Hold fast to faith (Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2)
When I was serving in one of my previous appointments
in
In one of the upstairs windows of a house on their
street a banner had appeared. On it in blue against a white background in large
letters were the words: “KEEP THE FAITH!” – exclamation
mark.
So they’d talked together, because they didn’t know
that there were Christians living in that house. They decided to pay a visit.
They rang the doorbell and this rather intimidating older teenage boy answered.
“Hello!”
“We’ve seen your banner in the window,” they replied.
“Keep the faith! We just wondered what church you went to because we’re
Christians too and we thought we’d introduce ourselves.”
He looked at them with a stunned and rather bemused
expression.
“Keep the faith! That’s the
Sadly his faith was misplaced! You may have faith in
your football team or their manager, but sooner or later they will let you
down!
Faith is a word that gets used very freely as people
talk about having faith in some body
or some thing or losing faith in
some body or some thing. It is actually a rather slippery word. Mark Twain
defined it in this way:
‘Faith is believing what you know ain't so.’
Then of course
we have that wonderful conversation in “
“There’s no use trying,” said
"I daresay
you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger,
I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
The writer of Hebrews understands that faith is hard to pin down. He
offers his own definition at the beginning of Chapter 11, and it has nothing to
do with impossibilities or believing what you know to be untrue. He says this:
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do
not see.”
And he goes on through the rest of Chapter 11 to show what faith looks
like as he lists the saints of the past and their actions. What conclusions can
we come to?
1) The PROBLEM of faith – you
cannot judge one
person’s faith by
that of another
No two people’s faith will look the same. After all, we are all
different people with different personalities and set in different
circumstances. The writer of Hebrews gives a huge variety of examples of faith,
many of which are found in the Old Testament. Some involve individual acts, such
as the enormous individual heroism of Samson, who used his personal strength to
overcome an oppressive regime and bring
And it’s no surprise that the writer of Hebrews stresses those who hold
onto faith in the face of persecution since he was probably writing during the
vicious persecution of Christians carried out by the Roman Emperor Domitian
about 60 years after the death of Jesus. In fact it was persecution towards
those of faith about which Jesus was warning his followers in that provocative
statement of his about bringing not peace but division in today’s gospel
reading.
So faith is demonstrated in as many ways as there are believers.
What’s more, none of these activities are infallible indications of faith.
Deeds of war and power can be performed from motivations of greed, whilst
torture and imprisonment can be the lot of anyone who gets in the way of a
psychopath. So you cannot discern faith by simply looking at someone’s actions
or reactions. It is a more complex thing than that.
Nevertheless, this does remind us that each of us will be called to
demonstrate our faith in the way that God requires of us and it will not be the
same as anyone else. Let the examples of faith seen in the Scriptures and,
perhaps even more powerfully of saints we have known, this great cloud of
witnesses, be our challenge and encouragement to live lives of faith.
2) The PATTERN of faith –
its motivation
If there is a pattern to faith,
it is that the motivation is the same as the reward. The motive is to please
God, and the reward is that God is pleased.
Many of you will know that Viv and I are now doting grandparents. As
soon as she was old enough, one of our first tasks was, of course, to visit
“Toys “R” Us”. We had a great time – not that we went just to enjoy ourselves –
well, not entirely… We chose her first “activity centre”, a thing where there
are buttons to press and doors to open and when you do it then it makes noises
or plays a nursery rhyme. Our motivation? – to please her. Our reward? – well,
she’s not going to give us a present back – it’s simply knowing that she is
pleased.
The only motive of people of faith is to please God. Here the words of
the Covenant Service are appropriate:
“We are content that Christ appoint us our place and work, and that he
himself be our reward.”
I was once in a group discussion on a church weekend. We talked about
how our faith impacted our lives. We were then given some questions for
individual, personal, quiet reflection rather than discussion. The last
question hit me for six: “Who is my audience? Before whom do I play out my
life?” That is a very challenging question for someone whose weakness can so
often be to want to please people, which does not always mean that you please
God. I’m reminded again of the words of the Covenant Service where it says that
some acts of faith that Christ asks of us will bring honour, while others will
bring reproach.
Many of the examples given in Hebrews where people have things done to
them, such as torture, have come about because the individual concerned sees
pleasing God as being the highest motive, and not even threats can act as a
deterrent.
The pattern of faith is its motivation.
3) The PIONEER and
PERFECTER of our faith –
Jesus
** Hebrews
12:1(b)-2 **
Notice that we are told to fix our eyes on Jesus; on the man Jesus; on
the one who shared our human life and experience; on Jesus who knew the
extremes of trial and adversity. For Jesus, the Son of God, emptied himself, to
quote Charles Wesley, of all but love and became truly human. As a man he had
to have faith in God. As a man he went to the cross, not out of bravado, but
putting his confidence in God, not knowing the outcome. It is on Jesus we fix
our eyes.
When we feel that we cannot summon another ounce of energy for “the race
that is set before us”, we must think of the race that was set before him. He
endured, though his course was incomparably more difficult than ours. Jesus
triumphed and, in his strength, so can we.
The Jesus to whom we direct our gaze is the pioneer of our faith. He is
the pathfinder or trailblazer. We often talk of pioneers when we speak about
exploration or something like developments in science and technology. A pioneer
paves the way for others to follow. The Wright brothers, for example, are described
as the pioneers of flight. So the example of Jesus has opened the way to
fullness of life and to eternal life in the presence of God. Those who trust
him find their way through.
Earlier in the summer we spent a few days near to
More than a pioneer, Jesus is the perfecter of faith. We fix our eyes on
him because he brings the faith of the saints who have gone before and our
faith to triumphant completion. He makes it all perfect and he alone.
Raymond Brown, in his commentary on Hebrews, “Christ Above All”, writes:
“Our moral integrity is essential, but that cannot bring our faith to
completion. Our devoted service is valuable, but that cannot complete our
faith. Our spiritual experiences can be inspiring and illuminating, but Jesus
is faith’s only consummator. Believers rely completely on him, for he ran the greatest
race right to its finish, and we come to fullness of life only in him.”
The death of Jesus on the cross is not just a demonstration of His
faith, but demonstrates that our faith is not misplaced. When we look at the
cross, we see the kind of God we serve; the kind of God who loved us so much
that He sent His Son to die for us. Our faith is rooted in that act of God. As
the hymn writer puts it, ‘Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to thy cross I
cling.’
Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Conclusion
So there are as many ways of demonstrating faith, being sure of what we
hope for and certain of what we cannot see, as there are people in this church,
and none of us should ever seek to measure our own faith by that of another’s.
But there is one Lord, who calls us to serve, in whom we can put our complete
trust and who is himself our reward. Let us hold fast to our faith.