BOOK OF HEBREWS
FAITH, PART ONE
DR. JIM DIXON
NOVEMBER 04, 1984
HEBREWS 11:1-16
In the beginning, billions and billions of years ago, a great mass of condensed matter exploded the Big Bang, hurling the galactic systems out into the great void of space, forming the heavens and the earth on earth, a complex interaction of basic elements such as carbon dioxide, ammonia, water, and methane combined with primitive forces of energy such as sunlight, volcanic heat, lightning and cosmic rays to form through spontaneous generation, the first living cell from that first living cell through the geological ages, through the millions of years through a process of cell mutation, a natural selection evolved all the complexities and varieties of life existent in the world today, the greatest of which is man, a theory called macro evolution. We are not gathered here this morning to discuss or debate the credibility, the authenticity of evolutionary theory, and for that, I am sure most of you are glad.
Certainly, I believe that evolutionary theory lacks credibility and authenticity. There are massive inexplicable gaps in the fossil record. The testimony of the geological column offers a confused portrait of earth history. Radiation dating methods upon which evolutionary timelines are based is riddled with a variety of inconsistencies, diverse influences and scientists. Evolutionary scientists have a tendency to interpret data in accordance with preconceived ideas and presuppositions, but even if macro evolutionary theory were true, it would not begin to explain the creation. Even if the big bang theory of cosmology were true, it would not begin to explain the formation of the heavens and the earth, even if all the galactic systems were hurled into the void of space through the explosion of a great ball of condensed matter that would not begin to explain where that, where that great ball of condensed matter came from. Ultimately, you see science is left with a riddle left with a creation without a creator, an effect, without a cause, a response without a stimulus, a mystery, but there is a knowledge greater than scientific knowledge and the Bible says that this knowledge is called faith. The author of Hebrews says, by that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen by faith. Man of old received divine approval and by faith we understand that the worlds were made by the word of God so that that which is seen, the things which are seen were made of things which do not appear.
Scientific knowledge is rooted in the empirical method in human powers of observation, but faith transcends science. It does not contradict science. It is able to receive from science, but ultimately faith responds to a testimony that science is not even able to hear or in the final analysis, faith is a response to the testimony of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says the Holy Spirit bears witness with this world that God exists, that he is the source and sustainer of life, that he has sent his only son into the world, that eternal life is granted only through his name. If you are a Christian, then by faith, whatever portion of faith is yours, you responded to the testimony of the Holy Spirit and you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord in Savior. There’s tremendous evidence for the Christian fate, scientific evidence, but all of that evidence and the sum of it is not enough to prove Christianity is true. Ultimately, there is a higher testimony to Christianity and that is the testimony, testimony of the Holy Spirit in your hearts.
The moment you believed in Jesus Christ, you received that testimony. The Bible tells us that the people of faith, the people who believe in Jesus Christ are called the household faith. And in our passage of scripture for today, we are told three truths concerning the people of faith, the household of faith. I want to discuss them briefly this morning. First of all, we are told that the people of faith, the household of faith are a people whose lifestyles are characterized by obedience. If we truly have faith, we learn to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews says, by faith, Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen took heed. The author of Hebrews says by Faith Abraham when he was called by God obeyed, you see faith issues in obedience. On June 21st of this year at a home in Lakewood, Colorado, a bible study was taking place in the backyard. There were twenty-one children, ages four through fourteen, playing games around a cottonwood tree. Suddenly a thunderstorm came from the west over the mountains.
One of the moms went out and called the children and told them to come onto the porch in the cover because of lightning. She then went into the kitchen and began to prepare refreshments. Time passed and suddenly there was a great flash of lightning and lightning crashed to the earth. There was chaos in the backyard. The children were scattered. In the aftermath, two children were dead. A four-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy tried to revive them, and they could not. As parents, we give our children instructions, we give them rules. One of the instructions that we give our children is this, that they would come out of a thunderstorm, they would come out of an electrical storm and seek shelter, that they would come into the protection of the house. We give these instructions. We give these rules because we love our children.
We give these instructions. We give these rules because we want to protect our children and because we want to see their lives blessed and we ask of them that they place their faith in our instructions. God has done the same with us. We who are the people of faith. He has given us instructions and he has given us rules and the and the rules he has given us, and the word of God are given because he loves us. They are given because he longs to bless us and because he wants to keep us from harm. If you have faith, you believe that, and it issues in obedience. David had faith. Therefore in Psalm one, David said, blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. For his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by rivers of living water that brings forth its fruit. In its season, its branch is not withered. In all that he does, he prospers.
If you would like to prosper, if you do not want to wither, if you want to be blessed in all that you do, then you must learn obedience to the instructions of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. This is a characteristic of the people of faith in the world today. They learn obedience. Secondly, in this passage of Hebrews, we are told that the people of fate are characterized by lifestyles of adventure characterized by exciting lives. You cannot possibly read the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews and not notice the incredible adventures of the heroes of the faith. You see, it was by faith that Noah built that arc for the saving of his household in a time of global Holocaust.
It was by faith that Abraham left the security of Ur of the Chaldees and sojourned in a land promise dwelling and tents like Isaac and Jacob airs with him of the same promise. It was by faith that Moses, a stuttering shepherd returned to Egypt to lead the people of God from to Pharaoh. It was by faith that Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls of Jericho came crashing to the ground. Throughout history, the people of faith have lived lives of tremendous adventures, tremendous excitement because of fate. This last week I read the story of three little girls. They were sisters. They grew up in a poor home, so poor that all three had to sleep in the same bed. One night the father came to the little four-year-old and asked her if she had said her prayers that night. It was just before bedtime, she said, no, she had not. The father said, “Well, dear, you know how you get afraid at night. Don’t you want to say your prayers? And she said, no. Well, he said, why? She said, “I do not need to say my prayers tonight, daddy, because tonight it is my turn to sleep in the middle.
Now that’s kind of cute, but it is tragically true. It is true of all of us. There are people in this world who strive to live their life in the middle so that they will not need God. But you see, faith is different than that and the people of faith are different than that because of faith. They are willing to go out onto the edge, not in irresponsibility, but in response to the call of the Holy Spirit and the service of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Faith leads to adventure. 80 years ago, RA Jeffery was a young man. He was told by his doctors that he only had a few weeks to live, perhaps only a few days at the longest. One month he had severe heart irregularities, a deformed heart, and he, he had an extreme case of diabetes, but it was in that very week that Jeffery felt the call of the Holy Spirit to go as a missionary to China.
So he told his doctors he was going to China. They told him he was crazy. They told him not to go. They told him he would not survive the voyage, but he said, I will be faithful into death and RA Jeffrey went to China early in this century. He survived the voyage, and he began to preach Jesus Christ to the Chinese peoples. He translated articles in Chinese periodicals, and he wrote articles in their journals pro explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ. He began to preach Christ. He formed the Alliance, theological Seminary in Hong Kong, a seminary which flourishes even to this day, and God gave him 30 years of ministry in China. He founded a church that over those 30 years grew to 60,000 people and after 30 years in China, God called RA Jeffrey to Vietnam. Then he went to Vietnam, and he preached the gospel of Christ in Vietnam and thousands of people accepted Jesus Christ and gave their lives to his king. Then God called him to Indonesia, and he preached the gospel of Christ in Indonesia and thousands of people accepted Jesus Christ in Indonesia gave their lives to his king. Finally, even Ra Jeffrey died as all do. He died at the close of World War II in a Japanese prison camp, preaching Jesus Christ to his captors.
Today RA Jaffrey is in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ and with the people of faith from every generation. What is true of Ra Jeffries, true of you? God has called you to adventure. He is called you to leave the middle and go to the edge for the sake of the service of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. By nature, I am kind of conservative. About three years ago, almost three years ago, Bo and Bob called me up and as you know, they asked if I would be willing to join them in helping to start a new church down in Littleton.
Being a person of faith, I gave a definite maybe. In fact, I did not want to come down here at all. I wanted to stay secure over there at Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora. If I went anywhere in my ministry, I wanted to go to a church that was already established. But you see the Lord led here. It took him a while to break through, but finally Barb and I came down with Bow and Bob and the church began and we started on the edge. Five staff, a half million dollars of indebtedness, no members, but God has been faith and he is brought all of you, but I sometimes feel like we are still on the edge.
This church has grown faster than any of us humanly speaking would have desired. Last week we had 1,450 people at worship service. Bob’s class was overflowing, standing room only, and we had almost nine hundred children in the Sunday school. This facility is not designed for that. Now, God, by his spirit, has led us to another place and he has called us as the people of fate. We are still on the edge every week. We are three thousand dollars behind in giving towards our operating budget. It is hard for a church growing this fast to meet its financial needs and our faith promises towards the new facility are not coming in at the rate that they were promised. God has called us to faith and to faithfulness, and he has called us to join in the adventure of this church. The 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews is the chapter entitle entirely given to the heroes of the faith.
At the conclusion of the chapter, the author of Hebrews says, what more can I say for time will not permit me to speak of Gideon, of Barack, of Sampson, of David, of Samuel, and the prophets who by faith conquered kingdoms enforced justice, received the promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched, raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword. One strength out of weakness became mighty in battle and put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some people were tortured, refusing to accept release that they might rise again to a better life. Some were scorned, some were mocked, some were chained, some were in prison, some were stoned, some were sawn in tubes. Some were slain by the edge of the sword. Some went about in the skins of sheep and goats. Destitute ill-treated afflicted of whom this world was not worthy.
Wandering over deserts and mountains and dwelling in dins and caves of the earth. The author of Hebrew says all of these people were well attested by their faith. For thousands of years, the people of faith have entered into the adventure of giving their life to the service of the kingdom of Christ. Some of those adventures are painful, some are pleasant, all are rewarded in faith. God calls us to the service of his kingdom, and he calls us to the service of his church. I cannot possibly tell you what that is going to mean for you. God might lead some of you to give a special financial gift to the ministry of the kingdom of Christ at this church. If you are so led, we will gladly accept it. God might lead some of you that will take faith. God may lead some of you to teach in the Sunday school, nine hundred children jammed in the classrooms. God may lead some of you to teach to actually share the love of Jesus Christ with little boys and girls. That takes faith. You got to leave the middle. Be willing to go the edge.
God will lead all of you into some small group Bible study. If you are willing to obey, he will lead you into a small group. Maybe it is hard for you to form friends. It takes faith. You got to leave the middle. Got to be willing to go to the edge. God calls every one of you into the adventure of his kingdom, to share the love of Jesus Christ, the light of Jesus Christ. With a world in darkness, faith leads to adventure. Thirdly, and finally in the passage, the 11th chapter of Hebrews, we are told that the people of faith are a people in preparation. There are people in preparation for another world, people in preparation for a world to come, people in preparation for heaven.
The author of Hebrews says, by faith, Moses, when he was fully grown, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin where he considered abuse, suffered for the Christ greater treasure than all the wealth of Egypt since he looked forward to his eternal reward. If you really believe that there is a heaven, if you really believe in eternal life, if you really believe by faith that Jesus Christ has given you eternal life in the eternal kingdom of Christ, it is going to begin to affect the way that you live in this world radically. It will affect the way that we live in this world, and we will begin to view this world as a classroom, a time of preparation for the real world to come.
I know most of you have heard of Cabbage Patch dolls. Our daughter Heather has a cabbage patch doll. Its name is Edmund Marty. Now, she did not name the doll. Coleco Industries names the dolls they give. Every person who buys a Cabbage Patch doll has a certificate of adoption, so they might do that doll as actually belonging to them. Coleco Industries makes one million cabbage patch dolls every month, and yet if you want a cabbage patch doll for Christmas, you are probably out of luck. Because there are 350 million worth of Cabbage Patch dolls back ordered. They simply cannot keep up with demand. Now, there are many cabbage patch doll accessories. You can buy a cabbage patch doll crib. You can buy a cabbage patch doll sleeping bag. You can buy a cabbage patch doll stroller. You can buy a little cabbage patch doll chair. There are psychologists in this country who are now offering 20-minute counseling sessions to children for a fee to help them learn to rear their cabbage patch doll properly.
You can send your cabbage patch to all the camp for $35. They have cabbage Patch doll camps, and they will send you a picture of your cabbage patch doll together with his or her bunk mates. They will send you letters from your cabbage patch doll to your house, and finally they will send your cabbage patch doll back together with the Camp T-shirt. Now, all of this seems pretty strange to me, but child psychologists tell us that there is some good in some of this because children through role play are preparing for the real world through role play. They are preparing for a future life when they will be mature, when they will be parents, when they will have children of their own. The Bible wants us, God wants us to view this world like that. We are children now. This is a time of preparation for the real world when we will be mature and when we will enter into our eternal ministry in the kingdom of Christ.
Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, and he said, when I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Even so now we see it in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now we know in part, but then we shall know fully even as we have been fully known by faith. We believe that as Christians, we have eternity in heaven. This life is but a drop in the bucket, a classroom, a time of preparation for the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ. We prepare ourselves for that kingdom, not by cabbage patch dolls or role play, but we prepare ourselves for that kingdom. As we learn obedience in this world and we seek transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ, we prepare ourselves for that life. As by faith, we enter into the adventure of ministry for the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Nothing is more important. He has called us to be a people of faith, a people of obedience, a people, an adventure, a people in preparation. My favorite passage is Paul’s words to Timothy towards the end of Paul’s life where Paul writes to Timothy and he says, train yourself in godliness. Bodily training is of some value, but training and godliness holds value in every respect as it holds promise, not only for this life, but also for the life to come. This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. Part of this end, we toil and strive for our hope is set on the living God. Shall we pray?