death. Birth. Life. Death. Hell. It goes on and on. It takes countless lives to be good enough. This is true in Hinduism. It is true in Buddhism. It is true in all the religions of the world.
It is true in Islam. That is what the five pillars are about. That is what Haj is about. That is what the pilgrimage to Mecca is about, and the circling of the black stone. That is what the ritualistic prayer is about. That is what the five prayers a day at the sound of the crier from the minaret is about. That is what Ramadan is about. That is what the daytime fast in the month of Ramadan is about. That is what the giving of alms is about. That is what submission is about, submission to the Quran, submission to the hadith. At the end of it all you have two angels. In Muslim theology there are two angels. One has a list of your good works and the other has a list of your bad works. You just hope that the list of your good works is longer. It is all about works. That makes sense to a lot of people. Good things are accomplished by good works and hard work.
But the Bible gives us a completely different message. If we could have saved ourselves by good works, Jesus would not have needed to come to this world. Jesus would not have needed to be born in Bethlehem. He would not have needed to live a sinless life. He would not have needed to go to Calvary. He would not have needed to die for the sin of the world if we could save ourselves. The Bible tells us that no matter how many lifetimes we were to live, we would never be good enough. Never good enough. No matter how many samsaras, no matter how many cycles, no matter how many live,s we would never be good enough. Only Jesus Christ is deserving of the glory of heaven. Only Jesus is good enough. He is the only one that lived a sinless life. Nobody else, just Jesus. He is offering to save us by grace. We appropriate that grace through faith.
This is the message of the Bible. This is the message of the gospel. This is the message of Jesus. We appropriate salvation by grace through faith. When we place our faith in him, in that moment our sin is forgiven us. When we place our faith in what he has done on the cross, and how he died for our sin, he forgives us. When we, in faith, receive him as Lord he imputes his righteousness to us. He vests his good works upon us. We are saved by grace. This is the amazing message of the gospel. It is the amazing message of Holy Scripture. Wherever people are in the world today, wherever they live, wherever they gather, wherever they go, God is there. If they would embrace his Son, they will be saved. They will be saved. It takes humility because you can’t save yourself. It takes humility to know you need a Savior.
A second thought this Easter morning is that faith is greater than circumstances. Faith is not only greater than works, but it is also greater than circumstances. Do you believe that no matter what you are facing that faith is greater than your circumstances? There was an ancient city named Ur, the capitol of the ancient kingdom of Sumer. Sumer controlled much of the Mediterranean. Incredibly, archeologists have now unearthed the ancient city of Ur in southeastern Iraq. They have discovered that the city was one of the greatest cities in the world. It thrived from 4000 BC to 2000 BC. It was at its zenith, its peak of power from 4000 BC to 2000 BC, the very capital of the kingdom of Sumer.
Then they discovered that something happened shortly after 2000 BC, about 4000 years ago. Something happened and this massive city died. People left it in droves. Tens of thousands of people left the city of Ur because the Euphrates River changed its course. Scientists tell us it shifted its course by 50 miles and suddenly this great, royal capital of Ur had no life, no water supply, no source of life. Can you imagine what that would have been like?
Everybody uprooted. Everybody had to find some other place to live, some other city to go to. The Bible tells us there was somebody in that group of people that you have heard of. His name was Abraham. Abraham lived in Ur of the Chaldees. Most historians believe he left Ur of the Chaldees in the time that the Euphrates shifted. Can you imagine those circumstances? He was a man of faith, faith in God. He moved to Haran and there he had a vision from God. He gave his whole life to that vision from God. He went forth not even knowing where he was to go, but he was promised by God that he would become the father of nations. He became the father of nations by faith.
By all accounts, Abraham’s wife Sarah was beautiful, but she was barren. In that time in history, in that part of the world, barrenness was a horrible social stigma. She was barren, but she had faith. God made a promise to her that she would bring forth a son. She believed. Her faith prevailed and she bore a son named Isaac. Both Sarah and Abraham are mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11 among the list of the great in the sight of God. Because of faith, they were great in the sight of God.
And how about Moses? Moses stood against the Pharaoh of Egypt. He defied the armies of Egypt. By faith he set the people of God free. And then there is Joshua who was led to conquer all the fortified cities of Canaan. He crossed the Jordan and conquered Canaan. He did it by faith. He received the Promised Land. You go through the list of people in Hebrews eleven and they all had faith greater than their circumstances.
I don’t know what your circumstances are today. You might be feeling pretty good. Maybe you feel young and indestructible. Maybe you feel very old and very frail. Maybe you feel like you are very successful and you have a nice home and a wonderful car and a lot of money. Maybe you are out of work and you don’t even own a home and you feel like a failure. Maybe you run ten miles a day and you don’t have an ounce of fat on your body. Maybe you struggle with weight.
Maybe you have issues of health. Maybe you have heart disease. Maybe the doctor has told you that you have cancer. I don’t know what you are facing. Maybe you are in love and somebody is in love with you and you have that glow and that joy of feeling like you have a soul mate and a best friend for life. Maybe you are so happily married that you thank God every day. Maybe your wife or your husband has left you. Maybe they told you that they don’t love you anymore. Maybe your husband has found another woman. Maybe you are struggling with your kids and you are worried that they are doing bad things. Maybe you are really proud of them and you have bumper stickers on your car. I don’t know what your circumstances are. I just know that if you would be great in the sight of God, you must trust him. Faith is greater than circumstances. It is greater than anything.
29 years ago, my wife and I moved into a new house just off of Arapahoe Road in Arapahoe Ridge. One day I met my next-door neighbor. He came over knocking at the door. This was the first time I met him. He was very angry. His face was red and flushed. The veins were sticking out in his neck. He said, “I am your neighbor, and I don’t like your dog very much.” I said, “Hi. My name is Jim. I don’t like my dog either.” He started laughing. He said, “Really?” I said, “Really.” We became great friends. We became great friends on the basis of the fact that we both didn’t like my dog.
Then I got to know Jim and his wife Kathy. When Kathy was diagnosed with cancer, they were stunned to hear that it had spread throughout her body and that her life would be cut short. Jim and Kathy started coming to the church. Kathy gave her heart to Jesus. Jim gave his heart to Jesus. They just loved the music of Dick and Marcia Shultz. They bought a couple of CDs that Dick and Marcia had made. They played the music in their car and played the praise songs in their house. I would go to their house and sit with Kathy and Jim in those later months. We would pray together. The last time I saw Kathy, we read the 23rd Psalm together. She was so weak she could barely speak, but we read the 23rd Psalm together and we prayed together and we put on Dick and Marcia’s CD. She said to me as I left, “I will see you again.” I knew she didn’t mean in this life. I knew that she meant in heaven. Indeed, she has gone to heaven. God is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death.
Jesus died and rose again and he conquered death. He lives. He promises resurrection and eternal life to all who believe in his name. He promises the heavenly city. He promises paradise. He promises a new heaven and a new earth and new bodies, indestructible and no longer subject to decay. His promises are great if you would have faith. My neighbor Jim was given many more years. He is now in heaven with Christ as well. He gave his life to serving others. He would go to Craig hospital three days a week and feed quadriplegics because they couldn’t feed themselves. He wasn’t trying to earn heaven because he knew he already had that by grace through faith. He just wanted to give back and he wanted to love. I promise you; faith is greater than any circumstance. It is even greater than death.
We all face a lot of stuff. Our daughter Heather and her husband Chris just came into DIA last night. They came from Ethiopia in the city of Addis Ababa where they are adopting a little Ethiopian boy. They already have three children. Barb and I were taking care of the children this past week. I appreciated your prayers. They are actually absolutely wonderful grandkids. Now Heather and Chris want a fourth. It is not going to be easy. This little boy, Elijah Aubush, is in an orphanage. He has not developed physically and motor skills to where a one-year-old should be because they don’t really let the kids move around. They are confined to very small living spaces. His mother dropped him off at the orphanage because she was HIV positive. They didn’t even know who the father was. It is not going to be an easy journey. Heather and Chris are confident that God has called them to do this. We believe that too. We don’t know what the future holds, but as it is often said, we know who holds the future. We live by faith. Every day we live by faith. Faith prevails. At the end of your life, if you have lived by faith, you are great in the sight of God. If you place your faith in Christ and his cross, you are saved forever and ever and ever.
I love Romans 8:28 that states that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord. I believe that is true. It is only in the life to come that we will fully understand that. And I love that passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 where it says there is no temptation overtaken you but such as is common to man. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with every temptation will always provide a means of escape that you will be able to endure it. What I love about that is the word for temptation in the Greek is the word peirasmos. It doesn’t just mean temptation, it means testing. There is no testing that has overtaken you but such as is common to man. God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able. With every testing he will always provide a means of escape.
He knows your “Plimsoll mark.” Do you know what a Plimsoll mark is? In the Shipping Act of 1876, they put a Plimsoll mark, named after Samuel Plimsoll, on the hull of every ship. When you look at a ship in the water, it doesn’t matter what ocean, what part of the world you are in, when you look at a ship there is a line there called a Plimsoll mark. If that mark goes below the water, the ship is too heavily loaded and it is not allowed to go out to sea. The ship has too great of a burden, there is too much cargo; the ship is not allowed out to sea because the Plimsoll mark has moved below the surface of the water. God knows your Plimsoll mark. He knows how much you can bear as you journey in this life. He loves you. Put your faith in him. Live for him. Trust him every single day. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.