Hebrews: Suffering Well with Hope of Heaven

Alright, you may be seated.

Well, we are in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

We've been working our way through Hebrews this entire year.

We did in the fall, we broke for the Christmas season, and we've been back in it since the beginning of the year.

So we're in the second half of chapter 11.

Starting in verse 29.

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.

By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.

Now, when I was a little boy, we had a cabinet behind our sofa.

And inside that cabinet, we had two things that I remember at least.

And the first was a set of world book encyclopedias.

If you're my age or older, you had a set of world book encyclopedias.

What you do, book projects, if you had anything, curiosity in the world, it was the hardback of Google, right?

Like that's where you went and you read.

My sister were in those books all the time.

Now, next to those was a set of photo albums.

And we pulled those out all the time, right?

And we'd be looking through those, and they were images and picture after picture of beach trips and vacations and birthday parties and being at the lake.

That's what a photo album is, whether it's on your phone or hardback.

It's photos carrying us through stories and people through time.

This is actually what Hebrews 11 is, if we think about it.

It's picture after picture, person after person, groups of people, all really train wrecks when we get into their actual stories, but people of faith.

And they are moving through really great, incredible things and moves of God, and then also they're moving through really horrible and difficult situations.

Now, to make sense of this, we have to start back in Hebrews 11, verse 1.

Hebrews 11:1

We did that last week, but we got to start back there, or else we're not gonna be able to make sense of the rest of this chapter because that's the beginning of the context of this entire section of text.

So uh Hebrews 11, 1 says this.

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

So summing up last week, point number one, our faith in God is inside the faithfulness of God to us.

Right?

If you remember last week we talked about that the word assurance, faith is the assurance of things.

That word assurance means substance.

It's a strong, it's the image of a strong substance of which you stand under.

And that strong substance for us is not our own faith, it's that which we stand under, which is the strong faithfulness and commitment of God to us.

Just think about these people.

Verses 29 through 30, we have the Israelites.

I mean, these are people that are constantly swinging from faith to forgetfulness.

And then in verse 31, we get Rahab, a sex worker, as a person of faith in our story of faith.

And she's just as validated as the religious people.

I mean, this is how grace destroys the categories that we want to put on people.

The great theologian and author, J.I.

Packer, he said, this of faith.

Your faith will not fail while God sustains it.

You are not strong enough to fall away while God is resolved to hold you.

I love that because that's this image of verse one that we are in the strong substance, that strongness of God for us.

And that it's not faith in our own faith, but it's faith in his faithfulness.

I mean, I at least I need that because I at least for my own faith, that's all over the place, right?

Like I said last week, that could be just like dinner from the night before that didn't sit well, and all of a sudden the next day my faith is not feeling as strong.

It just will fluctuate.

And it fluctuates for you because some days you feel like you're an incredible person of faith, and then the next week you're just kind of even wondering how you're barely holding on.

And some of that is circumstance, some of that's emotional volatility, some of that's our sin, some of that's woundedness, some of that's abreaction to our woundedness.

Such good news that Jesus said, Hey, if you just have a mustard seed of faith, like you're good.

And the point is not that he doesn't want us to increase in faith, the point is that the mustard seed of faith places us inside the faithfulness of God.

This week I was walking down church street and I saw a fire hydrant that had been opened up.

They were working on the pipes or something, and the fire hydrant was opened up, and it was just like the water was just flowing out of that fire hydrant.

Just pouring out one way.

You weren't gonna get something into that water flow.

It was coming out.

I mean, what an image for us of the outpouring of God toward us.

This faithfulness outpouring one way to the world and to us.

And we know this concretely as believers in Jesus, in the work, the incarnation of God Himself.

And the life, the work, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus for us.

Dane Ortland, I've been working my way through this book, Gentle and Lowly.

I think we've talked about it some in the fall.

He wrote this about God's regard to us.

It means the things that make you cringe the most, like about yourself, make him hug the hardest.

It means his mercy is not calculating and cautious like ours.

It is unrestrained, flood-like, sweeping, magnanimous.

Like this is the this is the strength, this is the faithfulness, this one-way strength, all sufficient for our faith when our faith is surging and when our faith is just mustard seed.

Verse 32.

And what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthal, of David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms and forced 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, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection.

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

Others suffered mocking and flogging and 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.

Point number two is this a life of faith embraces suffering while looking forward to heaven.

The text calls us to remember this range of people.

And here's what we learn.

In verses 32 through 35, at times you will know triumph over enemies, struggles, and sufferings.

Amen.

That's the part we love, right?

And then you know I'm gonna read the next sentence because you already see it.

Verses 36 through 38.

At times you will endure defeat from enemies' struggles and sufferings.

We love 32 through 35.

Like, give me more of that, right?

Like give me the test result that comes back, and everything's great.

That's the test result I want.

Like, I want the victory, I want the miracles, and I want the new life.

And I want that, and that's what I want, and I want it for you.

But then there's the reality of the broken world we live in.

And that's what's so great about the Bible and the Christian faith, is this completely in reality.

That we live in a broken world and we're gonna experience brokenness and defeat and suffering and struggles.

That we don't live in Eden and we don't live in heaven.

We're in the already, but not yet.

We're in the middle part of the story.

We are redeemed, but we're not yet fully restored.

I wish it was different.

I'll be honest.

I just this week I was thinking about this text, thinking about it.

I was like, I don't, I don't like the second part.

I don't like verses 36 to 38.

I want all the front part because I want I want the restoration.

Like my heart hopes for heaven where it's all pleasure and comfort and restoration.

And part of that's just because I care more about that than I do my own character or refinement in this world.

A few months ago, I binged the Michael Jordan documentary on Netflix.

I don't know if you've seen it.

And he was one of my basketball heroes growing up.

I talked about Larry Byrd a few weeks ago.

I mimicked Larry Bird because that was what I could do in the driveway.

I couldn't like mimic Jordan, but Jordan was one of my heroes as well.

And I watched through this documentary and they bounced between like interviewing Michael and other players and journalists, and they patched together this incredible like 10-part series, and I was all in it.

I was reliving my childhood.

And finally, they get to clips of the 1991 NBA championship.

Here's here's a picture of Jordan versus Magic.

And Magic and the Lakers, they had dominated for a while.

It was Byrd and the Celtics, and then that baton got passed over to Magic and the Lakers, and Magic and the Lakers are still holding on to it, but this the Bulls team were coming up, right?

And I was a Bulls fan, and I was ready for Jordan to take over.

So I was a 12-year-old boy, 1991 NBA championship, and I am on the edge of my seat every game, just hoping, just hoping that Michael can do this, right?

Like, and so anxious and nervous, like every single game.

And you know what?

And he went, they win, they win in five games.

So that was an experience in 1991, and then just this past fall, I'm rewatching these same clips.

They take you through all five games.

I'm just as anxious as I was when I was a little boy watching this.

The only difference is, which is pretty huge, is my hope is based in like really confident expectation because I already know who wins.

And that changes everything.

That's the gift of faith.

That's the gift of the cross.

That we have a we have the victory sealed, the already.

We already have it.

And yet we still live in hope.

We're not fully experiencing it.

It's like watching that those clips of that game.

Like I already know who wins.

And yet my emotions within the experience are still not like void, void of anxiety or nervousness.

Hope gives us this, this confident expectation of one day all of this, all of this will be restored.

The word hope in our text comes from a Greek word, el peace.

Peace, meaning confident expectation of good and confident expectation of joy and eternal salvation.

So it's rooted in a confidence.

Not that we're gonna make everything right, but that God can and will.

And this way, it's what Gabriel, Gabriel Marcel says.

Hope is a memory of the future.

That's what hope is.

It's a memory, so like a memory of something for the past, but for the future is a memory of the future.

Point number three, because we are assured in God's faithfulness to us, we can risk facing and feeling our suffering.

Because we are assured in God's faithfulness to us, Hebrews 11.1, because that is so true for us, all this suffering that we read about in the rest of chapter 11, we can face it, we can feel it.

When we're insecure, if 11.1 wasn't there for us, and it's just faith in our own faith or faith in what we're capable of doing, then we're insecure, and so easily that's when we run from our hurts and our wounds.

We don't face them, we don't feel them, we don't process them, we're on no healing path.

We cause more problems and more wounds and more hurt.

Counselor and author Dan Allender, he wrote this in his book, The Healing Path.

Suffering need not destroy the heart.

It has the potential to lead to life.

But few people I know suffer deeply and profit.

Instead, pain is seldom expected nor embraced when it comes.

It is often denied or swept under the spiritual rug of God's sovereignty.

So, what Alander is saying is so easily Christians just put like the band-aid of God's sovereignty over suffering, like God's sovereign, but never feel it and face it to have any grief over it.

So you don't have healing, you're just band-aiding it.

We can trust in God's sovereignty, and in that we get to process, face, feel a hurt and a wound and suffering.

I keep being reminded of the cliche that's so good for us.

The more we cry, the more we will laugh.

That's so good.

And the reverse is true.

If you cut off the crying, you will cut off the laughing.

You're just gonna avoid both extremes and live in a numbness through life.

In that same book, The Healing Path, there's a chapter, The Dream of Hope.

Here's what Alander writes: Hope is not an absence of sorrow, but a refusal to allow powerlessness.

And just think about the amount of powerlessness in chapter 11 of these people.

Or your powerlessness through what you might be going through.

A refusal to allow powerlessness to silence our cry or to shake our confidence in God.

Instead, we are to call on God to be God, to protest his silence and anticipate the day when he speaks.

And we are to risk despair by asking God to show us himself.

How much easier it is to presume he will not show himself and learn to live with his absence.

How much easier it is to listen for good words that speak of him, but do not comfort us with his presence or lead us forward with his promise.

If we don't miss his presence or doubt his promise, then how can we hope?

So what Alander is saying is you've got to face and feel all of it.

If you're not facing and feeling that you feel like maybe the presence of God is leaving you in some way, or you're doubting the promise, you're not facing the fact that you might actually feel that or think that, how can you ever have hope?

Like you gotta you have to cry in order to laugh.

He's calling us to face and feel suffering because we're so secure and God's faithful to us, not in the measure of our faith in a given moment.

Verse 39, and all these, talking about this whole story, all these people through chapter 11, all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Point number four is this success or failure, and we could say like victory or suffering is not our core definition.

Rather, faith in God and hope in heaven.

Thursday evening, Christy and I we went out on a date night.

We went out, we got tacos and margaritas, that's our date night, so we went out and did that and kind of like unloaded our weeks onto each other and talked and kind of caught up from just like you know, passing each other all week.

And then we get home and our girls were watching a movie, and then one of my daughters was on the floor next to the fire, and she had a blanket and a pillow, and it was one of the daughters.

I won't specify too much, that she doesn't like to snuggle as much as the others, but she was down there by the fire, and she's engrossed in the movie, and I'm like, this is a moment right here.

And so I get a blanket and a pillow, and I just real slowly, like ninja-like, just kind of get down.

You don't want to make too many movements, she might see you coming, and so get down there and then get right up next to her, real, like just you know, step by step, just kind of lift her up and get her head right on my shoulder so she can still see the movie, like she's not even aware of what's going on, then just kind of sit there, don't move too much, like just embrace the snuggling you're getting and watch high school musical three for 30 minutes, which is part of this you know thrilling process of the snuggle, right?

Like just stealing a snuggle.

And that was Thursday evening, and that was man, that was a taste of heaven, to be honest.

Like to go on a date night with my wife, like my wife, tacos, margaritas, and snuggling with my daughter.

Like, I mean, that is a taste of heaven.

That was so good.

I mean, that and hiking in the Tetons, I mean, these are the things I need in my life, equally, perhaps.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

I mean, all the goodness and the comfort of this world, it's just a taste.

All the all the ecstasy of this world, like, I mean, is just let your mind run wild with that word ecstasy.

Like, go there for just a second, because I know where you're going with it.

It's just a taste.

Like that, like you're thinking about right now, you didn't know you could think about that in church.

That is just a taste of the goodness of heaven.

Because can you imagine a place with no shame or no guilt or no pressure, or no stress, or no time?

Can you imagine that?

No time.

Like, that would be amazing.

Like, I'm losing hair right here.

I don't know if you can't, I'm tall, so you can't see it, and then it's coming in through my ears.

Like, I like I don't know.

And I don't like it.

Like the vigilance it's requiring in my life.

I mean, can you imagine a place where like what you should look like is gone?

Or just all the shoulds are gone.

Just like just what you should do, or what you should have done.

You did the one thing, you should do the other, you said the one thing, you should have said the other, you didn't say anything, but you should have said it, and now you're wondering, and all that's gone.

Or the could've's, like I could have done this, I could have done that, that's gone.

Or what happened to you?

You know, the the the thing that you don't talk about, and that that's not just healing or forgotten, but it's healed and understood and it exists in that kind of like perpetual joy and freedom.

I mean, we don't have to like envision like just like gold roads and like angels flying around.

Like, don't belittle it to that.

Like, just imagine that kind of like freedom and joy.

That's our hope of heaven.

If we carry that through, whether it was circumstance in our life is going so great, and it's victory, and everything's great, that's you know, those people we read in 11, chapter 11, or the second set of people where it's just not good, then it's hard.

Last thing to note, looking back over this chapter, if our culture read this chapter, they would deem the first set of people victors.

Right?

And they put them on Oprah's podcast, they get a book deal, and then the second set of people, they get to go to the basement of the church and they're forgotten.

Right?

Because the first set are the fighters and the winners, and then the second set are the sufferers who lost.

But our text and our faith, it intermingles.

It's so incredible.

It intermingles these people.

It's just people of faith.

Just us, right?

Because sometimes you're in the first set and then sometimes you're not.

And this is where the prosperity gospel is so hurtful to be told, if you're ever told the rubbish of the prosperity gospel, that if you're faithful, your life will be successful and triumphant and healthy.

I mean, think about it.

So as soon as your life's not successful or triumphant or healthy, what does that mean about you?

Well, it means you're not faithful.

Like you're condemned by it.

That's awful.

That's not true.

And this, Hebrews chapter 11, gives us such a promise that sometimes you're in the first set of people, sometimes you're in the second set of people, sometimes like we're both at the same time, but we're just people of faith.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And that's the good news.

That's the good news we have coming out of the first one, giving us this group of people that are hoping in heaven.

The mark of faithfulness, the mark of faithfulness is resting in the one who is faithful to us, not the circumstances going on around us.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your strong character and commitment to us by which we stand and exist and live and have our move uh being and we move under.

And it is your faithfulness to us, it is not our faith.

Help us to have more faith.

Certainly we want it and we need it, but may it not be in our own effort, may it not be in our own uh performance, may it be in your commitment to us, your character, your grace and your mercy.

Help us to be more astonished and enamored of Jesus for us, how sufficient He is for our sin and our guilt and our shame.

Help us to look forward to heaven, the last part of our story where all things will be restored, and we get to exist in the very presence of perfection with you, where we will know joy and we will know freedom in this fullest way.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.