In Hebrews 11 we are inspired by the men and women of faith who have partnered with God in the past, being worthy of mention throughout the generations. The end of the chapter leaves our current generation with an intriguing challenge: the heroes’ works of faith in the past are not complete without…us.
Unless our generation accomplishes God’s calling for our lives— which means stepping into our unique works of faith— their journey will never be complete. Every generation must be awakened and play their part if we are to see God’s Kingdom purposes fulfilled on the earth. You represent the next generation of leaders and your time is now. Are you ready?
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Notes Transcript Video Audio iTunesGrace Fellowship Church
Matt Reynolds
Series: One Story: Digging Deeper
May 5, 2013
Church: Our Generation of Faith
Hebrews 11
It’s really good to be with you guys this morning. My name is Matt Reynolds. Real quick, if you don’t have a Bible, we’d love to just go ahead and pass these Bibles out. If you don’t have a Bible, you can just raise your hand. If you didn’t get a note sheet, you can do that as well. You can go ahead and turn to the book of Hebrews.
Down at Midtown we’ve been studying through this epistle and really trying to discern what God wants to show us about how to even be better disciples. How do we live as the church community? I know you guys have been studying through One Story, so I have a verse on your sheet that’s from Acts 28. I know you’ve been studying through Acts. We want to bridge that gap between Acts and Hebrews.
Before we dive into this, we wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update. Buddy is going to be resting for a little while, recovering. We’re actually, my family and I… I have a wife, Margaret, and a son, Jude, 15 months old. We’re taking three months this summer to go on sabbatical. Chris Moerman is the college pastor downtown. He’s Australian. He has preached here before. He’s awesome. He’s going to be leading the church this summer, and he has a great summer plan. It’s really cool to see how God is multiplying just the ministry.
We had the Athens tester this past spring, and that went very well, and so we’re going to be meeting every single week in the fall, and Chris Moerman is really involved in that. God is just discipling leaders up through the ranks. Nate is here this morning. It’s really good to be with you guys. I just wanted to give you a little update on what’s going on with us.
Acts 28. I wanted to read this because this sums up Paul’s life. Paul was a great disciple of Jesus and just an amazing leader in the church. The way his life ends I think is a key indicator of how he lived his life and how we, even as all the different Grace churches, one of the key things we come around.
I wanted to read you this before we jumped into Hebrews and saw more of the story play out through that epistle in the life of that church. A lot of that even flowed from the ministry of Paul and the people who came in that generation to empower a next generation, which we’re going to see today.
Acts 28 says this. For the last two years of Paul’s life, he’s in Rome, and he’s waiting to appeal his case to Caesar, and the Lord tells him specifically (I don’t know the reference on this, but it’s red letters in the Bible, in Acts), “I want you to go to Rome. I want you to basically stand before Caesar and tell your testimony. Preach this message I’ve empowered you to preach.” So Acts 28 gives us that last bit of Paul’s life.
It says, “And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.” (Acts 28:30-31) I love that. The end of his life, before he is executed, he has this open time to preach the message.
I put another translation on your sheet, because I love this passage and wanted to get the full scope of it. This one says, “For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.” Who were open to the message. “He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without
hindrance!” (Acts 28:30-31)
When I look at God’s hand on this church, Grace Fellowship Church in Snellville, but also as has been expressed in Midtown and in Monroe and in Athens and in the nations he has even allowed us to go to, we have seen this boldness fill this church. We have seen people who say, “We want to talk about Jesus and we want to proclaim his kingdom.” What’s that story? That’s what you guys have been studying through with this metanarrative of the whole Bible. It’s the kingdom coming. The kingdom lost, but now the kingdom restored.
We’re seeing this boldness and without hindrance. We’ve seen God’s hand do some amazing things that only he could do, because he’s clearing a way. Honestly. I want to press even deeper into that this morning. The first blank there, just to get us started is…
1. We need to stay focused on Jesus and the kingdom. There is tons of stuff Paul could’ve been talking about at the end of his life. There are tons of little arguments he got into inside the church and outside the church, and there are plenty of things we spend a lot of time talking about and discussing and trying to figure out, but at the end of the day, Paul said, “Here’s how I’m going down the last couple of years.”
He didn’t know how much more time he had. He said, “I’m talking about Jesus and his kingdom, the kingdom that will have no end, the kingdom and his dominion that’s increasing. It’s an everlasting kingdom.” And that’s what we’re a part of. So Jesus and the kingdom.
Now when you look at the book of Hebrews… I preached here in January and talked about Consider Jesus, because that’s what the whole book of Hebrews encourages us to do. The writer says over and over, “Consider Jesus. Consider Jesus. He’s an example for us.” This whole book of Hebrews is saying, “Here’s how awesome Jesus is.”
At the end of the book, the writer says, “I’ve only written to you briefly.” Now if you have the Bible Experience on your iPod… I listened to the whole book of Hebrews on the way out here. I just wanted to get fueled again. I’m going from Grant Park down to Snellville. I’m going, “I just want to take in Hebrews once again.” It takes about 45 minutes just to listen to it, and at the end he says, “I’ve only talked to you briefly about Jesus.”
The first challenge for us as we look at this is…Do we have much to say concerning Jesus? Do we have a lot to say? Could we tell someone, “This is what Jesus has really meant to me”? Not just present a pathway to salvation, as good as that is. How would you explain Jesus to someone who says, “Tell me about Jesus. Who is he to you?”
The book really talks about who Jesus is, but there’s this one part in Hebrews 2 that really stuck out to me. I wanted to read this and share with you this morning how we journeyed through this even at Midtown. This is the message and the passage we used this Easter.
In Hebrews 2, it says, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” (Hebrews 2:1-3)
What the writer is referring to there is when the Law was given at Mount Sinai, there were angels involved, partnering with God, in that giving of the Law, and it was very specific. Here’s how you follow God and here’s what he doesn’t want you to do. When you do this, here’s the reward, and when you don’t, here is the punishment.
That was foreshadowing the new covenant, the greater than. So if that salvation was important and everyone needed to listen to it, this salvation, which is now fully expressed and embodied through the person of Jesus, let’s pay careful attention to it.
Then he goes on. He says, “This salvation, which was first announced [preached] by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.” So those first disciples went out and multiplied, preached that message everywhere they could go. But then look at this. “God also [the Father] testified to [this message] by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” (Hebrews 2:3-4)
That’s like a loaded verse. God is like, “I really want you to know about this. I spoke the message myself.” Jesus spoke the message. “I empower people to speak my message, and I’m still confirming my message through signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Sometimes we can put all of those together and say that’s all one thing, but we’re going to break it down a little bit and just look at what those things mean. What does each of those things mean?
I want to ask you this question…When’s the last time you really saw the message of Jesus confirmed by something miraculous God did? When’s the last time you said, “There’s the message, and there’s a sign or there’s a wonder, there’s a miracle, there’s something the Holy Spirit is doing that can’t be explained in any other way. This is God’s hand all over it”? When’s the last time you were part of one of those stories? Not just read about it in a book. Not just heard someone talk about it. When’s the last time you said, “I was a part of that”?
2. The message of Jesus is confirmed by the miraculous. That’s what this verse is saying. The message of Jesus is always confirmed by the miraculous. However he wants to do it, but that’s that supernaturally natural lifestyle we’re invited into. You can write this reference down: Romans 15:18-19.
Paul uses the same words in Romans to describe his experience of the gospel. I think this verse is really important so we don’t just think this is in one place and it’s not that important. Paul says in Romans 15, “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed…” (Romans 15:18)
That’s his mission. Those far from God. He went to the Jews, but Christ really anointed him and called him to the Gentiles. This is what he says, “…by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God—so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ…” (Romans 15:19) So he says, “This is part of the package. When we preach the message, the signs, the wonders, and the miracles are a part of it.”
I remember growing up. When I became a believer and I just got radically transformed by God, by the grace of God, but through the ministry here at Grace Fellowship. This is when it was just Grace Fellowship Church. You didn’t have to say Snellville, because there was one. This is where we were. I remember basically reading the Bible going, “Man, where’s the stuff? I want to see all the stuff? What is God doing with his church today?” It has been such an amazing discovery just to see God move in ways that go beyond our expectations. That’s what we want.
Now each one of these. What’s a sign? What’s a wonder? What’s a miracle? This is important. There are three different terms because there are different kinds of ways God is moving. A sign basically points beyond itself to the reality of God’s hand in operation. So Jesus did many kinds of signs, and he did things that would basically say, “This is a picture of my Father’s kingdom. This is a picture of the kingdom of God being established.” It’s a sign.
It points to the fact God is who he says he is, that, “My Father is putting the world back into the right place. He’s restoring all things.” There are all kinds of signs Jesus does throughout the Gospels. Another way you can define a sign is a fingerpost of God. I like that. A fingerpost of God, where you say, “This is God. This couldn’t be humanly explained.”
Then you have a wonder. What’s a wonder? A wonder is something extraordinary in character, something you can’t forget. It’s startling. It’s amazing. In a really simple way, it’s something God does where you’re going, “I am in awe. I am wondering about how this is even possible.” A wonder is something you can’t forget even if you wanted to. You say, “God did this in my life, and it’s a part of me now. It’s a part of my story. It’s a part of my history. Even if I tried to, I can’t forget this wonder.”
Then a various miracle. Various in the Greek means various in English. Many different kinds. But a miracle, what is specifically a miracle? The word here is dynamis, so it either can be translated miracle or work of power. It’s 1411, if you want to look that up in your lexicon, but it’s God’s power lent to us. Dynamis is used about 80 times in the New Testament. It’s where we get our word dynamite from.
You think about dynamite going off somewhere. That is noticeable. That’s something you recognize. You say, “Wow, something just happened.” When God’s power is put on display, when God’s power shows up, it’s like dynamite. You can’t not acknowledge it. This is the word Jesus uses when he says, “You’re going to receive power [dynamis] when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Then you’re going to be my witnesses. You need my power to do what I’m commanding and calling you to do as a church.”
I want to talk about Buddy’s story for a second here, because I went back and listened to the last message he preached before the accident on Tuesday. He said, “Lord, do what only you can do in our church. Fill us with your Spirit. Do something only you can do. We’ve seen what we can do in our own power and using our own talents, and that’s good, but we want to see something that only you can do. Do the extraordinary through ordinary people.”
We went there on Tuesday to pray. We were praying in the waiting room. We were praying with Jody. We were praying with the family. We were just crying out to God, “Do something, Lord. Bring Buddy back.” It’s really interesting just how I felt like I was entering into the story. Since January, from reading passages like this, the Midtown staff really felt led by God in our prayer time that we needed to press in for a breakthrough in the miraculous.
I can show you this. We’ve written this down. We’re praying for a breakthrough in the miraculous with an emphasis on healing. That’s what it seemed like God was calling us to do, and so we committed to do that before Easter. Then Easter came, and we had some great testimonies. We had a lot of prayers we prayed for people we really know, and it didn’t happen. We said, “We’re going to keep pressing in. We’re going to keep exercising our faith.”
In a weird way, when we got to the hospital, I was going, “We’ve been in this journey of really pressing in. We’re just praying. We want to exercise our faith.” I was telling Jody, “If he’s not going to make it, is there any way we could just even get in there and just pray?” We just wanted to be able to put hands on this man who has poured into us.
So Jon and Brian and I, right after the surgery, went back and prayed. Buddy is in this ICU room, and they’re saying he’s going to be out for at least a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month. They wanted him to be sedated to let his body heal. We were able to go back there, and we’re praying. We’re just praying quietly. We’re just trying to pray what God was leading us to pray.
I remember just praying, “Be healed, Buddy. Be healed. Be healed.” I just had this sense of faith that God wants to do something here. Then Buddy starts waking up, and I was afraid. I was like, “Gasp! This isn’t supposed to happened. Is this a bad thing?” Put him back down! Give him more medicine! Sedate him! Because when Buddy wakes up, when the bear gets roused (that’s what we kept saying), you can’t put him back down.
The nurses are coming over. They’re grabbing his hands, like, “Can you feel this? Can you feel this?” He’s responding, and then they’re saying, “Wiggle your hands. Wiggle your toe. Wiggle your toe.” Literally, we’re down on our knees praying. It’s quiet. It’s a spiritual moment. Then all of a sudden the nurses come in. They’re throwing back the sheets. “Wiggle your toes.”
One of Buddy’s legs, because of polio in his youth… She’s going, “Wiggle your toe,” and Jon is going, “He can’t really wiggle this toe that well.” They’re like, “Okay, wiggle the other toe.” Now I’m on this side grabbing his foot. “Wiggle your toe, Buddy!” He starts responding. You guys probably heard some of the emails. A little bit later, he’s giving Jody and Mike Williams thumbs up. Just this miraculous… It was a wonder. That was a wonder. That was a wonder. It’s extraordinary. It’s something I’ll never forget. I love how God confirms things.
Now even for the various miracles, I think about just the life of Jesus. He’s always doing these different things, and he’s proclaiming even his message in different ways basically where people are in need. Jesus ministers to people. He’s not just saying, “Here’s the message. Everybody kind of figure out how it applies to you.” Jesus was filled with compassion. He pursued people and spoke to them in a way they could understand.
I love the diversity of how he spoke the message and he met people’s needs. One of the definitions of salvation is us being with God forever, but it’s even bigger than that. It’s broader than that. It’s God saving us or healing us or delivering us. It’s God’s rescuing power for us. Another definition…I love this…it’s the present experience of God’s power. What is salvation? It’s the present experience of God’s power.
There are various ways he loves to manifest this. I love one of those stories where Peter comes to Jesus. He has been put in a corner, and they say, “Does your Teacher pay the temple tax?” He’s like, I don’t know how to respond to this, so he just says the first thing that comes to his mind. He’s like, “Yes, we do.” Then he goes back to find Jesus in the house. He’s worried, probably like, “Oh man, did I get it right?”
Right when he walks in, Jesus, knowing his thoughts, basically said, “Well, what do you think, Simon? Should we pay it or not?” He’s just going, “I don’t know.” Jesus basically says, “Because you’re with me and you’re in my family now, you’re in my Father’s house, you’re exempt. You don’t have to pay God. God is lavishing his grace onto you. But just because these people might get offended, and we want them to know the Father and to enter the kingdom, let’s pay it anyway. Let’s go the extra mile just so there’s nothing blocking their path.”
Then how does he do it? He could’ve said, “Here’s some money,” or, “Go ask this guy.” He goes, “Go down to the lake, cast in a line, and you’re going to catch a fish,” which is hard to do. It’s hard to even catch a fish sometimes. If you fish for a long time, that’s even a miracle sometimes. “In the fish’s mouth, you’re going to find money! There’s going to be enough money to pay for you and me, Peter.”
Peter goes down. He catches this fish. I mean, that’s a various miracle. How did God work all that out? I don’t know. Did some guy throw in some change and the fish ate it and then he caught the exact one? I don’t know how he did it! That’s a various miracle. I love this partnership. Peter goes, “I get to pay the tax for my Master, for my Teacher.” What a privilege that he was able to enter into that.
I look at those stories, and I think for us, a lot of times we hear those stories. When you hear that story about Jesus and Peter, do you believe that? Is it hard for you to believe that? I know there’s some stuff that people say, “It’s really tough for me to swallow this one.” I just want to go ahead and tell you truthfully, if you don’t believe the past things God has done, if you don’t believe he did that with Peter and Jesus, you’re not going to see the miraculous happen in your life.
If we just don’t even have the faith to believe what he has already done, we’re not going to have the faith to believe these new things he wants to do, the greater-than things Jesus says he wants to empower his church to do. But I wanted to share a story of what it looks like to live in this supernaturally natural lifestyle.
About a week ago, going to the hospital again, after the initial wonder of what has happened in Buddy’s life, he’s up and down recovering. What’s going to happen? So we went to pray. This was about a week ago. When we got there, I said, “What room is Buddy in?” I don’t know why I asked that. “What room is he in?” They said, “He’s in room 316.”
So I’m thinking, “John 3:16. We should probably read that.” I was like, “I kind of know, but I don’t know it by heart,” which is bad because I’m a pastor. It’s like my job. “You don’t even know John 3:16.” I know John 3:17. I was trying to open in my Bible to John 3:16, and literally, my Bible, right when I opened it, falls open to Acts 3:16. It’s like the first verse on the top of the page, so I just thought, “Oh, I’ll read this.”
We were on the way to his room, and this is what Acts 3:16 says. “And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.” (Acts 3:16) I mean, that’s amazing!
We get back there, and they’re like, “All right, who wants to start us off?” I was like, “I think I have it. I think I have the intro here.” I love this, even how specific it is. “…this man whom you see and know…” I’m looking in this room. I’m going, “I see Buddy and I know Buddy. I know this guy.” It’s faith in the name of Jesus. “What do we pray, Lord? What’s the prayer now?” Perfect health in the presence of you all.
So in the presence of us in that hospital, in the presence of all the doctors and the nurses who have seen him and the church pray, in the presence of all of our churches, we’re all praying for this. But even bigger than that. People in Gwinnett County who are praying. People in the nations. There are nations praying for Buddy, because their family and their ministry have impacted nations.
We went to India a few years ago, Buddy, Zach Presten, and I. We got to minister and just really come alongside what God was doing through all these orphans…25,000 orphans who have come through this school. They’re hearing about Jesus and they’re going out and they’re proclaiming how God has restored their lives and how they were forgotten and no one thought much of them, but God had something for them. He spoke a better word to them. They’re like the best ministers in India now.
We got to just be with these people. I heard the orphans, the kids, are praying for Buddy. I’m going, “Ah, God has to love that!” He has done this thing in the presence of us all. So I love it. I think that’s just a great small example of what it looks like to live supernaturally natural. I think it looks like us saying, “Here’s my situation, God,” and opening ourselves, opening the Word, taking some time to pray, “God what do you want to do in this situation?”
I’ll tell you, there were other people in the hospital we prayed for. Some of them did die. But even saying, “Lord, what’s going to happen in this situation? How do you want us to exercise our faith in this situation?” I’ll tell you, it was risky, and it was scary, but I had the sense that we needed to pray for this healing.
What are the things God is calling us to in that vein? When was the last time you were part of God doing something miraculous? Now I think a key to this, and I was reading this, just looking at the life of Jesus and trying to see all the different situations and how he responded. In Mark 6, there’s a really interesting story where Jesus goes to his hometown. Everybody knows him. He’s just the carpenter’s son. “We’ve grown up with him. We’re having a hard time receiving this message.”
In Mark 6:5, it says, “[Jesus] could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.” I guess that’s not a big deal. “He was amazed at their lack of faith.” (Mark 6:5-6) Jesus couldn’t do any miracles there. It was a bad day in the office. Oh, but he did do a few miracles, but whatever. He just healed some people. We’ll take that!
It’s like, “We went to church, and God healed one person,” and we’re like, “This is amazing! The King comes here.” He healed some people. No big deal. Moving on. It was forgettable. I’m shocked just by that. We have to reconcile that. Is this happening at all in our lives? But the fact that he couldn’t do… It’s almost like Jesus was limited because the partnership wasn’t there, the faith of the people wasn’t there. He was amazed at their lack of faith.
Faith is the currency of heaven. If money is the currency of earth and you can pretty much have anything if you just have money for it, faith is what God values. Faith is the currency of heaven. Guess what? It’s free. It doesn’t matter what family you came from, what kind of upbringing you’ve had. If you feel like you’re a have or a have-not, or, “This person has so many talents and skills and I don’t,” God says, “I’m looking for people with faith. Faith can move me.” It’s impossible to please God without faith, Hebrews 11 says.
I love this idea that Jesus is going, “I want you guys to exercise faith.” The disciples saw this. They would ask later, “Lord, increase our faith.” They didn’t say, “Lord, increase our preaching. Increase the presentation and the promotions of our ministry. Increase all the things we can do.” No. “Increase our faith, Lord. Increase our faith. Grow our faith. In your grace, grow our faith that we can partner with you in bigger and deeper ways to see your kingdom advance.” That’s what he’s looking for.
Now here’s the question I think we need to ask ourselves. Under that second blank, the message of Jesus is confirmed by the miraculous, the other blank there is…Are we church people or Jesus people? Are we church people or Jesus people? Because there is a difference, and it is easy to fall into church coast mode.
I’ve spent a lot of time in church. I’m not hating on church. I’ve spent a lot of time in church. We’re going to spend a lot of years in church, but it’s easy to fall into church mode instead of, “What does it look like to be Jesus people?” This is interesting. Church people know what time to go to church. We know the service times. We know how you’re supposed to dress. You figure out what church you’re going to, and you figure out like how you’re supposed to dress.
We know the language. We talk to each other in these ways, “How’s it going? What kind of season are you in? What’s your season? What’s God saying? What can I pray for you about?” We can just slip into that. There’s a lot of Christian subculture. We have our Christian clothes, our Christian music, our Christian food, our Christian cars. We put little verses on everything. Our Christian schools.
What does it look like to be Jesus people? Because I think a lot of times, Jesus is going, “I love all your church stuff, but are you doing the stuff I was doing? Are you the kind of person who I was?” We get really impressed by the way we put things together, and I think Jesus is going, “Yeah, it’s nice. Your service flowed really well, but are there people who are disciples, doing the things I did?” Jesus people do what his Spirit empowers us to do. We’re led by the Spirit. We do the things he did.
This is what they said of the early disciples. They said, “We can tell these people have been with Jesus.” With Jesus people you feel like you’re around Jesus. You’re going, “You kind of remind me of him.” Think about that. Who are those people in your life that you’re like, “When I’m around this woman, when I’m around this person, I love it, because I feel like I’m actually spending time with Jesus”?
Are we becoming those kinds of people? Because if we are, then we’re going to be seeing the message come out and the miraculous confirm the message. We’re not going to see it if we’re not talking about Jesus. Jesus people (guess what?) talk about Jesus. They talk about him a lot. “Well, I’m not really seeing God do anything in my life lately.” When was the last time you talked about Jesus, not about our beliefs or religion…the person of Jesus?
I look at the life of Jesus, and I look at what he challenged his disciples to do, and I think it’s going to take risk and faith. Our faith, saying, “We’re going to partner with God.” But a lot of times, when he calls us to step out in faith, it’s risky. We don’t want to do it because our reputation is at stake. We don’t want to do it because what if God doesn’t show up?
I wanted to read you a quote. This is a book called Organic Church. Buddy actually gave me this book. This one phrase has just stuck out to me. He’s talking about this exact thing. We do our part and we trust God to do his part. He says, “We must be willing to place ourselves in a position where if he doesn’t show up we’ll be seen as complete fools.” Are we okay with that? I think a lot of times we’re going, “No, I can’t be put in that position.”
“Most have not been willing to take that risk. We are often afraid that God’s reputation will be tarnished.” I really resonate with that, because I can remember a lot of times going, “Lord, I feel like you’re wanting me to talk to this person or say this thing or ask this question or pray for this person or do this crazy act of faith, put this money in this place, or whatever.” Whatever it is God is churning us to do.
A lot of times, we’ll say, “Well, if it doesn’t happen, then God’s reputation is going to be tarnished, so I’m not going to do it,” and we feel good about that, saying, “Well, this is good, because I don’t want to make someone else not be able to believe in God because of him not showing up.”
I think about this from God’s perspective. He’s going, “Okay, so you’ve been here for like 20 years or 30 years or 50 years or like 70 years at most, and you’re worried about protecting my reputation? I’ve been here forever. I can take of myself, thank you very much.” I think God’s going, “What if you are a complete fool? I’m okay with that.” He’s like, “You probably need to get humbled up sometimes. Are you willing to take up your cross, lay yourself down for me?”
David danced. I love David saying, “I will become a fool because I’m worshiping God. I don’t care what people are going to think about me.” I think about Paul. He says, “We are out of our minds for the sake of Christ. We’re fools for the sake of Christ.” He’s going to call us to do some stuff sometimes we might not be comfortable with, and God is okay with us being uncomfortable. He’s okay with us learning how to exercise our faith.
I think about when we go on mission trips or specific outreaches. We’re put in these uncomfortable places. We’re going, “Okay, I just flew across the country. God, who do you want me to talk to and what do you want to do?” Those are like the building blocks of us exercising our faith. I think faith is like a muscle. Maybe it starts as a mustard seed, but we exercise that muscle.
Hebrews says maturity comes through constant use. We actually grow. We grow into the people God wants us to be. So faith can move mountains, but if we never exercise our faith, it’s not going to move anything or anybody. When was the last time you really exercised your faith? I think as a community, God has been exercising this muscle of faith in our midst. I think it’s a really good thing, and I’m excited for the things God wants to do through us.
Now talking about risk for a minute, I was really praying before Easter about giving this message. I didn’t even want to give this message because it’s hard to put ourselves on the line and say, “We think God wants us to exercise our faith,” because you start asking the same thing. “Well, what if he doesn’t do it? What if he doesn’t do things? What does that mean about us? Is our ministry, is our reputation going to be ruined?”
We had been doing some landscaping for the church, and I was doing some landscaping at my house, and so I had this truck I was borrowing. I’m praying, “God, teach me about this stuff. Teach me about risk and faith.” John Pitt is a guy who’s on our leadership council down at Midtown. He was over in Israel, and he said, “You can use my truck to pull stuff in your backyard.” I have a picture of pulling up into my alley. We have like the skinniest alley in Atlanta, okay? And the wall is falling, so it could go at any minute.
So I’m pulling John’s truck in. I had to push in the side mirrors just to get it in there, and I’m going, “Oh man, this is taking faith just to pull up the driveway.” Then I actually get what I need, and I’m trying to get out, and you can’t even turn around because it’s so tight up there. I’m backing out, and this really requires faith. I have no side mirrors, and I have a person behind me directing me.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation before where you’ve been in charge of somebody’s precious thing, their car, their house (you’re taking care of their house), their baby (you’re babysitting for someone). I remember babysitting and being like, “If this baby dies on my watch, it’s over!” You’ve had that sense of just being terrified inside.
So I’m backing down. I am terrified, and this asphalt is not like smooth, nice asphalt. There are like giant, one-foot holes in this thing, okay? All I want to do is what? Rely on what I’m comfortable. Look at my side mirrors. The side mirrors tell you where you’re going to go. They’re perfect. Every time I looked at a side mirror, all I saw was my face, terrified. I was like, “Ah, ah, ah!” It was worse.
John Pitt’s stepson Graham is in the back. He’s directing me down. He’s a tiny person in the rearview mirror, and he sees everything. He’s like, “Come on back. You got it. Let’s go. Let’s go.” Again, I’m looking at Graham going, “I want to trust you. I want to trust you, but I need to look at my side mirrors,” and I can’t. I’m just going, “Ah, ah!”
I’m going with Graham, and it is terrifying, because if I scrape a little bit, it’s not like a dink in the car; it’s going to be like the whole side of the car is scratched. I’m picturing John coming back from Israel going, “Oh we saw the tomb. It’s empty. It’s amazing. Jesus is alive.” And I’m like, “Yeah, well, while you were gone, Good Friday happened to your truck. Here you go. My bad. I don’t even have the money to pay for it for you.” So I’m pulling out, and as I get to the end of the driveway there, and I kind of make it, I have that sense of relief, “Oh, it didn’t happen”
God just speaks to me in that moment, and he goes, “This little man in the tiny rearview mirror guiding you, that’s the Holy Spirit. That’s what it feels like!” You’re going, “I just want to do what’s comfortable. I just want to do what I know is going to be true,” and the tiny man is going, “Come on back. Come on back,” because from his perspective, he’s like, “It’s okay. I can see everything. I know how this is going to turn out. You just need to trust me.”
But our experience of it is, “This is terrifying, God. What if? What if? What if?” That really spoke to me, because I’ve seen some awesome, miraculous stuff happen, but I’ve yet to really fully live in that supernaturally natural place every day, and I think that’s what God is inviting us into.
Now here is the great encouragement. The first time you come down the driveway, it is terrifying, and we had to do it multiple times that day. Every time it got easier. Every time it got easier to trust, easier to believe it could happen. I think it’s the same way when we exercise our faith. Things that used to be terrifying to us start to get easier because we start to trust God more because we’ve seen him come through our life.
Now if you look at Hebrews 11, this is where we’re going to end. Hebrews 11 is all these stories of people just like us, normal people exercising their faith, and God doing amazing things in their life. Hebrews 11 is not even so much about individual people, I don’t think. It’s really about the story God is building throughout the generations.
It tells us at the beginning, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) So each one of these people, these families, was given a message, and they were saying, “Okay, this is what God is showing me. This is what he wants to do in the future. I’m going to take hold of that. I’m going to believe that.” We’re told again that without faith, it’s impossible to please God, but he’s a rewarder of those who seek him.
I’m going to read you just the names of these people. We’re not going to look at all of their stories, but Noah is one of these people. He’s building an ark in faith. I mean, how ludicrous is that? Abel is offering sacrifices. Abraham leaves everything he has known to say, “God has taken us into a new land.” That took a lot of faith.
Moses is one of these people. He’s leading the people out of the Promised Land. You think about risk and faith. God says, “Moses, take your staff. This is your sign of comfort and authority. I want you to throw it down. Lay it down in front of the most powerful person in the world, and you’re going to have to believe it’s going to become a snake and be a sign of my message you’re delivering on my behalf.”
Think about that. How scary would that be? Moses is going, “I have a stick. You’re telling me I’m going to throw it down and it’s going to become a snake?” That is a terrifying thing, but these are these acts of faith and this lifestyle of faith these people entered into. You have Sarah, whose body was as good as dead we’re told, who believed God was going to give her a son.
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Rahab, Gideon. All these people again aren’t even perfect. Some of them have a past, but God said, “You exercised your faith when it mattered, and you’re going to be remembered for that. Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets. All the prophets even prophesying, saying, “This is what I see. This is what the kingdom looks like. This is what he’s going to do in decades and generations to come.” They did their part in faith.
But the end of the story gets to this moment where it says without us (and I put this on your sheet)… All these people who gained approval through their faith did not receive what was promised without us. God had something better for us, that apart from us, they would not be made perfect or complete. So they’ve done their part; are we going to do our part?
I think a lot of times we can read this and say, “This is for somebody else. This is for an extraordinary person, but I can’t do it. I’m not one of these people.” I think God speaks something very different over your lives. Here’s where we want to land this. This is after we hear about these people of faith. Hopefully we hear the words all through the Scriptures and say, “God is calling me into this.”
As a generation, we’re told at the end of Hebrews, “Without us taking the baton and doing our part, their work is incomplete.” The picture we’re given is there is a great cloud of witnesses. All these people have gone before us saying, “Do your part in the race. We left it all out there.” The picture that comes to my mind is a relay race.
If you’ve seen the men’s swimming, where it’s the 4×100, and everybody is doing their part. The first guy and the second guy go. The third guy goes, and it comes down to the anchor. All the work that the earlier people have put in comes down to this last person, running the anchor leg. What are they going to do?
These people swim with all their might, and they’re swimming because they want to win. They want to win the prize. They want to win the gold, and the nations would honor them. That’s the goal there. How sad would it be if the anchor sees all the work that was put in and just kind of says, “There are a couple of people coming behind me. I can just cruise this thing out,” and just starts coasting it and putting in just a mediocre effort?
Everybody who went before would go, “What are you doing? Did you see our sacrifices? Did you see what we gave up? Did you see how we pressed into what God wanted to do? Do your part.” I think about us and I think about the New Testament, and I believe God wants every generation to live like they could be the last generation. Every generation runs the race as if they’re the anchor.
It would be dishonoring to the people in the cloud of witnesses who have come before to not say, “We’re going to leave it all on the court. Not just for a medal, that we would be honored by nations, but we’re winning the prize to present an offering to Jesus. We’re giving him the glory of his sufferings and his resurrection. We’re saying we want this to be for your fame and your name, Jesus. We want nations to be gathered around your throne, every tribe, nation, and tongue, and that we would have a part in that ingathering. That’s what we’re running for.
3. Every generation must live like the last generation. Every generation. How much differently would you live if you said, “This is it. This could be it. I don’t know how much more time”? What would change in our lives? That’s that urgency God wants us to live with. I think about Buddy and Jody and what they’ve poured out. They’ve passed the baton on in so many ways.
Downtown, they said, “We feel like God wants to do something in this city.” They leveraged their resources for that to happen. They leveraged a big part of their life to open up a path. Buddy is going to make it, but even if he hadn’t made it, he finished well. He ran his part of the race in such a way that he could say, “I don’t have any regrets. I poured out. That was the last for me.” If we were the last generation, we did everything we could.
That’s the very last point. If we’re going to live like the last generation, paradoxically what we’re going to do is we’re going to leverage all we’ve been given for the next generation. We’re going to leverage all we’ve been given for the next generation and say, “How can we set them up? The race could end with us, so let’s run like it will, but let’s make sure we pass off and we invest in such a way that there won’t be a brokenness in the chain, in the relay.”
I’m going to call the band back out. We want to respond to the Lord in a couple of corporate choruses, but I would like to invite you. I’m just going to read this benediction over us from Hebrews 13. You can go ahead and stand up. We want to just let the Lord, as a whole church, as a whole community, increase our faith this morning. This is such an amazing benediction for all the verses we’ve read.
Hebrews 13:20 says, “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep…” That’s our Jesus. “…through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord…” This is an eternal covenant he’s inviting us into. “…equip you in every good thing…” That is not just good deeds; that word is ergon. That’s God works. “…to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)
We get to be the bride. We get to be the body. Hebrews declares Jesus gave up his body once and for all. That’s all it took. Once and for all, for all mankind, for every nation, tribe, and tongue. We get to enter into that work of partnering with him, exercising our faith that his kingdom might be advanced on the earth.
So even as we sing and respond this morning, we want him to just equip us, just allow him to equip you. It’s by grace. It’s not through striving. It’s saying, “Lord, it’s by grace you’ve saved you, and it’s by grace I’ll walk into all the works you have for me.” Let him equip you. He’s the Shepherd of the sheep. He’s the great Equipper for us that we would do all these God works according to his will, which pleases his heart.
So this song is another song Nate wrote. I discipled Nate 10 years ago in Peru. Ten years ago! Buddy took me into his house for… God knows why. He took a risk, took a lot of risk and faith. I remember being down in Peru with Nate and seeing what God has done in his life, and I’m so happy. We’re seeing the race even here this morning on the stage. We’re seeing the baton in so many ways. He’s going to sing this song. We just want to partner in this chorus with God. I love this chorus as the church just rises to what God has invited us into.