A reading from the letter to the Hebrews.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. But recall the former days when,
after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with
sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and
affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated,
for you had compassion on those in prison.
And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property,
since you knew that you yourselves had a better
possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your
confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of
endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may
receive what is promised for yet a little while, and the coming
one will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one shall live by faith.
And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed,
but of those who have faith and preserve their souls, the word
of the Lord. Good morning, Emmanuel, and
welcome to the first sermon in our Hebrew series, Walking By
Faith. When I was a kid, I remember one
time hanging out in a mall bookstore back when malls were a
thing, waiting for my mom to finish running her errands, and
I came across a book with a title that I thought was boring,
but an author's name I thought was interesting.
The author's name was Watchman Knee, and the book was called
The Normal Christian Life. But I had some time, so I
flipped to the front of the book and I read What is the Normal
Christian Life? The object of this study is to
show that it is something very different from the life of the
average Christian. Indeed, a consideration of the
written word of God should lead us to ask whether a normal
Christian life has ever in fact been lived upon the earth, saved
only by the Son of God Himself. The Scriptures are not stating
something special or peculiar, a high level of Christianity.
They are presenting God's normal for a Christian.
And I was really intrigued by this idea that there was a
difference between kind of the average Christian life and the
normal Christian life, that the life of faith as presented in
Scripture is somehow something totally extraordinary but also
completely normal. And as we journey on in Hebrews,
we're going to be confronted with a whole list of Saints.
Men and women, we are not asked to admire but to imitate.
We're not asked to imitate their fame or to copy their noteworthy
deeds. We're only asked to live by
faith and to die by faith as they did.
And in today's Hebrew passage, two particular qualities of
faith are highlighted again and again.
And it seems that these two qualities are not highlighted
because they are markers of special faith or rare faith, but
actually because they are basic necessities for every follower
of Jesus. These are qualities that you and
I need to call upon Jesus to develop in us as we follow Him,
qualities without which we will not be able to complete the
journey of faith. What are these qualities?
Please look in your Bible or your bulletin at verses 35 and
36. Therefore do not throw away your
confidence which has a great reward for you have need of
endurance so that when you will have done the will of God, you
may receive what is promised. So what is it that we must not
throw away anyone confidence? And what is it that we have need
of endurance? Yes, confidence and endurance.
Now confidence can also be translated as boldness.
But this is not boldness. That's bravado, which is a show
of boldness designed to impress or even to intimidate.
It's not arrogance. It's not presumption.
It's actually not even healthy self-confidence.
It is nothing more or less than taking Jesus at his word and
moving through life in the assurance that his promises are
true. Now, Hebrews is kind of an odd
book. It's kind of a letter and kind
of a sermon, and nobody knows who the author is.
We do know that he wrote to a group of Jewish Christians with
whom he had a close and I think a very pastoral relationship.
And just for the sake of convenience, I'm going to be
referring to the writer of Hebrews as their pastor.
So in today's passage, the pastor is exhorting the Hebrews
to walk by faith, with boldness and with endurance.
And what's interesting right away is that it's clear that the
Hebrews have done this before The pastor is act, asking them
to actively draw on the memory of how they have trusted Jesus
in this way in the past. Verse 32.
But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you
endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being
publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being
partners with those so treated. The Hebrews, to whom this letter
was directed, lived in a time and place where Christianity was
super unpopular, both politically and socially.
Christians weren't actually being killed.
They weren't martyred. But it was open season on
Christians for mocking, for hassling, for property theft,
and even for a sort of religious profiling by the law enforcement
of the day. And the phrase you endured a
hard struggle with suffering in the Greek, is meant to evoke the
rigors of an athlete in training.
They this picture likens the faith, the life of faith, to an
obstacle course that is strewn with suffering.
It takes effort to overcome. Now, some of us here today may
have experienced long periods of time when we were able to kind
of glide along in faith without too much trouble.
Maybe belief in Jesus was the status quo where you grew up,
and walking in faith was a little like sailing smoothly on
untroubled waters, maybe even with the current.
But for anyone who experiences significant obstacles to the
life of faith, please know that suffering and obstacles, not
ease, is the norm for those who follow Jesus.
The vast majority of the New Testament was written to
churches who were struggling with all kinds of threats and
obstacles to faith. Some specific hardships are
listed here. You were sometimes being
publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being
partners with those so treated, where you had compassion on
those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering
of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better
possession, and an abiding one. Now the Greek word, translated
as public exposure is. Theatre zome.
The early believers weren't just being subtly insulted or snubbed
in one-on-one encounters because they were Christians.
Walking by faith meant they were popular targets for ridicule and
mockery on the scale of theatrical entertainment for the
masses, as if it were a group sport to make fun.
Now I feel like imagining the horrors of this degree of public
shaming is. Easier than ever these days, has
anyone here happened to witness someone being taken down
publicly by a mob or trespassing against the spirit of the age?
And I'm not talking about someone being held responsible
for wrongdoing. I'm talking about someone who
voiced a faithful but extremely unpopular opinion that then
triggered a dog pile of indignant ridicule and insults
and jeering. Maybe, like you, like me, have
seen it and have gotten a little sweaty and squeamish at the
realization that that could be you.
Our Hebrews brothers and sisters didn't have to imagine it.
They lived it. Not only had they suffered
insults and mockery in the public eye, they took financial
hits because of their bold faith.
Some lost their property. Some lost their freedom when
they were falsely accused and imprisoned.
Nonetheless, the Hebrews had held on to their faith boldly
and endured even when they could have escaped notice by standing
quietly by when their brothers and sisters were taking the
heat. They opted instead to publicly
partner in ministry with those who were being pilloried.
I'm kind of in awe of these believers and these obstacles
that they overcame so gracefully.
For any of us who might be tempted to feel anxious or
indignant about the possibility of, say, losing friends or
losing income or even facing legal problems because of our
faith, it is really wonderful to know that we can do something
other than cry foul and clutch her pearls.
Sure, it may be unjust, and yes, those losses are real.
But the response of bold and enduring faith is not only to
accept the sufferings of injustice, but to accept
joyfully. The Hebrews lived out their
confidence that Jesus was providing a better possession
and an abiding freedom greater than anything they might have
held in life. This is the bold faith of a
people who took Jesus at his word when he said, blessed are
you when people hate you, blessed are you when they
exclude you. Blessed are you when they revile
you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man
rejoiced in that day. For behold, your reward is great
in heaven and yet and yet. The reason for this letter is
that these same amazing Saints have come to a point in the
journey of faith where they seem to be in danger of abandoning
their confidence in Jesus. The language of verse 35, Do Not
Throw Away Your Confidence refers to the act of casting off
something useless or flinging away garbage from context.
Clues throughout this letter. It seems that they've begun
flirting with the idea of turning back, of stepping away
from Jesus, thinking about loosening their grip on the
promises of God in hopes of avoiding criticism, avoiding
conflict that was becoming more and more appealing.
And they were toying with adopting a new approach to
faith, not walking in confidence with endurance, but shrinking
back, laying low. Keeping their heads below the
parapet, lying under the radar. The trouble was, this strategy
was not nearly as sensible as it might have sounded.
In fact, it was the beginning of a trajectory that, if it went
unchecked, was going to result in catastrophe bit by bit, their
healthy, robust fear of the Lord alone.
Would be replaced by an ugly, self-serving desire to please
and appease powerful people. Instead, love of God and love of
neighbor would be sacrificed to be replaced by love of
reputation and love of social status.
But they didn't see it this way yet, and it seems they were
willing to justify this approach even from scripture.
Better theologians than I am have decoded the message of the
Old Testament prophets that we see quoted in verses 37 and 38,
which points to the possibility that the Hebrews have been
digging through the prophets to rationalize a new tactic, this
new tactic of shrinking back. In these verses, the author has
Frankenstein together some snippets from the prophecies of
Isaiah and backup. There's a passage in Isaiah that
begins yet a little while, which is quoted in verse 37.
And the balance of that passage counsels the people of God to
withdraw and conceal themselves through danger.
And they were applying that by applying that counsel to their
current circumstances. They might have thought that
they'd found kind of a respectable rationale for laying
low. But the writer of Hebrews.
Knows that this is actually an abuse twisting of Scripture.
And so he takes that snippet from Isaiah and then he pairs it
with a passage from Hebacic. That sort of turns that strategy
on its head and instead gives the strongest possible
encouragement to live by faith boldly in the power of the
Messiah. Who would come 37 for yet a
little while, and the coming one will come and not, will not
delay. But my righteous one shall live
by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in
him. Brothers and sisters, we are not
meant to live the life of faith slumped inside on the couch with
the strades drawn. We are meant to walk by faith
outdoors among the people, with cheerful acceptance of any
suffering that might come our way.
Pressing on toward the day when Jesus has promised to turn the
world right side up again and right side out again.
A day when we receive the reward of faith and we can bask with
our brothers and sisters in the glorious sunshine of the Father
and the Son in the Holy Spirit. Faith that is hidden, that is
kept covered, is faith that weakens and dies because.
Paradoxically, one thing that seems to really, really help to
strengthen faltering faith is engaging in an environment that
provides a lot of resistance to faith.
As Christians, we tend to kind of interpret suffering as
punishment, and sometimes suffering is correction, But
here we're taught that suffering is often simply resistance
training. It's the type of training that
Jesus himself was perfected by. Isn't that amazing?
Heber states earlier that it was fitting that the Father, in
bringing us to glory, should make the founder of our
salvation, Jesus make him perfect through suffering.
To grow in endurance, we have to exercise our faith.
When we tackle physical challenges, oxygen pumps in and
out of our lungs and blood pumps in and out of our hearts, and
our bodies are strengthened by this exertion.
When we tackle spiritual challenges that come in the form
of suffering, one of the basic things that we can do is we move
in and out of the church doors regularly and with a vigor.
One big critique of these Hebrews is that they were
neglecting the regular gathering of the Saints for word and
sacrament. They weren't heeding the call to
come into church, and they weren't heeding the call to go
out forth into the world in the power of the Spirit to survive
and thrive in the midst of suffering.
Nothing extraordinary is required of us to stay healthy
and to grow. We simply heed the basics of
quiet obedience, moving into the church for worship and moving
out into the world in mission. In and out.
We learn to walk in faith, as
Jesus himself did. The measure of endurance is
obedience to God. That's what verse 36 is getting
at. You have need of endurance.
So that when you have done the will of God, you may receive
what is promised. Now in this fallen world, broken
by sin in a million ways, every human being, Christian or
otherwise, will undergo suffering.
We're all born not only into suffering, but also into sin and
into death, and this is our natural state.
But Jesus, the coming one, the one who has come, made a way
through suffering that actually leads us out from under sin and
death. Suffering is a given, but the
promises of God in Jesus are for freedom and deliverance from sin
and death, and we can, by the grace of God and the ministry of
Jesus and the power of the Spirit be saved.
All that is required is that we throw ourselves into His arms.
In faith, we hold to the promises of Jesus and walk
faithfully with him and toward him one step after the other,
without turning back. Now, when I think about the need
to persevere in faith, even when things look like they are going
horribly wrong, I think about what it's like to pull on.
A tshirt. So a long time ago I went
swimming at a classmates house. This was when I was maybe eight
or nine years old. And when we were done swimming,
somehow I was assigned the task of helping my classmates, 3 year
old sister, change out of her swimsuit and back into her
clothes. Now she was not the most
cooperative little kid I'd ever met, but to be fair, she wasn't
too pleased that I, a virtual stranger, was put in charge of
her. But she did OK until we got to
the part where I asked her to raise her arms so I could get
her into her tshirt. We started the procedure.
She raised her hands, but suddenly she started screaming
her head off and refused to cooperate.
I had no idea what was going on, but it turns out she was mad
because she thought I was trying to trick her into putting her
shirt on backwards. So you picture a tshirt.
There's a Unicorn or a pony or something printed on the front
of her tshirt. But of course from her
perspective looking up into it, it's as if I'm trying to pull
the shirt over her head. The pony's all wrong.
It was inside out and backwards and she was just not having any
of it. I tried so hard to explain how
this worked. Yes, I tried to reason with a
toddler. I told her sure, things are
going to look and feel crazy and wrong.
Pulling a shirt on just for a minute, but in the end her
really cool pony would be right side out, just the way she
wanted it for the whole rest of the day.
She would have to suffer momentarily, but if we kept
moving forward, salvation was at hand.
Tragically, she was not willing to endure the suffering.
I tried to shorten the period of pain by wadding up the shirt so
it was just a ring of cloth. She couldn't see the pony inside
or outside. I was just going to pop it over
her head a real fast, but Nope. She clung to her disbelief.
She crossed her arms and she shrank back.
She decided that she would rather remain damp and cold and
clammy, then accept the warm beautiful clothing that have
been provided. Now I know this is a goofy
analogy, but the reality of this is really sobering.
There is suffering in this world that we do not understand and
that we cannot avoid. We are born wet and naked and
cold, and we are going to die of it unless someone clothes us.
But there is suffering too, in being clothed with righteousness
and salvation. Things are upside down and
inside out and backwards, and it requires faith.
To persevere, trusting the Lord for salvation involves voluntary
suffering, the type of suffering that we might be able to avoid
for a season if we turn back. Opening our arms up to the Lord
in faith is vulnerable and uncertain and scary.
We are exposed in a way that we don't have to suffer if we
shrink back. But if we shrink back, we never
get to the promise. If we stop living in faith, we
don't reach the end and the reward of faith.
Now, let me be very clear here, the Hebrews addressed here.
We're not frightened children being punished for not trusting
a stranger. That's not the analogy.
These were grown, experienced men and women who had already
been met by the faithfulness of God.
In their suffering they had already tasted the salvation of
God, and they were already actively receiving the
compassion of Christ. In their weakness.
They knew from experience what they are reminded of repeatedly
in this letter that we do not have a high priest who is unable
to Sinner with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has
been tempted as we are. He can deal gently with the
ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with
weaknesses. The kind of shrinking back that
leads to destruction is not the natural, hesitant response to
threat. The Lord has infinite patience
for our native weaknesses. He knows some, he understands
some. The type of shrinking back that
leads to destruction is willful abandonment.
Of the walk of faith. It is the gradual but
intentional turning away from the love of God to embrace
unbelief and sin. Instead it is a deliberate
throwing away of a confidence already possessed.
It is a defiant closing of the ears against the wise calling
voice of the Savior. It is a hardening of the heart
against the salvation. So freely offered and the one
who offers it, these Hebrews were in the very early stages of
rejecting God. Discouraged by the prospect of
continued suffering, they were tempted to let go of the wheel
and just start drifting with the current.
And they didn't need comfort in this moment or advice to just
relax. They needed to wake up.
And remember that in Christ Jesus, salvation is already
close at hand and it's time to press on in face.
Now, I never succeeded in getting that little girl's shirt
on, but when her older sister finally came over to help, she
was dressed in like 10 seconds. Why?
She couldn't trust the promise, the process, and she didn't
trust me, no matter how truthfully I promised her that
it was going to work out OK. But when her own sister showed
up and said the same thing, she was able to trust the process
because she trusted the person. When your faith is not only in
the promise of the reward, but in the one who promises, it
turns out you can not only endure suffering, you can
receive it with joy. Now, later in my life, I learned
that watchman knee. Was born NI Chutsu in 1903 in Fu
Chao, China, and he took on the name Watchmen in both English
and Chinese when he became a follower of Jesus.
For 30 years, he led a beautiful, fruitful ministry in
China and in Southeast Asia, and he persevered through all kinds
of suffering, poverty, multiple chronic illnesses.
Infighting from political factions inside his own church
and after the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, Watchmen
Knee returned to China from his work in Hong Kong in order for
the churches he had planted there, which were now in
distress and suffering because of political opposition to their
faith. Knee was arrested in 1952 and
spent the rest of his life 20 years.
Imprisoned in a labor camp where he died, one of his biographers
wrote. Humanly speaking, he died in
misery and humiliation. Not one relative or brother or
sister in the Lord was with him. There was no proper notification
of his death and no funeral, but he died with this note under his
pillow. Christ is the Son of God.
Who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after
three days? This is the greatest truth in
the universe. I die because of my belief in
Christ. Watchmen Knee.
So in some sense, Watchmen Knee was not an average Christian.
Because of his boldness and endurance, approximately 400
churches were raised up in China.
In the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Highland Indonesia.
But in another sense, Watchmen Knee was surrounded by a Gray
cloud of witnesses. Ordinary, normal believers who,
like thee, simply persevered obediently in faith and during
the Cultural Revolution, overlapped that same time
period. 1966 to 1976 the communist regime undertook a
plan to eradicate Christianity, and yet millions held fast to
their confession of faith. The Christian Church in China
held a firm with Catholics remaining at 3,000,000 and
Protestants growing from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 during
this 10 year period. And we won't know.
The stories of these individual believers until we meet them in
heaven. But we share the same promises
that they held fast, and with them we can testify that He who
promised is faithful in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.