A Faith that Does Not Retreat

 May 28 2023

Hebrews 10:19, 34-39, 11:1-29

         Well, we have at last made it to another Memorial Day, this time when we as a nation remember those who gave their lives in service to their country. Now, I don’t know much about the wars that so many have lost their lives in except what I learned through studying history yet I believe that it might be a safe assumption that during military operations its probably always better to advance against the enemy instead of having to sound retreat. You hear this same sentiment from the writer of Hebrews when, at the end of the tenth chapter of Hebrews, he cries, “No retreat! No retreat lest you be destroyed! Have faith, forward on, preserve your souls”. Do you get this sense that the writer of Hebrews wants us to know that faith is a battle where our retreat from this line we’re holding is a sure way for us to be defeated.

         Ok, I get it, in some ways, the writer of Hebrews seems to be a little over the top in comparing our faith to a battlefield maneuver where retreat is just not an option. But maybe he is just trying to wake us up to just how vitally important our faith really is. Of course, what we have to first figure out is just what is meant by faith? We all have some idea what somebody means when they tell us to just have a little faith, that we just have to trust God to handle what we’re dealing with. Yet, this is not how the writer of Hebrews has defined faith for us because his understanding of faith is somewhat different than just a simple trusting in God. You see, what the writer of Hebrews insists on is that faith must be connected with what we have placed our hope in. We hear this in his definition of faith as found at the beginning of the eleventh chapter where we find that faith is defined as being the assurance, or the reality of the things hoped for. So, if we are hoping for a home in glory then, through faith, we will live in such a way that this truth is real for us to live in right now.We get a better understanding of what the writer of Hebrews is trying to teach us when we hear him say in the middle of the tenth chapter, “Therefore since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus…” When we read this what should jump out at us is that this is, first of all, a statement of our hope, because our confession is that we are absolutely certain that we can enter into the holy place of heaven because of Jesus. Now, faith we are told is to, “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” In other words, we are to go ahead and enter into that holy place of heaven today, and live our life from that vantage point. You see, that holy place is the victory that Jesus has won for us, so by faith we are to live as victorious people. Can you begin to understand how when we doubt and lose our confidence in this heavenly hope that this is a retreat from the victory that Jesus has already won? And if we do not claim this victory then what other victory do we have?

         So faith is allowing the hope, that we cannot see, to impact our life which we can see, and by doing so, we are stating that even though what we have placed our hope in cannot be seen it nonetheless is very much a certain reality. This is what is meant when faith is said to be the assurance or reality of what is hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, the writer of Hebrews appears to be sharing with us just how we can have our faith be a faith which is totally convinced of our hope of heaven. As we have already said, the reason that we have confidence to enter the holy places is, first, because of the blood of Jesus. After this statement of faith the writer of Hebrews goes on to tell us that a new and living way has been opened for us through the curtain, that is his flesh. So, here we have the blood of Jesus and the flesh, or the body of Jesus, and it is not a great leap for us, upon hearing of these two elements, to have our thoughts go to the partaking of the Lord’s Supper. There at the Lord’s Table we can also say that there, in the partaking of the cup and the eating of the bread, that our great priest is present with us in the very real presence of Jesus. So, it is there in that moment that we as a church are called to draw near, to enter into the holy house of God. There, we who are the church, share in the life that Jesus has given to us in the shedding of his blood and the breaking of his body, so, as we are gathered around his table, we can assuredly say that we are in the house of heaven. There around the Lord’s Table we have the assurance that what we hope for is indeed a reality. Though we may not see all of what we hope for, nonetheless, what we experience makes us certain that there is more to what we know than meets the eye.

         When people encounter the God who can not be seen, their lives bear evidence of this as they act in faith. The witnesses whose stories are told in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, are those who have encountered God, acted in faith and because of this encounter their lives testified to the God they had met. What we are called to comprehend through all of these stories is that the unseen reality is the most certain, even if to say so sounds a little nonsensical. Yet if we consider the creation story we remember that the universe, which can be seen, was created by the word of God, which cannot be seen. Clearly, what can be seen can be known to have come forth from the unseen. It is the unseen that was here long before the visible world was even spoken into life. The writer of Hebrews gives stories of those who witnessed, people who had encountered the God who is not seen and their lives, which are seen, speak to the faith that they received when they drew close to the one in which they had placed their hope in. So, with Abel we see him offer God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain had offered and we have to wonder why Abel had done so? The answer is that Abel had encountered the unseen God who desires those who are willing to offer themselves just as Abel had symbolically done with his sacrifice. Or consider Enoch who is not recorded as having died but rather was taken into the heavens by God and again we are left wondering why this had happened to Enoch? The answer is that Enoch had an encounter with the God who commended Enoch and told him that he was a person who was pleasing to God. This being pleasing to God means that one knows that the God who we cannot see is a God who sees us and for those that God sees living for him, God rewards them. This is what the life of Enoch witnessed to. 

         As we go through these witnesses who had encounters with the God that cannot be seen, it becomes evident that each encounter reveals something different about God and the people that he loves. Noah’s encounter with the invisible God resulted in a very visible Ark which became a symbol of salvation for Noah and his family and a symbol of judgment for the rest of the world. Thus for Noah he learned that his faith had led him to become an heir of righteousness.

         Over and over again, the writer of Hebrews brings forth those who encountered the God of all hope and this hope became evident in their lives through their faith. Abraham was a man way to old to have a family but that did not matter when he met the God of hope. When God told Abraham to go, Abraham went, even though he did not have a clue where he was to go. Abraham was a man of faith, willing to live constantly on the move because he knew the God who had spoke to him was a God who would one day build for him a more permanent city. It was this God who took Abraham and Sarah, their bodies good as dead, and from them came as many descendants as there are stars in the heavens. Abraham is our father in the faith, a man who was certain that the God of all hope would not fail him. Even when God tested Abraham by asking him to offer up Isaac, Abraham’s faith never wavered because he was certain that God could bring the dead back to life.

         You see, when you trust in the God who cannot be seen and through your obedience the influence of God is seen in your life, this is faith, the visible confirmation of the invisible God of hope. We can see this visible difference in the life of Moses because as the writer of Hebrews tells us, Moses “chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin.” Yes, faith is a choice that we make within our hearts but it still is a choice that will be seen, witnessed to by the world. You see, it was that Moses knew so well the God who spoke to him that he refused to be afraid of the king of Egypt. Moses had already watched as God shielded his people from death on the night of the Passover, so did he have to really be afraid of the king of Egypt?

         What the writer of Hebrews is trying to do through these stories of people whose lives witnessed to their faith in God is to encourage his readers. Those who the writer of Hebrews was writing to were those who were considering pulling back, to retreat, because the cost for them was just too high. Instead of living in to the victory that Jesus had won for them they felt that it would be better to just retreat and call it a day. Yes, they had endured a hard struggle with sufferings, even going so far as to being publicly badmouthed and afflicted. Yet despite these struggles and loss they had compassion on those in prison and they accepted the plundering of their property because then they had remembered they had a better possession, an abiding one. Did these who wanted to retreat remember this greater and better possession that remained with them? This possession they had was hope. They had the hope of an eternal home, an inheritance, which was theirs to claim as their own. What had happened is that they had lost their faith, they had lost what was needed to make this hope they possessed a reality for them. What we know through reading the many stories of those who witnessed to an encounter with God is that when people encounter him that is when faith is evident in a person’s life.

         So what these who were ready to retreat and call it a day needed was to have an encounter with God, to experience what it is to be in his close presence and know that there with him is where we belong. You see, what they had forgotten is that there simply is no greater hope than the living hope we have in Jesus, yet even so, faith is necessary to make this great hope a reality for us. The writer of Hebrews understands this and this is why when speaking of faith he uses images heard in the partaking of the communion elements because it is when we come to the Lord’s Table this is when our hope becomes real. Here is the blood of Jesus, do you remember how this blood gives us the confidence to enter the holy places? Here is the body of Christ, do you remember that the broken body has made for us a new and living way into the most holy place? Here residing over the elements is the very real presence of Jesus who is our great priest who is over the house of God. So here we find that it is the blood of Jesus which is given for us to enter the holy places, his body is our way through the curtain and the living Jesus is our great priest who resides over the house of God. All three speak of a place hidden from our eyes that nonetheless will become real to us as we gather round the Lord’s Table. As we partake of communion we are to know that right there we have been drawn into the holy places. Through the partaking of the elements we find an unshakable confidence in what we hope in because our hope is anchored in our living Savior.When we come to the table, this one named Jesus is closer with us there than at any other time. So we draw near, and we do so as the writer describes us, as being those who have a full assurance of faith, with hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The writer of Hebrews is here echoing a scripture verse from the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel where God tells his people that he would, “…sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be purged from all uncleanness and from your idols. I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take away the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Here, God is speaking to Ezekiel about the new covenant that he is going to make with his people, a promise that he would bring about a spiritual heart transplant, taking their cold, lifeless, unmoving, stony heart and replacing it with a new heart pulsating with life. Gone at last would be all of uncleanness and idol worship for God himself has cleansed his people with clean water. What has brought about such a radical transformation is that at last God has made a way for people to have the fullest assurance of faith. The reason that there is a depth and a richness to our faith response is that now faith is defined as being the reality of what we hope in, our eternal possession. Our hope is  to be able to live for all eternity in the most holy place, the very house of God. When the people of God gather together before the Lord’s Table it is there, by faith, that we our in that most holy place that we have placed our hope in. There as we take the cup we remember that this is the blood which gives us confidence to enter the holy place. When we take into our hands the bread, we remember that this broken body of Christ is the body offered up so that we might be made holy so we can reside in that most holy place. It is this holiness that is ours through the body of Christ offered for us, this is how we are now able  to enter by this new and living way through the curtain. And as the elements are taken, and blessed and given, there our great priest named Jesus is very much present with us. In this moment at the table we find ourselves gathered in the holy place, and we know that here is what we hope for, an eternal hope that becomes real for us if only for a moment. It is in that moment when what we hope for becomes oh, so real for us, this is when we find ourselves filled with a certain faith. It is in this moment when what we hope for becomes for us so very real, this is when the filth of our doubt is cleansed away as faith washes over us. No more will our affections be given to idols for now we have experienced what our hearts long for, the wonder of what we hope in, the joy of being at home in the house that Jesus built through the giving of himself. Here as the blood of Christ is present and his body is broken and shared we too become like the men of old, those who can witness about our faith because we have had an encounter with the one who is our hope. 

So, yes we must hold fast to our confession of our hope because the God who has given us the promise on which our hope is grounded, he as the writer of Hebrews tells us, is faithful. Can you begin to see that it is the faithfulness of our God to make good on his promises that this is the very source of our faith? It is only as we have a hope that we can confess, and only as we know that God will certainly make our hope a reality, and only when this hope becomes real for us, only then can we say that at last we have faith. 

Once we carefully think through all the writer of Hebrews has said here about the way that our confession of hope leads us to have the full assurance of faith, it makes sense that he would further add that we are to, “ consider how we are to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some…” Here again we just need to do a little thinking about how faith, hope and love connect with one another. The blood of Jesus has forgiven all of our sins, so we no longer have to be focused on our past. And we have been given access to the most holy place through the victory Christ has won for us. So if we are people who have a full assurance of faith then we must not retreat but instead we need to live as people who know that Christ has really won the victory. So, it is neither are past nor our future which is to be what concerns us any longer. Now we have been set free to live fully in the present. This means that for those of us who have gathered round the Lord’s Table and have experienced by faith what we hope for, we can insist that each of us get out there and go love on somebody, I mean, what else is there for us to do? When our evil conscience has been washed away what else can we do but good works? So, let’s go and get to work. You see, when we have a full assurance of faith then there can be no retreat, no, only going forward in the victory of Jesus, no matter what the cost. Amen!