Faith, Trust, Belief...

 Read Hebrews 11

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Having faith means seeing what God has promised us as if it were physically before us but knowing it is still a ways off yet.

Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Joseph, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, and more are examples for our faith. These men whom we know well from study were very well known to the Hebrew people.

The legends of our faith were not flawless. They sinned. They miscued. Sometimes they did what seemed absolutely ridiculous to us, but they had faith. They went where God sent them and did what God told them.

These were men and women who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 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.

But the realization of what was promised was often still at some point in the future.

Think of Abram. He would be the Father of Many Nations, but it took a while just to have the first kid. And the first one wasn’t even the one through which the Seed of the promise would come.

The whole Hagar and Ishmael thing looked like Abram losing faith, but he never did. How many times have we been trying to do what God tells us and we hit an obstacle and think, I bet that God wants us to work this part out on our own.

But make no mistake, Abram was faithful. The willingness to sacrifice his own son because God told him to was beyond what most can comprehend, but the realization of countless descendants was a long way away.

The Seed by which salvation would come was still several centuries down the road. God’s people learned that immediate gratification was not the norm.

Not so in this century! We want something and we want it now. Two-day shipping, what! I can’t wait that long. Can’t you have a drone deliver it today?

We are not people who like to wait. Gratifying our desires is so easy now. Walmart is even delivering to Burns Flat. I’m not talking about waiting to see where the UPS guy hides your package. I mean a Walmart employee will bring you your stuff today.

But the author notes that those noted as most faithful were also willing to wait upon the Lord, sometimes they waited beyond this life. Their realization of what God had in store for them did not come in their time on the earth.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Which brings us to the Rolling Stones, specifically Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Contrary to popular belief, these men were not contemporaries with Moses.

They did pen these lyrics.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you get what you need.

We don’t always get what we want. We don’t much like waiting for what we want. Sometimes we don’t know what we need, but the author of Hebrews tells us that God has something better for those who trust him and wait upon him.

God has good plans for us. Sometimes those plans make us feel like we are being refined in a fire, and figuratively we are. We are being prepared for something better.

How do we get there from here? Faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

We see what cannot yet be seen, knowing that if God said it, it will happen. If God promised us, he will deliver.

We see it as if it is right there in front of us, even though we may not realize whatever the promise or answer to our prayer might be for some time.

Believing is seeing.

Realize from the examples of this chapter, that many were faithful through flogging and persecution, torture and living without much of anything, and sometimes even violent death.

But they kept the faith. They trusted God. They somehow believed in spite of their worldly circumstances, that God was in control and he did have something good in store for them. They lived by faith.

Paul calls us to live by faith, not sight.

We have to have faith to please God.

We know these words by heart. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

Trust, believe, and faith are three words that come to mind every time I think of our trials and God’s promises.

We can sit around singing Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me or we can have faith and know the promises of God to be true. Let’s choose faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Amen.