Others: The Triumph of Faith | Sermon by Tony Evans

[Music] hello everyone this is dr tony evans with the urban alternative and i'm excited to welcome you to join us on a journey a journey through hebrews 11 it's known as the hall of faith where men and women discovered what god can do when god's people learn to live walk and act by faith the beautiful thing is it's not just about them it's about us as the author of hebrews writes to new testament believers that's who we are about how the lives of old testament saints who learn to live by faith should challenge and affect our lives as we live by faith so we're excited to welcome you on this journey it's going to be an exciting trip we're going to learn a lot most importantly we're going to be transformed by the truth what it means to be a kingdom hero who lives by faith [Music] we've now come to the end of hebrews 11. and we're talking about what it looks like to live your life by faith we're talking about the men and women in hebrews 11 who are men and women from the old testament being spoken of in the new testament to encourage you and i what it means to make our daily operation a faith operation the author of hebrews has gone name after name abel enoch noah abraham sarah moses israel rahab and he says these folks saw the hand and the movement the power and the presence of god and they saw it by faith he has made it clear in hebrews 11 verse 6 without faith you won't see god because without faith you do not please him faith must always watch this precede sight once you have sight it is no longer faith that's why hebrews 11 verse 1 says faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen if you have to see it first you've canceled faith for faith is prior to and apart from sight faith leads to sight but faith must always precede sight now having explained this he now comes to his culminating section his culminating point in the book in the chapter he begins in verse 32 of hebrews 11. and i love how he opens it up and he says and what more shall i say he says huh wha what can i say now i'd walk you through 31 verses i've given you the great heroes of the faith and what they were able to achieve by faith so what more can i tell you what what more can i say he says in fact he goes on to say in verse 32 for time will fail me he sounds like an old preacher if i just had a little bit more time if i had a little bit more time i could tell you so much more because there's so much more to tell about the file power of faith but he's run out of time he's run out of space and so he says well i don't have time to go into the detail i went into in the first 31 verses but let me throw a little something something extra along the way let me let me give you a little something something he said if i had some time if if i had the time i'd tell you about gideon barrack samson jeff for david samuel and the prophets but i don't have time i don't have time i have space to go and all these other folk i haven't gone into so since he didn't have a time i'ma take a minute to tell you about these folks he didn't have time to go into detail on like he did all the previous people in the first 31 verses of chapter 11. he starts off with gideon in verse 32. gideon was a judge but gideon was not scared he was scared he was he was a a passive guy and and then god called on him because israel was being invaded by the enemy and he said gideon i want you to go out there and i want you to take care of the enemy of my people so get in as scared as he was went out and amassed an army of 32 000 men and god looked at gideon in the book of judges and said that's too many people i can't use 32 000. now gideon logically was saying you just we get may fight an army that's a big army i need as many men as i can get to which god said you may need them i don't your army's too big so i want you to shrink it down shrink it down again shrink it down again until you get down to 300. god you got to be kidding me you want me to fight an army that's huge with 300 men i know get in i want you to fight an army with 300 men and me so guess what he did he dropped logic what he could see comparing his 32 000 with a group that he was going to fight he dropped his logic and he obeyed god when he obeyed god he routed the army with 300 men because god joined the 300 when he obeyed what he couldn't see if you ask him to logically figure it out he couldn't do it he had to do what god said do even when god what god said do made absolutely no sense at all so since the author of hebrews didn't have time to tell you i just thought i'd tell you that by faith gideon rounded an army even though he was scared to do it the next name you get is barrett if gideon was scared barrack was weak he was a weak man he was a man who ran from difficulty and ran from trouble in fact he got his strength from a woman named deborah he was too scared to go into battle himself he told deborah i ain't going girl unless you're going with me so deborah as many women have to do had to hold up my man's hands had to say come on man up eric and with the encouragement of deborah who had heard the word from the lord and transferred it to barrack he believed that word even though he was a weak man and god used him by faith to route the enemies of israel gideon was was scared barrack was weak and samson was a player samson was a man who had moral dilemmas issues but even though he was a weak man in a certain area as born out again in the book of judges when he was willing to operate by faith god would supernaturally invade him and use him to take care of the philistines so that the bible says he killed one thousand men with the jawbone of a donkey and at his ending days he killed more in his death than he had killed in his life because when god got his attention he would see the supernatural enter into the natural the man had some problems the man had some issues but he still shows up in hebrews 11. it didn't nullify the consequences but what it did say was when you're ready to operate by faith you can see god show up japheth let me tell you about japheth i'm only telling you because the author of hebrews didn't have time japheth was the son of a prostitute he was the child of a prostitute in judges chapter 11 the first three verses tell you that so he had a bad background questionable mother rejected by his siblings he was in a messed up family situation but when god was looking for somebody to deliver his people he went over to japheth and said jabeth i know that uh i know that your background isn't the best i know that your family situation isn't preferable but if you will do what i tell you to do i'm gonna use you in spite of your past i'm not gonna let your past control your present or what i'm going to do with you and your future but you got to do what i tell you to do jabeth obeyed god and routed the enemies of god in spite of a poor background then there's david david's david's short david's small david's young david's inexperience but he runs into this mammoth man named goliath of gath and in first samuel 17 he takes a slingshot and five smooth stones and brings the giant down to his level and below so he didn't let his size determine where this battle was going to wind up so just because the author of hebrews 11 didn't have time i thought i'd tell you about they didn't have samuel he says samuel samuel had a problem samuel was weak as a father we find out samuel was weak as a father and and and when he was weak as a father we're told in first samuel chapter eight that his sons no longer followed the lord and so samuel had some flaws as a dad he didn't even win his own sons but when he was willing to operate by faith the prophet daniel would be anointing the king of israel setting the nation of israel on a spiritual course that would lead them to a new direction now why does he go through those names and why did i go through those names because each one of those folks by faith achieved greatness wound up in the hall of faith or one of our heroes in hebrews chapter 11 even though they had flaws in their lives every one of them had weak spots every one of them had areas that they hadn't developed yet every one of them had places that needed to be uh shored up and strengthened but when they were willing to operate by faith god graduated them to our museum the hall of faith and made them one of the heroes i don't know about your yesterday i do know if you'll live by faith today god can still use you tomorrow and recognize you for what you have done and achieved by faith but it must be by faith and faith must precede sight if you're waiting for sight it's no longer faith in each one of these men's lives and each one of the people found in chapter 11 of hebrews men and women there was a challenge that demanded faith so the reason god allows a negative uh obstacle to come into your presence is to see whether you're going to face it by faith or face it by sight when you face it by faith god joins you in it when you face it by sight you take care of it he said but let me tell you what faith can do verse 33 it conquered kingdoms performed after righteousness obtained promises like daniel and the lions then shut the mouths of lions like the three hebrew boys quenched the power of fire escaped the edge of the sword and weakness were made strong became mighty in war put foreign armies to flight he says faith watch this is unprecedented in its power because it can route whole nations it can turn it can put out fires it can it can make a lions keep their mouths shut he says you don't understand the power of faith but you must be operating by biblical faith which means faith must precede sight so if you're saying god show me this and then this is what i'll do that's not faith you say show me then i'll respond no you respond to me then i'll show you it must be by faith when you accept jesus christ you accept jesus christ through faith by grace are you saved through faith you accept jesus christ as your personal savior and through faith through trusting him for the forgiveness of your sins you're giving eternal life but while you trust christ through faith you are now supposed to live your life by faith two different things trust in christ for salvation is receiving a gift living by faith is doing a work that is why the bible says in james 2 faith with our works is dead let me tell you something else about faith verse 35 women receive back their dead by resurrection that's what elijah and elisha did they raised up the dead sons of the widows they they they raised them up he says by faith god flipped the natural order of things so that that which died became alive any of you in a dead situation doesn't look like there's any way to change it doesn't look like there's no power you can go to to flip it you don't have enough money to buy your way out of it but my question is have you operated by faith and faith must precede seeing or else it's not faith and it will always involve something you do not something you feel not something you say it will always involve an act of obedience to god and many times the acts of obedience will not make sense you won't get support from carnal friends you won't get support eve from family you may not even get support from you that's why david said sometime he had to encourage himself in the lord he says and others somebody say others and this is the part of the sermon you're not gonna like he says and others verse 35 were tortured not accepting their release so that they may obtain a better resurrection and others verse 36 experienced mockings and scourgings yes also chains and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawed in two they were tempted they were put to death with the sword they went about in sheepskin goat skin being destitute afflicted ill-treated they are those who were penalized for their faith there were those who were penalized for their stand there were those who were mocked and scorned and rebuked and talked about as shown you born there were those who went through losses losses now what caused the loss he said something very interesting that it's uh you might miss he says uh not accepting their release that's interesting he talked about all this negative stuff and then he throws in there not accepting their release well now if you tell me i don't accept my release that means one was offered to me okay if i didn't accept something that means i rejected it so they could have gotten out of their torture they could have gotten out of their mocking and scourging and negative repercussions but they chose not to get out of it they chose to say no i'd rather die i'd rather be saw it in half i'd rather be mocked i'd rather be scorned i'd rather i i thank you for offering me release but i turn it down now why would they do that nobody wants to go look for persecution only a fool goes and looks for pain only a fool turns down the opportunity not to be in pain but he says they turned it down two things you need to know they turned it down one because of the reason they're going through it they're going through it because of their association with the lord their association with the lord has put them in this mocking predicament there's a second reason they said no they said no watch this now because they saw a better resurrection okay that's what it says not accepting their release because of a better resurrection what will give you the ability to keep your stand as a christian and keep living by faith is if you see something better see one of the reasons we compromise our faith is we don't think there's something better so we'll renege on god we'll renew on his principles we're all tempted to do it we've all probably done it on some level or another uh in our lives and we'll do it because we're scared there's nothing better if i maintain my faith on this job and lose this job i'm going to be jobless so let me compromise my faith on this job i'm not talking about doing a bad job on the job i'm talking about compromising your christian character on the job let me go with the crowd because i may not be able to get something better but when you understand that god is a god of resurrection then you understand that that situation does not have final say-so in your life cause god knows how to give you something better see what the enemy wants to do is not let you live by faith so you don't get to see anything better and as long as you don't see anything better you stay stuck where you are and you stay stuck on what your 2020 shows you and if your 2020 doesn't show it to you anymore you're not going to risk it because you don't see anything better because you haven't learned to live by faith but once you learn to live by faith god lets you see that he can resurrect situations that you think are going to kill you if you make the right decision in it 38. men of whom the world was not worthy wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground okay let me say about folk for whom the world is not worthy there are a few people in the congregation right now who this world is not worthy of what makes the world not worthy of certain people because they live so high in the spiritual realm even though they're living physically in the earthly realm that the physical realm doesn't even know what they talking about the physical realm think they're weird the physical world thinks they're crazy the physical world thinks they've lost their mind the physical world thinks that that they become fanatic and so we never get to grow the faith because we hang out with folk who the world is worthy of not who the world is not worthy of because they don't live in this world they live in that world while walking in this world and what you want in your circle of influence are some folk who live up there even though they walk down here they operate from heaven's point of view consistently faith is how they roll it's not a place they visit and so he concludes he says and all these having gained approval through their faith watch this did not receive what was promised because god had provided something better for us so that apart from us they would not be made perfect so some or many of the old testament saints didn't get what they were looking for abraham never got to own the land god promised he got the wonder on it he never got to own it although it was a promise so they got to see god work but they didn't get to see everything god said he says the reason that some of the old testament saints didn't get to see everything god said was that god was waiting on us who's to us us and the new testament christians that's you and me there's before christ old testament then there's after christ new testament he said in the old testament they got a bunch of stuff we see miracles in hebrews 11 but they didn't get it all because they had to wait on us in other words they have some stuff we don't have but a lot of them would love to be with us because you and i get a freedom they didn't have living under the law you and i get some privileges they didn't have in the old testament so he says the reason god held out on them is so that they could catch up with us so the idea is they're supposed to learn from us we're supposed to learn from them so that we get the whole package of what god's promises are for his purposes in our lives so you and i are supposed to learn from hebrews 11 in order that we might learn faith so that we can experience based on their example much of what they experienced until god brings us all together around his throne so we'll be able to take the old testament christians and the new testament christians and have a conversation about the power of faith on both sides of the cross so i don't know about you but you ought to be motivated now to live by faith therefore see whenever you see therefore you got to ask what it's there for therefore since we have so great a cloud of witnesses on you've been in church long enough to know when the preacher says do i have a witness the author of hebrew says do i have a witness in fact he doesn't want a witness he wants to know do i have a cloud of witnesses that's a whole bunch of folks who can testify that if you trust god god is able to enter into your situation even when you don't see the result and he's able to turn that mama out do i have a witness is there somebody who can testify that faith works in the hands of god's people [Music] the whole goal of living by faith is to be approved of god for god to say you passed to be part of the group of people who whether they saw a miracle or did not see a miracle god still did a check mark and said you pass and the way to pass in your christian life is to trust god enough to follow his lead even when you can't see the outcome then you become part of that elite group of special people who get congratulated by the almighty [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Tony Evans

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Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021