By Faith, Not Sight

 

Read 2 Corinthians 5

This may be one of the toughest chapters for me to preach. It’s not that the concepts are difficult. They are not. In fact, the theology here is very much within our grasp.

It is difficult for me for the same reason that Romans 8 is. It is jammed packed with what I will call golden nuggets—phrases that are full of rich teaching, some even proverbial .  For instance:

To be at home in the body is to be away from the Lord. To live is Christ. To die is gain. We know the concept. While we are on this earth, we fulfill our commissions, learn from our Master, and are known by our love. When we die, it is celebration time.

Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. You old people out there and yes, it was a shock to find out that I am the same age as old people, do you remember deposits on Coke bottles?

When I was a kid and saw a glass bottle that used to contain a soft drink, I saw potential income. I would collect the bottles, put them in my little red wagon, and walk the two or three blocks to the neighborhood store and cash in. If my load was big enough, sometimes I got folding money.

I even gathered up Coke bottles in high school and threw them in the back of the car or truck I was driving. They were the promise of gas money.

The Holy Spirit is our deposit from God, guaranteeing that his promises are true.

We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. That’s gravitas right there. That is a solemn realization that though I am saved in the blood of Jesus, I will still stand before him and be judged for how I lived once he took away my sin. What did I do with what he gave me?

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. And in a similar vein we receive these words. We are to live a life worthy of the calling that we have received.

So, from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. That is a challenge. For as long as we exist in these bodies, our nature is to see people from a worldly perspective instead of someone made in the image of our Creator. That’s a big paradigm shift for most folks, and some never get there while we remain in these jars of clay.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! This is one of the biggest challenges in Paul’s writings. Regarding others from Christ’s perspective is tough. Regarding ourselves as a new creature, that’s even tougher.

We look in the mirror and see the same person that was looking back yesterday. For all the physical indicators that we have, we are the same.

But, that’s not the message that accompanies the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are made as one who has never sinned, even though we did and we still do to some extent.

But if we are to grow, we must see the new creature. If God can speak creation into existence, call it good, and even very good, how can he not bring righteousness to our lives in the blood of Christ Jesus?

We need to see all who have called upon the name of Jesus, including ourselves, as new creatures who desire to bring glory to God.

We are Christ’s Ambassadors. What is an ambassador? It’s someone who represents his or her nation at the highest level, but lives in another country. Where they serve is not their home.

When I was assigned to the United Nations at the end of the First Gulf War, I was the senior Marine in Iraq, maybe Kuwait as well. I went through all sorts of training before I went to the big sandbox, but the one piece of counsel that I received before I left was this: “Don’t go native.”

What did that mean? Never forget where you came from and who you represent. It’s the same for us. We are Christ’s ambassadors. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and we are Christ’s ambassadors. People will know Jesus through us.

We don’t go native and abandon the ways of God for the ways of the world.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is an old self—new self conversation.

God did everything required to save you from sin and death. He did it all.  We are to live up to the right standing granted to us in the blood of Jesus.

Quit trying to live by, seek satisfaction in, and glorify the things that we said we turned away from. Be the new creature you are.

There are so many golden nuggets in this chapter, and there is much in between them that are harder to package as nuggets but still of great value.

But I skipped a big one. Some of you who read your Bibles frequently have been waiting for it.

We walk by faith, not sight. We live by faith, not sight. We live a whole bunch not by what is seen but by what is unseen. What is seen is of the world and what is unseen is what is to come.

The world teaches that seeing is believing. We know that believing is seeing. What do we see that the world does not?

We see the promises of God as if they had already been fulfilled. In God’s realm they have.

In spite of daily evidence to the contrary, we see the work in progress as the completed product, whether in others or ourselves. God has finished the work.

In spite of some of the boneheaded things that we do, know that God’s Spirit is living in us and is a deposit on what is to come.

In spite of being saved by grace in the blood of Jesus, we know that we will all answer to him for how we have responded to this wonderful gift of life in Christ.

In spite of looking very much like the person who never professed Christ, we are a new creature.

In spite of living in this world, this world is not our home. Our home is with God and our room has been prepared.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we are being made in the image of God, in the image of Christ.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we are growing in God’s grace.

In spite of what seems to be evidence to the contrary, we have been made complete in Christ. We can only see the brokenness now, but God finishes what he starts.

In spite of a budget that seems to get tighter and tighter, we have done the work of the Lord with an abundant spirit most of the time.

In spite of a world that is always selling fear, and it’s always on sale, we are not afraid and we are not discouraged. We are strong and courageous.

In spite of cancer, strokes, joint replacements, serious accidents,  and other ailments and afflictions, we know that in the blood of Jesus we are healed.

In spite of the world coming at us from all directions, and I will go back a chapter for that verbiage:

·       Hard pressed but not crushed.

·       Perplexed but not in despair.

·       Persecuted but not abandoned.

·       Struck down but not destroyed.

In spite of the trouble we have in the world, our hope and peace reside in the One who has overcome the world. Every promise of God is yes in Christ Jesus.

The world says that seeing is believing. We know that believing is seeing.

We walk by faith, not sight.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. We live by faith, not sight.

Amen.

 

I'm not seeing it yet...

 Read Hebrews 2

In the next service I will focus on 2 words:  PAY ATTENTION.

I thought about preaching two other words:  CALM DOWN. That never seems to work.

I thought it went well with Be still and know that I am God. Actually, it works about as well. We don’t know how to calm down or be still or trust in the Lord with all of our hearts.

We struggle. Sometimes we go for a good stretch trusting God or at peace with God and our neighbors, but then we give into our human nature and own understanding.

We struggle.

Can you blame us? God is in control and this world looks like an absolute mess.  How can I calm down? How can I be still?

Why do I even want to PAY ATTENTION? We will spend more time on that later.

There are a few other words in this chapter that I want to spend some time on as well. Most folks don’t focus on them, but you are getting them this morning.

For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him.

We have yet to see all things put under him. We don’t see the orderly world that we think we should see. What does that mean?

Sin is still thriving in the world.

The Devil has not yet been consigned to his fiery eternity.

The righteous must endure the rule of the wicked for a while longer, though the faithful know this time will not endure.

We just don’t see everything falling into place like it should be, or like we think it should be. So, does that mean that God’s plan has gone awry?  

If you ever pay attention to a card trick, you will find that the owner of the trick wants you to follow along closely. He or she just wants you to follow the wrong things, so that he can pull off the trick.

We don’t see the perfect things of God because we get distracted. It is not God who is distracting us. We distract ourselves by relying on our own human nature which includes our own understanding.

Think of Peter being distracted by the storm and taking his eyes off of Jesus.

We don’t need sleight of hand to distract or deceive us. We deceive ourselves by not believing the promises of God.

We must affirm the statements and promises of God as we go through our lives.

It’s not a once-a-week thing to affirm that God has good plans for us. That’s a daily thing. In this upside world, it might need to be an hourly thing or a moment-to-moment thing.

We need to affirm to ourselves and each other that God really does love us.

We need to affirm to each other that God is love.

We need to affirm that God really is in control.

We need to affirm that God is indeed sovereign.

We need to affirm that the blood of Jesus really did take away our sins.

We need to take on his yoke and follow him.

We need to put his words into practice.

If we affirm these things on a regular and recurring basis, we might get a glimpse of the world turned right-side-up. It won’t happen on our schedule but we can see what is to be in the kingdom of God.

Therefore, we should live by what God has told us is true and will come. Thus…

We are never discouraged. God wins.

We never lose hope. He is faithful and just. He’s got us.

We never throw in the towel for we know what God did for us in the person of Christ Jesus. He stepped out of heaven and lived and died as a man so our sins would be forgiven and we would have a great High Priest who knows firsthand what it is to live the human life.

Jesus was tempted in every way but did not sin. What advantage did he have?

He knew his Father's kingdom was for real. He knew the journey, no matter how arduous, was worth it.

In his blood we receive his righteousness. Let us also receive his assurance that these trials are temporary and that heaven is real.

We are to be strong and courageous.

We live to be known as his disciples by our love.

We don’t know the whole story now, but we trust the Author.

We can’t see the whole picture now, but we trust the Artist.  OBTW—this is the same Artist that made you into a masterpiece.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow.

Amen.

The Righteous will live by Faith!

Read Romans 1:16-17

Did anyone look at the lottery jackpot this week?  I think one of them is pushing half a billion.  It went over a billion a year or two ago.

Did you fantasize a little about what you could do with that money?  No more house payments.  No car payments.  No more worry about bills or bill collectors or how much tip to leave.

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to suddenly win the lottery and say, “I’m not starting from way down here?  I am starting the rest of my life from up here.”

Now that would be something.  It’s something to fantasize about anyway.

We continue our exploration of faith, so let’s begin with what should be a very familiar defining verse from the King James Version.

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

The last time we talked about the substance of things hoped for using the faith of the Son of Timaeus as an example of faith having real touch and feel.

Before that we bit into faith and perseverance, taking counsel from James to consider it pure joy when our faith is tested, knowing that we will grow if we don’t give up.

If we turn back the calendar a little further, we get to where we find our faith enabling us to say, I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

As I am strolling down message memory lane, let’s go back another week.  It was one of those challenging weeks.  I warned you in advance that the message could be a might prickly and I challenged you to see if your faith had taken you to a special place.  That place, that condition, that state was that Jesus was not only your Savior but your Lord as well.

Do you remember walking by faith not sight?  There was some challenge there as well.  We have been on a journey filled with both challenge and support from God’s word that began with these words.

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

And now we come to this point where we read the righteous will live by faith.  Do not understand this as right living gets us to salvation.  Do not read this as being right with God causes us to live by faith. 

Understand that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.  God kept on loving us anyway.  The blood of his Son atoned for our sins.  God himself made us right with him.

We receive the gift of salvation by faith.  We call this gift grace because we didn’t deserve it.  It is unmerited forgiveness from God.  It is living in his favor because of what he did for us and not the other way around.

Jesus paid it all.  All to him I owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain.  He washed it white as snow.

Paul notes that he is not ashamed of the gospel.  Whether he is proclaiming this good news to his fellow Hebrews or to pagans who have been left to figure out right from wrong by what God has intrinsically placed in every creature made in his likeness, this prolific New Testament letter writer says it is by faith regardless of who you are that you come to receive the righteousness of God.

From first to last, richest to poorest, most education to the ignorant, everyone must come by faith.

You might know the law inside and out, but only faith connects you with God’s righteousness.

You might not know diddly about theology, but faith will bring you into God’s righteousness.

You might think that someone in the remote regions of Nepal isn’t getting this message, but God has left all people without excuse as to knowing that he is real.

When someone says there is no God or makes up their own god or hops on the flavor of the month theology train, they know what they are doing and saying.  They have deliberately ignored the truth and deluded themselves.

By the evidence of creation itself, people know there is a Creator.  There is a being that brought everything into existence.  We are also told that Satan has blinded unbelievers.

We know our Creator to be God almighty.  He is righteous.  He is just.  He is love.  He is our heavenly Father.  He has redeemed us from the Evil One.  We are his.

Do you remember these words?  I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

We got to this point by our faith.  Some may have studied more than others.  Some may have procrastinated for a long time.  Some responded the first time they heard the gospel, but we all got to where we are by faith.

Out of blindness into the light.  We have been saved by God’s grace which we have received by faith.

I doubt there have been any big revelations thus far, but let’s go further. Regardless of where we started, we have come to where we are now by faith. 

The question for today is, how will we proceed from here?

Faith got us to the point that we received the best gift ever—salvation that came straight from God’s heart—but what now?

We have been made right with God, but what now?

God has claimed us for all eternity but what now?

What now?

Too many see salvation as the finish line.  Yippee!  I am saved from sin and death and hell.  I’ve checked the block now let me get back to living.

That’s cause for celebration for sure.  What if we celebrated all of that but instead of getting back to living, moved forward to real living, abundant living, living in faith.

What if our life from this point forward was lived completely in faith?  We all had a journey to get here, but there is a journey ahead.  It’s not just, “OK, let’s sit this thing out until eternity.”

The righteous will live by faith.  From first to last, it’s faith.  Faith got us here.  It is faith that moves us forward.

God made us right with him.  His grace that we received by faith got us here.  Going forward we must live by faith, not because of rules but because of our identity.

We are truly God’s children, his heirs, brothers and sisters and friends of his one and only Son.  We are family and this family lives by faith.

Amen, hallelujah, and what exactly does that mean?

Let’s start with thanksgiving and praise.  That is now our nature.  We are a thankful people.

Let’s continue with bringing glory to God.  This gives us purpose.  In everything we do, we have an easy answer as to what to do or how to do it.  Does this bring glory to God?

Let’s go farther and affirm that we are people who live in truth.  We live in the light.  Nothing is hidden from God, so let’s not hide anything from ourselves.

Let’s go further and testify that we will live wisely, not as the pagans who tout their foolishness as wisdom.  We choose wisdom now more than ever because the days are evil.

Where did I get these things?  We need only read a little further in the chapter.  Paul is still talking about humankind having no excuse for not know there is a God.  Knowing God through Jesus comes later in this book, but Paul wants all to understand that we have no excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Paul gives us the negative examples here.  Paul tells us of those who chose darkness over light, but that is not who we are.

We are people of righteousness.  That sounds a little bold, don’t you think?  I hope it does.

Do you remember when I asked about winning the lottery?  I said it was a fantasy, but in actually some people do win.  The odds are against it.  I think they are something like 50 to 1 against winning the 400 million.  Maybe it’s more like 50 bazillion to 1.

But you have won more than the lottery jackpot.  We have been made right with God.  The odds were against it but God doesn’t care what the odds are.  God chose you to be in right standing with him and he did everything needed to make that happen.

We won the billion dollar jackpot!

We are in right standing with God because of what the Lord Christ has done for us.  Why would we ever be timid about that?

Because we don’t feel righteous.  We are still more comfortable belonging to the world than to Christ. 

Guilt, shame, and darkness still have a home in who we are.  It’s time to deliver some eviction notices!

Do you remember this one?  I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

The righteousness that comes from God is from first to last.  Our starting point does not determine where we finish.  Jesus said, it is finished.  Our future is secure.

Sin and death have no power over our eternal destination.  They can only impact the abundant life that we are to know now.

But why let them?

Let’s talk the lottery again.  I don’t know the stats but we hear the stories time and time again.  Somebody wins.  They have life-changing money.  They could live out their days without worry but somehow, they end up broke, even in debt, strung out on drugs, or dead.

The lotto money was going to give them a new life but they couldn’t let go of the old one.  All of their worldly cravings were just put on steroids for a while.

The righteous shall live by faith.  We are the righteous.  God has done this for us.  We have a new starting point.  We don’t have to work our way to righteousness.  God put us here.

Now we are to live by faith, not by our old models. 

We are to live by what God tells us not by what the world says is better.

We are to step out following Jesus even though the worldly path seems well paved and has many lanes.

We give thanks in all circumstances even though the world tells us to take it all for granted.

We praise the name of the Lord every day and at every opportunity even when the world says we are fools.  You want something to praise?  Here’s an actor or a football player or a high you get from a drug.

The world wants us to praise and worship people or things within the creation.  We worship only the Creator!

The righteous will worship God alone.  The righteous will live by faith.

God made us right with him.  We are the righteous.  Now we live by faith.

The righteous will live by faith.

We live by faith!

Amen!

Faith - Getting Started

Read Hebrews 11:1-3

We begin a course of examining the topic of faith in this service.  It’s a word we often use but don’t always understand.

For those who went through Hebrews with me in the First Light Service last year, much of what you hear this morning will sound very familiar, if you were awake and listening.  If you were there and it’s all new to you, here is your second chance.

The word faith is used very few times in the Old Testament.  It appears at least 245 times in the New Testament.  Paul is the likely culprit for such a large number, but Jesus also used the term.

It’s sometimes hard to distinguish between the modern words believe and faith, so exact counts vary based on translation, but faith is a big word in this age.  We begin in the 11^th chapter of Hebrews.

If you were wondering how we would begin to tackle this topic of faith, now you know.

There are very few definitions in the Bible, but Hebrews 11:1 has one worth noting.  It is the definition of faith. 

Anyone know where to find the definition of eternal life?  John 17:3

Listen to verse 1 of chapter 11 in Hebrews in these translations.

NIV:  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Holman’s:  Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

This translation also offers this variant:  Now faith is the assurance of what is hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen.

New Living:  Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.

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

This is believing is seeing.  We can’t see it but we know it’s there.  We believe just as if we saw it wit our own eyes.

Anyone been to the Colosseum in Rome?  It’s quite the deal.  I didn’t get to see it until a couple of years ago coming back from Africa.  When I went, I was sure it would be there.  It was.

Do you believe it’s there?  Have you seen it?  A picture?  Nobody can fake a picture.  Somehow you believe it to be there.

Anyone have a cell phone or smartphone or watch you can talk on or Star Trek communicator?

Your phone says MOM on the caller ID.  If it said TOM you would let it go to voice mail.  I know how you do me. 

You answer and a voice sounds like your Mom.  Is it your mom?  How do you know.  Can you see her?  Can you see the signal come and go from your phone?

Sometimes when the service is slow, I can see the signal .  Not!

But I have faith that’s my mom or my wife or my kids or grandkids on the other end.

We have a lot of faith in things of the world.  Now we are told to have faith in things we can’t see just as if we could see them.

Paul would complement this by saying that we walk by faith not by sight.  That’s having such faith—believing even though we can’t see—that we walk, we act, we do things based on what we cannot see.

We have faith in some things of the world. How about faith in God.  For example?

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

It didn’t just happen.  The unexplainable has an explanation but we have to take it by faith.

We were not there.

There is no YouTube video in the archives.

We have faith that God brought everything into existence.

Even those who try to come up with stand-alone scientific explanations have to have faith in their theories.  They were not there either.  Nobody was taking notes. 

Either way, you have to have faith in what you believe about creation.  Either the word of God is true or your theory of cosmic beginnings is true, but you must put your faith in one or the other.

There is no seeing is believing.  We weren’t there and there is no snapchat video.

We take it on faith that God did this.  Others take their theories on faith but faith is there one way or the other.

The author here says that the ancients were commended for their faith.

Let’s venture briefly to John’s gospel.  You know the story.  Jesus rose from the dead, entered a locked room and appeared to the disciples, except Thomas was out.

Thomas said, I will believe it when I see it myself.  I want holes in the hands.  I want to see where the spear went in his side.  SEEING IS BELIEVING.

Jesus comes back some days later.  Thomas is present.  Jesus tells him to see what he needs to see.  Thomas says in shocked belief:  MY LORD AND MY GOD.

He doesn’t even need to put his fingers through the holes. 

Jesus tells him that he believed because he saw.  Then Jesus said:  BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN AND HAVE BELIEVED!

That’s what we are talking about to begin this time of examining faith.

We have not seen; yet we believe!

Here is the King James Version again:

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

This is tangible belief for what the world sees as intangible.  The world chooses to substitute wordy theories for faith.  The world thinks it believes what it believes based on intellect.

The problem is at the root of all the supposed intellect is a premise of faith when it comes to the beginnings of everything.  You must take by faith that God spoke everything into creation or that everything came about by some other means, but either way, we must take it by faith.

Everyone takes something by faith.  It’s not always the word of God.

We say that we believe the word of God.  It’s true.  The world says you can’t get there from here, even though they must take much of what they have built up as fact on a foundation of faith.  It’s not faith in God, but you can only extrapolate your theories so far until you must take something on faith.

The world says that we are crazy.  You can’t get there your way.  We say, I’m already there.

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

Let’s once again think about the beginning of all things.  This is from the beginning of John’s gospel in the New Living Translation.

In the beginning the Word already existed.

    The Word was with God,

    and the Word was God.

He existed in the beginning with God.

God created everything through him,

    and nothing was created except through him.

The Word gave life to everything that was created,

    and his life brought light to everyone.

The light shines in the darkness,

    and the darkness can never extinguish it.

This is what we believe.  We believe it by faith.  We believe it as much as if we were there watching.  This is faith.

This is our starting point for the next few weeks.  I know that we have a memory verse for this month, but I want us to take this first verse from the 11^th chapter of Hebrews, in the King James Version, and make it our memory verse for our faith excursion.

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

Amen.