Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Hebrews 11:6 puts this verse in the middle of three Old Testament stories:
  Without faith it is impossible to please God,
      because anyone who comes to God must believe
          that he exists and
          that he rewards those who seek him. 

The first story is about Abel, Adam and Eve’s son. His brother, Cain, brought God an offering of grain and vegetables which God rejected. Abel offered a sheep, which God accepted. Cain was angry at God, so he murdered Abel. The author of Hebrews commends Abel as a man of faith, because he had insight into what God wanted. 

The second story is about Enoch, who lived a long life that pleased God. So instead of letting him die, God took him straight to heaven. 

The third story is about Noah. When God warned him about “things not seen” (Heb 11:7), Noah built an ark. 

John G. Stackhouse defines faith as “yessing”. He says faith is the “yes” we say–or, even better, the “yessing” we keep offering to God–as we walk in step with the Spirit” (Stackhouse, John G. Blog post “Faith as Yessing,” April 10, 2021, blog post at: https://www.johnstackhouse.com/faith-as-yessing/)

Abel pleased God by saying “yes” to God’s choice of offering, Enoch pleased God by organizing his whole life in a way that said “yes” to God. Noah pleased God by saying “yes” to an unknown water-filled future. 

The author of Hebrews comments, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” God rewards those who say “yes”. 

Let’s pray.

Our father, we say “yes” to you with our hearts and minds and strength. 

Our thoughts are often scattered, we meditate more on our plans and problems than on your Word. But we pause to think of you, to feel the life-giving power of your word in creation, to feel the joy and beauty of your word in scripture, and to say “yes” to you and to your good gifts with our minds. 

We say “yes” to you with our hearts. We are wounded by broken promises, abusive relationships, dysfunctional churches, and our own narrowness. But we choose to say “yes” to you in our hearts. Yes to a relationship with you, yes to loving the people you made, yes to living your way in your world. 

We say “yes” to you with our strength. We choose not to live in despairing lethargy, not to give up because so many of our projects fail, not to abandon our search for you because we so seldom find you. Instead, we say “yes” with our strength, yes with Abel to doing what is right, yes with Noah to building for an unknown future, yes with Enoch to living fully in your presence and care. 

We say “yes” to you, O God. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

Ep.236: Hebrews 11: Believing What We Don’t See

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter of the Bible, begins:
  Faith is confidence in what we hope for,
      assurance about what we do not see. . .
    By faith we understand
      that the universe was formed at God’s command
      so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible.
        (vv. 1,3).

Talking once to a university student who majored in science, I said, “The Big Bang theory says the universe originated suddenly out of a very small, dense, hot bit of something, in a way the laws of physics can’t explain. I’m not sure it’s all that much different to say, ‘A power called God made it happen.’ Both explanations require faith in something we don’t understand and can’t explain.” 

Or as the author of Hebrews put it,   
   By faith we understand
      that the universe was formed at God’s command
      so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible (Heb 11:3). 

So what is faith? Today, we look at faith that explains what we cannot see or prove. 

The science student felt that since modern science has explained so much, it must be well on the way to explaining everything, eliminating the need for God-explanations. This is faith at work: faith in progress, in the scientific method, in reason and logic. 

Conspiracy theories function in a similar manner. The QAnon theory explains that a cabal of evil white politicians and business leaders control politics, economics, coronavirus vaccines, and the Suez Canal. This too is faith at work, faith that the theory gives deep insight to an enlightened few into the causes and progress of evil. Faith that the rest of us are passive sheeple, lapping up a liberal education and eating ourselves sick at the trough of the liberal left media. 

Like scientists and conspiracy theorists, we all try to make sense of the world and of our own lives. We are all influenced in many ways we do understand. For example:

– Invisible genetic DNA affects health, skills, capabilities, and behavior.

– Society and culture fill our heads with news, Facebook rants, adventure movies, and conspiracy theories. We cannot process everything into a coherent worldview.

– We are influenced by our moods and feelings. Happy or sad, sometimes our emotions make sense.
Sometimes they appear from nowhere. Perhaps the state of our digestion drives more decisions than logic and reason.

– Churches give us their view of what life means and what God wants. But how to find our way through their jungles of conflicting interpretation?

Back in Hebrews: it tells us twice that faith looks into things we cannot see, saying:  Faith is the confidence of what we hope for,
    the assurance of things we do not see.
And:
  By faith we understand
    that the universe was formed at God’s command
    so that what we see was not made from what is visible. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, as we live the mystery of our faith, we do not see you, but we believe in you. We see the beauty of sunsets, of love, of logical science, of a well-ordered society, of a faith-filled religion. We see the horror of mass shootings, lying politicians, racial injustice, and absurd conspiracy theories. By faith we give you credit for the good in our world, and blame Satan and ourselves for the evil.  

O Lord, you are the focus of our faith. by you we make sense of our crazy world, our disordered lives, our hopes and aspirations. With the poet Whittier we say,
    Yet in the maddening maze of things
      and tossed by storm and flood,
    to one fixed trust my spirit clings,
      I know that [you] are good. (Whittier, John G. The Eternal Goodness. stanza 11). 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Hebrews 10 says:
  You need to persevere
      so that when you have done the will of God,
      you will receive what he has promised. For . . .
          The righteous will live by faith.
                And I take no pleasure
                in the one who shrinks back.
    But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,
        but to those who have faith and are saved (Heb. 10:36-39).

This passage comments on the relationship between faith and righteousness by saying, “The righteous will live by faith.” That’s a memorable phrase: the Bible uses it four times. 

The first time is in the Old Testament, when the Babylonian army moved across the Middle East with its evil eye on Israel. The prophet Habakkuk complained to God that Israel was in great danger, so what was God going to do about it? 

God’s response?
  Surely the Babylonians will come and not delay.
  The proud of heart will be destroyed,
      but the righteous will live by faith” (Hab 2:3-4) 

Hardly a comforting thought for Habakkuk. As the doom approaches, don’t be proud. Just wait for the inevitable, trusting that God will take care of you. 

Paul takes up the same verse in Romans 1, changing the context from a military invasion to God’s gift of salvation. He says, “In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed–a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, as it is written, ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Rom 1:17). Like Habakkuk, the world Paul knew had descended into a mess of sin that encompassed Jews and Gentiles. Paul asserted that faith was the key that made people right with God, lighting their way through an evil world.  

In Galatians 3:11, Paul used the verse again, putting it this time into the picture of a courtroom, “Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God,” he wrote, “because the righteous will live by faith.” In this courtroom, our failure to keep the law makes us guilty as charged. We escape this condemnation, not by putting a better spin on our behavior, but by relying on Christ for forgiveness and righteousness. 

The fourth use of the statement, “The righteous will live by faith”, is in today’s passage  from the Book of Hebrews. The Hebrew Christians faced persecution, so the author encourages them not to shrink fearfully back from their commitment to the Jesus way. Losing faith like that would trash the meaning of their lives. Instead of despair, they can choose faith, pressing on through the difficulties of life in the strength God gives to those who are faithful, or full of faith. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, we see these pictures of faith. Habakkuk waiting quietly for the Babylons to destroy Jerusalem, trusting his life to you. Paul seeing himself and others failing to keep your law, but believing you give righteousness to failed law keepers who put their trust in Christ. The Hebrew Christians, experiencing the difficulty of living under persecution, turning to faith to sustain their lives and their relationship with you.  

Help us, we pray, to become righteous ones, living fully by faith. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.