Sermon: Faith is being sure of what we hope for

During a visit the other day I was asked a pointed question: “Do you ever question your faith?”

This is a very good question and a very relevant one – the kind of question I would say people often think about but rarely have the courage to ask. But before you can begin to attempt to answer this question you really have to take a step back and think about what faith actually is. What does it mean to have faith? 

Well, if we think for a moment in terms of having faith in a person, it means to have confidence in their ability or skill and their capability to perform a certain task (e.g. having confidence in a surgeon), it means to trust them to be honest and truthful (e.g someone employed in a shop), it means to feel secure in their friendship and their love (close family member who would never let you down). If we are called to put our faith in a person whom we have had no or little experience of before then we will probably feel very uneasy. If we have had experience of them previously which has been positive then our faith in them will increase. If our experience is negative then we will tend to lose faith. For example, if someone whom we trusted with our possessions or money turns out to have been cheating or stealing then it would be very hard to have faith in the person again.

In terms of relationships, then, faith has something to do with our hopes being realised – in actual fact, hope always comes before faith because without a sense of hope then there is nothing to have faith in! 

If we don’t first of all hope than the surgeon will be able to cure our ailment then it is meaningless to say that we have faith in him.

So, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says: faith is being sure of what we hope for. In terms of the Christian faith, the subject addressed within the Letter, then our hope rests in God alone. What do we hope that God will do for us? 

Perhaps we hope that God will enable us to have a good standard of living. Perhaps we hope that God will watch over us and keep us and our family safe from harm. Perhaps we hope that God will provide us with a life free from hardship or physical pain and disease. Perhaps we hope that God will enable us to have harmony within our personal relationships. All of these things are good and perfectly understandable – but if these “earthly” things are all that we hope for, and as such, the things upon which our faith in God rests, then I suspect that we may well be disappointed. We know that sometimes we do experience danger and hardship, sometimes we do get ill, sometimes things do go wrong within relationships. Because the reality of life is that these hopes are rarely realised in full all of the time. They certainly were not being realised in the lives of the Christians to whom the Letter to the Hebrews was addressed.

These people were probably facing persecution of various kinds from the Romans and from the Jews who remained faithful to the synagogue and wished to eradicate those who followed the way of Christ. If you read through the letter it is obvious that some of these early Christians were losing their faith which was causing tension and upset within the community. 

When they had first received the faith they were presented with the glorious hope that God, in Christ, had indeed come into the midst of his people to establish his kingdom upon earth – they were filled with joy and expectation at the Good News of the Gospel. But if this message was true, why were they now being subjected to such suffering?

In attempting to encourage them and give them confidence the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews was attempting to deepen and mature their understanding of exactly what faith is about. Faith is being sure of what we hope for. These early Christians were putting their hope in earthly things – they had tunnel vision we could say, but their vision needed to be broadened. They needed to extend their hope to include the big picture – the vision of God’s glorious heavenly kingdom. If they put their hope in this then their faith would be strong – no earthly, short term set-back, disappointment, pain or suffering would be able to quash them. 

If they needed evidence of this kind of faith then they were encouraged to look to the ancients for inspiration – Abram being a prime example. What a hopeless situation he found himself in – an old man, with an ageing wife, having no children to pass on his inheritance. But Abram was given a vision by God, that his descendents would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. God presented him with the big picture in which to put his hope and not what at the time seemed to be the hopeless reality of childlessness and impending death. But to fulfil this hopeful desire required Abram to trust God and to be obedient in taking the risk of going on a journey to find the promised land (to a place he knew not where!) 

Here we learn a valuable lesson in that faith is not something which is “set in stone” – never changing, never being questioned, never being challenged – this in NOT what faith is about. In fact faith is the exact opposite because faith is always to be on the move. The meaning and the fruit of faith is actually to be found in the journey.

The Letter to the Hebrews is at pains to stress the importance of understanding faith as a journey. If you read through it you will notice that within its prolific use of Old Testament imagery – sacrifice, offering and priesthood expressed most perfectly within the person of Jesus Christ the pioneer and perfector of our faith – it does not refer to the Temple in Jerusalem, but rather the older image of the tent. The chosen people constantly travelling in the desert on their journey to find the promised land. Their faith was actually lived and worked out as they travelled.

Notice that all of the ancients listed in this wonderful 11^th chapter of Hebrews, those commended for their faith, were people who were in some way on the move, travelling forward in hope:

Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Gideon…  

This is surely very significant! 

So then, in answer to the question posed to me – yes, there are times when I question my faith in the sense that there are things that I don’t understand, there are things that don’t make sense, there are disappointments, frustrations and painful experiences – God certainly does work in mysterious, even apparently unkind and unjust ways sometimes! But having acknowledged these things hope in God remains. 

I suggest three points of importance in holding such hopeful faith: 

1. It will be a faith that takes the reality of suffering seriously – acknowledging that Christians are not exempt or spared pain and suffering of all kinds. Suffering and even death itself are part of faithful living. If we need any evidence that this is so then we need only look to the cross and the way in which suffering is taken into the very heart of God in order that it may be transformed and redeemed through divine love. 

2. It will be a faith that takes seriously the importance of journey and discovery as we travel through life with Christ as our constant companion and guide. 

3. It will be a faith that takes seriously the destination and fulfilment of our hope – life in all its fullness, glimpsed/realised in part during this life (as the Transfiguration reminds us) but known perfectly and gloriously in the life to come. Where we will know fully the big picture and the fruition of God’s loving purposes in the City he has prepared for us. 

I will close with a comment on the significance of this passage from the Letter to the Hebrews for us today: 

When faith manifests itself in an active, obedient life then the very things for which believers hope become real. 

As the modern day listeners of this letter may this be true of us.

Preached by: Alyson Goldstein at St Meugan's and St Peter's, Ruthin on Sunday, 29th July 2007