“Keeping The Faith”
Text:
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
© August 12, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton
United Presbyterian Church.
A
priest over in Italy is being sued. You
see, an atheist by the name of Luigi Cascioli is
suing the priest, claiming that the priest violated an Italian law that makes
it illegal to deceive people. In
particular, the lawsuit alleges that the priest has deceived people for many
years by trying to get people to believe in Jesus. And so Luigi Cascioli
is demanding that the priest be forced to pay a fine unless he can present
cold, hard evidence in court to back up what he’s been telling people about
Jesus.[1]
When
it comes to Christianity, there are some things that we can prove. For instance, there is considerable evidence,
even outside of the Bible, that back in the first century there was a man by
the name Jesus, and that that Jesus attracted large crowds of followers, and
that many people thought that that Jesus was a great person – some even going
so far as to say that he was the Messiah, the Christ. And there is considerable evidence, even
outside of the Bible, that that Jesus was eventually nailed to a cross and
killed. If you had to go to court and
prove things, you could probably find enough evidence to convince a judge and
jury about those facts.
But
when it comes to many other aspects about Jesus, there aren’t necessarily facts
that you can point to. For instance,
when it comes to saying that Jesus was the Son of God, or when it comes to
saying that Jesus performed miracles, or when it comes to saying that Jesus was
raised from the dead, there might be some pieces of evidence that you can point
to, but ultimately to believe those things, you can’t rely just on facts, you
have to rely on faith. And the
importance of having faith is certainly the major theme of this passage that we
heard today in the Letter to the Hebrews.
But
nowadays faith is not generally held in high regard. For instance, one leading atheist points out
that in the last century, when studies have been done to examine the
relationship between faith and intelligence, 39 out of 43 of those studies have
concluded that the more faith a person has, the less intelligent they tend to
be; and likewise, the more intelligent that people are, the less likely they
are to have faith.[2] In other words, a popular belief nowadays is
that faith is only for dummies, that faith is only for people who are dumb
enough to believe that sort of stuff.
But
even so, here in this reading that we heard today from the Bible, we are told
that despite what other people might think, we need to have faith; that if we
are to be Christians, then faith needs to be at the very heart of who and what
we are. But when we use that word
“faith,” we need to understand that faith doesn’t mean just having certain
right religious thoughts in our heads.
Faith doesn’t mean just knowing the right facts and truths about God and
Jesus. No, faith means knowing the right
facts and truths about God and Jesus, and then acting on that knowledge. Faith means taking what we believe in our
heads and in our hearts, and then going out and doing what those beliefs are
calling us to do.
To
help us understand that that’s what faith means, here in this chapter in
Hebrews we’re reminded about a whole long list of people from the Old Testament
who not only believed in God, but who put their beliefs into action by going
out and doing what God was calling them to do.
And in particular, in the passage that we listened to this morning,
we’re invited to consider how that kind of faith was a part of the lives of an
elderly couple by the name of Abraham and Sarah.
If
you’re somewhat familiar with the Bible, then you probably recall that in the
first book of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, we are told at length about
Abraham and Sarah, and their relationship to God. When their story begins, they are living in a
town called
Now
you need to understand that at the time when God came to them, Abraham and
Sarah were no spring chickens. No, they
were probably in their 80s or 90s. And
they had never had any children before.
But here was God coming to them, asking them to pack up all their
worldly belongings and move, and in their 80s or 90s to become parents for the
first time.
And
of all things, Abraham and Sarah went and did what God said. Even though God never showed them a color
brochure about where he was taking them, even though God never handed them a
map to show them how to get there, even though God never presented them with a
deed to confirm that that new land was really going to belong to them once they
got there, Abraham and Sarah went and did what God said. They went and did what God said because they
had faith.
But
we shouldn’t kid ourselves – having faith isn’t easy. Because even though Abraham and Sarah went
and did what God said, they met up with all kinds of obstacles along the
way. They didn’t exactly meet up with a
warm reception from the people who already lived in the land that God sent them
to. They had to deal with a famine. And eventually Abraham and Sarah’s family was
turned into slaves in
At
one time or another in our lives, someone has probably said to us, “Just have
faith.” And that’s often said as though
having faith were a simple and easy thing.
But the truth is that to have faith means at times to allow God to come
and turn our lives upside down, or at least to push us and stretch us in some
new direction that we probably never would have chosen for ourselves.
I’ve
shared with some of you the story about how when I was in high school, whenever
someone asked me what I was going to do with my life, I knew – I had a firm,
solid answer to that question: I was
going to be a stock broker. I liked
numbers. I liked reading about
finance. I was going to be a stock
broker.
But
one day around my junior year of high school I had this thought, this voice,
that just wouldn’t stop. And that
thought or voice was saying, “I want you to be a minister.” Now you need to understand that I had always
gone to Sunday school and worship as a kid, but the idea of becoming a minister
was something that I had absolutely never even considered. And so for a week or more, that thought or
voice kept coming to me saying, “I want you to be a minister.” But I kept telling myself, “God must have
dialed the wrong number. I can’t be a
minister, because I’m going to be a stock broker.”
Well,
a couple Sundays later, after the morning worship service this older man who I
had hardly ever spoken to before came up to me and out of the blue said, “Have
you ever thought of becoming a minister?”
And I have a to tell you, a shiver went down my spine, because at that
point I hadn’t told anyone about those thoughts that I had been having. And then a Sunday or two later, an older
woman came up to me and again out of the blue said, “I think you’d make a good
minister.” Well, at that point I got the
message. Even though I had my future
mapped out the way that I wanted it to be, God was trying to come into my life
and turn things upside down to the way that God wanted it to be, pushing and
stretching me toward a direction that I never would have chosen for myself.
God
wants all of us to have faith. In your
life, what does that mean for you? It
might not necessarily mean packing up all your belongings and moving to another
city or another country, like Abraham and Sarah did. It might not necessarily mean changing the
career path that you had planned on pursuing.
But if you have faith, what difference is that faith making in your
life? In what way is God perhaps poking
and prodding you to step outside your comfort zone, to step beyond what’s
comfortable and easy, and to do what God wants you to be doing with your life?
One
of our joys this morning is that in just a little while we will be baptizing
Jason and Anna Vozar’s baby boy, J. J. And I’m sure that we all join with his family
in hoping and praying that he’ll grow up safe and happy. But even more than that, through baptism
we’re hoping and praying that J. J. will grow up to be a person of faith, that
he’ll grow up to be someone with a willingness to listen for God’s voice and a
determination to do what God is calling him to do with his life, no matter what
they might be.
In
all of our lives, God wants us to have faith.
In all of our lives, God wants us to be not only willing to believe in
God, but to also be willing to trust God with all our hearts. At times having faith isn’t easy. But we can trust that no matter what, God
keeps his promises, and God will never let us down.