The Fifth Law: Active Faith Releases God's Power

TEXT:    Hebrews 11:1-6

INTRODUCTION:
A.       Let's begin by reviewing the first four laws of the spiritual life:
1.    Law 1: He's God and We're Not.
2.         Law 2: God Doesn't Need Us But We Desperately Need Him.
3.        Law 3: What God Demands, He Supplies.
4. Law 4: What You Seek, You Find
B.       Each law covers a major area of our relationship with God and leads to a personal response.
1.    Once we know and understand the First Law that God is God and we are not, we submit ourselves to his authority. This principle leads us to worship and praise.
2.         When we realize how desperately we need God, our logical response is to confess our sins and cry out to God for his mercy. This Second Law introduces us to such concepts as human sinfulness, humility, and the importance of prayer.
3.         The good news of the gospel comes in the Third Law.
a.    Here we reach out with the empty hands of faith to receive what God offers.
b.    This principle teaches us about God's love, compassion, mercy and grace, and leads us to gratitude, joy, and the deep confidence that God will give us whatever we need, whenever we need it.
c. It provides us with hope in hard times. It calls us to respond with praise and a life of glad obedience to God who has lavished us with the riches of His grace.
4.       The Fourth Law brings us into the realm of spiritual motivation. It washes away our flimsy excuses and challenges us to seek God's kingdom above everything else. Here we encounter the power of the Holy Spirit and the importance of our daily choices. Seek to rise to a level of spirituality higher than you are presently.
C.       The Fifth Law moves us into a new area: Active Faith Releases God's Power.
1.     Faith is the most prominent word in religion.
o   Sometimes the word refers to an entire religious system, such as Christianity or Islam or Judaism.
o      In other contexts it refers to a body of doctrine, i.e., "Keep the faith."
o      But most of the time faith refers to our personal response to God.
2.     The "faith" of the Fifth Law is not a religion or a set of doctrines, but rather our daily, moment-by-moment trust in God.
3.     When our faith is put to work, when it is active and not passive, it releases God's power in us and through us.
D.       We know from Hebrews 11:6 that without faith it is impossible to please God.
1.   No matter how religious you are, if you don't have faith, you can't please God.
a.        This may come as a surprise to those who trust in their religiosity to get them to heaven. But God looks on the heart, and what He looks for is faith.
b.         You can be baptized, go to church, give money, attend Sunday School, read your Bible, fast three times a week, sing in the choir, and even be a missionary, but if you do not have faith, you will not please God.
c.     Faith, genuine faith that comes from the heart, matters more to Him than anything we say or do. NOTE: Faith's object in vs. 6 - GOD. Faith in who He is, what He says, and what He asks us to do.
2.      Faith is never meant to be a one-time experience.
3.      It is tempting to fall into that trap because we put so much emphasis on being saved by faith.
a.         We talk about accepting Christ, receiving Christ, trusting Christ, and giving your heart to Christ.
b.    We challenge people to respond in faith to the gospel invitation. This is well and good, but sometimes we leave the impression that having been saved by faith, the rest of life is up to us. Not so!
c. The same faith that saves us is the faith that carries us from day to day as we make the journey from earth to heaven. That's why the Bible says, "The just shall live by faith," and we are told in Rom. 1:17 that the gospel reveals a righteousness that is "from faith to faith."
d. I.e. "From start to finish" faith is all in all, both in the beginning and progress of Christian life to eternity. It is NOT from faith to works, as if faith put us into a justified state, and then works kept us in it; but it is all along from faith to faith; it is faith pressing forward, and gaining the victory over unbelief.
e.       Everything is by Faith - the whole Christian life is a life of faith.
1)         We are saved by faith, kept by faith, and we walk by faith, endure by faith, rejoice by faith, serve by faith, love by faith, sacrifice by faith, pray by faith, worship by faith, and we obey by faith.
2)       We get married by faith, and we have children by faith.
All that we do, we do by faith.
4.         The question before us in this sermon is both simple and profound: What is faith and how does it work? This is a crucial topic because I think we often don't appreciate how precious and how precarious is the life of faith.
I.       FAITH DEFINED
A.       In the entire Bible there is no clearer instruction on faith than Hebrews 11.
1. Most of us know it as the "Hall of Fame of Faith" chapter in the Bible.
2.        In this chapter we have a long list of Old Testament heroes, most of them introduced with the phrase "by faith."

By faith Abel - vs. 4
By faith Enoch - vs. 5
By faith Noah - vs. 7
By faith Abraham - vs. 8
By faith Isaac - vs. 20
By faith Jacob - vs. 21
By faith Joseph - vs. 22
By faith Moses' parents - vs. 23
By faith Moses - vs. 24
By faith the people - vs. 29
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down - vs. 30
By faith the harlot Rahab - vs. 31

3.   The writer of Hebrews says in Heb. 11:32 he doesn't have enough time to mention the individual exploits "of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets."
4.     They and all the other heroes of the faith are summarized in this fashion in Heb. 11:33-35a: "Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34] Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35] Women received their dead raised to life again:
5.    What a wonderful list. We can think of all the great biblical heroes who did these things. But that is only part of the story. Vs. 35b-38 record the trials of faith: "and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36] And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37] They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38] (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."
a. Who are these poor, unfortunate souls? What have they done to deserve such punishment? The writer simply calls them "others."
b. They are "others" who lived by faith. These men and women who endured such torment were living by faith just as much as Noah, Abraham, Moses or Joshua.
c.        Their faith was not weaker. If anything, their faith was stronger because it enabled them to endure incredible suffering.
d.      They are not "lesser" saints because they found no miracle. If anything, they are "greater" saints because they were faithful even when things didn't work out right.
6. Vs. 39 gives us a summary statement of the whole list: "these all, having obtained a good report through faith."
B.       As we stand back and study this list, three factors quickly emerge.
1.    First, though these individuals are widely separated by time and space (and by personality and individual achievement), they are joined by one common factor:
a. What they did, they did by faith. And this is why they won God's approval.
b.     There isn't much that joins Abraham and Rahab except this: At a crucial moment in life, they each acted in faith. God saw their faith and rewarded it.
2.         Second, living by faith often meant moving against the prevailing tide of public opinion.
a.      Noah built an ark, Abraham left Ur, Moses rejected Egypt, and Joshua marched around Jericho. The same principle holds true today!
b.      If you decide to live by faith, you will definitely stand out from the crowd, and you may face opposition and ridicule.
3.        Third, Hebrews 11 demonstrates that the life of faith is not a rarity.
a.       It's easy to look at Enoch or Noah or Joseph or Moses or David and say, "I could never do that."
b.       Down deep in our hearts, we have believed a lie that the life of faith is restricted to a few "special" people.
c.        We think we could never qualify to have our names added to the list of Hebrews 11.
d.     BUT that's the very reason this chapter is in the Bible, so that we would know that these are ordinary men and women who did extraordinary things simply because they had faith in God.
e.        They are made of the same stuff as us. The life of faith is within the reach of every believer. If we desire it, we can live like this too.
C.       Hebrews 11:1 offers us a concise definition of faith: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
1.       The word "substance" is an unusual word that refers to the "essential nature" of things. It was sometimes used of the foundation of a house and outside the New Testament was used for the title deed to a piece of property.
2. "Faith" is the "title deed" to things in the future, "things hoped for," things promised by the Lord. It is confident assurance that what we hope for will some day come to pass.
3.      The word "evidence" refers to legal proof in a courtroom.
a.      Faith is proof to the soul that enables us to see things that cannot be seen by the naked eye.
b.         By faith we "see" what would otherwise be invisible.
Let me pause for a word of application.
There is a sense in which living by faith requires a measure of holy discontent.
You've got to want some things that you don't have in order to have faith because faith always deals with things "hoped for."
If you've already got everything you need and want and desire, and
If for you all the promises of God have already come true, and
If you've reached a state of spiritual perfection,
If all your prayers have been answered,
And if all your loved ones are saved and serving the Lord,
If there is no lack anywhere in any area that you can see, you don't need faith because you're living in heaven already and you just don't realize it.

If you are satisfied with the current state of affairs, then you can skip the rest of the sermon altogether because it doesn't apply to you.

BUT as long as we live in a world where fathers get bad news from their sons and daughters, we will need faith.

As long as marriages break up, and children suffer, and as long as the killing continues, and our leaders disappoint us, and as long as there is hatred and violence and prejudice and all manner of evil in the world, we will need faith because the "things hoped for" have not yet come to pass.
D.       What, then, is faith? Think about these three words: Believe, See, Do.
o Faith believes what others do not believe.
o      Faith sees what others do not see.
o      Faith does what others do not do.
1.      True faith is NEVER passive.
a.   True faith moves us to act, to do, to try, to build, to attempt, to expand, to say "no" to sin and "yes" to righteousness.
b.     True faith moves us join, to speak out, to move forward, to dare to dream beyond our means, and to walk around Jericho again and again until at last "the walls come tumblin' down."
2.   Someone offered this definition: Faith is "outrageous trust in God." I like that.
a.      "Outrageous trust" is what you have when you build an ark 100s of miles from any body of water.
b.        "Outrageous trust" compels you to leave your home, like Abram, not knowing where you are going.
c.        And "Outrageous trust" sends you into the Elah Valley to face Goliath.

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed "outrageous trust" in God?
If not, I think your Christian life has been too boring!
II.      FAITH ILLUSTRATED
Let's pause for a moment and take a closer look at the case of Moses.
The heart of his story is found in Hebrews 11:24-27.
A.       By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

B.       By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he endured because he saw him who is invisible.
1. Note the six words that tell his story: "Refused" (vs.24) Š "choosing" (vs. 25) Š "Esteeming" (vs. 26) Š "forsook" Š "endured" and "seeing" (vs. 27).
a. He said "no" to one thing because he chose to do something else.
b.       He made that choice because he regarded God's promises as true.
c.        Forsaking the prestige & pleasures of Egypt, He found the strength to endure 40-yrs. in Midian because he "saw him who is invisible."
2. Everything hinges on the very first word: He "refused" to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
a.     That may not seem like much to us but it was a life-changing decision for him.
b.         Recall that when Pharaoh's daughter found him floating in a basket near the shore of the Nile River, she rescued him and raised him as her own son.
1)    That meant he received a complete Egyptian education in science, history and philosophy.
2)       It meant he was trained to be a leader of the nation.
3) It meant he was raised in the lap of luxury, having the best of everything at his fingertips.
3. Some scholars suggest that in those days the line of succession passed through the daughter of Pharaoh.
a.        If so, that means that Moses was in line to become the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.
b.    The upshot is this: Moses had everything he wanted and everything that most people would give anything to have. He had power.
1) Clap his hands and in came a dozen men to do his bidding.
2)      Clap again and servants delivered trays of food.
3)       Whatever he wanted, he could have.
C.       Here is the irony of it all.
1.   When he got to the height of his power, he gave it all up.
Refused it - Relinquished it - Let it all go.
2.        It was not an easy decision to make because he knew that no one, least of all Pharaoh's daughter, the woman to whom he owed his life, would understand.
3.        It seemed foolish, as if he was throwing away his whole future. By any normal standard, it didn't make sense.
4. Note how the text puts it in vs. 25 - "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God."
a.   He chose to be mistreated with the people of God! NOTE it doesn't call them "the Jews" or "the Hebrews," even though those terms would be accurate.
b.    Moses didn't make his decision on a racial or ethnic basis.
It's as if Moses stood in front of the Egyptians and said something like this:
"You thought you knew me but you didn't. I'm not one of you and I've never been one of you. I may look like you and talk like you and dress like you and act like you, but down deep in my heart, I'm a different person. All these years in your midst haven't changed my basic identity. Those Hebrew slaves who seem so troublesome to you, I'm one of them because they are the followers of the true and living God. Though you hate and despise them, they are my people and I cannot stand by and turn my face away while they are suffering. If they are hated, I will be hated too. If they suffer, I will suffer. If they are mistreated, then I will be mistreated with them. What happens to them will happen to me. I will no longer live as if I were an Egyptian because I'm not. I am a follower of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and it's time I cast my lot with my own people."
5.        And with that one act-with that one choice, Moses committed what we might call today "career suicide."
a.         He gave up the riches of Egypt and the "pleasures of sin for a season" (vs. 25) in order to join the motley band of Hebrews who were so hated by the Egyptians.
b.        He found the strength to endure the persecution because he "seeing him who is invisible." That's one of the most remarkable and revealing statements in the entire Bible.
6.      "Seeing Him who is invisible" appears to be impossibility.
a.     How do you "see" an invisible person? After all, the whole point of being invisible is so that no one can see you.
b.     If you can be seen, you are not invisible. But God was invisible and yet Moses "saw" him. How?
c.         Two words. "By faith." Moses had faith and his faith gave him sight.
And he saw the God who is invisible.
d.       The Egyptians didn't see. But Moses did. That's what faith can do.
D.       What exactly did Moses see?
1.    The text in vs. 26 says "he had respect unto the recompence of the reward."
2.    The Greek word for "respect" is used only here in the Bible and means "to look away from everything else, i.e. by so doing there is intent regard for something special. Moses had blinders on focused straight ahead on his reward.
3.   Let me explain it this way. Moses knew there were two worlds and he could choose to live by the values of either one.
a. There was the world he could see, the world of Egypt, the world of the senses, the world of money, power, sex, pleasure, sports, fame, self-gratification, the world of military power and brute force.
1)        That was the world where Pharaoh ruled as king. As far as the Egyptians knew, that was the only world there was.
2)       The "gods" they worshiped were nothing more than an extension of their own perverted values.
b.   But there was (and is) another world. That's the invisible world of the spirit, the realm of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the angels and the saints. It's a world that is ruled by righteousness and entered by grace.
4. Now here's the kicker: Those who live for this world will have the reward this world offers.
a.   They will live for 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or maybe even 90 years.
b.      These folks will have as much fame or wealth or power as they can amass. Their reward from this world will be in this world.
c.   And when they die, all that they lived for will die with them. They will be buried in a box in the ground and have nothing substantial to show for their time on planet earth.
d.         BUT (and this "but" makes all the difference) those who live in this world by the standards of the eternal world have an entirely different experience.
1)        Like Moses, they may suffer in the short-run but when they die, the party is just getting started!
2)     They enter into "the joy of the Lord." And frankly, those who live in this world by the values of the next one will have deeper joy and greater satisfaction even while they are rejected and ridiculed by those around them here on earth.
5.    Somehow Moses saw all of this. He figured out that it wasn't worth it to live for Egypt.
a.       "The pleasures of sin for a season" didn't measure up against the joy of serving the Lord even if that meant temporary suffering and putting up with a bunch of crabby Jews for 40 years in the wilderness. It just didn't matter.
b.     For Moses, there was only one choice. He would suffer with the people of God. Full stop. End of discussion.
c.    If the people of Egypt didn't like it, or if they didn't understand it, so be it.
1)      He might have been Pharaoh if he had stayed but that didn't bother him in the least. 
2)   If he had stayed in Egypt, we would never have heard of him and I would be preaching about someone else today.
So the question is, in which world do you want to make your mark?
If you want to make it big in Egypt, good luck. Have at it. You will have your reward, and you won't be happy when you get it.
If you want to live for the next world, you can, but it will cost you something in the meantime.
Let's return to the statement that Moses "seeing him who is invisible" in vs. 27.
E.       Faith sees what is really there even though others see nothing at all.
1.         Faith believes what is true even though others don't believe it at all.
a.        By faith we see reality, which means we see beyond the world around us. But that concept should not seem strange at all.
b.       After all, the most beloved hymn in the world - "Amazing Grace" - contains this line, "I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."
2.     By faith we see what others do not see.
a.        Have you ever looked at one of those 3-D pictures that contain hidden images? When you look at the picture, all you see are wavy lines or dots or perhaps marbles or stars or pieces of fruit.
b.         But if you look at the picture up close, and if you throw your eyes out of focus and turn your head a bit cockeyed, suddenly out jumps Mozart's head or a dancing girl or a giant bird.
c.       Since I have less-than-perfect eyesight, I have trouble with 3-D pictures. Usually the only thing I can see is a bunch or lines or something that looks vaguely like a head of cabbage.
1)        But just because I can't see the "hidden" image, doesn't mean it isn't there.
2) The "hidden" image is there whether I see it or not.
3)   It's the same way with the life of faith. The "hidden world" of eternal reality is there whether we see it or not. And by faith we "see" it even though the people of the world do not.
3.        Someone has said: "Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible."
a.     That's seems to fit Moses' experience very well, and it all starts with seeing the invisible.
b. If we can do that - see the invisible - then we will be able to believe the incredible, and in God's time, we will receive the impossible.
Charles Wesley wrote a hymn entitled "Father of Jesus Christ, My Lord"
The third verse reads:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to God alone.
Laughs at impossibilities,
And cries, "It shall be done."

We have seen Faith Defined and then Faith Illustrated, now we have
III. FAITH APPLIED
As we come to the end of our message, we can draw three important conclusions about the nature of faith.
A.       Faith is not a feeling but a conscious choice to believe what God has said.
1.    We will never progress in the spiritual life as long as we stay on the plane of our feelings.
a. If Noah had waited until he "felt like" building an ark, he might never have laid the first piece of gopher wood.
b.      If Joshua had waited to "feel like" marching around Jericho, those walls might still be standing.
2.      Feelings are important but they are not the basis of true faith.
a.       When you are in a hospital waiting room while a loved one is in surgery, you may or may not feel positive. In that moment, you must consciously choose to believe that God is who he said He is and that He will do what He said He would do.
b. And you'll probably have to make that choice a hundred times a day.
Faith chooses, then acts, and then the feelings follow.
B.       Faith acts even in the face of doubt and opposition.
1.   If we wait until all the circumstances are in our favour, we'll probably wait forever.
a.         David didn't wait for Goliath to go blind. He trusted God and walked down into the valley to face the giant.
b.   If we wait for our doubts to disappear, we'll have to wait a long time. Someone said that faith is "belief plus unbelief and acting on the belief part."
c.       Sooner or later, we all have to "act on the belief part." Abraham did. Moses did. Samuel did. All the heroes of the Bible "acted on the belief part."
You can too!
2.      But what if you face that proverbial "leap of faith?" What then? The following quote will cheered you up: "When you come to the end of everything you know, and are faced with the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen. Either there will be something solid for you to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."
C.       Faith sees what others do not see.

Philip Yancey gives a definition of faith that is a favourite.
He said, "Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse."
So many things in this life make no sense to us. I imagine that every person one of us has a few very deep and personal questions that defy all human answers. We want to know why things happen the way they do and why couldn't things have happened some other way.
It would be wrong to say that faith provides all the answers. It doesn't.
Perhaps in heaven we will fully understand, or in heaven our desire to know will be transformed by our vision of the Lord.
By faith we see things that are invisible to others and by faith we believe in advance those things that right now make no sense but one day will make perfect sense because we will view them in reverse.
The world says, "Seeing is believing." God says, "Believing is seeing."
We believe, therefore we see.
We trust Him wherever He Leads
Biblical faith is never faith in faith, as if we were believing in our own powers of logic or self-persuasion. Faith can NEVER be stronger than the object on which it rests.
Since our faith rests on the Lord Jesus Christ, the essence of faith is following Him wherever he leads. Here's a little acrostic the word FAITH-that has helped many people:
Forsaking
All
I
Take
Him.
CONCLUSION:
A.       Following Christ can be risky business.
You may wonder if everything will work out right if you follow Jesus. It depends on what you mean.
When Todd Beamer finished saying the Lord's Prayer with the attendant who took his phone call from United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, he turned to the men with him and said, "Are you ready? Let's roll." By faith he put the phone down, started down the aisle toward the hijackers, ready to face his destiny. In the struggle that followed, he and his fellow passengers lost their lives but they saved the nation from an even greater tragedy. Did it work out all right for him? I think from heaven he would answer yes.
B.       "Nothing Bad Happened to Them."
IN April 2001 Jim Bowers and his wife, Roni, and their children, Corey and Charity, were shot out of the sky by a Peruvian jet that mistook them for drug traffickers. Of all the bullets that were fired that day, a single bullet pierced the fuselage of the missionary airplane, hit Roni in the back and entered the head of seven-month-old Charity, killing them both instantly. Speaking of that terrible moment, Jim Bowers said, "Nothing bad happened to them. They got to heaven quicker than we did."
Is that faith or fantasy talking? I submit that those are the words of a man of faith who out of great personal loss has "seen him who is invisible," and that sight has transformed his life. Even the worst tragedy doesn't appear that way when viewed from heaven's perspective.
C.       I think we can safely draw three conclusions about those who live by faith:
1.    They will see great triumphs and endure great trials.
2. They will be misunderstood by the world.
3.       They will be glad they did what they did in the end.

Our call is not to understand but to follow Christ wherever he leads, whatever it costs.
And the word of Christ to all of us is always the same, "Come, follow me."
Try it out. Come to Him. Put your life in His hands.

To be a disciple of Christ means to get on the "Jesus road" and follow wherever it takes you. No guarantees, no deals, no special promises. You simply walk that road every day, following in your Master's steps. Don't be afraid to follow Jesus. You'll never regret starting down the "Jesus road." You'll only regret that you waited so long to do it.

Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever he leads? That's all he wants. Someone may ask, "What if Jesus asks me to do something I can't do?" You can be sure He will! I know He will! He will! If He only asked you to do something YOU could do, you wouldn't need Him.

I promise you this: If you decide to follow Jesus, He will ask you to do the impossible, and then He will help you do it.

Our part is simply to take the next step.
 Just take the next step God puts in front of you.

You don't have to see the whole plan or even see ten steps down the road.
Faith means taking the next step in front of you and leaving the rest in the hands of God.
Faith is the law of the kingdom. And active faith releases God's power.

Every blessing of the kingdom is available to those who put their faith to work, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, one little step at a time.
By Faith Noah
By faith Abraham
By faith Moses
I wonder if other names could be added to that list. "By faith Bob." "By faith Kathi." "By faith Paul." "By faith Dinesh." "By faith Samatha." "By faith Godwin." "By faith Joshua." "By faith Joel."

May God give us steady courage to follow the Lord so that some day our names might be added to the long list of men and women who lived and died by faith. Amen.