"Then Eyes of Faithful People" - Hebrews 11:29 - 12:2

If you've got a Bible, turn to Hebrews 11. If you don't, there's one on the

table. I always encourage you to do that.

I was reading a story this week about a tennis tournament.

So my dad played tennis in high school, went to state, played in college a little bit.

And so he always tried to get us to play tennis. And that was not going to happen.

Once I found out basketball was played indoors with air conditioning,

it's like, I don't know why anyone would play tennis outside,

but I do like watching tennis.

And so one of the stories that popped up was this billionaire that had basically

helped run a couple of the smaller tennis tours, ATP tours, things like that.

And he was around a lot of tennis players, knew a lot of pro tennis players.

And yet wasn't really a tennis player, but he thought he was.

And so he basically bought his way into this doubles tournament and it went

about how you thought it would go.

It was a massive joke, right? They play, he played terrible.

All the news articles were coming out. All these past pros were saying how much

of a joke it was and how could they let this guy play?

And, you know, the truth is just because you're around something like that,

like he was, and he knew a bunch of pro tennis players like he did,

and he even helped run the tour like he did, that didn't make him a pro tennis player.

That didn't make him something he wasn't. And I don't think anyone in here is

under any false impression that you could join a pro sports league at this point.

Maybe you are. I don't know if you're still living those dreams of grandeur.

God bless you. I'll let you know if you make it.

But most of us, it's very obvious that we're not going to be joining any pro sports teams here soon.

But I think oftentimes this same mindset happens when we read the Bible.

We read the Bible and we look at the stories of all these heroes we've been

looking at the last three weeks, whether it's Abraham or Moses or Daniel Lyonsden or David Goliath.

And we kind of go, you know, that's the varsity team.

When we think about church, when we think about the Bible, you know,

these are the varsity teams and we're just trying to make the freshman squad.

We just want to receive pads from the school, right? We don't care if the pads don't work.

We don't care if the pads have been used since the 60s. We just want to be on a team.

And we create for ourselves these massive gaps between, well,

this is who these people are, and I'm just this, but I'm just happy to be here.

Just happy to be on the team.

And the problem with that is, that's not how the Bible describes us at all.

The Bible doesn't create these massive chasms between different people.

Now, certainly David and Moses and Abraham and all of these great men and great

women of faith had different roles to play in God's story.

And they sure, from the outside looking in, look as though, man,

they were really the big players and they do play a bigger role.

But for the Bible, the role you play does not define the importance that you

have on the quote unquote team, right?

There really is not this massive gap.

Even though we're often aware of the gaps, even between them and us,

but I think even more so between us and the people around us,

right? We meet certain people and we go, man, that person is just,

they're a different level of saint.

You know, again, it's the varsity level churchgoer versus the junior varsity

churchgoer and the freshman churchgoer and the equipment team manager churchgoer

and the happened to sneak onto the bus.

We didn't know he was there, but he's still on the team churchgoers.

We've got all these different levels. And as I say that, you can even laugh,

but you know in your head, you probably have where you are on the list.

You have where you think you rank on the team.

So what I want to do this morning is, we'll move pretty quick through this,

but I want to try and break down that wall for you a little bit.

And stop looking at who's doing what, who's more important, who's got bigger

roles to play, and start looking rather at what God has called us to look at,

to get our eyes in the right place,

so that we might be faithful despite where we are on the team, what our role is.

Okay, so three things I want you to see this morning. Let's start.

Let me read Hebrews 11, 29 through 31. We didn't get to this last week.

I wanted to make sure and touch on it.

Hebrews 11, 29 through 31. Helps if you're on the right page,

right? I'm going to get there, I promise.

All right. It says, By faith, the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land,

but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.

By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

And by faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient

because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

So just as a quick recap, Hebrews 11, often referred to as the hall of faith

for the Hebrews, it begins by telling us what faith is.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And then it goes on to say, these people had faith and they did X, Y, and Z, right?

By faith, they did this. And by faith, they did that.

By faith, Abraham did this. By faith, Moses did this.

And oftentimes we get wrapped up in, well, I just need to have more faith,

but it neglects the fact that faith isn't something that you can go and get more of.

It's not something that you and I can just conjure up.

Ephesians tells us, and Hebrews chapter 12 is about to tell us, faith is given.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

It's a gift. It's something that God gives to you. It's not something that you

go and find. It's something that God gives to you.

In just a minute, we're going to get into Hebrews 12. It says that he's the

author of faith, that he writes it, that he produces faith and he gives it to people.

But for our purposes this morning, specifically these three verses,

I want you to see this, that God's or your greatness, your usefulness to the

kingdom is based not on your greatness, but on God's grace, right?

Your usefulness to the kingdom, your usefulness to God's purposes is not built

on your greatness, but on God's grace.

And specifically here, we want to look at Rahab. It's pretty clear who she is,

even if you don't know the story.

Rahab the prostitute, how would you like that to be your moniker in the Bible?

What are you known for? You're in heaven, you go to Daniel. Hey,

Daniel, what are you known for? Lion's den. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David, what are you known for? Yeah, I killed Goliath. Maybe you've heard of it.

Enoch, what are you known for? Got taken up, didn't die.

Who are you? Oh, my name is Rahab. What are you known for? I'm the prostitute.

How's it going? It's nice to meet you. Yeah, it's really good.

This is a really fun day for me to meet all you guys.

And I think even for the Israelites, there would have been a bit of like,

how can you put Rahab in this list of heroes?

You know, how can you put Rahab amongst Abraham and Moses?

How can you put Rahab in this list? Because there's really no redeeming qualities

given for Rahab on the front end.

There's nothing about her that makes her worthy to be used by God.

There's nothing about Rahab's life that we give that's a hint to say,

well, this is really why God used her.

She was doing that stuff, sure,

and that's not good stuff, but she was actually a pretty good person.

We don't get any inclination. In fact, the evidence we have in the Bible is

she is exactly who the Bible says she is.

She is a woman living in a pagan city who sells herself to people so that she can make a living.

That's who she is. And yet the Bible doesn't have any issue putting her right

here because she is given something that she doesn't have.

By grace, she is given something that she doesn't deserve.

She is given faith.

Now, again, what does she do? Again, if you know the story...

They send out these spies in and basically the spies go into the city and they

disguise themselves in such a way that they blend in and they go to a place

where travelers would normally go, Rahab's house, Rahab's place of business.

And the problem is, of course, they get seen going into that place.

And so the king starts trying to look at it.

And the king's on red alert right

now because there's this mass of people forming outside of his walls.

And he's starting to get a little suspicious, like, hey, wonder what all those

people are doing out there. It sure seems like they're trying to get into here.

So the king goes and tries to hunt them down.

And Rahab, in her faith, shields the spies from being found.

And ultimately, she provides a way for them to get out.

And because of that, she is not destroyed.

When the Israelites come into the city and they burn it down and they take over

and do exactly at what God asked them to do, she is not destroyed.

But for our purposes this morning, what I really want you to see is what makes Rahab great.

What makes Rahab great? What makes her faithful?

It certainly wasn't her moral character.

It certainly wasn't that she earned a spot at the table.

It certainly wasn't something that she did to get to a place where God goes,

man, you know who I really need on my team?

That pagan prostitute Rahab. No, what happens is God is gracious and kind.

What happens is God has a plan to use Rahab to deliver his people into the land

that he promised to them.

Again, what chance do you and I have of being faithful? We do well if we read

a story like that and we go, I have a lot more in common with Rahab than I do

with, say, Jesus Christ.

I'm a lot closer to being who Rahab is than being who Jesus Christ is.

I'm a lot closer to being Rahab than I am to being perfect.

What hope do you and I have for being used by God?

The only hope you have is God's grace in your life. John says this in his book.

He says, he must increase and I must decrease, right?

He must increase and I must decrease.

That's the hope that you have. Not that one day you'll wake up and all of a

sudden become some incredible person.

One day you'll wake up and just become some incredible saint that God's going

to look down on and go, man, I've been waiting and waiting for you to figure it out.

And now that you've got it figured out, I'm going to use you for great things. I'm going to use you.

No, we simply depend on God and his grace to use us how he sees fit.

But don't get into a situation where you're constantly looking at other people

and going, man, I just wish I could do that.

Man, I just wish I could do that. Man, I wish I had that much faith.

Man, I wish I could accomplish that.

Man, I wish I... Number one, you have no idea what people are going through.

You have no idea what they've been through.

You have no idea how God's working in their life.

But number two, when your eyes are on other people, your eyes are not on Christ.

When your eyes are on other people, when you're jealous of other people,

when you want what other people have,

when you wish that you had somebody else's life, when you wish that you were

in a different situation, when you wish that you wouldn't have sinned as much

as you did, and you wish that, man, these people don't understand what it's like to be me.

And if they understood what it's like to be me, they would get it.

When our eyes get onto other people, we completely miss the point.

God's grace towards Rahab The faith she received Played itself out In the grand

scheme of God's story She ends up being the great, great, grand Grandma of David Certainly her faith.

Accomplishes what God would want it to accomplish And certainly your faith will

accomplish What God wants it to accomplish I don't know what that'll be,

I'm pretty confident None of us will be in the position that Rahab was in The

front of her story I certainly hope you never find yourself in,

but the back end of her story, I doubt you will find yourself in.

But what I do know is every single one of us has somewhere that we can be faithful,

whether it's to our kids or our grandkids or the job that we work or the people we're around.

Every single one of us is called to be faithful where we are.

And the way to do that is to trust the God of grace that gives you faith to

do the things that he calls you to do.

Again, just a reminder, what makes Rahab useful and faithful is not how great

she is, but how great the God of grace is, number one.

Number two, faithful pursuit does not equal positive outcomes.

We read 32 through 40.

He's beginning to close up his thought. He says, and what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak.

Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets Who through faith conquered

kingdoms Enforced justice,

obtained promises Stopped the mouths of lions Quenched the power of fire Escaped

the edge of the sword Were made strong out of weakness Became mighty in war

And put foreign armies to flight,

Women received back their dead by resurrection Alright, let me just pause At

this point in this passage Everything is positive And we're reading that and

we're going yes, that is what I want to do.

I want to shut the mouths of lions and I want to fight wars and I want to do

these wonderful things for God.

Also don't miss some of the names that he mentions, like Samson, right?

Samson's life was the ultimate rollercoaster of faithfulness and unfaithfulness.

Ultimately, if you would have known Samson, you would have thought,

man, he was anything but faithful, but God uses him in a mighty way.

Just listen to this list. They enforced justice. They obtained promises.

They quenched the power of fire. I'm thinking Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

They escaped the edge of the sword. That's numerous stories.

They remained strong out of weakness, Samson.

They became mighty in war, Joshua, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection. Man, And I have never met anyone

in the church that doesn't want those things.

In fact, if you've ever been to a Bible college, anything, if you've ever been

to a devotional or a chapel, especially when they come to recruit kids to go

to Bible college, this is the kind of stuff they tell you.

Don't you want to do this for the Lord? Don't you want to pastor a church?

Don't you want everything to go well? Don't you want everyone to get along?

Don't you want to fight for an army? Don't you want to accomplish these great things for God?

Everyone goes, yeah, I can remember the last night of every church camp that

we went to growing up, they would get 14, 15, and 16-year-olds to sign up for

one-month mission trips in Africa.

Now, I don't know about you, but 14-year-olds, number one, can't spend $15,000.

Number two, they have no idea what it means to go to Africa for a month,

but they would get you up in such a frenzy of doing something incredible for

the Lord that hundreds and hundreds of kids are going down front.

Now, selfishly, I was thinking, my mom is not going to let me do that.

So I'm just going to pass.

But all these kids were convinced, man, that's what they're going to do.

Because you read something like that and you go, man, I'm fired up.

I'm fired up. That's the kind of stuff I want to be about.

Until he starts this.

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging, even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned.

They were sawn in two.

They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats,

destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy,

wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

Not the list you want to be a part of. In our flesh, there's not any one of

us that somebody would say, hey, do you want to be cut in half while you're alive?

None of us are going to go, yeah, that sounds awesome. I would love for that to happen.

You want to live destitute lives. You want to be taken over by some foreign country.

You want to live in dens and caves.

And much damage has been done to people by equating outcomes with faithfulness,

by what you can see and what it looks like your life is doing by how faithful you are.

Whether it's somebody saying, if you follow the Lord, you'll be healthy,

wealthy, and wise, saying that it's always the Lord's will to heal you.

It's always the Lord's will that your bank account look a certain way.

It's always the Lord's will that your kids turn out a certain way.

And if you don't do, or if that outcome doesn't materialize, it's your fault.

It's your fault. If you don't get the outcome that you're supposed to have, it's your fault.

There's an incredible amount of guilt that happens there, an incredible amount

of, I would say, demonic things that are surrounded by saying,

if you don't get the outcome that you want, then you are not faithful.

You're not gracious. You're not kind. You're not doing what God wants you to

do. Because if you were doing what God wanted you to do, those kinds of things

just wouldn't happen to you.

And yet here in Hebrews 11, he wants to make clear to his listeners,

some of you will be a part of this first list.

You'll conquer things. You'll close mouths of lions. You'll do incredible things.

People will look at your life and go, man, that's an incredible thing.

Some of you will be sawn into.

Some of you will live destitute lives. Some of you were going to be killed by

the edge of the sword, and some of you are going to be afflicted,

mistreated, and destitute.

And yet, both of those groups are considered faithful.

Both of those groups are considered incredibly faithful people.

It's just one of the hard lessons of faithfulness that we do not control the outcome.

We're not in control of what God wants to do with our lives.

As much as before, we need to say to the Lord, God, I can't conjure up enough

faith to do these things. I'm completely dependent upon your grace.

Here, it's as if the writer of Hebrews says, you need to let go of the fact

that you're in control of your future.

You need to let go of the fact that you have any control over what you are going

to do if you want to be faithful.

James 4, verse 13 says this, come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will

James 4:13

go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make profit.

Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

What a way to live your life. If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

The idea, we often get caught up in deciding what great thing we're going to do for the Lord.

We make empty promises and we say things like, I'm going to go home and read

my Bible every day. I'm going to go home and pray every day.

I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. And those are noble things to ascribe yourself

to. Those are noble goals to have.

However, you don't even know what tomorrow is going to look like.

You have no idea what kind of incredible tragedy or what kind of incredible

triumph you might experience tomorrow that would change your whole life.

What kind of news you might hear, what kind of economical situation might change, you have no clue.

And so the idea behind what James is saying, and I believe what Hebrews is trying

to get us to see is, you do the right thing right now and let tomorrow be what tomorrow is going to be.

It's hard enough to do the right thing right now than to try and decide that

you're going to do the right thing every single day for the rest of your life.

And this is how you're going to do it. this is the decisions you're going to

make. And in four years, I'm going to do this.

And in two weeks, I'm going to do this. And in a month, I'm going to do this.

Instead of just saying, God has put things in front of me today.

I'm in the situation of life that I'm in today. I've got decisions to make today,

and I'm going to do my very best to make the right decision today.

And when I wake up tomorrow, I'm going to ask God for enough faith to do the same thing again.

I'm going to wake up tomorrow and ask God, would you help me make the right decision? today.

We just dedicated to a baby and a young kid, right?

I would imagine the decisions that they make every single day look different than if you're retired.

I can remember having little itty bitty kids and now I have an eight and a 12

year old and the kind of decisions that I have to make every day are just a little different.

The right and the wrong of every day is just a little different.

I have a different full-time job than I did two years ago. The kind of decisions

that I'm asked to make every day are just a little different.

The kind of relationships I have are a little different. Life changes.

Things move and things don't tend to stay the same like we wish they would.

As much as we wish we could have a five-year plan or a 10-year plan,

there's no guarantee of anything.

James goes on to say, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.

The life of a believer. That's the life of a faithful person.

The results are the results.

You may be a conqueror or you may be conquered, right?

You may get all the things that you think you should have. You may get none

of the things that you think you should have, but the outcome does not define

how faithful you're being.

All right, last thing, getting into chapter 12, always as a reminder,

they didn't write the Bible with chapters and verses.

I think it's important for us to connect these ideas together.

So chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 say this, therefore,

since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay

aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance

the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,

the founder and perfecter of our faith, for the joy that was set before him

endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Therefore, so because of chapter 11, because of all the things we learned in chapter 11,

all these lists of people who did great things, you would think what the author

would say is, hey, I've just spent all this time telling you about all these

great heroes in the Bible.

So now go and do those things. Go and find a David to kill, right?

Go and find pagan nations to conquer.

Go and find a thing, a great thing for you to be a part of. But that's not at all what he says.

He says, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,

what are they witnesses to?

If you were to put Abraham on the stand or Moses on the stand or somebody else

of this list on the stand and you were to ask them questions,

what are they witnesses to? They are not witnesses to their own greatness.

They are witnesses to the faithfulness that God has shown them.

They're witnesses to how good God has been to them, to how when they sinned

and when they struggled and when they went off path, that God didn't just leave them be.

That's what they're witnesses to. He says, because of these witnesses,

let us lay aside sins that cling so closely.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Why are you going to run your race? Why are you going to be faithful?

Why are you going to do what god calls you to do? Are you going to do it because of you?

Because of your strength Because of your effort Because you walked an aisle

because you prayed a prayer because you got baptized because you got dedicated

Are you going to do it looking at jesus?

Going to do it with your eyes on Christ saying, I cannot believe what you have done for me.

I cannot believe that you have saved me. I cannot believe that you've given

me faith for me to see things I can't see.

I cannot believe that while I was a sinner, you died for me.

I cannot believe that while I was dead, you gave me life.

That is how Christians run races.

Christians do not run races by saying, God, look what I'm going to do for you.

Christians run their race by looking at God and saying, I cannot believe what

you have done for me. I cannot believe what you have done for me.

He says clearly, looking to Jesus, the founder or author and perfecter of our faith.

We began chapter 11 by looking at Ephesians 2 and some other places where we asked, what is faith?

We said, like Ephesians 2, 8 reminds us that faith is a gift.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith. This is not of yourself. It is the gift of God.

So you see in Hebrews 12, he reminds us again. He starts in Hebrews 11 that

way, and he ends his argument in Hebrews 12 by saying he is a founder,

an author, and a perfecter of your faith, that God will keep you,

that God will be with you, that God will walk with you.

When you fail, which you will, you can be assured that the person who began

the faith that started your race will give you the faith to keep you in the race.

When I don't know where you are this morning, I have no idea.

I have no idea if there's anything being in ministry for any amount of time has taught me.

It's that looking at someone on Sunday morning is a terrible representation

of probably where they are spiritually.

That I've looked at people in the eyes. I've been in Bible studies with people

for years and years and years and everything seemed 100% fine.

And then all of a sudden you find out their marriage is falling apart.

They've been cheating on their wife. They've been cheating on their husband.

They've been stealing money. They've been doing stuff at work.

They should, whatever it is.

I just know well enough to know that me looking at you is a terrible way for

me to understand where you are in your walk.

What I do know is this, God is gracious and kind. He is faithful. He is long suffering.

He desires that no one would perish. He tells us in his word that if you would

repent, believe, and come to him, that he will never cast anyone out.

Whether you're a man named Abram or a prostitute named Rahab,

that he is able to use any person from any past with any sin,

any struggle from any family that he chooses in his story to further his kingdom.

Ask us not to become great people that he can use, but to become humble people,

blessed by grace, that he will use despite your weaknesses and your faults.

When he tells us the way to live a life like that is to fix our eyes on Jesus,

to look at Jesus, to consider Jesus.

Let me encourage you, if you haven't done that in a while, to look at Jesus.

And don't just look at him as the blonde hair, blue-eyed Jesus that is going

to come and hang out with you and be your best friend.

You look at him as the Jesus that is the Alpha and the Omega,

the beginning and the end,

the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the one who rose from the dead in victory,

the one who sits at the right hand of the Father and waits for him to come back

down and receive his people,

the one who in Revelation is

shown with a sword of fire coming out of his mouth and tattoos on his leg,

ready to come with a robe dipped in blood to take care of every evil thing in the world.

That Jesus is the one he tells us to look to and to say, if you want to run a race, look to Jesus.

If you want to run faithfully, look to Jesus.

This morning, as we get ready to partake of the Lord's Supper,

it's a great chance to look to Jesus.

What better way to get your eyes onto Christ than to come to his table and to

be reminded that we have no right to sit at this table.

We have no right to recline with Jesus.

We have no right to sit around with him and to talk to him and to be with him.

Nothing we've done has ever earned us a spot into God's presence.

The table is yet another reminder that we walk by faith, that we look to Jesus. Our eyes are set on him.

Not just junior varsity or freshman level players, but because of Christ,

we've been invited into this family, that Christ sits at the head of the table

and we sit at the same table with Moses and Abraham and Enoch and Rahab.

Not because of who we are, but because of who God is.

Not because we've done something great, but because we're a part of his family.

And God's kids sit at God's table.

All right, let's pray. And then we'll go into a time, the Lord's Supper.

Father, thank you this morning for your word. Thank you for including Rahab in this chapter.

God, as a reminder that our moral failings,

moral failures, do not disqualify us for being used by you because there is

not a person that walked this earth whose name was not Jesus,

who didn't have moral failures,

who didn't fall short of the glory of God, who didn't need grace and mercy.

God, that we're not junior varsity players on your team,

not because we have some special skill set or because we're super talented or

super smart that you might use us in some great way, but God,

we're simply made worthy to sit at your table,

to eat your food, to drink your drink, to be used by you in whatever way you see fit,

because of your grace and your kindness.

God, if there's anyone in here who might be conflicted, God,

that you might be working on, would you fix their eyes on your son, Jesus Christ?

Their eyes off of all the moral things that people might ask of them?

Would you get their eyes off of other people that they look at and go,

man, I wish I was just like them.

I wish I had that much faith. I wish I had that much stuff.

I wish I had the ability to do those things. Would you just get their eyes on Jesus?

Would you just help them see him for who he is? Would you give them eyes to see and ears to hear?

God, would you supernaturally give them a new heart of flesh to believe your word.

God, I know that no matter where someone is, you can take them and make them

into whatever it is you call them to.

And God, for Trinity Bible Church, would you make us a people that do not look

at the outcomes to decide whether or not being faithful is worth it?

God, that we would be a church that just does the right things at the right

time when you put them in front of us and leave the outcomes to you that you

would allow us the courage to be used in whatever way you see fit,

whatever way you see fit, that our outcome is whatever you would have it be,

that we wouldn't try and force the issue, that we wouldn't make decisions based

solely on what it's going to cost us or what it might bring us,

and we just want to be a people that are faithful.

God, we thank you for that. Here I pray. Amen.