A Panorama of Faith

There are many facets to faith. Over the past few weeks, we’ve learned a lot about faith. We’ve learned that “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6

We learned from Noah that “Faith is unlearning your fears until all that’s left is the fear of God.” By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. Noah believed God’s Word and for over 100 years built the ark simply because he was certain of what he could not see. So, we learned that living by faith requires an attitude not only of trust, but the desire to please God rather than man.

We learned from Abraham that “Faith is taking the first step before God reveals the second step.” Abraham was willing to leave family, country and his entire life behind to go to a land he’d never seen, simply because He believed God’s promise. So, we learned that living by faith requires not only holding onto God’s promises but living with patience with an eternal perspective in this life.

Then we came to Moses. From him, we learned that “Faith is the willingness to look foolish.” Moses was willing to leave power, pleasure and possessions behind to be identified with God’s people rather than a son of Pharoah and embrace the way of Christ over the way of the world. So, we learned from Moses that our faith in Christ will influence our choices in life, and sometimes change our direction in life.

Indeed there are many facets to faith. And another of those facets we are going to look at today, and that is this: We all need faith to face the hard things in life. Sometimes we need faith to believe that God will do the impossible to save us. Sometimes we need faith to overcome obstacles and live victoriously in our broken and hostile world, and many times we need faith in God to comfort us and help us get through our times of suffering. That’s what we’re going to look today from a panorama of faith of people who are just like us. Their experiences are recorded for us in Hebrews 11:29-40, where we’re going to see how our faith in God can help us face the hard things of life.

We’re going to begin by looking at how faith allows us to have the courage to trust in God, even when the deck is stacked against us and there seems to be no hope. In verses 29 through 31, the writer begins this final section on faith by revealing for us:
Courageous Faith Here he gives three examples of faith when it looks like there’s no way of escape. The first is this: By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. Hebrews 11:29
If you know the story, God had delivered the people of Israel from Pharoah’s oppressive grip. They’ d been set free from slavery in Egypt and were now camped at the Red Sea. However, Pharoah and his army were in hot pursuit, and all Israel was trapped with their backs against the sea with no way of escape. At first the people lost heart and complained to Moses. “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?” Exodus 14:11

But then they took heart when Moses told them, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Exodus 14:13-14 Here’s the secret to having courage to take a step of faith when your back is against the wall. It’s understanding who your God is. He will fight for you. He will make a way for you. You don’t have to do anything. Just be still and let God work… That’s sometimes pretty difficult for us to do. We don’t like to be still. We feel we must do something. But sometimes God allows us to find ourselves in impossible situations, just so we have no other hope but to wait on Him. That’s what He did with Israel. And this same God can deliver you. You just have to remember that you have a God who will fight for you. That’s what faith sees.

Faith sees God as mighty to save. And when we see God this way through eyes of faith, this faith that delivers you from fear. Seeing God through the eyes of faith will drive out your fears. As the writer of Hebrews will say in chapter 13, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So, we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” Hebrews 13:5-6 That’s how you can have courageous faith. When your backs against the wall, just be still and trust that God will fight for you.

Let’s look now at the second example: By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. Forty years have passed since the crossing of the Red Sea. Moses had died at the age of 120, and Joshua took over as Israel’s leader. Joshua’s first challenge was to capture the impenetrable fortress city of Jericho. However, before the battle, Joshua encountered a mysterious figure who named himself as “the commander of the army of the Lord.” First, he stated that the Lord had delivered Jericho into Joshua’s hands. But then came the instructions to have the people march around the city for seven days, then on the seventh day blowing trumpets, after which the walls would fall. So, Joshua and the people of Israel did just as they were told, and when the trumpets sounded, the walls fell down and the Israelites put the city to the sword. Israel believed God by obeying carefully the commands He gave, and God gave Jericho into Israel’s hands.

Again, the people of God didn’t really do anything but obey God. They simply marched around the city for seven days, then blew their trumpets. Joshua’s soldiers never swung a hammer. They never rammed a door or tried to dislodge a stone. They just walked around the city, then God destroyed this impenetrable fortress. God did this for them. And God can do this for you. So, ask yourself…

What’s your impenetrable fortress? What’s your Jericho? Is your Jericho your fear, your anger, bitterness, or prejudice. It is your insecurity about the future. Is it your guilt about your past? Is it your negativity or anxiety? Your Jericho can be any attitude that keeps you from living in the joy and peace of the Lord. Perhaps you’ve tried over and over to defeat this attitude, but you don’t have the power. That’s where your faith in God comes in. God can give you the courage to face your fears. God can give you the love to defeat your anger. God can remove your guilt, your anxiety, even your negativity, if you just listen to His promises and not the voice of the enemy. You see, your enemy, the devil, wants you to listen to his accusing voice. But God has already promised the victory over whatever you’re dealing with, just like He promised Joshua. God can help break down your impenetrable fortress, if you learn to listen to His voice, not the voices of your fears. That’s the second example of how trusting God can give you courageous faith.

Finally, we see the faith of Rahab: By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. Before the battle, Joshua’s spies had been detected by Jericho’s leaders, and Rahab hid them at the risk of her life. One commentator says of her: “At that moment… there seemed not one chance in a million that the children of Israel could capture Jericho. These nomads from the desert had no artillery and no siege engines. Yet Rahab believed and staked her whole future on the belief that God would make the impossible possible.” At that time, Rahab explained why she risked her life: “I know that the Lord has given you the land… we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt… for the Lord your God, He is God in the heavens above and the earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:9-11). So, on the basis of her faith in Israel’s God, Rahab asked the spies to guarantee her family’s survival when the city was taken. The spies escaped and Rahab prepared: She told her family to get ready. She kept an eye out for the coming army and tied a scarlet cord in her window to mark her house. When the Hebrews came & the walls fell, when everyone else perished, Rahab and her family were saved.
Maybe you’ve come from a messed-up family… Maybe your past is a checkered one. If so, then Rahab is your model. Because Rahab didn’t just risk her life for these scouts, she trusted in God to save her. That’s the heart of the Gospel. Like Rahab, God saves us when we cannot save ourselves. God saw her tender heart in this hard city and reached out to save her. He would have saved the entire city, but no one else made the request. So, her faith in God helped her through the hardest thing in her life. And God honored her faith and saved her. And because of her faith, eventually our Savior would come through her family line. Pretty amazing. That’s courageous faith. Sometimes God allows you to come to the end of your rope, so that your only hope is Him. But you still have to trust in Him to help you. That’s courageous faith.

That’s just one kind of faith that helps us, let’s look now at the next kind faith:
2. Conquering Faith And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised. Hebrews 11:32-33 Let’s begin by reviewing this list of six great names. Gideon gave Israel victory over the Midianites with just three hundred men. Barak led the united tribes in their victory over Sisera and the mighty Canaanite army. Samson who was sexually promiscuous and broke his Covenant with God, makes this list because of his one-man war against the Philistines, and especially for the way he ended his life. Jephthah’s foolish vow cost his daughter’s life. And despite his career as a bandit, through faith he led the tribes in battle against the Ammonites. Then there’s David and Samuel the prophet. David known as “a man after God’s own heart” slew the giant Goliath by faith and ruled over Israel as a man of faith. Samuel’s long career as a judge and a prophet was crucial for Israel. Without his help, Israel would surely have fallen to the Philistines, and David would have died as an unknown shepherd.

Now, let’s look at some of their mighty deeds of faith. Starting in verse 33 we read, “who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised.” This could be said of Joshua, David, and Solomon. Victory in battle was the most common achievement produced by faith during this period of Israel’s history. These men “enforced justice” as well. The Greek literally says that they “established righteousness.” They did not merely win battles, they also served God by establishing His righteousness within their lands.

The second trio of achievements runs from verse 33 to 34: “shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword.” This seems to be about Daniel who refused the kings’ edict to stop worshiping the Lord. When Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, God stopped the mouths of the lions. His three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego similarly refused to obey a king’s command to deny God. When they were thrown into the raging fire, God was with them in the fire.

Verse 34 adds that others “were made strong out of weakness” A notable example is Jehoshaphat, who when confronted by a vast enemy, stood before God in the assembly of the nation. Praising God for His might, he pointed out the threat of the invading armies and concluded, “O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against the great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chronicles 20:12. Jehoshaphat looked to God in his weakness and found strength. Then God sent a prophet to reply to this king: “Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s (2 Chronicles 20:14-15). All of these men were marked by sin and flaws except Samuel; and yet each one serves as examples of how God can use broken and flawed people to accomplish His plans, and win the day.

In fact, I love that God includes them as heroes of faith. For what that tells us is that you don’t have to have it all together for God to work through you. Our God is the God of second chances. Gideon, Samson, Jephthah and David would have never made God’s hall of fame of faith, if God hadn’t given them second chances.

And the same goes for you! You may not think you’re good enough for God to use you. But that’s how your faith in God can help you face the hard things of life. Believe that He is the God of second chances. For He believes in you in spite of your past failures and delights to use broken vessels for His glory. And when you know He believes in you, He will give you the faith to conquer whatever you may be facing. But you’ve got to look to Him, and not your own strength.

Which leads us to our final example of the kind of faith we need in order to face the hard things of life. But let’s pause here for a moment and make a note about faith. If the writer were to have stopped here, we might be left with a dangerously false impression that our faith in God will keep us from suffering in this world… that God will always deliver us, that God will always fight for us, and we’ll never have to suffer… This is the kind of thing we often hear today, that if we only have enough faith, we’ll never be sick or poor or troubled in any way. However, these final verses refute this kind of thinking, revealing to us the people who trusted God in the midst of suffering, but never received what was promised. Theirs is what the Bible calls a

3. Commendable Faith Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. Hebrews 11:35-37
Here we see that some of the faithful were tortured to death and refused to gain their deliverance by denying the faith. It is probable that the writer has the Maccabean martyrs in mind. These were Jews during the second century BC, who stood up to the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes, who persecuted them by requiring them to eat pig flesh and sacrifice to Greek gods. A description in the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees matches the particular Greek word for torture in our passage, that means being stretched over a frame and beaten. The scene it depicts was well known in the author’s time: the torture and murder of seven brothers in succession, each of whom refused to deny God. Their tortures are graphically described and include scalping, mutilation, tearing out the tongue, and frying over the flames, most of which took place while they were stretched over the wheel of a catapult.

As our passage describes, these seven brothers accepted their deaths rather than renounce their faith, specifically because of their hope in the resurrection. One of the brothers spat out at his tormentors, “the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws” (Maccabees 7:9). In fact, the last of the brothers to die confidently turned to the wicked king and assured him that his brothers, though dead, “after enduring their brief pain, now drink of ever-flowing life, by virtue of God’s covenant.” This kind of sacrifice and this kind of faith in God is incomprehensible to the person who does not know God. But through the eyes of faith, those who love God see it as privilege to suffer for God’s sake.

In other words, our faith often shines brightest in the midst of trials and sufferings. I’ll never forget the day my Hebrew professor stopped in the middle of class and shared the suffering he was going through. He had taken his daughter to her chemo treatment that morning. Overwhelmed with grief, he pulled his car over to the side of the road and cried out to God because of her suffering. But then a peace came over him, as God impressed upon him this truth. “The world isn’t drawn to Jesus because of our worldly blessings, the world is drawn to Jesus, when we have peace and joy even though we are suffering.” That’s what these saints were commended for: “They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated – the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us.” Hebrews 11:37-40 God may never deliver you from the hard stuff you are facing. And you may have to endure suffering on this life, but you will always have His presence, and you will always have the hope of what He has planned for you in eternity. It is this faith in what is yet to come that these saints were commended for. In fact, these unnamed saints may just be the greatest heroes of faith listed in this entire passage. For they teach us the most profound truth about faith: That whenever this life is over, what will really matter most is your faith.
For it is only through your faith in Jesus Christ that you are saved.
It’s only through your faith in Jesus Christ that you are made right with God.
It is only through your faith in Jesus that you are adopted into God’s family.
And its only through faith, you know that the best is yet to come.
That’s the kind of faith that God commends.

So yes, there are all kinds of faith. And so we’ve seen how when God’s people trust in Him, He delivers: When you trust in God to help you face the impossible, all you have to do be still and let Him fight your battles. When you trust in God to help you fulfill His plans, trust that God can use you despite your past failures. And when you trust in God the midst of your suffering, that’s when your faith will shine the brightest.

So, let me ask you today, Do you have the kind of faith that keeps trusting in God, when life is hard? If you do, then you have the kind faith in God that He calls commendable. You have the kind of faith in God that can help you face anything. So, Be still and know that He fights for you. Believe He always loves you in spite of your flaws and trust that He will never leave you, for the best is yet to come!