Faith for an Ancient - Modern World [1]- Neil Ryan
October 12th, 2008 by sound
Tags:
I was having a vigorous discussion with my daughter last Monday night. In the end I said,
“I just don’t believe it. If I can’t see it with my own eyes I won’t believe it.”
Mel said,
“That’s not bad coming from someone who has spent 30 years of your life trying to convince people to believe in someone they can’t see!”
I love it when the kids win an argument!
You feel like the future is in good hands!!
Raises a spooky question –
Can we see the Invisible?
We begin a new series this morning called –
Faith for an Ancient – Modern World
I don’t want us to spend 3 months having a clinical look at this thing called FAITH.
I hope we will discover what it was the changed the lives of this eclectic group of people.
What gave them steel in their soul….what did they see that others didn’t?
What is it we really need to know about this much maligned thing called faith?
We need to understand the backdrop to this book of Hebrews.
In many ways it’s a bit of a MYSTERY.
Anything that talks about someone by the name of Melchizedek has got to be a bit strange!
But we don’t know who wrote it – Barnabus, Silas, Luke, Apollos, Priscilla, Paul.
We’re not sure who these Hebrews are – were they in Rome, Athens, Colossae or Jerusalem?
We’re not sure when it was written – anywhere between 60-80 AD
But there are some things that become very clear as you read it…..
· It is written to second generation Christians
They had been grounded in faith, but right now they were becoming apathetic and lethargic in that faith.
Some had already given up meeting with other Christians.
The long expected return of Jesus had not happened and some were becoming disillusioned.
Some were wondering if they got it wrong about Jesus – perhaps he was not the Son of God. Maybe they should return to their historical roots and give up this notion that Jesus was the Messiah.
· There was hostility from Rome.
Christians were suffering.
Some were being tossed into prison.
Persecution and danger was growing at alarming rate.
The Church was under stress.
The cost seemed too great.
Many were overcome with despair and self pity.
It seemed the Church may not see out the first century!
The author writes a vigorous defence of the supremacy of Jesus.
There is no book in the Bible that declares the supremacy of Jesus like Hebrews.
Greater Angels, greater Moses, greater than Melchedek
Great High Priest
14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,[a] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. [Hebrews 4:14-16]
After the encouragement…..There comes the rebuke.
11We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food![Hebrews 5:11-12]
Why have they not moved on from the ABC’s of faith?
Why have they dropped the ball just when it got rough?
What did they think discipleship was all about?
…..and then the challenge
12We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. [Hebrews 6:12]
All of this leads us to look at those who through faith kept at it and in some way inherited what was promised to them!
The key to all this as far as the writer is concerned is FAITH.
Read v1-2
1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2This is what the ancients were commended for.
There it is – seeing the invisible!
You know there is something about us that very few of us actually verbalize…. that is
The MEANING of our lives is always bigger than our EXPERIENCE of it.
We were born and re-born for more than we experience.
So much of our experience is limited to our senses.
What we see is what we get – no less, no more!
Our world is only as big as our experience.
Eg.
Other day I was playing hide and seek with Ava – 2 years old.
I had to count to 10 while she went to hide.
As I started to count she took 3 steps and dropped to the floor and buried her head in her hands and yelled out ‘READY’.
You see for a 2 year old its simple.
If they can’t see you, they assume you can’t see them!
So I made out I couldn’t see her and then after about 10 seconds I called out,
‘Where are you?’
She yelled back, ‘Here’
When I went up to her she was all excited that I’d managed to ‘find’ her!
It’s a big thing to learn that there is more to life than what we experience.
Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean its not there or its not real!
These early Christians were burying their heads in their hands and just wishing all the problems would go away.
The writer is teaching them that the meaning of their lives was bigger than ALL their experiences, it was bigger than the old Temple, it was bigger than the Law, it was bigger than their history, it was bigger than the persecution they were facing, it was bigger even than all their dreams!
The meaning to our lives is bigger than our experience of it.
FAITH enables us to SEE the INVISIBLE.
This message needs to be re-born in the Church.
In many ways we have been swept along the path of a pragmatic faith where the only thing we’re interested in is –
Does faith work?
What can it give me?
What can it do for me?
But we will never know what faith can DO if we don’t know what faith IS!
When you strip it all away –
Faith is God’s gift of being able to SEE the INVISIBLE!
You might say – that sounds too spooky for me.
It’s all a bit surreal, all too airy fairy for me!
Let me tell you it is nothing compared to what people believe today!
Marilyn Monroe once said, "I believe in everything...a little bit." That's us. That’s our post-modern world. We no longer fight for truth, we just believe a little bit of everything!!
Reminds me of the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland. ….When Alice complained that one of the queen's tall stories was simply too tall to be believed, the queen replied: "Nonsense! Take a big breath and you can believe anything. I frequently believe six impossible things before breakfast."
I find it interesting in a day when Christians are retreating from a bold declaration of their faith …. the world is lining up to believe the most unbelievable things.
The new doctrine of the Post-modern world is
Sensual
Mystical
Skeptical
Philosophical
Spiritual
It calls us to lay aside the old guard of intellectual rationalism and enter the brave new world of Aquarius where we leave our sense behind and experience the world of the unseen and unbelievable!!
Lutheran theologian George Forell says People who claim to be atheists are usually people who don't want to tell you who their god is.
Theologian Paul Tillich said that our problem is not atheism (no God) but rather idolatry, (a false god). Our problem is that we give our ultimate concern to things which are not ultimate. We are told that nature abhors a vacuum, and that is true of our spiritual natures as well.
People want to believe, and do believe in something or other. If they do not believe in the God who created them, then they believe in the gods they create for themselves.
Author of Hebrews is not just giving us a cute definition of FAITH – he is giving us a blueprint for LIFE!!
Faith enables us to SEE the INVISIBLE.
It helps us understand the great chasm between our longing for MEANING and our EXPERIENCE of it!!
When we understand what faith IS we can start to experience what faith does – that starts to close that gap between meaning and experience.
That’s called spiritual maturity.
That’s called growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ.
That’s called sanctification.
It’s where we see what God sees!
That’s why writer says in v2
….this is what the ancients were commended for
They were not great heroes.
They were not faultless.
They were not God’s ‘star force’ or some elite group of privileged saints.
They were people who SAW the INVISIBLE and dared to believe that it was real!!
Read v3
I love this!
Writer is talking to people who feel hemmed in, crushed; people who feel they can hardly brethe let alone fly like eagles and the first thing he does is lift their vision.
By faith we understand the universe
By faith we can see beyond our world, our experience and our capacity to understand.
Faith helps us see BIG PICTURE
UNIVERSE – created by God!
Many Christians are dying because they don’t have BIG PICTURE faith.
I’m not talking about BIG FAITH
I’m talking about a faith that can see BIGGER PICTURE.
A faith that can see GOD!
A faith that can still HOPE.
A faith that can still thrive where nothing else can!!
We need to grasp this because my generation has defined faith as the ability to bring something into existence. It’s not! It’s the capacity to see what is already there!!
My generation has taught that faith is all about US. It’s not, it’s all about God!
Faith is not unlocking what we want God to do for us, it is seeing what God wants us to do for him!!
That’s where I had a problem with the whole ‘name it and claim it’ movement.
Faith was seen as the ability to make something happen!
But in reality = faith is the ability to see what God is doing!
Look through this chapter.
These people didn’t use faith to name and claim something.
By faith they SAW God in the midst of all sorts of chaos and crisis and they learned how to walk with God in a powerful and courageous way!
Eg.
Noah
He didn’t wake up one day and say,
“I want a boat for the glory of God!”
No – God said, ‘I’m going to flood the earth and I want you to build a boat right here 800klm from the sea’
Noah said,
‘I believe you. I’ll get my hammer and nails and round up the boys to start work!
Nehemiah didn’t get up one morning looking to build a wall.
In the course of his day some people came from Jerusalem and he asked,
‘How are the brothers?’
When he heard of their distress because the walls were still in ruins, Nehemiah saw something he hadn’t seen before.
By faith, he could build the walls!!
Faith is not the means to make our lives more comfortable.
Faith is not the means to bring us what we want.
Faith is not the means to persuade God to do something he is reticent to do.
But I tell you this – even just a tiny bit of faith, the size of a grain of mustard is big enough to move a mountain if God wants it moved!
How’s your seeing?
Are you down on the floor with Ava – you think that all you can see is all there is!
May God open our eyes, open our hearts, open our soul and let us see that the ….universe was formed at His command, so that what is seen is not made out of what was visible.
Let faith lose and you’ll be surprised what you see!