Soaring Hope Solid Confidence

From Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, I'm reading from RSV, but kind of changing it a little bit to the New International translation. One verse. Now, faith is being sure of things hoped for, certain of things not seen.

And then building on top of that with Psalm number 27, verse 1 to 4 and verse 13. The Lord is my light, my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.

Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That is, that I may live in his presence, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

And then verse 13. I would have fainted, except that I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Now, these words in Psalm 27 are obviously the testimony of a man who was certain about the presence of God in his life.

He could not reach out and touch the Lord with his hands. He could not see the Lord with these eyes. But he knew that Elohim, the God of the universe, was guiding him.

The Lord is my light, guides my feet, protecting him. The Lord is my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life.

Of whom shall I be afraid? Now, this certainty, this wonderful confidence that God is with him, is what kept this man from fainting. When all kinds of hell broke loose over his life, I would have fainted, except that I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. What was it that enabled a man who found treasure hidden in the field to go out and sell everything he has to buy the field? But the certainty that this treasure he found is in fact the one thing in all the world worth having.

He's sure of that. So there's no problem. He doesn't do it with trepidation.

He does it with great joy. He sells everything to get the field. What was it that enabled Andrew, Peter, James, and John suddenly to walk away from their whole business, fishing boats, everything, families, to go after this Jesus in order to drink in everything he could teach them, to be his disciples.

But the certainty that this man has the treasure we're looking for, the treasure worth losing everything else to get, the only thing worth having. Pretty soon they understand that this man is himself the treasure. The woman at the well came to draw water, ends up talking to Jesus, leaves the empty water jar there, runs back to the town, come and see a man who told me all I ever did.

Is not this the Messiah? She's certain that she has found the Messiah. Now this certainty, this soaring hope, this wonderful confidence that enables people to see this is what I want, this is the one thing that matters, and I'm prepared to lose everything else to have it. Marked, and still does mark, the life of every man, woman, and child who ever comes into the kingdom.

It's certainty that enables us to get up on the road of the kingdom and start moving. Certainty which enables us to say goodbye to all this other stuff and get the field with the treasure, or to forsake our fishing boats, whatever they happen to be, to follow Jesus. This certainty is not some rare gift which God imparts only to a few in every generation like the gift of genius.

But this is a gift which God gives freely to anybody who draws near to his son. This certainty is the mark of the normal Christian. Without it, there is no Christianity, there is no discipleship, there's no vision, and there's no life.

But from earliest times, people have always tried to get around the necessity, get around somehow that this certainty is essential, somehow bypass it. Or they taste it and have it for a while and then kind of lose it and let it go. And we ourselves often catch ourselves secretly thinking, yes, there was a time when I knew, when I was sure that Jesus was alive from the dead guiding my life, directing my path.

I knew it. Now, sometimes I find myself going through the motions and secretly asking, do you really believe this stuff? And try not, sometimes I try not to even think about whether I believe, we say. But how in the world can we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God? How can we worship him and praise him unless we're sure? And how can we take the Sermon on the Mount, which is the basis of our life in Jesus, and turn it into action? How can we, in fact, live with purity, truth, justice, mercy, day in day out in our relationships with people? How can we do this unless we're dwelling in the house of God? One thing I might desire of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

To behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple, seek him unless I'm living in his presence, unless I know. It's impossible to live this life. Reading from Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32 and following.

But recall the former days, when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and affliction, sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on the prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised. For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and keep their souls. That verse 34, especially to think about this. For you had compassion on the prisoners, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

What an awesome thing. These people had compassion on the prisoners, and joyfully accepted the fact that people ransacked their houses and took things, because they knew that they had the treasure, and that this treasure really was the only thing that mattered. And as long as they have this, they have everything, and nobody can take that from them.

Reading on in this passage, which takes us into 11.1 of Hebrews. Now faith is being sure of things hoped for, certain of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval.

By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received approval as righteous, God bearing witness by accepting his gifts. He died, but through his faith he is still speaking.

By faith Enoch was taken up, so that he should not see death. And he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken, he was attested as having pleased God.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. This certainty is the rock bottom essential of our life with Jesus.

We have to have this confidence, this faith. But where do we get it? And how do we maintain it when we have it? We receive it, and we maintain it, by hearing, and again and again hearing, a living word spoken to us directly from Jesus. He says, it is the spirit that gives life.

The flesh is of no avail. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life. They create faith, they bring certainty.

And so, the evening of the night in which he was betrayed, we remember, he gathered his disciples together for their last meal together. During the meal he got up, laid aside his garments, got down and wrapped himself in a towel, got down and washed their feet like a slave. Then, he sent Judas on his way.

He said, whatever you're going to do, do it fast. And then, he gave the disciples their final instructions, which began with these words. Let not your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me. Believe, be certain. Today, we reenact that feast.

There hasn't been a week gone by since it happened, that it hasn't been reenacted somewhere. And as we do this, as we gather together in his name, to eat and drink the body and the blood, the bread and the wine, the spirit of the Lord comes into our midst and speaks the same words to us. Let not your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me. Believe. And as he speaks these words to us, by the spirit, he imparts the power to believe, to obey.

He says to us today, be certain. Be certain of four things. Be certain that God knows you by name.

Be certain that God has called you into his kingdom. Be certain that the death and resurrection of Jesus have broken the curse over your life. And finally, be certain that the gift of the Holy Spirit has been given to you.

If you're certain of these four things, you'll mount up on wings and fly. If you're certain of things like eagles, you'll run and not be weary, you'll walk and not faint. Nothing, nothing can cause you to faint.

First of all, be certain that God knows you by name. Jumping back to Psalm 139, we read, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and my uprising.

Thou understandest my thought of far off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue but, Lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high.

I cannot attain unto it. In other words, it blows my mind. It staggers my mind to even think that the God of the universe should know me by name.

But He does. And this becomes the basis of it all. Really, everything that Jesus did and taught, it begins by getting hold of this truth that God knows us.

You know, before Philip called you while you were still sitting under the fig tree, I saw you, Jesus said to Nathanael. And again and again, it's that same address. I see you.

I know you. I understand. I know what you're going through.

I know who you are. When we get that, when we're certain that God knows us by name, individually and then corporately, then we can say, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life.

Of whom shall I be afraid? Secondly, be certain that God has called you into His kingdom. In John 15, 16, we read, You did not choose me. I chose you and ordained you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.

Jesus said these words again in the Upper Room at that last supper to the disciples. And now today He says them, the same words to us. You didn't choose me.

I chose you and ordained you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. I've called you into the kingdom and I've given you work to do. Today as you eat at this table, when you eat this feast, realize that you're sitting at the table of the kingdom and you're sitting, so to speak, in the chair with your name on it.

He put that name. That's where you belong. And He put you there to feast and then to get to work.

And there's work for each one of us in the kingdom. You know, by grace, but we work. We labor.

In His name we get something done. And then we say, Oh, yeah, but that's the hard part. You know, I've never been able to finish anything I started.

I'm a klutz. Nothing ever works out for me. I stumble around.

I fail. You know, nothing ever works. So believe and be certain about this next thing.

The death and the resurrection of Jesus have broken the curse over your life. The death and resurrection of Jesus have broken the curse. There's a curse.

Sometimes we feel like it, you know. Everything goes wrong. You know, I'm being haunted.

Oh, what's going on? And there, you know, when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, that was a curse. The curse of sin. They didn't, I mean, God didn't do it vindictively.

They did it to themselves. But there was something now that had them locked out. And there, now there is the veil separating us from God.

And that, you know, that makes everything go haywire. Nothing really works if we see it. But when that veil opens up and we walk through, the curse is broken and the curse is over and we're free.

And we can accomplish what we could never get done before. Reading from, excuse me, Hebrews 10, 19. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, since we have confidence, certainty, to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.

With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water, be certain that that veil opens for you. And in that certainty, go on through, stand with Jesus before the mercy seat, start worshiping God, and the curse of sin, guilt, death, bad luck, failure, defeat is over. Be certain of it, confess it, and live it, and it will be so.

And finally, be certain that the gift of the Holy Spirit has been given to you. Now certainly, if you asked for the gift of the Holy Spirit, you received it. And if you haven't asked for the gift of the Holy Spirit, do it today.

Don't leave here coming praying with somebody at the altar after the service or during the service or whenever you want to. But ask, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? And then after you've asked, don't sit around waiting for the bells to ring and the rainbows to pop in the sky. Just know that if you asked for bread, you didn't get a stone.

And if you asked for the gift of the Spirit, this is what you received. The same Spirit that was given to the believers on the day of Pentecost is being given afresh to us and to others like us all over the world. Afresh and alive today.

He says to us, Jesus, receive the Spirit. Live in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit.

And you will do all things through Christ who strengthens you through the Spirit. Faith is being sure of things hoped for. Certain of things not seen.

The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord.

That will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. God has done everything from His side to put the Kingdom into us. He sent His Son, took Him to the cross, raised Him from the dead, lifted Him back to His side, sent the gift of the Spirit so that all these things and the power they represent become actual in our lives and in our corporate life when we believe, when we trust.

Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.

Be certain that God knows you by name, that He called you into His Kingdom, that the death and resurrection of His Son have broken the curse over your life, and that He now, at this moment again, pours out the gift of His Spirit afresh to make you more than conquerors in Him who loves us. Let's wait upon Him now in silence.