Something Better

Here is the sermon I preached back on July 27, 2014.

SOMETHING BETTER

Hebrews 11:32-40

INTRODUCTION

The past 10 days has been rather rough for Aeroplanes and those flying in them:

• July 17 - Malaysia Airlines plane was downed in Ukraine - 298 dead 

• July 23 - TransAsia Airways plane crashed in Taiwan's Perghu Islands - 48 dead

• July 24 - Air Algerie crashed in Mali - 118 dead 

We see all of this it can be rather depressing and not all that comforting as we are flying to Saskatchewan on Wednesday. Often times we see these tragedies and we wonder, we wonder want's going on and perhaps we wonder why has God allowed these things to happen. imagine some of the families of the victims are wondering this very thing. We not only wonder when we see these tragedies in the news, but in our own lives as well.

• Maybe you are sitting in the doctors office and are receiving a diagnosis that you dread.

• Maybe it's a phone call telling you something has happened that you could never imagine happening.

• Maybe it's challenges at work...or opposition because you are a Christian.

• Or Maybe your life is not turning out the way that you planned it or wanted it to.

Have you been there?

That is what was happening to these Christians in Rome.  They heard the greatest news ever - that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die for all who would believe and they trusted in Christ were taught about Christ. But life became very hard. Their neighbours didn't care much for Christ, the Roman government opposed and persecuted Christians, tthey did not want them around. How were they to live?  How are we to live? The result was that some of them were beginning to doubt,  compromise, and even to privatized their faith. 

But the answer the author of Hebrews gives to the Christians in the early church and us here today is that we are to live by faith. We are to faithfully trust God in all things.

• Trust God no matter what.
• Trust that God will work all things out for his glory.
• Trust that one day he will right every wrong.
• Trust that one day we will live again with him in the new heavens and the new earth.
• Trust that God has a far better life in store for those who persevere.
• Trust that Christ's sacrifice was enough and that we are clothed with his righteousness and that they were right with God.
• Trust that Christ was worth losing everything for and way more.

And here in chapter 11, he gives examples of people who persevered - we have looked at Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, people of Israel, Joshua, Rahab. And the author in verse 32, he asked a rhetorical question that gives the impression that the list could go on and on and that a great number of people and examples are crowding the authors mind. There are just too many of them to go through. But I want to point out a few things at the end of this chapter about faith and the life of faith. 

I. Diversity of Faith (32)

Here he lists some people and it is a much more abbreviated than the previous list.  In the names he mentions 4 of them were judges, one king, and one prophet-judge.

How were they diverse?

1. Different personalities - Gideon was timid…David bold, take charge…Samson impulsive.

2. Different social circumstances - Judges there was no king…no united kingdom…David there was.

3. Different spiritual opportunities - Judges was a time of great spiritual decline.

• Judges 21:25 - In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

David lived by faith in a time of spiritual blessing…

4. Different faults - Gideon was frightened - Judges 6:15; Barak was hesitant - Judges 4:8; Samson was flippant - Judges 16:4-20; Jephthah was rash - Judges 11:30-21; David was sensuous - 2 Sam. 11:2-5; Samuel careless - 1 Sam. 8:1-3

God is not a cookie-cutter and he does not want cookie-cutter Christians. But they all were called to persevere in faith. There are no excuses no matter what personalities we have, no matter our social circumstances, no matter what spiritual opportunities there are around us, no matter what faults we have. We are called to endure and live by faithful trust in God and his promises. And all of these people persevered.

• Gideon - Judges 6:12ff; 7:1-25 - it took faith to reduce the army of 32, 000 to 300…and what were they equipped with? Torches in clay Jars and trumpets!!!

• David - 1 Samuel 17:32-49

Whatever situation, whatever circumstances they found themselves in, they acted in faith, trusting God.

II. Heroism by Faith (33-35a)

1. Military victories - judges brought relief from oppression, but there was no enduring peace until David.

2. Deliverance from death - Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abendigo. Sword - David from Saul and Absalom 

3. Weakness turned to strength - Samson, Gideon.

Huges - "Faith in the response of all who are conscious of their own weakness and accordingly look to God for strength."

4.  Powerful in battle - "conflict did not weaken them, but was the occasion on which they became strong - an important idea from dispirited listeners."

5. Resurrection from the dead - Poor widow of Zarephath in Sidon (1 Kings 17:17-24); wealthy Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:18-37).

What these examples are telling us is that by faith we will have victory, we will accomplish God's will, we will not always be defeated. But in case we get a triumphalist:

III. Courage of Faith (35b-38)

He just was talking about how by faith people prevailed in battle, against lions, and through fire. But now he turns to those who experienced temporal suffering, not temporal triumph. But as one author points out, "…their steadfastness was itself a triumph of faith."

1. Tortured 

2. Tormented - mocking, flogging, chains, imprisonment - Jeremiah 37:4-21; 20:1-2

3. Violence - stoned, sawn in two - tradition as it that Isaiah died this way, sword - 2 Chron.24:20

4. Deprivation - rough clothing, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, wandering

Talk about the Christians in Iraq…

IV. Perfection/Unity of Faith (39-40)

1. None of these received the promises...

This is what is truly amazing about the examples that we have been given in this chapter. They persevered despite not having received what was promised.  F. F. Bruce - "They lived and died in prospect of a fulfillment which none of them experienced on earth; yet so real was that fulfillment to them that it gave them power to press upstream, against the current of the environment, and to live on earth as citizens of that commonwealth whose foundations are firmly laid in the unseen and eternal order."

2. God has planed something better for us

Better because the promise has been fulfilled in Christ.  The new covenant has dawned. We are living in such a better time - better plan, a better hope, better promises, better covenant, better sacrifices, better and abiding possession and a better resurrection. We can't be dreaming about the glory days.  We are in the new covenant now. How much more can we persevere!!!

Calvin - "If those on whom the great life of grace had not yet shone showed such surpassing constancy in bearing their ills, what effect out the full glory of the gospel to have on us?"

3. Only Christ can perfect faith 

What does this mean? "They were denied the historical experience of the messanic perfection until Christians could share in it.  In short the, God in his providence deferred the bestowal of the final reward until the advent of Christ and the enactment of the new covenant. That the attested exemplars of faith died without having received the ultimate promise simply indicates God's special graciousness toward those living under the conditions of the new covenant." - Lane

All of the OT pointed to Christ. We live in the era of fulfillment. Yet it is still an era of faith. That is why the OT people can be examples...but our era consist of the already, but not yet. This is what he wants to drive home to these Christians:

Huges - "as in faith we persevere and endure, our inspiration, to a degree far surpassing that of the heroic witnesses of old, is preeminently Jesus himself, who was known to the former believers only by expectation but is known to us in fulfillment.  Our greater privilege is also our greater responsibility."

How much more such we be living fully, radically for Jesus Christ...you think the people in the Hebrews 11 lived radically. They should not be able to come close to our radical living because we have Christ and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We have a much greater spiritual responsibility. We should be able to surpass these people as examples.