21 Jan

8/12/18   HEBREWS 11:1-3, 8-16   “FUNCTIONING IN THIS BROKEN WORLD!”

We live in a visual world.  I learned this the hard way.  For years I have posted daily quotes on Facebook in printed form.  I would reach 20 people or so a day.  Our daughter, Brandy Morgan, suggested on this last Memorial Day that I should go live with this.  So I did and now there are 60-80 people listening to this every day.  So I learned that we like visual things but we can’t always have visual.  For instance we have to breathe air to live but we have never seen air.  We have to have gravity so we stay on the earth’s surface.  I’m sure there are many other things that we have to take on faith or take it for granted that they are there.  Thomas doubted that Jesus was resurrected until he could feel the scars on Jesus.  Today we are going to look at faith in Jesus which is something else we can’t see.  I’m going to try to help you to know for a fact that Jesus is there all the time helping and loving you.

Donnie Martin tells quite the story about missionaries Gary and Gloria Sloan, which is similar to the Jim Eliot story, who were celebrating their daughter’s birthday in Mexico with two other missionaries.  This is several years ago.  They had been in the mission field in Mexico for only six months.  They were enjoying themselves at a Pacific coast swimming spot.

It wasn’t long before they noticed that a strong undertow was pulling their daughter, Carla, out to sea.  Gary and the two other missionaries rushed out to save the girl but they too got caught in the current.  In the disaster that followed all four people drowned.  When Carla’s body was brought ashore, Gloria doubled over in agony.  She was unable to breathe.  It was at this time that she felt the presence of Jesus.  She recalled, “I felt such a strength and power and control.  I looked down at my daughter, and I had such peace.”

During this time a large group of people had gathered to watch.  Before long there were all four bodies lying on the beach.  What happened next was amazing.  Gloria stood over the bodies of her loved ones and gave witness to the saving power of Jesus.  She said to the crowd, “The pain I feel for the loss of my husband and daughter is not as much as the pain I feel for the truly lost of those standing around me.”

Gloria Sloan then told the people that her daughter and husband were now, at this very minute, standing in the presence of God.  Then she said, “What if you were the ones laying here?  Would you know that you would be in God’s presence?”  What a demonstration of faith she had!

Gloria’s husband and daughter were buried in Mexico.  After the funerals, she went home to Texas to heal.  Then came another exhibition of faith.  After about six months, Gloria packed up her remaining three children and went back to Mexico to finish the work that she and her husband had begun.  What a testimony!

I think that we probably all know of people or stories like this.  If you don’t, then just take a look in the Bible.  There are many stories of great faith.  The author of Hebrews tells of Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham.  These Biblical characters took the term faith to another level as did Gloria Sloan in our story.

As we begin to look at this morning’s text we should first know that we do not know who wrote Hebrews.  There is a school of thought that Paul may have and there is a school of thought that it may have been Barnabas.  It could also have been someone else.  We just don’t know.  We do know however, that it was probably written before the fall of Jerusalem or around the time of 60 AD.  And we also probably know that the audience was pretty much made up of Christian Jews.

This is important to know because they were being heavily persecuted at this time by the Romans.  However, the Jewish persecution was not yet in full swing.  Many of these people would still go to the synagogues on Saturday to worship with the Jews and then worship Jesus on Sunday.  The author of Hebrews is starting to tell the people that maybe they should be only worshipping Christ because He is the perfection of Judaism.  There have been volumes written on this and there are many different views as to what was happening at this time.  So this is a very condensed version of what probably was occurring.

As we look at the first three verses today, we see that this is one of the most quoted passages as to what faith is.  Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  What the people saw at this time was that they were being persecuted for their belief.  They were in trouble and they were being killed.  It is no wonder that they needed some sort of pep talk at this time.

So basically what this author is saying is something like this.  “Brothers and sisters in Christ, even though things are hard out there, we have to keep focused on the One who is important.  We can’t see Him anymore but there are still a lot of people around who did actually see Him.  They saw the miracles, they saw the death, and they saw Him after his death.  So even though we can’t see Him anymore, we can be certain that He is there.  We can be sure He is there.”  The woman in our opening story absolutely knew Jesus was there when things got almost unbearable for her and her family.

Anyway, the author goes on to tie this in with Judaism by saying the ancients believed in what they could not see.  The ancients along with this audience and us, believed that God formed the universe of things that we can see from things that we could not see.  The author takes them and us back to the creation story to help them understand what their faith is all about.  The spiritual world of God is different than the physical world that we know.

This concept would have been far easier for the original readers of Hebrews to follow than it is for most of us to follow.  And this is because that in the meantime, the age of scientific reasoning has taken over our world.  This started back in the time of Galileo and some of his contemporaries.  Before this time the world was pretty much based on faith.

But since then we have been slowly but surely extending our knowledge of our world.  And this for the most part has been a very good thing.  I think that science and religion should go hand in hand.  I think that God gave science to us so that He could reveal His world to us through science.  We shouldn’t be ashamed of what we have discovered in the last few centuries.  We should embrace this knowledge.  For the most part, science is good.

Of course, we have to watch out for science that is detrimental to our lives and do something about that.  One of the areas of concern comes from the creation versus evolution debate that started 150 years ago.  As far as I can see, there is no proof of evolution and lots and lots of proof of creation.  And this argument will not be settled today even though there is no argument in my mind.  But this can lead us into the problems of abortion and stem cell usage.  Is it right to kill a baby before it is born?  Is it right to kill that baby and then use its stem cells to cure diseases that other forms of stem cells are perfectly capable of curing?  Is it right that so much money is being made in this industry that it cannot be stopped?  If you remember what I said last week about corporate America only doing things that make money, then it is not a big leap for us to realize that these babies are being killed for profit.  Now if this isn’t breaking some of the laws of God, then I don’t know what is.  Once again, I get a little side tracked.

As we can see there are many false beliefs out there in the world for us to grab.  The author is telling us and the ancients to be steady and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Just because we can no longer see Him, doesn’t mean that He is no longer there.  There is lots of proof that He is still there and He still loves us in spite of ourselves.

The author now shows his audience the proof.  He talks of Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham.  We will concentrate on Abraham today.  These people knew Abraham and we should know Abraham.  If you don’t, go back to Genesis and read about him.  He was the patriarch of the Jewish religion.  These people may have been faltering but they still knew their forefathers and their history.

So he proceeds to tell them of Abraham.  Abram was very successful and living in Ur when God calls him to go to Canaan.  And he goes.  He has never seen this place before and he knows nobody.  But he obeys.  He was a stranger who was living in a strange land in tents.

He was not a young man when God tells him and Sarah that they will have a son.  And they do have a son even though they are both over 90 years old.  Don’t ever try to tell me that God doesn’t do miracles.  They are everywhere in the Bible.  He is also told that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars and countless as the sand on the beach.  How true has that been!

Then he goes on to tell us that none of these people he had referred to had seen the end result of the promises of God.  But they knew they would be fulfilled because of their faith.  They knew that their real home was not of this world.  They knew that this was just temporary.  Their real home was in heaven and this earth was just a short term thing.

This was very good news for the audience of Hebrews.  Because they were being persecuted and things were pretty bleak, they could take this and hang onto it because of their faith.  They didn’t know it at the time but things would get worse, a lot worse before they got better.  But with faith in Jesus Christ, they could get through it.

Now I don’t think that we are a whole lot different today.  We have it pretty easy in this country but persecution is getting worse all the time.  And there are many places in the world where Christians are systematically murdered.  And often times this happens in Muslim countries where there is absolutely no freedom of religion.  You are either a Muslim or you will die.  There is a lot of complaining about discrimination against Muslims in this country.  What about the slaughter of Christians in Muslim countries?  This works both ways.

Anyway have you ever wondered why these martyrs will hang on to their faith until death?  There is probably no simple answer to this but I think that it is because through Jesus Christ this is the only hope that these people have.  Christianity is the only religion in the world that is faith based.  All others are based on works.  In them you have to work or earn your way to heaven.  However, all you have to do, and all they have to do is believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved.  You will get to heaven by your faith and not your works.  And if you haven’t done so yet, ask Jesus to forgive your sins and ask Him into your heart.  That is all anyone in the world has to do.  And Jesus wants everyone to come home to Him including the Hindus and Muslims.

I would like to talk about this for another 15 minutes or so but that would put me way over our time limits.  So I would like to close by telling you of a couple a things you can do in your own area to help you keep your faith strong.  You have to keep strong individually through your daily prayer life and through daily devotions.  These are very important to do to get your day started or to end your day.  Please pray and read.

And together you can gather for Bible studies or you can go on line for Bible studies.  I’m thinking about some of the great teachers who are on the radio and sometimes TV.  These include Dr. David Jerimiah, Charles Stanley, Andy Stanley, Chuck Swindoll and there are many others that are good.  Some radio ministries have been and are a fraud but most of them are quite good.  I could help you choose one.  The people I mentioned have many links to good places so look them up.  Start your own private Bible study or invite a group of friends to join you.  I have been in studies with no leaders and little structure, but they were focused on Jesus.  And they have been as good a study as I’ve ever been involved.  There are so many ways to study the Bible and the best way is to start to read your Bibles daily.

Another thing that will help you to keep your faith is through small faith groups.  As your faith grows, so will your circle of new friends who love the Lord just like you!  Gather once a month and go out for dinner or rotate meals at different houses or apartments.  Or if you are an avid reader like I am, you might start a book club where you read Christian books.  This could be almost as good as a Bible study if you select the right books.  You could start a bowling team or a softball team or a young parents group or a singles group or just about anything in the name of Jesus.  There are a lot of people who think that if you have a Christian group they have to study the Bible.  That is not true but you can if you want.  I would suggest that no matter what type of group you develop you begin and end each session with prayer.  The only parameter is that you honor Jesus through your activities.  He is the key to any success, not us.

This is all the same faith that the author of Hebrews is telling his audience to have.  You see how this all ties together.  By finding ways to get together in the name of Jesus, you will be helping yourselves and others as they see this happen.  The most successful churches in this country have hundreds of small groups.  Do these things and you will be telling those around you that Jesus is alive and doing very well functioning in this broken world!  Jesus loves you far more than you will ever imagine.  I praise the Lord for this.  And Thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.