We
also need men and women of faith from the past.
1. They are our inspiration
They
are described here as a ‘host of witnesses’ (12.1)
I
am not a runner. Run and fun are not two words that I put together. I think
people who run for fun are crazy. And I am astonished to discover that there
are even people who claim to enjoy running marathons.
But
I am told that when you do run a marathon, you are usually dead at about the 25
mile mark. But something strange then happen. For the last mile or so, as the
crowds increase, and as you hear them urge you on, you come alive again.
It
is what gets you over the finish line.
Well,
the men and women who are described here in Hebrews 11 are our crowd. They are
cheering us, urging us on as we get toward the finishing line of the Christian
life.
And
they know what it is all about, because they already have run and completed the
race.
If
you go into one of the Kremlin churches you will see in front of you a wall on
which are about 5 or 6 rows of icons. Those icons depict the faces of Old Testament
heroes of faith, of apostles and of more recent saints. It is a very physical
representation of the host of witnesses. There they are: the heroes of the
faith.
They put their trust in God
In
God who creates everything out of nothing (11.2).
In
other words, we need to look behind what ‘is’, matter or anti-matter, to see
the real meaning and significance of the universe
In
God who promises a future city (11.10), a better country (11.16), a future
reward (11.26)
In
God who rescues those who call on him.
That
is what happened to the people of Israel after they had fled from Egypt and stood
by the Red Sea. They couldn’t go forwards – there was a sea; and they couldn’t
go backwards – there was the Egyptian army. They were trapped. All Moses could
do was to pray. And the sea opened, and God rescued them.
What
is interesting is that they are all seriously flawed individuals. Gideon was at
first hesitant and then tried to establish his family as a dynasty. Samson –
the less said about him the better. He had a tiny problem with authority, lust
and anger management. Barak simply bottled out and was rebuked by Deborah the
prophetess. And Jephthah sacrificed his own daughter after a rash oath that he
will have regretted to the end of his days.
But
what is important about them is that each of them put their trust in God.
In
God who can break down walls
The
people of Israel stood in front of the fortified city of Jericho. But they didn’t
build siege engines. Instead they walked around the city in absolute silence
once for 6 days. And then on the seventh day, they walked round 7 times, but on
this occasion they blew their trumpets. Then with one long blast of the trumpet,
they give a great shout.
And
the walls came tumbling down!
It
is not a military strategy that you will find in any manual. But it was what
God had commanded Joshua and he trusted God.
In
God who gives his promise and declares his purpose
Verse
31 speaks of the faith of Rahab. She is the woman who sheltered the Israelite
agents when they came to spy out Jericho. Her inclusion in this list is
remarkable. She is a Gentile, a woman and a prostitute: religiously, socially
and morally she is an outsider. But she puts her faith in the God, whose
purposes she can see unfolding in history. She believed that God was with the
Israelite people and she wanted to be on God’s side.
And
then there is David. David, the shepherd boy who became king. He had been told
that one day he would become king. And he believed God. And because he trusted
God that his time would come, he refused to seize power by murdering the
existing King Saul when he had the chance. Through faith he conquered a
kingdom.
And
there was Samuel the prophet, who so clearly heard the voice of God and saw the
hand of God at work. He foresaw the purposes of God to build a kingdom that
would rest on one far greater than any human king.
In
God who makes weak people strong:
‘they
won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to
flight’ (v34)
God
uses our weakness to win his wars
The
Egyptian army was drowned in the Red sea
Gideon
goes up against the Midianite army with 300 men
David,
as a shepherd boy, defeats the giant and the champion of the Philistine army
Goliath.
And
Paul got this when he says, ‘Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults,
hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I
am weak, then I am strong.’ (2 Corinthians 12:10)
In
God who can bring people back from the dead
Earlier
we have the example of Abraham (v19), willing to sacrifice his son Isaac
because he believed that God would bring him back from the dead.
And
in v35 we are reminded of the widow of Zarephath whose son died. She called on
Elijah to pray for him and he was brought back to life. And of the woman who
ran the guest house where Elisha would stay. Her son dies and Elisha prays that
God will raise him from the dead.
And
verse 35 is a transition.
Up
to this point we have seen how faith wins great victories here, in this visible
world: it ‘conquers kingdoms, administers justice, obtained promises .. became
mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight’.
But
now we see how faith in God, and in the resurrection power of God, inspires
these unnamed heroes and heroines of faith to remarkable acts of courage and
defiance, of faithfulness and perseverance in the face of overwhelming terror
and dreadful suffering. This is real faith, because these are people who are
living for the invisible world – they are willing to suffer now, for the sake
of the then.
We
love to hear the Christian ‘success’ stories: the healings, maybe stories of
remarkable business success in the name of the Lord, of miracles and revivals.
But
faith is not really about looking for rewards here and now
Faith
in God is what enabled these people, and many others, to endure, to face suffering
and martyrdom. For the sake of the invisible, for the sake of the future, for
the sake of this city that is built not by human hands but by God.
This
is the faith which inspires me; and this is the faith which transforms lives.
There
was an ancient saying: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
It
was true then and it is true now.
At
the West end of Westminster Abbey there are 8 statues to C20th martyrs:
including Maximilian Kolbe and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth.
And
as a young Christian I was particularly inspired and challenged by the stories
of Christian courage and witness and martyrdom in Eastern Europe as they stood
for Christ in the face of an aggressively atheistic communism, and especially
here in Russia.
And
it continues. There have already probably been more Christian martyrs in the
C21st than there were in the whole of the C20th: with the rise of Isis and the
extreme Islamic Jihadist movement. People who have stood firm in their faith
despite terrible suffering.
And
these men and women of faith are our inspiration.
2. They are our
completion
Amazingly, they need us
and, the reverse holds true, we need them.
Chrysostom in the C4th explains
it like this. There is a father who loves his family. They come together for a
meal. Some finish their work before others and sit down at the table. But the
meal is not served until all have sat down at the table.
We are part of a family,
of a body made up of countless people, whose names are known to God, who put
their faith in God and in his word. It is a body which reaches through space
and time.
In our pride, we like to think
that we are our own people, that we have discovered it all, that we have it all.
But we need to recognise
our dependence on each other. We are only here because they received, lived and
passed on the Faith. We have been shaped by them.
And we still need them: their
wisdom, teaching and example. We can see how they have run the race, how they
have cast off the sins that cling to us, and how they have persevered.
And we realise that they
are part of us and we are part of them. We, you and I, are the answer to their
prayers.
And so it is only when we
are all gathered that the feast will begin.
3. They are our joy
Of course, our main
inspiration in the Christian life is Jesus. He is described here as the pioneer
of our faith (12.2).
It is a bit like you are
hacking your way through the forest. And in front of you there is the one who
is clearing the path, showing us the way to go.
Jesus has gone ahead of us
and shown us the way. He faced the temptations that we face, but resisted them.
He lived by trust in God, even though it meant he would be crucified. And he
goes through the cross to the resurrection.
And he is the perfecter of
our faith. He is the one who shows us what a perfect faultless faith is, and when
we put our trust in him, we share in that perfection.
But v2 describes Jesus enduring
the cross ‘for the sake of the joy set before him’.
That verse has become very
special for me. Jesus did not go through with the cross simply out of a sense
of duty and obedience and to his Father. He went into the cross in hope – in hope
of the joy that lay ahead
The joy of being with his Father
again, of heaven, of honour and glory. Yes.
But also the joy that, because
of his death, many will be enabled to become his brothers and sisters, to
become part of his family, to be part of his body.
The New Testament knows of
this joy in each other:
Paul writes that the
Philippian Christians are his joy and crown (Phil 4.1), and that the Thessalonian
Christians are his glory and joy (1 Thess 2.20)
And John writes to the
scattered New Testament Christians, that he might have fellowship with them, so
that his joy will be made complete (1 John 1.4).
This is like the joy of
the lover when the beloved says yes.
A couple of weeks ago I conducted
a wedding service for a couple. It is a great privilege for a minister. Because
as they looked at each other and as they made those vows, their eyes shone with
a radiance and a love and a joy in each other.
It is like the joy when
lover and beloved are together
It is like the joy of knowing
that you are part of a loving family: that I am one with the other, belong to
the other, am part of the other – and that the other delights in me.
And on that final day, as
the last person is seated at the table, and as Jesus is seated, and as the meal
is served – we will look round the table, and we will see people who we have
never known – most will be people who lived before or after us – but we will
know that in Jesus we are part of them, just as they are part of us. And we
will learn their stories – maybe dramatic, maybe not so dramatic – but each
telling of how they put off sin, how they ran the race and how they lived by
putting their faith in God and their trust in the Lord Jesus. And we will see
Jesus in them, and they will see Jesus in us. And we will delight in them, and
they will delight in us. And they will be our joy.
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