Faith For Winners & Losers

Could you please stand for the reading of God's Word? Old Testament reading today is in Jeremiah 37, 11 -21. Now when the Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem at the approach of Pharaoh's army, Jeremiah set out of Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to receive his portion there among the people.

When he was at Benjamin Gate, a sentry there named Uriah, the son of Shalima, son of Hananiah, seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, you are deserting to the Chaldeans. And Jeremiah said, it is a lie. I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.

But Uriah would not listen to him and seized Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah and they beat him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan, the secretary, for it had been made a prison.

When Jeremiah had come to the dungeon cells and remained there many days, King Zedekiah sent for him and received him. The king questioned him secretly in his house and said, is there any word from the Lord?

Jeremiah said, there is. Then he said, you shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon. Jeremiah also said to the king Zedekiah, what wrong have I done to you or your servants or this people that you've put me in this prison?

Where are your prophets who prophesize to you saying the king of Babylon will not come against you and against this land. Now here, please, oh my Lord, the king, let my humble plea come before you and do not send me back to the house of Jonathan, the secretary, lest I die there.

So King Zedekiah gave orders and they committed Jeremiah to the court of the guard and a loaf of bread was given him daily from the baker street until all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

New Testament reading is 1 Corinthians 4, 8 through 13. Already you have all you want. Already you have become rich. Without us you have become kings and with that you did reign so that we might share the rule with you.

For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death. Because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men, we are fools for Christ's sake. But you are wise in Christ.

We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we are disrepute. To the present hour, we hunger and thirst. We are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless. We are, and we labor working with our own hands.

When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we entreat. We have become and are still like the scum of the world and the refuse of all things. You may be seated.

Sanctity of Human Life and the Limits of Law

I'd like to remind you, and there is a reminder in our bulletin that today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. This is the Sunday that's closest to the infamous decision made by the Supreme Court in 1973.

Again, we need to be reminded that even though that ruling was overturned this last year, the battle still goes on because the only thing that ruling did was turn this back over to the states to determine in each state whether abortion would be legal or not.

So we need to remember that, and we also need to remember simply this. It's not gonna be a matter of laws that is gonna change people's hearts. People's hearts will only be changed with the gospel. Certainly, law can restrain evil, but it can never change a human heart, so remember that.

And as we do our best as citizens to deal with this evil, we also need to do our best as citizens of the kingdom to see people transformed by the gospel.

So you remember that.

Remember our ministry in New Path and in the ministry that they do as well. I'd ask you now to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 11. As we finish this chapter, Hebrews 11, we'll be looking at verses 32 through 40 today.

That is our text for this morning. So if you will, join me in prayer as we ask God to minister His word to our hearts. Father, thank you for your word. We are so thankful that in every way you minister to us in every situation.

We pray now that you would open your word to us, make this the living word of God in our hearts, cause us, Lord, to be transformed by your word, and we'll thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Hebrews 11, let's begin in verse 32.

Faith Triumphs Through the Promises of God

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of 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, put foreign armies to flight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might receive a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the 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.

And 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. Well, we come to the end of this chapter and I ask this question, who needs to live by faith?

Who needs to live always believing the promises of God? Who needs the assurance of things hoped for? Who needs the conviction of things not seen? And the answer is, all of us do. We all need to live that way, especially in terms of, especially as we face persecution, marginalization, suffering for our faith.

We need to live by faith. Now, I want you to notice something as we begin. I want you to observe in our text that two groups of people are described. In verses 32 through the first part of verse 35, we have the winners.

The winners. The winners are the ones who, by faith, experience triumph.

And then the second group,.

From the second part of 35 through 38, are the losers. That is, although commended for their faith, they seem to experience only tragedy. So we have what we might call the winners and the losers in this text.

But both of them are held up to us as examples as to how we ought to live by faith today, how we ought to live believing the promises of God. Now, the first, believe God's promises in triumph. Believe God's promises in triumph, verse 32.

And what more shall I say? For time will fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of 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, put foreign armies to fight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection. So he says, believe God's promises in triumph. I want you to notice a couple of striking features here. The first is this. He says, and what more shall I say?

The first thing to note is the writer could go on for hours about people who express their faith. He could go on for hours about people throughout the whole Old Testament who had lived by faith, but he didn't want to load them down with too much.

You know, one rule of thumb I've learned as in ministry, in preaching, and in counseling, here it is. My rule of thumb is this. If you say too much, the hearers will walk away with nothing, right? If you give them too much, they'll walk away with nothing.

And that's what he believes. I don't want to give you too much. And he could have appealed to many more examples. After all, he's only gotten as far as Rahab, right? He's only gotten far as Rahab. He's got the whole entire Old Testament he could turn to, but he stops here, and he concludes with a quick list of past practitioners of faith.

Here's the second feature that strikes me, the second one in this group. The heroes of the faith that he mentions are also known for their weaknesses and their sins. Some of you, as we've approached this text, have said to me, how in the world could that person be included in this list, right?

Because some of them are known for their weaknesses and their sins. I mean, let's look at the list. Gideon. Gideon wanted signs from God because he lacked faith.

Barak.

He was afraid, and he refused to go fight the Canaanites unless Deborah came along with him. Samson. Good night. His sexual infidelities and his impulsive behavior is almost the definition of the man.

Then we have Jephthah. He made a rash vow to sacrifice his daughter if God would give him victory. We all know David for his adultery and his murderous manipulations. We know Samuel favored his sons. Just like his mentor, Eli, he favored his sons and appointed them as judges when they were not even close to being morally qualified for the position.

But notice, it's not the sins and faults that he points out.

In fact, he doesn't even mention them.

In fact, we could say, why didn't you pick Josiah? That king of Judah who was a paragon of faith and virtue. But no, he picks these people. He doesn't even mention their failures, but he does mention their faith and trust in God.

Can I say something to you this morning? Perseverance and faith is not the same thing as perfection. Perseverance is not the same thing as perfection. And you may be saying to yourself, oh my, I'm not good enough to persevere.

That's not the point. The point is, do you believe the promises of God? By the way, one of those promises is there's forgiveness for you in Jesus. All your transgressions are forgiven, right? Perseverance is not the same thing as perfection.

So don't get in your mind that only perfect people have the ability to persevere. It's people who trust God who persevere. Remember, and I want you to burn this phrase in your mind. And I want you to burn it in your mind just in case we may face persecution that we've never faced before.

Perseverance is fueled by faith in the promises of God. It isn't fueled by willpower. It's fueled by faith in the promises of God. Always remember that when you come to this chapter from now on for the rest of your life, I want you to be thinking, perseverance, endurance is fueled by faith in the promises of God.

That's what produces endurance. Now, each of these that he lists, each of these trusted God's promises.

There's Gideon.

Gideon defeated an army that's described in scripture as large as the sands of the sea. And he did it with 300 men. And he did it following this absurd, ridiculous tactic that God told him to do, which was carry torches and pitchers.

And then you break the pitchers, the torches flame out, blow a trumpet, shout, and you'll defeat the enemy. How ridiculous can that be? But Gideon believed it and they were successful.

Barak.

Barak went up against 900 iron chariots. Now, you got to understand something. In those days, you know what that's like? That's like sending an infantry company to fight an armored division, okay? You got to get that in your minds.

And they defeated them. Samson. Samson said, Lord, unless you're with me, I cannot pull these pillars down. Unless you are with me, you must be with me, help me. And he did that and accomplished God's judgment on more Philistines that day than any he had dealt with before.

There was Jephthah. He defeated the Ammonites because God told him to do it. So he said, okay, and he did it.

David.

David was almost undefeated against all his foes who had great military advantages over him, but he obeyed, he believed what God said, go take the land. It was part of the whole conquest of the land that David was involved in, the land that God had promised.

Samuel won a significant victory against the Philistines merely by prayer. You can read about that in 1 Samuel chapter seven. Here's what we need to remember. Faith trusts in what cannot be seen, but it produces effects in the real world.

Faith trusts in what cannot be seen, but it produces effects in the real world. In all these instances, faith in God's promises produced triumph. It produced triumph. Kingdoms were conquered. Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samuel, Samson, not to mention David.

They enforced justice. The judges and David and other kings bringing justice to an unruly people. They obtained promises, right? David obtained a promise of an eternal dynasty. They stopped the mouths of lions, referring probably to Samson and David, and also who else?

Daniel, right? Daniel quenched the power of fire. Who's that? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They said, Nebuchadnezzar, we are not gonna bow to this idol, for we believe that God can deliver us from the fire, and if he does not, we're still not gonna bow.

See, they believed that God could quench the fire, escape the edge of the sword. You ever read the story of Elijah and Elisha? Ahab and Jezebel and other kings were always after them, always ready to kill them, and they were never successful.

There's a story of a king sending out these companies of soldiers, like four of them, right? To get Elisha, and every one of them is consumed by fire, until the fourth one comes along and says, look, I'm just talking for the king, okay?

Don't burn us up, right? They escaped the edge of the sword. Some were made strong out of weakness. What comes to my mind is Gideon and Barak, right? Some became mighty in war and put foreign armies to flight.

David, Joshua, Barak, and Jehoshaphat, right?

Jehoshaphat, you remember that story?

They got all this alliance of these Canaanite countries, and they're coming against Judah, and they're terrified, and they meet at the temple, and they pray, and God says, okay, here's what I want you to do.

I want you to take your choir and send them out in front of the army.

He's like, what?

What kind of absurdity is that? By the way, do you ever notice how many absurd things God tells us to do? And you gotta believe it's gonna do something. He says, send the choir out, send the choir out.

Can you imagine being a choir member? Great, the army's behind us. They're gonna chop us. They're gonna chop us all to bits, and then they get to the army, right? And yet what happens? Confusion, the army is defeated.

Received back their dead through resurrection. These women, he's talking about Elijah with the widow of Zarephath and Elisha with the Shunammite son. Now look, believing God's promises and acting in accord with those promises can produce amazing things now.

Can produce amazing things now. Those heroes believed what God had promised, and even though it seemed impossible, they conquered.

You see?

Through the absurd things that God tells us to do. It says these will accomplish things. I think of a Romanian brother, I'll call him Mihai, who was paid by the Orthodox priest in the village. In Romania, the Orthodox priest, and there's like, you see an Orthodox church like every two miles in every village.

They are the, almost if you will, the unofficial rulers of the village. So there's this Orthodox priest, and he wants to shut up the Baptist pastor, or they call him the repenter pastor, right? So he gets Mihai, who's a drunk, and he tells him, I'll pay you money if you go beat this guy up, if you just beat him, right?

So he's planning to do this, and this pastor just befriends him and loves him, and Mihai gets converted, right? He gets converted, eventually becomes a leader in the church and a great spokesman for Christ, why?

Because this pastor did this stupid stuff, like loving him, right? What about your neighbor who despises you? What about your neighbor who despises you? You can have the attitude of, all right, you're gonna treat me that way, ha, watch what I can do to you, or you can choose to do what Jesus says is more effective, which is love those, do good to those who abuse you, pray for them, right, love them, and see what happens, and that neighbor maybe comes to you and says, man, what is wrong with you?

What's different about you?

What's going on?

See the point, sometimes believing the promises of God actually leads to change, and our enemies then love us. So here's the point, when you face the pressure to abandon Jesus, remember that others who believe the promises of God not only persevered, but they also triumphed.

Sometimes when it looks like the gig's over, and you believe what Jesus tells you to do, oftentimes, sometimes, it may lead to your enemy who's gonna persecute you becoming your brother. Now, at the second half of verse 35, our writer turns the corner after recounting the exploits of those who exercise faith.

Now he turns the corner. He's gonna tell us about those who, in faith, suffered. Here's what he says. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might receive a better resurrection. I think that's the better translation, so that they might receive the better, a better resurrection.

Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the 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 deads, dens, and caves of the earth.

Now, instead of triumph, God turns our attention to tragedy. Those who did not conquer in faith, but those who suffered in faith. Now look how they suffered. He talks about those who were tortured. He might have in mind here a scribe by the name of Eleazar or this unnamed woman with seven sons.

You read their story in the book of 2 Maccabees. Now, we don't consider 2 Maccabees a part of Scripture. Nevertheless, it's helpful in giving us some of the history of God's people between, in those 400 years between the Testaments.

And this story is found in 2 Maccabees about this mother and her seven sons. And the book records that they died these unbelievably gruesome deaths. So gruesome, I'm not even gonna tell you. You wanna look it up?

Look up the book of 2 Maccabees chapter seven. It's horrible what happened to those people because they refused to disobey and adopt pagan ways. They had a pagan king. And they, who was, if you read the story, was intent on defying and defiling everything that the Jewish people held sacred.

And this woman and her seven sons refused to bow. And you read their story. And you see these men and their mother refused to abandon their faith and gain life. That's what he means here when he said refusing to accept release.

They refused to accept the release they could have if they bowed the knee and put their pagan gods on their lips, they would then be released, right? And they would gain their lives. But they refused to deny God.

And they refused because they believed in a resurrection. Now what this king did was he took the first son and killed him, and the second and killed him, and the third, he just went down the line. Imagine, here's the fourth son.

He's seen three of his brothers gruesomely, brutally killed. And here's what he says. It is good being put to death by men to look for hope from God to be raised up again by him. As for you, king, you shall have no resurrection to life.

I'm sitting there thinking, what am I gonna do?

What would I do?

Would I sit there and shake my fist and the guy is just gonna lop off my limbs? Am I gonna do that? That's what he did.

Why?

Because he says, I believe in this resurrection. That's what it means, he says, so that they might receive a better resurrection, a better resurrection than that experienced by those two boys with Elijah and Elisha.

What happened to those two boys? They died again, didn't they? But they're talking about, they received a better resurrection in which they would never die, ever. The promise of a resurrection fueled their endurance in the face of incredible, unbelievably brutal torture.

He talks about mocking, flogging, chains, and imprisonment. The prophets were often mocked, ignored, sometimes even flogged and imprisoned. You saw that in our Old Testament reading this morning. Jeremiah, that great prophet of the Old Testament, what happened to him?

He was beaten, he was imprisoned, he was put in chains. King Asa imprisoned the prophet Hanani. King Ahab imprisoned the prophet Micaiah. And yet they continued to believe the promises of God. They did not relent.

Why?

Even in the face of imprisonment and mocking and flogging, they stayed true.

Why?

Because they believed that God had something better. Some were stoned. There's an Old Testament prophet named Zechariah. Zechariah prophesied under King Joash. Joash ordered that he'd be stoned, and Zechariah was stoned in the very courts of the temple of God.

But he did not relent. Sawn in two. Now, we don't know from history, we don't know this from the Bible, but the Jewish legend is that Isaiah was sawed in two.

Okay?

And this may be what our writer has reference to. Killed with the sword. Look at the days of Jezebel and Ahab. They were killing the prophets of God left and right. You remember. Obadiah was one who had hidden some in a cave.

Why?

To save them from the murderous royal family. Living lives of destitution. Here he talks about goat skins and sheep skins and being afflicted and so forth. They're living lives of destitution. The animal skins speak of poverty and the actions speak of persecution.

They were poor, forsaken, and persecuted by their society. Wandering in inhabitable places in the wilderness, finding shelter in caves and dens. Many of God's people had to flee to the wilderness and this is where they stayed, in caves and dens.

Well, what's the point? What's the point? Well, a minor point here is, if you think you're gonna find acceptance and praise, then you need to rethink matters because of what happened to the people in the Old Testament.

God's people were faithful to him in the Old Testament. If you're faithful to God, don't expect acceptance and praise. But the primary point is simply that you can endure. You can endure. You need not abandon Jesus in suffering.

Here are examples of people who endured in faith. You can endure. How did they do it? They could because that perseverance was fueled by faith in the promises of God. And we've seen some of those in this chapter, right?

Another city, an eternal city, a resurrection, greater reward. All of those are promised. You hang on to those promises. You believe that God has something better. And you too can endure because those promises have become clearer to us on this side of the cross with the death and the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus.

For we have seen a man raised to eternal life, never to die. His name is Jesus. We see the promises clearer than they did. We can endure by faith in those promises. I want you to note verse 38. Even in the present, we have God's verdict.

What does he say in verse 38? This is a marvelous statement. We need to hold on to this. Of whom the world was not worthy. Of whom the world was not worthy. The world is not worthy of those who suffered then and the world is not worthy of those who suffer now.

Here is God's verdict. Here is God's verdict. Listen, the world calls those who suffer for Christ losers. You're called losers, right? We despise you because of your Christ. And we despise your determination to follow him.

Isn't it amazing how you could accept the teachings of anybody, but boy, you live faithfully to Jesus and people will hate you, right? You can talk about God. Once you start talking about Jesus, watch what happens to the conversation.

It's amazing to me how offensive Jesus is. And we're called losers because we follow him. What has it profit you to give up everything for this religion? You fools. Listen, you're not worthy of notice, much less respect.

That's how the world looks at us. But God says the world is not worthy of such faithful, persistent, steadfast champions. If you even go so far as losing your life for Christ, the world will look at you as a loser.

Why did they die for that? God will see you as a champion. Believing God's promises and acting in accordance with those promises can produce endurance now. Now, the last two verses, he concludes this entire exhortation for faithfulness that he's put to us in chapter 11.

Here he concludes. What does he say? And in all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised since God has provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.

Bottom line, what does he say? Believe God's promises.

There it is.

Here's what I want you to get from this chapter, he says. Believe God's promises. Now, here's what you need to know if you would remain loyal to Jesus. You need to know faith sustained our ancestors in the faith.

Faith sustained them in good times and bad, in prosperity and suffering. Faith sustained them. You need to know that all these heroes, from Abel to Noah to Abraham to Gideon, were commended through their faith.

You need to know that. The smile of God rested on them because they believed him. God saw them endure, refusing to abandon him because of their faith. And they endured because they believed the promise of God that something better awaited them.

You need to know that they continued to trust God even when they did not receive what was promised. You need to know that. They trusted God even though they did not receive in this life what he had promised.

You see, they had title to the city, to the reward, to the promises. And they endured because they know that God will honor the title. They remained loyal to the Father because they were convinced of things not yet seen.

But you also need to grasp your part in those promises. This phrase puzzles me, or it did puzzle me. I had to really think it through and get help and do all that. They did not receive what was promised, notice, because God had something better for us.

Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. They didn't get what God promised since God had provided something better for us. That's why they didn't get it. What in the world is that all about? Well, simply put, it's this.

Despite the remarkable faith of the Old Testament saints, something better would arrive for us in Jesus. Because of Jesus, they didn't have the full light of revelation. Jesus was in a foggy mist. They didn't see it all.

We now see it all. We now see it all. We have all the wonders of salvation accomplished in Jesus revealed to us. In Jesus, you have access to God forever. Remember, as we looked earlier in this book, how it seems that God was always guarding his presence, but now in Jesus, there's full access to God, and that full access is forever.

From now forever, we will be with God. In Jesus, the sacrifice has been offered that frees us from our sins. In Jesus, we have the redemption that secures the renewal of the entire creation so that this world will someday be renewed, and all that is perfect will be ours.

And he says, this happens so that they, the champions who went before us, would be glorified with us. Would be perfected with us.

You see?

We have the final revelation of all those promises, and they're gonna be perfected with us. Those who were tortured will share with us the resurrection to a perfect life. Those who were destitute and persecuted will be glorified and vindicated.

Those who lived in caves and dens will come along with us to heavenly dwellings. We will be together in that day. We will be perfected with them, and they with us. So what do we say as we come to the end of this chapter?

Simply this. Faith trusts in God in triumphs and tragedies, in prosperity and suffering. Faith is always what we live by. Faith in the promises of God. Faith gives itself entirely to God. God can ordain victory through faith.

He can ordain victory through faith. For us, like he did for David and the judges. But if there's torture, death, and suffering, faith holds onto God. But in both, suffering and prosperity, tragedy and triumph, in both you hold fast to God knowing that God has promised something better.

Even when faith conquers, you know that something better still awaits. And when faith endures suffering, even death, you know a resurrection and a new life will be yours. Now, as I close today, let me just say this.

There's one more promise that everyone needs to lay hold of. Convinced of something you haven't seen, assured of this hope, that if you trust in the promise that God makes, that in Jesus, in Jesus you'll be reconciled to God and experience blessings unknown to you.

That's the promise you have to lay hold of. That's the gateway to all the rest. You don't see it, but you're convinced of it. You believe what God says. There's life in my son. That is the promise that opens up the gate to all these others.

The bottom line is, you can endure because God will always keep his promises. Father, thank you again that you have encouraged us by your word that we can endure. Lord, not only that we must endure, but we can endure in a perseverance fueled by faith in the promises of God.

Father, be building strong faith in this congregation. God, help us not just to look at endurance through faith in the promises, but help us now to give ourselves to even more service to you because of those promises.

Father, in the ministries you've given us, sometimes we grow weary and we wanna quit, and yet we know that as hard as this is, you have promised us something that far outweighs the affliction that we bear now.

Encourage us in our ministries. Encourage us to endurance even now, an endurance that withstands the slights and the reviling that we have from the world even now. Help us to endure those through faith.

God, build faith in us, we pray, that we might serve and endure in Jesus' name.