Pastor Jonah Sage preached Hebrews 11:1-16. He said that faith is an internal confidence expressed through external action. Lector: Asia Filipiak
Pastor Jonah Sage preached Hebrews 11:1-16. He said that faith is an internal confidence expressed through external action.
Lector: Asia Filipiak
When I was speaking with Daniel C about the artwork for this series, I said “think Disney.”
I said cinderella’s castle, fantasyland fonts…because when I think of the happiest place on earth, I think Disney.
Some people say stuff like “I don’t know if I want to go…it’s so expensive” they are correct. It’s breathtakingly expensive.
“All the packing and the flights…ugh. What a pain.” Indeed. None of that is fun.
But the only people who say stuff like this are people who have not been to Disney, amen?
It’s expensive and difficult to go. So why do people go? It’s Disney.
There are simple things like the pictures you leave with. Two examples:
Kids at Disney 1
Cora at Disney
Great rides/food/ smells. Everything is beautiful/clean. Everything is thoughtful.
Surprises around every corner, everyone is on the game. It’s fun.
But there was a moment Disney World changed me. A fireworks show called “Happily Ever After.” I want that, OK? I want to live happily ever after.
Our first time was during an incredibly difficult few years. Pain, loss, conflict.
Somehow, Disney plays a firework show/movie on Cinderella’s castle.
Looks like it’s alive and moving, highlights from movies all telling one story.
Song plays in the background. It begins:
“Ready to begin? Let the wonder take hold. Feel it draw you in. Watch the moment unfold.”
Beautiful, colors and lights and fireworks.
“Spark a dream that we’re meant to follow, Setting out for a new tomorrow. Every step we take Brings a new hope, a new day.”
That’s the kind of thing I had been saying to myself every morning…
As the song continued, I saw the struggle in every Disney movie. the loss and pain.
I saw myself. I saw my story in those stories. At one point, they make it seem like the castle has burned to the ground. It felt visceral and real. And then a voice softly sang:
“The battles, the stories,The losses and all the glories. We’re changed by the way
We live every day. Just look up and reach to the sky. We all have the courage to fly!”
And suddenly the castle comes alive and restored,a glowing tinkerbell flies out of the tallest steeple and showers the crowd in pixie dust.
When I tell you I wept, I WEPT.
Because it gave me hope that something beautiful was coming.
I realized that every Disney movie is the story of the gospel, and the Magic Kingdom was the closest thing I had ever seen to life the way it was meant to be lived.
Care free, clean, filled with wonder and delight and kindness.
Why do people go to Disney? Because they want a life worth living.
They want a taste of a better country, so they endure the hardships to get there.
When you have a Disney trip planned, every hardship is lighter.
Kids are sick…7 months until Disney though! Weather is awful…car won’t start…Disney is coming.
When you get there, you realize it was all worth it.
The promise of a trip changes your behaviors today…and this I believe is a living parable of the Kingdom of God.
This whole passage is about what faith is and does. Listen to this bit at the end, what fueled each of these stories:
They were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland.
-Hebrews 11:16
Faith is a confidence of where we’re headed. Faith is living with your destiny in mind.
As the Preacher puts it:
Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.
-Hebrews 11:1
“Reality” here is the Greek word hypostasis.
Hypostasis: the essential structure of an entity and/or a plan one devises for action
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen hypostasis in the book of Hebrews.
Hebrews 1:3:
The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.
-Hebrews 1:3
Beautiful. Did a whole sermon on this verse. But again, something lost in translation. Let me help:
The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very HYPOSTASIS of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.
-Hebrews 1:3
Faith is the visible expression of an invisible reality.
It’s the stuff of hope, the real substance of it.
In other words, faith is an internal confidence expressed through external action.
Faith knows internally you’re going to Disney next year.
Faith externally endures knowing the Magic Kingdom is coming.
Internally, faith is confident in the truths of God.
This is why we affirm the Nicene Creed each week. Internal truths.
Faith proclaims “We believe in God”
Externally, faith lives in light of God’s promises.
Because We believe in God, I live this way. Both are faith.
Internally, be believe God loves justice and mercy, so our ancestors confidently sang “we shall overcome”
Externally, because God loves justice and mercy, our ancestors also marched at Selma.
The rest of Hebrews 11 are simply stories of faith as internal confidence expressed through external actions
They are stories of people who knew where they were going eternally, and that reality stirred their imaginations so deeply that they obeyed God today.
Abel, Enoch, and Noah. Come first.
First, notice the inward component of faith at work:
It was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did…It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying…It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood.
-Hebrews 11:4, 5, 7
Each men believed God. They trusted what he said was true.
Inwardly, Abel believed God comes first, God is worth his best.
Therefore, Abel brought God his best:
Abel’s offering gave evidence that he was a righteous man
-Hebrews 11:4
His external actions were evidence of his internal confidence.
We learned that Enoch believed God existed and earnestly sought him out.
The Noah story is crazy. It had never rained before! God said build a boat! Noah said “what’s a boat?”
He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.
-Hebrews 11:7 (emphasis added)
When your imagination is rich with the promises of God’s goodness, when you can get just a taste of his splendor, you listen to what he says.
Inwardly, they received the promises of God and believed them.
Outwardly, they lived lives of obedience confident the promises would be fulfilled.
Faith is internal confidence expressed through external action.
Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob come next.
See if you notice the pattern again:
It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home…he went without knowing where he was going…he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. It was by faith that even Sarah was able to have a child…she believed that God would keep his promises.
-Hebrews 11:8, 9, 11
All were told something pretty outlandish by God.
All were told something that shouldn’t be possible.
And yet they trusted God, their imaginations stirred with the possibilities of promises fulfilled. So they obeyed him.
They were given a promise by God, and then they journeyed obediently by faith.
Faith is inward confidence expressed through external action.
Each were called into the unknown. Each believed God would keep his promise internally, each lived in light of that promise.
Is this not the same pattern we see in Jesus, too? Think of his agony in the garden
I don’t want to do this God, but I’ll obey you.
A journey into the unknown, even the unknown of death.
Jesus inward confidence in God’s promises was expressed through his external actions, even to the point of death.
This is so hard for us because we have such small imaginations.
This is why I wept at Disney. Pain, hardship, and disappointment had made my spirit small, but at Disney, you were expected to dream, expected to use your imagination.
It’s a requirement! If you don’t buy a goofy hat or a pirate sword you’re doing it wrong.
And through it all, a silent voice whispered “you were made for this”
Not made for Disney. We were made for hope, for wonder, for beauty and splendor.
Bills and appointments and plans and pains make our imaginations shrivel and die.
We so easily lose sight of our heavenly homeland, that eternal city.
Which is why we come each week to be reminded we are citizens of heaven.
We come to try to catch a glimpse of God’s beauty, even if it’s from the back.
We come and stretch out our weary hands for even just the smallest touch of Jesus’ robe
Do you know why the Bible is primarily stories?
They reach deep into our imaginations and help us dream and hope again,
I know you think your faith is small. I think mine is too!
But God said you only need a drop, barely the size of a mustard seed, and he invites us over and over again to these stories to help us see what he can do with a little faith.
He can turn a shepherd into the a world traveler, the father of nations.
He can turn a farmer into a boat-building savior of the world.
He can turn an elderly woman into a great-grandmother of the world’s salvation.
He can turn an instrument of Roman horror and shame into the greatest symbol of victory and freedom the world has ever known.
We rejoice in the cross, we don’t hide from it! We boast in the cross, we are not ashamed of it!
Can you see it? Can you see the far off shore waiting for us? Are you longing for a better country? Faith is internal confidence expressed through external actions.
The battles, the stories,The losses and all the glories. We’re changed by the way
We live every day. Just look up and reach to the sky. We all have the courage to fly!
Let’s live, fly, dream, and try, knowing our true, eternal home is just around the corner.
Let’s pray.