By Faith
Sunday, August 12th, 2007
Eleventh after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Even today, probably 30 years since I played that game the last time, hearing those words echoes with the weight of the near-absolute power that peer pressure carried with it in my adolescence. If you are familiar with the game, no explanation is necessary. If you are not, it involved making one of two choices, and following through on that decision no matter what the requirement.
The challenge question, “Truth or Dare?” was presented, and you had to choose one or the other. To choose the first, Truth, meant that you had to answer truthfully any question put to you by the challenger. To choose the second, the dare, meant that whatever you were challenged to do, you had to do … usually it involved kissing one of the girls. Oddly enough, it never seemed to be brought to anyone’s attention that that might be more of a challenge for the person RECEIVING the kiss than the person GIVING it.
We were bored preteens and teenagers, and when we got together, if the weather was such that we couldn’t be outside, there were only so many rounds of Spades, or Rook you could play.
In retrospect, the thing about the game was that you played with people you trusted, people you knew. When it came to be your turn, you had to know the person challenging you enough to know what they might ask of you – whether a truth question or a dare to do something. It’s funny, but even that game worked its way into the foundation of those relationships that are still there today. Although we may communicate only once or twice a year, in some cases even less frequently, my fellow MK’s and I formed a bond that allows us to pick right up from the last time we spoke and carry on as if no time has passed. It’s hard to describe, but it speaks to a sense of family that transcends the facts of time and distance.
I believe that was what the writer of Hebrews was pointing to in this recounting of the history of points of faith of Abraham that we find in the text today for the folks who were going to read this letter – both the direct recipients as well as those who’ve become the subsequent recipients over the ensuing centuries.
There is a commonality that we share with Abraham that transcends time and distance; that resonates with where we come from and where we are headed, and it comes directly from how much we act on – and in – faith.
We could ask ourselves, for example, what kind of faith it took for those one hundred and forty-four people to step away from the congregation at Farnham church and establish themselves as a separate congregation here?
In the act of separating, the reason being lost to history, even though it was probably painful in many ways, there was also a sense of hope in the future of that group, a willingness to take a risk and move forward, into uncharted waters, to see what God had waiting for them there.
What kind of faith did it take for those same folks to decide to build a new, larger sanctuary when the log building they were meeting in grew small? The log building was probably small to begin with, so it may well have been as much out of necessity as vision, but even in that necessity, there was, I imagine, a sense that God would continue to bless the faithfulness of God’s people.
We sometimes forget that Sunday School has not always been a part of our weekly tradition as Baptists. It is a relatively recent addition to the Sunday morning routine, having only come into common practice around the same time the Royal Oaks congregation constituted itself into a church, and the concept as a whole is only a few years older than the church itself, having been ‘invented’, if the word applies, by a man by the name of Robert Raikes in England, in 1780.
Who knows, the issue of a Sunday School may have even had a part in the formation of the church itself, and the subsequent decision to build the larger building.
What kind of faith was it that compelled the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original members to decide to expand that original building, add classroom space to the front and back of the white frame structure?
There’s a wonderful passage in verse 13:
Can you hear the faith in those words? (Read again) – but from a distance they saw and greeted them. To greet something or someone usually implies an act of welcome, an acceptance of that person for who he or she is, or that THING for what IT is. Here we are seeing a promise made by God to God’s people, and it was one that at the time was as yet unfulfilled. But the fact that it was unfulfilled did not stop Abraham and Isaac and Jacob from still living in the reality of the promise, living in the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen …
There’s a beauty in those last few verses of the passage that speak of what MIGHT have been the case, what COULD have happened, if Abraham and his descendants had chosen to look back on what they could be thankful for and chosen rather to focus on THAT rather than FORWARD, on what was to come – reading on:
We’ve talked of this before. How often do we remind ourselves in our youth that this earth is not, in truth, our home? It becomes easier to think of the earth in that sense as one grows older, and is facing one’s own mortality, but it is almost absent from our thinking when we are young and supposedly have our whole life ahead of us.
We DO have to suppose that we have most of our lives ahead of us, don’t we, in order to function in the life we have? But as Christians we need to always keep in the back of our minds the fact that our home is indeed away from here, with God.
Verse 15 caught me by surprise. As often as I’ve read this passage, it had not until now jumped out at me like it did this time: (read)
What do you suppose the writer meant in saying ‘They would have had the opportunity to return’? I think the writer is saying the story would have ended there.
We are creatures of habit, and we would much rather hang onto what we know than take on something new, something unknown. But what if that something is something that God can’t wait to show us? What if it is the next step in our walk of faith, in our “long obedience in the same direction”, as Eugene Petersen said?
Is our faith the same forward-looking faith as that of our forbearers? Is ours a faith that will accept the reality of the promise of blessing and presence and perseverance even if we can’t, from this vantage point, see it clearly?
Is that a TRUTH we DARE to embrace? Do we KNOW God enough, do we TRUST God enough, is our relationship TO God such that we won’t hesitate to open up to what it is God has planned for us, even if it makes us, in the short term, uncomfortable – because all new things do, after all?
The last phrase from verse 16 is both a promise and a warning.
Let it be so with us, to not be ashamed to follow God into this new and different land, into what we have not done before, or known before, because what is before us bears little resemblance to what has BEEN before.
We know human nature has remained unchanged, and we know also that the only true change in a person’s life comes through following Christ as Lord, and that MESSAGE will not change, but our method, our presentation of that message HAS to change if it is to be heard, if it is to be given an audience in the world that is changing around us every day.
Let’s pray.
Eleventh after Pentecost
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. …8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” 13All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.“Truth or Dare?”
Even today, probably 30 years since I played that game the last time, hearing those words echoes with the weight of the near-absolute power that peer pressure carried with it in my adolescence. If you are familiar with the game, no explanation is necessary. If you are not, it involved making one of two choices, and following through on that decision no matter what the requirement.
The challenge question, “Truth or Dare?” was presented, and you had to choose one or the other. To choose the first, Truth, meant that you had to answer truthfully any question put to you by the challenger. To choose the second, the dare, meant that whatever you were challenged to do, you had to do … usually it involved kissing one of the girls. Oddly enough, it never seemed to be brought to anyone’s attention that that might be more of a challenge for the person RECEIVING the kiss than the person GIVING it.
We were bored preteens and teenagers, and when we got together, if the weather was such that we couldn’t be outside, there were only so many rounds of Spades, or Rook you could play.
In retrospect, the thing about the game was that you played with people you trusted, people you knew. When it came to be your turn, you had to know the person challenging you enough to know what they might ask of you – whether a truth question or a dare to do something. It’s funny, but even that game worked its way into the foundation of those relationships that are still there today. Although we may communicate only once or twice a year, in some cases even less frequently, my fellow MK’s and I formed a bond that allows us to pick right up from the last time we spoke and carry on as if no time has passed. It’s hard to describe, but it speaks to a sense of family that transcends the facts of time and distance.
I believe that was what the writer of Hebrews was pointing to in this recounting of the history of points of faith of Abraham that we find in the text today for the folks who were going to read this letter – both the direct recipients as well as those who’ve become the subsequent recipients over the ensuing centuries.
There is a commonality that we share with Abraham that transcends time and distance; that resonates with where we come from and where we are headed, and it comes directly from how much we act on – and in – faith.
We could ask ourselves, for example, what kind of faith it took for those one hundred and forty-four people to step away from the congregation at Farnham church and establish themselves as a separate congregation here?
In the act of separating, the reason being lost to history, even though it was probably painful in many ways, there was also a sense of hope in the future of that group, a willingness to take a risk and move forward, into uncharted waters, to see what God had waiting for them there.
What kind of faith did it take for those same folks to decide to build a new, larger sanctuary when the log building they were meeting in grew small? The log building was probably small to begin with, so it may well have been as much out of necessity as vision, but even in that necessity, there was, I imagine, a sense that God would continue to bless the faithfulness of God’s people.
We sometimes forget that Sunday School has not always been a part of our weekly tradition as Baptists. It is a relatively recent addition to the Sunday morning routine, having only come into common practice around the same time the Royal Oaks congregation constituted itself into a church, and the concept as a whole is only a few years older than the church itself, having been ‘invented’, if the word applies, by a man by the name of Robert Raikes in England, in 1780.
Who knows, the issue of a Sunday School may have even had a part in the formation of the church itself, and the subsequent decision to build the larger building.
What kind of faith was it that compelled the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original members to decide to expand that original building, add classroom space to the front and back of the white frame structure?
There’s a wonderful passage in verse 13:
“All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.”
Can you hear the faith in those words? (Read again) – but from a distance they saw and greeted them. To greet something or someone usually implies an act of welcome, an acceptance of that person for who he or she is, or that THING for what IT is. Here we are seeing a promise made by God to God’s people, and it was one that at the time was as yet unfulfilled. But the fact that it was unfulfilled did not stop Abraham and Isaac and Jacob from still living in the reality of the promise, living in the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen …
There’s a beauty in those last few verses of the passage that speak of what MIGHT have been the case, what COULD have happened, if Abraham and his descendants had chosen to look back on what they could be thankful for and chosen rather to focus on THAT rather than FORWARD, on what was to come – reading on:
“They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one."
We’ve talked of this before. How often do we remind ourselves in our youth that this earth is not, in truth, our home? It becomes easier to think of the earth in that sense as one grows older, and is facing one’s own mortality, but it is almost absent from our thinking when we are young and supposedly have our whole life ahead of us.
We DO have to suppose that we have most of our lives ahead of us, don’t we, in order to function in the life we have? But as Christians we need to always keep in the back of our minds the fact that our home is indeed away from here, with God.
Verse 15 caught me by surprise. As often as I’ve read this passage, it had not until now jumped out at me like it did this time: (read)
What do you suppose the writer meant in saying ‘They would have had the opportunity to return’? I think the writer is saying the story would have ended there.
We are creatures of habit, and we would much rather hang onto what we know than take on something new, something unknown. But what if that something is something that God can’t wait to show us? What if it is the next step in our walk of faith, in our “long obedience in the same direction”, as Eugene Petersen said?
Is our faith the same forward-looking faith as that of our forbearers? Is ours a faith that will accept the reality of the promise of blessing and presence and perseverance even if we can’t, from this vantage point, see it clearly?
Is that a TRUTH we DARE to embrace? Do we KNOW God enough, do we TRUST God enough, is our relationship TO God such that we won’t hesitate to open up to what it is God has planned for us, even if it makes us, in the short term, uncomfortable – because all new things do, after all?
The last phrase from verse 16 is both a promise and a warning.
"Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them."
Let it be so with us, to not be ashamed to follow God into this new and different land, into what we have not done before, or known before, because what is before us bears little resemblance to what has BEEN before.
We know human nature has remained unchanged, and we know also that the only true change in a person’s life comes through following Christ as Lord, and that MESSAGE will not change, but our method, our presentation of that message HAS to change if it is to be heard, if it is to be given an audience in the world that is changing around us every day.
Let’s pray.
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