Faith Receives Victory

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0:00Growing up, I remember a sports program on TV back when there were just four channels or so. We didn't have cable growing up. But the TV show, it began with a fanfare of music, a montage of clips, and this introduction. Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The human drama of athletic competition. This is ABC's Wild World of Sports. Anybody remember ABC's Wild World of Sports?

0:32That phrase, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, that's why we tuned into that show. We want to watch both of those things. After every championship of every major sport, there are interviews and articles and analysis, not just on how the winning team won, but how the losing team lost, right? Even in that show, the Wild World of Sports, the clips that they were showing when they were doing the opening segment, they would show, for the thrill of victory, there's a clip that was three seconds long.

1:10I went to YouTube and I timed it. Three seconds long, one clip of some people celebrating. But then for the agony of defeat, there's two clips at a total of seven seconds. One person wrecking on skis and another person wrecking on something else. Maybe we like to watch the agony of defeat even more. I don't know. Based on those clips. We, sports is a drama. We like human drama. We like to follow those who win and those who lose. But we only want to be one of those people.

1:45Can you guess which one? We want to be winners. All the time. We want to be winners on the playing field, whether it's a pickup game or something more organized. And after our younger days are over and we're no longer playing sports as much as we used to, we still want to be winners. We want to be winners in our career, in our family, in our home life, in the community. We want to be successful. We want life to be one success after another. In relationships and family and career.

2:27We'll accept a little bit of difficulty, but only if it's like a little speed bump on the road to a Cinderella story. Just like all those sports movies that we watch where there's some difficulty in the first third of the movie, but wouldn't you know it, in the last 15 minutes, it's all been overcome. It just is a speed bump. Just part of the interview when you interview the winner. And that's what we want to be. That's how we look at winning and losing.

2:59Constant success in our lives all the time. That's winning to us. I think you'll agree. Even those of you who've not lived as much life as I have, you know you want to win. And you want to win all the time.

3:14Then along comes the word of the Lord. And if we listen to it, we might just see that we've been evaluating victory and defeat all wrong. Victory and defeat. Maybe we don't even know what that looks like. What that means. Maybe we've been judging it on human standards instead of God's standards. Because today's passage tells us about people who had great wins. Huge victories.

3:46And then people who suffered great losses. Deep losses. But this passage tells us that they are all victors. They all triumph. They all win regardless of how their lives look. And they do it by faith. So we need to come to grips with a whole different way to define winning and losing. To be people of God. To be living by faith. We need to look at victory differently than the world trains us to look at it. We're in a sermon series in Hebrews called Toward and Enduring Faith.

4:24And today we're going to finish chapter 11. The Hall of Fame of Faith. Let's turn to it now and let's see how God empowered people to overcome by faith. Whether their lives were marked by the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. All of these people in this passage were victors. So turn with me. Hebrews chapter 11 starting in verse 32. Let's pay attention to the word of God as it comes to us today in Hebrews. This is God's word for us to teach us, to instruct us, to change us.

4:58It comes to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. It's on the screen behind me and it's in your bulletins. Here's God's word for us today. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

5:43Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

6:22And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God has provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

7:08Praise Him. Pray with me. Lord, we do thank You that You have won the victory. And Lord, we ask You to change us by Your living Word today. We need the world wiped away from our eyes and our minds, Lord. Too much it clouds our thinking and what we go after and what we value. Lord, we want to be looking at things Your way. We want to be Your people. And we need You to sanctify us and change us. We need You to impact us through the Word going forth.

7:49Lord, we know that this is Your promise. This is Your very promise to us that You will save and redeem and change and sanctify ordinary people like us.

8:02And we'll be set into this race and we want to run it with endurance. So help us today. In Jesus' name, Amen. Faith receives victory. Faith receives victory. Whatever we face in this life, we will triumph through Christ. I love this passage. I really think that it offers real hope to a wide variety of people in a whole lot of different circumstances. I think there's something here for everyone. Young and old. Whether you are suffering or bereaved or whether you have something great going on in your life that you see God working.

8:49If you need reassurance about your life of faith, you'll find it here. This passage tells us about both wins and losses. Have you ever been telling a story and you go so overboard with details that eventually you realize that you've been talking for a long time and you have to kind of speed up? And so you start glossing over things that people who know the story, they're like, wait a minute, you skip some important stuff. That's basically what happens to the author of Hebrews here.

9:23He's been telling us about faithful people. He's gone from Abel to Rahab and now he's like, you know, I can't keep going at this pace. I've only said about two sentences per person but I can't keep going. This letter would never finish. So he gets more brief and he just starts rattling off a list of people. A list of people and then a list of deeds of great faith. People who through faith conquered kingdoms. These people went to war badly outnumbered and yet they still overcame.

9:58They enforced justice. The judges in Israel did this but also kings like Solomon. By faith they obtained promises. Promises of deliverance from enemies. Promises of having children. Promises of becoming king.

10:14Some like Daniel stopped the mouths of lions. Some like David and Samson tore the lions apart. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego they quenched the power of fire.

10:30These are true stories you realize. I mean I believe that with all of my heart. I hope you do too. These are not myths or fables. These are true stories. Many were made strong out of weakness. Naomi, Ruth, and Esther. Made strong in extraordinarily weak positions and places. Other women received back their dead by resurrection. The widow of Zarephath and the Shunammite woman. Two stories where these women received back their loved ones after death by resurrection.

11:08These are amazing stories but what is really peculiar about the list of names in verse 32 is this. He could have cited a lot of different people. He could have cited people who didn't have such egregious lapses of faith and such bad moral failures. He could have given us a better list. He could have named people like Joshua. We don't have a lot of record of Joshua having a big failure. But instead he gives us a list of people who had big moral failures or lapses of trust.

11:47Gideon asked for a sign before he trusted God. He made an idol that led his people into sin. Barak wasn't courageous enough to go to battle without Deborah going with him. Samson well he's infamous right for his violence his immaturity. Jephthah boy he made a stupid stupid vow. Spoiled a great victory and then even more stupidly followed through on that vow cost his daughter his life. Cost his daughter her life. And yet Jephthah is named here. David you probably know he committed adultery and then he arranged for the battlefield murder and death of Bathsheba's wife or husband.

12:38Samuel even Samuel appointed his sons as judges even though his sons were worthless. Not following the Lord he still appointed them as judges. He could have listed people whose records were more clean. He could have listed Ruth or Josiah or Elijah or Esther. None of those people were perfect but we don't have records of the kind of egregious stuff that the list that he gave us committed. Instead he names people with very questionable track records.

13:11And then halfway through verse 35 he makes a shift. You almost don't notice it at first. It isn't a clear break in thought. But once you get a couple sentences in it dawns on you things have changed. These are different outcomes. Really bad outcomes. Some were tortured. Others suffered mocking and flogging even chains and imprisonment. The prophet Zechariah was stoned. They faced rejection and poverty. They weren't dressed as kings. They were in sheeps and skins.

13:51I said that when I was reading I was reading earlier. Skins of sheep and goats. Destitute, afflicted, mistreated. Prophets like Elijah and Elisha they lived in desert mountains in dens and caves. This is a hard list. There are things here that we can't relate to but it doesn't mean that we haven't faced difficulty. We know that life is filled with trials and sufferings. Maybe you've been through one recently.

14:31Life is full of trials and sufferings even if it doesn't match this list. The death of loved ones, medical problems, chronic pain, job loss, unemployment, poverty, strife and conflict, broken homes, broken promises, loneliness and isolation, estrangement, rejection. Life is not easy.

15:00Some of this comes just by living in a fallen world but some of it comes because we've been sinned against or some of it because we have identified with Christ and we receive these things in our lives.

15:16Here's what I want you to think about. When you go through those things, I know that you hear a taunt in your mind. Where is your God? If He loved you, why would He allow these things to happen to you? These experiences push our faith to its limits and we start to think maybe victory is out of reach for me. Maybe it's just for those other people. I wanted to be in that first list, but I guess I'm in the second list.

15:50If you've ever thought that, the good news is that God has not left you. He has not left you. You might have a string of L's behind your name right now in your life. God has not left you. Your sufferings, your trials, they're part of the story that God is writing in your life. And that story has a great ending if you trust in Jesus. Because all of the different outcomes here, despite all the differences, some who seem to win and others who seem to lose, all were headed towards victory.

16:31So there's two common elements in this list. The first is this, all were commended through their faith. Since we're working on a sports theme here, I'll tell you this, when I was a kid, I was almost always the last kid picked when teams were picked at recess or in sports. Almost always. I know that's hard to believe. You look at this physical specimen in front of you, the grace, the agility, not at all lanky. Or awkward. And you think, you were picked last?

17:11Pastor, I just don't believe it. But yes, it's true. My classmates knew I was not much help on any sports team. And somehow even people that didn't know me knew that I would not be much help on the team that they were picking. I don't know how they knew. So I knew what to expect when teams were picked.

17:37Now a lot of us feel that way about ourselves spiritually. We figure if God has picking teams for His kingdom, we're probably going to be picked last.

17:56Some of us feel very aware of our doubts, our failings, our weaknesses. Others of us think that our spiritual lives, they're just one setback after another.

18:12Whether it's because of weakness or ongoing difficulty, we think that we're just about to get cut from the team. We see ourselves as not useful in the kingdom of God, a nuisance, a bother. Maybe we can just watch from the sidelines while other people win. But this passage, it gives you good news, friends. If that's how you feel about yourself, I want you to take hold of this good news. Because all of them, everyone in this list, were commended through their faith.

18:46Every one of them. The first group, the ones that we might call winners, they weren't disqualified because of their big failures, their moral lapses, their doubts, their failures of faith, Barak's hesitancy, Gideon's doubts, David's coveting, Jephthah's foolishness, even Samson's violence, none of those things disqualified them. All of them eventually returned to God and trust. Your failures don't disqualify you. indeed. Your failures don't disqualify you from being in God's kingdom and useful in God's kingdom and playing on the winning team.

19:34What matters ultimately isn't your mistakes, but how you respond to them. Turn to God. Repent. Ask Him for help. Ask Him to lead you. You are not off the team. Even a flawed faith can receive victory. Isn't that good news? Is that good news to you? Oh, it's good news to me. Even a flawed faith can receive victory. The second group, the one that we might call the strugglers, mistreated, poor, mocked, killed, they were also commended through their faith.

20:19Just like the people in the first group, the suffering that they endured did not mean that there was a problem with their faith. I don't know if you've ever heard that or if you've ever felt like that. That hardship must mean your faith is defective somehow. That is not true.

20:41It's not true. Hardship and suffering does not mean that there is a defect with your faith or that God is displeased with you. Your suffering doesn't disqualify you. It does not mean that there is some secret problem with your faith. In fact, God is using that to refine it and make it more beautiful and more precious. He might be preparing you for a starting role on the team. A secret play that he's going to run to defeat the devil. He might be preparing you to come along aside someone who is suffering the same thing you went through so that you can say no don't give up come with me he uses the suffering in beautiful sanctifying redemptive ways don't give up on yourself God hasn't your suffering doesn't disqualify you your failures don't disqualify you keep going in faith but now here's the other common element between everyone in this list all these did not receive what was promised something else about me is that I'm also pretty competitive it's a bit of an irony considering I was picked last I'm not as competitive as I used to be but still it's still there when I see a win within reach I can become a crazy person now that's a lot of us I know some of you might surprise other people here with your competitiveness that might come out in odd times we get competitive because we see the prize whether it's just it might just be bragging rights let's be honest we see it and we want it we want it now it's right there but all the people listed here indeed all the people listed in receive

23:05receive what was promised Samuel anointed kings David became one but they didn't receive what was promised Ruth got married and had a child Solomon ruled a glorious kingdom Daniel was saved from lions Esther saved her people from annihilation but none of them received what was promised not ultimately earthly success is not the goal of God's people got to get that through our heads earthly success is not the goal of God's people if you're chasing that you're chasing the wrong thing that is not the victory that you were intended for if you set your heart on it you'll be disappointed you'll be crushed and worse you'll be worshiping an idol God gives us something better better than any trophy any promotion that you want all these saints were looking beyond the horizon for the better thing the ultimate victory and that better thing comes through the better person the one that Hebrews has been telling us about this whole time he's better than the angels he's better than Moses he's better than the old priests he's better than the old sacrifices he's better than all of them this better one is Jesus our savior and the deliverance that he brings is better than any victory that the old testament people achieved his deliverance is not temporary but it's eternal it's peace with God through forgiveness it's communion with him in a resurrected glorified body and this victory comes through faith if you're here and you do not know what I'm talking about you hear these words about Jesus and you're

25:09like I've heard that before a little bit I'm just not so sure I urge you come to Jesus in faith and repentance that's the victory you were meant for anything you achieve on this earth will disappoint you and meanwhile you're going to suffer a lot of defeats and you're not going for you come to Jesus that's the victory that you were made for he is the one who can steer you who can guide you and who can share a victory with you a real one that's why everyone in this chapter is victorious even those who were tortured who were poor who lived in caves everyone in this list died with outstretched arms and hearts true to their Lord they didn't receive promised in this life but they knew they would in the next they lived by faith and they died by faith so how can we live like them at that even good things can become a weight that hinders you from following Christ from giving him your whole self work hobbies family sports music if they're getting in the way of your faith something needs to change if anything good is getting in the way of your faith it needs to go it needs to be laid aside to put back in its proper place and of course it's no surprise he also names sin but what we don't like to admit is that sin clings so closely it's not a problem we say I've got it under control oh how foolish we are sin is a burden and it's attached to us like velcro it's like those sand birds you get on your clothes on your flip flops when you go to the beach you pick it up without even realizing it

28:29and they're active in picking out the sin from your life and laying it aside it won't leave you otherwise it clings so closely now you've got to be free of hindrances because the second aspect of a victorious faith is this it runs the race in ancient Greek culture foot races were done completely naked I've got an artist depiction here I'm just kidding nowadays we call that streaking y'all are going to go home and be like pastor talked about streaking today I think he wanted us to do it back then it was competition why did they do this because they wanted to win they didn't have performance fabrics in ancient Greece an unencumbered runner is a better runner a faster runner so the best way to have an advantage was to just take it all off they wanted to win so much they didn't care about the shame and exposure that it would bring to them church how much do you want to win this race how much do you want to win it are you willing to do what it takes even the shame and exposure that it might bring to you you're in a race you don't win the race by sitting on the couch it's been set before you for all of us it involves self denial worship obedience and yet for each one of I don't know why the Lord does it this way but we all must run the race that the course master has put in front of us we don't get to set the course but he it doesn't happen to you when you're just passively receiving stuff you get involved in it don't just talk about it friends be about it now we run this race and we

31:26run it together but we're not competitors we're teammates we're teammates in this race and some of our teammates they've already finished the race we're surrounded by on they are examples for us their lives testify to us about victorious enduring faith they're champions of the same race that we are running in and their faith still speaks it still speaks from the pages of scripture telling us you're doing it keep going it's worth it it's worth it here's the last thing a victorious faith looks to Jesus it's got to look to Jesus not to yourself he is the founder and perfecter of our faith if the life of faith is a race he's the one who gave us the muscles to run the lungs to breathe and the eyes to see the way he is the one that founds our faith we have to look to him and believe if you haven't done that do it today run this race with us we want more teammates we're better off as a team run with us not towards that cliff but towards the victory and if you already have put your faith in Jesus keep doing it keep looking to him he makes our faith stronger on the way he knows how to help because he's already finished a much harder race than we will ever run for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame he endured to the end and it's finished now his race is finished and he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God now why does Jesus finishing that race matter to was strange about him entering what was remarkable about him entering was that years

33:55earlier he had suffered a stroke an aneurysm actually that had left him partially paralyzed on one side of his body he entered that race and the starting gun went off and immediately he was left behind he had this really ugly limp the whole time he was running that race he was left immediately and he started limping 30 40 50 minutes went by and everyone had finished that race and the pain was starting to increase for him he was limping and he was going and he kept going and two hours later he was still running but his leg was throbbing it hurt he was in agony and then he noticed that some of the streets that had been closed for the race they had been reopened the race organizers didn't know that he was still running it starts to get a little bit like dusk around and he still running two hours and thirty minutes two hours and forty minutes and he can finally he rounds the bend and he looks and they've already taken down the banner at the finish line and he is practically weeping in agony some kids come up next to him and they say mister I don't know what you're doing out here but you missed a pretty good race but he keeps going he keeps going and he crosses that finish line and he thinks no is the winner of that race he's a famous marathon runner and he comes out and he's been waiting for Bill Bradbury he comes out and he takes off the gold medal from his neck and he says well done this is yours and he puts that medal on this limping man's neck he's in agony he comes in last place

35:59but he is the victor because the man who won said so you won this race and I'm giving you the medal that I won that is what your savior will do for you each and every one of you no matter how ugly your race looks no matter how much you limp no matter if people come up and they say what are you even doing this race is over no matter whether they've taken down the banner and the streets have gone dark and there's cars running on it your savior will be waiting for you to give you the medal that he has won to drape it around your neck and say welcome you have the victory you have it by faith so keep running keep running with me keep running with each other and look to Jesus he he he he he he