Study inHebrews

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Examples Of Faith And

Perseverance 1 Chap 11v1-10

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IntroductionIn Ch. 11 the writer brings role models before his readers. They have been carefully chosen to illustrate that the faith to which God calls us is a faith that believes without seeing. This is not a Kierkegaardian ‘leap in the dark’ kind of faith but a faith that rests on a knowledge of God’s faithfulness and is persuaded that he cannot break his word of promise. This was the kind of faith the writer was calling his readership to exercise. He was seeking redirect their gaze so that they did not dwell upon the gathering clouds of impending persecution or upon their past contentment with Judaism and its ceremonials but rather to be gripped by the promises of the gospel and the future blessing that would be theirs.

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Noah’s FaithIn v7 we are introduced to Noah cf. Gen 5v28-9v29. God told Noah he would sent a great flood that would cover the world. This was an event that lay outside of previous human experience yet Noah began to make provision for his safety and that of his family. Why? Because he believed God.

Noah was mocked and ridiculed as he laboured just as God’s people have been mocked down through the years when they have shown themselves committed to God’s work and word. However, Noah was not deflected from his task. Why? Because he believed God.

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In what way did Noah’s faith ‘condemn the world’? Cf. 1Pet. 3v19-20, 2Pet. 2v5. The world refused to believe in anything that lay beyond their experience or the boundary of human reason.

The story of the ark reminds us that salvation and judgement are simultaneous events. The cross testifies to that as will the second coming of Jesus. The writer draws our attention to a righteousness that comes by faith. Noah’s right relationship with God came as a result of trusting God and in particular in trusting in his provision of a place of safety and deliverance. Cf. Rom. 4v13, 9v30-32, 10v 6-9

Noah’s Faith

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In v8 we find a character who takes up more space in this hall of fame than any other. Abraham - a man in whose life God developed faith to a very high degree. Again and again in scripture Abraham is held up as the man who believed God!

‘Its too good to be true, what’s the catch?’ is a common response of many. We are sceptical of extravagant offers that guarantee the enrichment of our lives. Surely no one would make us rich at their expense! No one except God, who promised to do precisely that, 4000 years ago, when he called Abram to himself in the aftermath of a major anti-God movement at Babel. Gen 11.

Abraham’s Faith

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We might expect people living in the post flood era to reel from the discovery that they would in fact be held accountable by God for their behaviour. Surely their fears would have been heightened as they stumbled across the ruins of a previous civilisation wiped out by the great flood.

In answer to the question, ‘Where can we find a place of safety?’ they had replied, ‘We will trust in our own ability and wisdom’. This led to the construction the tower of Babel, a defiant structure, a clenched fist raised to heaven which said, ‘We can do without God, and live independently of him.’

Abraham’s Faith

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Clearly not much has changed from that day until now. Men still believe themselves to be experts at building shelters for their own protection. They trust in the building blocks of scientific, technological, social and religious achievement.

Now God’s call to Abram, was to reject the fragile and crumbling structures of human construction in which the bulk of humanity were prepared to place their confidence and to travel towards the more substantial shelter which he would provide.

Abraham’s Faith

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When we begin to look at God’s shelter-promise made to Abram we find that it is framed in covenant language. Unlike human covenants today, such as marriage, that involves two people making promises to one another’s advantage, God took upon himself the total responsibility of the covenant with Abraham.

Look at the language used in Gen. 12 v2-3, “I will.. I will... I will”. It is God who is doing all of the promising. God is the only labourer on the building site. No one else is asked to contribute to this shelter. This shelter-promise of God can be unpacked in a number of different directions.

Abraham’s Faith

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We could examine the physical provision of God, a land, that must addressed the more immediate practical concerns of a man exposed to isolation, loss of identity, and physical danger. But by far the greatest of the promises is found in v3 ‘all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you’.

What is meant by this blessing which extends beyond Abram and his family? Peter answers that question in Acts 3v25 where he points from this specific promise to its fulfilment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The thrust of Peters’ teaching is that a safe hiding place, has been constructed though Christ’s death.

Abraham’s Faith

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God has done what no human construction team could ever do. He has built a place a safety where we can enjoy forgiveness, acceptance and eternal security. Is it not fanciful to suggest that Abram had some grasp that God was promising him just such a shelter? No! Look at Gal. 3v6-8. Paul tells us that the gospel was preached to Abraham in this very promise.

When the gospel is preached today God calls men and women to run into his shelter provision and to travel towards the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. Heaven!

Abraham’s Faith

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If the shelter was built by God, how did Abram benefit from it? The epistle to the Galatians commends Abraham because he believed God. His response was one of faith. He turned from the security of human accomplishment to the promises of God and he said, ‘I will run into that tower!’ Authentic faith is not an intellectual armchair belief It doesn’t produce loungers who sink into 9”of foam, but travellers who pull on their hiking boots. “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going”. Heb. 11v8:

Abraham’s Faith

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Authentic faith is active. It draws men to obey the word of God. For Abram, obedience involved a break with the past, Gen.12v1 ‘leave your country your people, and your father’s household and go to the land that I will show you’. There is a familiar N.T. Parallel in Jesus’ words, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple”. Lk. 14v26God does not intend us to sever our links with or our families but these love-links must no longer to be allowed to control our lives. Responding to God involves an allegiance shift. It means putting God first and this Abram set out to do.

Abraham’s Faith

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We may deduce that wholehearted obedience didn’t come easily to Abram. From Gen.11v31 it would appear that Abram’s family had set out along with him, not necessarily because they shared his concern to obey God, but perhaps they did so in order to moderate his obedience. Once they’d come half-way [to Haren] they may have thought themselves to be in a strong bargaining position - ‘Abraham look at the sacrifice we have made for you coming this far, surely you can make some concession for us?’

Nuzi

Ur

Babylon

Haren

DamascusShechem

HebronBeer-sheba

Abram

Abraham’s Faith

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The pressure to half-hearted obedience, influenced by a readiness to accommodate the wishes of family or friends, is one that many of us may experience. God refused to allow Abram to rest content in a halfway house of obedience. Had he remained there, he would have stopped short of God’s shelter and provision!

Similarly, when God in his mercy has begun his work in our hearts, he will never settle for anything other than our wholehearted obedience. He longs to bless and cannot bear to find us stopping short of that blessing.

Abraham’s Faith

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Paul in his Galatian epistle holds up Abram as an example of a man who sheltered by faith in Christ. Paul also expresses a horror that his readers had evacuated that shelter for one of their own making. They’d become re-infected with the self-confident spirit of Babel. They’d decided to run onto the building site. They thought they could contribute to their own safety by observing of a number of religious duties.

Whenever we start thinking like that we too are stepping out of God’s safety shelter and onto a building site of our own making. We are no longer trusting God to keep you safe but trusting in our own abilities.

Abraham’s Faith