Faith Heroes: Trusting God Through Life's Challenges

We believe God is at work, God is with us, very close. And the heroes, they experienced that in their lives again and again. We are talking about Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Rahab, all those who are described in this chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews as role models for us, as heroes of faith, from whom we can somehow be inspired for our personal lives. [00:03:13]

Chapter 11 wants to look at this, then it is important that we also look a little beyond the edge of the plate. For example, what does chapter 12 say? And I want to read to you from Hebrews 12:1. Since we are surrounded by so many witnesses who have led a life of faith, let us lay aside every weight that hinders us, especially the sin in which we so easily get entangled. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. [00:04:23]

So the heroes of faith, they are actually meant to motivate us to lay aside what we are dragging along with us. And I don't know how you feel, maybe some of you haven't really been able to concentrate on my sermon in the last seven minutes and are thinking, what is he doing with the backpack. [00:05:05]

That is exactly what it is supposed to symbolize, that sometimes we carry things with us and maybe we are not even aware of what that is. That can be things where maybe we think about who God is. And he is almost a bit in our way, so that we can experience him as a loving God. But it can also be something that we consciously have to do. We realize it actually separates us from God and that can be like a burden, like a backpack. [00:05:29]

The writer of Hebrews now says, let us, when we look at the people from Hebrews, at all the role models, then let us consciously lay aside what somehow hinders us in some way. And that is what I want to move with you tonight. [00:06:10]

And I think we sometimes carry things with us that we are not even aware of, that we are carrying them along. And now the writer of the letter to the Hebrews really wants to motivate his listeners that everything that could hinder them from following Jesus, that they can consciously lay it aside. [00:07:55]

And my question to you tonight is, what are you carrying around in your life? I have asked myself this question a lot in connection with this preparation. Because I am aware every time I preach, I preach first to myself very personally. [00:08:27]

When you look at the Bible with the various letters, it is always exciting for me to see who wrote this letter. And with the letter to the Hebrews, people were actually absolutely convinced that it was Paul. A very important person, wrote many letters, until it was somehow found out, yes, it can't necessarily be Paul. And today people say, we don't really know. [00:09:10]

But we know one thing 100%. It was someone who knew the Old Testament like his own pocket. So he was certainly someone with a Jewish background. And I don't know if you have ever read the letter to the Hebrews. I had to stop in my preparations and say, now I have to read the whole, or almost the whole letter to the Hebrews. And it's just quote after quote, after quote, after quote from the Old Testament. There is so much of the Old Testament in it. [00:09:42]

Therefore, the listeners, for those who read it for the first time, were certainly people who were at home in Jewish thinking. And there were different people. For example, there were Jews who became Christians. Who got to know Jesus. But there were also Jews who were just so-called name Jews. If you had asked them on the street, they would have said, yes, I am a Jew. [00:10:54]

Because I grew up in a Christian country. And then there were other Jews who practiced the Jewish faith in a very traditional way. And they were just interested in what it could be, whether maybe Jesus really is the Messiah. So there were different groups to whom the letter was addressed. And the writer, he is afraid. He is afraid that they will lose their faith or interest in Jesus, because now more and more persecution is coming up, because it is becoming more and more uncomfortable to confess to Jesus or to associate with Christians. [00:11:04]

And now he tries to encourage them. And he tries to encourage them by saying, hey, you are at home in Judaism. Remember all those who have gone before you. All those, Rahab, Abraham, Moses, all the people in the Old Testament, even they did not just have a law, did not just have a ritual, but even they lived by faith. [00:12:00]

And he says here in Hebrews 11:1-12, what is faith then? It is the confidence that what we hope for will happen. And the conviction that what we do not see exists. Because of this faith, God commended our ancestors in Scripture. [00:12:28]

And now he just lists 16 people who inspire him. Who then say, they were on the road in faith. And the only difference between these 16 people and the Hebrews or us is that they have already finished the race of faith, as Paul would say. They are done with their race of faith. He says, take them as an example. [00:12:55]

And from these 16 I thought I would pick out four who are perhaps not at the top of the list of heroes. They are perhaps even a bit inconspicuous. He takes, for example, Enoch. At the time of the New Testament, there were many books about Enoch. Enoch, he was almost a legend. The Old Testament, there are about two sentences about him, two verses. But the Jews made a huge deal out of what Enoch apparently did. [00:13:28]

Now the writer of the letter to the Hebrews does not go into that. He just goes into what the Old Testament says. Enoch is mentioned more in passing. In Genesis, where there is such a register of names, it just says, the person lived and then died. The person lived and then died. The person lived and then did not die. And that is Enoch. [00:13:57]

And Hebrews 11:5 says, By faith Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying. For no one saw him anymore, because God took him to himself. And then he explains, God did not take Enoch to himself because he was as good as possible, because he believed a lot. No, because he was simply a friend of God. Because he lived relationship. [00:14:41]

And I believe what we can learn from Enoch is that in the Christian faith it is not about how much you do, how much you accomplish. It is about relationship. And when we live this relationship, yes, of course, something will happen in our lives. As James says, that faith without works is dead. But first and foremost, it is always relationship. God wants to have a relationship with us humans. [00:15:17]

Sarah, I find interesting. She is actually traveling in the slipstream of Abraham, you could say. Imagine which woman over 50 would be super excited if her husband came home and said, hey, God spoke to me. And now we just have to give everything away. And now we just live, we just go camping. That's about how it was with Abraham and Sarah. [00:15:58]

She spent her whole life, until 90, without a child, was childless. And now suddenly a prophet comes to her and says, to Sarah, to Abraham, and says, hey, in a year you will have a child. And Sarah had to laugh at that moment. She found it funny. Imagine, a couple between 90 and 100 is promised, you will still have a child. Even though it was such a deep desire for Sarah and Abraham. [00:16:50]

And the Bible says that it happened, that Isaac was born. And I don't know about you, but I think I am sometimes like a Sarah. Sometimes I would like to be Abraham, who believes through everything. Who just says, I just trust God, no matter what comes. But sometimes I am also a Sarah, who maybe needs someone next to her, like an Abraham, who believes with her, who says, hey, come, let's pray for that. Or come, you can do it, it will be fine. [00:17:48]

The stories show me, these were heroes, or these were people we can look up to, but in the end they were people like you and me. And now comes the story of Joseph. Joseph is sold into slavery when he was still very young, or when he was a teenager. And he grows up in Egypt and Joseph makes a real career. He goes from slave to second highest in the land. [00:18:35]

And he lives his life and his life is good and his clan, whom he gets to know again, his father, his brothers, they also live in this land and it almost looks like it's just a happy ending. Pharaoh gives him a lot of land and this clan no longer has to live in Canaan, where they were strangers, they can now live in Egypt, where they simply have everything they need. [00:18:59]

And before Joseph dies, he does something very exciting. He says, you can remember, great-grandfather, Abraham, and he always said that God would give us the land of Canaan. And somehow we will go back to that land one day. And when that happens, take my bones with you. Actually, today maybe almost a little creepy story, but he says, don't leave me here, dig me up, or I don't know how they did it, take me to the promised land and bury me there. [00:19:31]

And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, that is real faith. The situation looked completely different. The situation did not look like, probably, now it just stayed there. And yet he says, make sure my bones come with you. I want to be buried where God has promised us the land. And I believe, faith is often, as my title says, faith sees the invisible and acts as if it is visible. [00:20:18]

If someone were to be portrayed as a hero of faith, what kind of person would we choose? Probably not a prostitute. And Rahab was a prostitute. She lived in Jericho and as she lived in Jericho, they heard more and more about a people moving north, a people who have such a great God, who can even part the Red Sea. Such a great God who provides in the wilderness and the people are moving more and more north. They knew the people would come towards Jericho. Now the people are almost at the gates of Jericho and spies come to Rahab. [00:21:26]

And because of that, Rahab is saved when all of Jericho is taken. And interestingly, Rahab as a prostitute is in the genealogy of David, King David is in the genealogy of Jesus. And I find it so powerful that with Jesus it doesn't matter what kind of past we have, he knows what kind of future we have with him. He is someone who wants to make us new, to walk with us. [00:22:36]

In Hebrews 11:31 it says, By faith the prostitute Rahab did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. No matter what my story is, what your story is, if we trust in God, if we walk with him, he stands there with open arms, I am 100% convinced of that. [00:23:13]

He wants to say two things. On the one hand, fix your eyes on Jesus. It's not about the heroes, it's much more about Jesus. We read that in Hebrews 2. This we do by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He was willing to die the shameful death on the cross because he knew what joy would follow. Now he is seated at the right hand of God's throne in heaven. [00:24:10]

Jesus paid the price, Jesus made it possible for the relationship between God and us, which was disturbed, to be restored. And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, fix your eyes on Jesus. He is the one who is our role model. He is the one who helps us in our everyday life. He is the one who supports us. [00:24:56]

And secondly, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews encourages us to unpack the backpack that we have somehow dragged along with us. And he says there, we should give him everything that somehow hinders us. I believe something that can hinder us, for example, is a certain comfort. A comfort in following Jesus with all our heart. And I'm not talking about performance. I think even a Swiss kicks in there pretty quickly. [00:25:26]

We should do this, we should do that, we should do this. No, but I think sometimes there is a comfort in really seeking God. We want to walk with him. Maybe we have been hurt, somehow by someone. And the hurt is so present with us that it somehow hinders us from really walking with God. Or it hinders us from maintaining a relationship. [00:26:04]

Or in today's time, where we somehow always have the phone, the laptop, work computer, whatever, always with us, that can so easily distract us from what God wants for us. As the writer in Hebrews says, and invites us, we should lay aside everything that hinders us from walking with God. That is an invitation, even tonight, to us. [00:26:44]