Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

Text:

Read Hebrews 11:4-6

As we begin to look at specific people who lived by faith, we need to be careful not to exalt the people themselves. We have a tendency to categorize people of faith in the Bible as different from us. We think of them as being special, having a special kind of faith, called out by God to do a special work. And all that’s true.

But the people who lived by faith in Hebrews 11 were people like you and me. They had struggles, they had sin, and they were all far from perfect. What makes them special heroes in this chapter isn’t their great abilities, but their great God. They had faith that God’s grace would cover all their sins through the Savior’s sacrifice. And because they knew a God who would do this, they joyfully placed their faith in Him and served Him.

You see, you and I are special to God as well. God wants you to have a special kind of faith, and God is calling each one of you to do a special work that God is calling you and you alone to do. So as we read about their faith, we ought to be encouraged that we can have the same faith in Christ.

Two men are said to be commended by God because of their faith in this passage.

Let’s talk about about Abel first (v. 4). The thing that made Abel’s offering different from Cain’s was that Abel’s offering was given in faith. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. It could be also that Cain didn’t bring the first fruits (Genesis 4:3-4). It says that Cain brought ?an offering,? but does not say that it was the first fruits of his crops. But Abel brought the firstborn of his flock, the first, the best. And it could be that God told them beforehand that what He desired. The family obviously had sheep, as Abel was a shepherd. God may have commanded them all to sacrifice sheep at that time to foreshadow the coming Messiah who would die for their sin, and who would be the perfect Lamb of God. But primarily, the difference was that Abel had faith, and Cain did not.

Able was commended as righteous! It wasn’t his gift that made him righteous. It wasn’t even so much his faith that made him righteous. God made Abel righteous. God commended him by accepting his gifts. What an honor it is for God to accept one’s gifts! We don’t have anything to give to God! God already owns everything! Yet when we have faith, we desire to give God our lives, out of our wealth, and even out of our poverty, because He’s given us His Son and filled us with His joy, that we want to give everything for Him. When we have faith, God receives our gifts and is pleased with them. What an honor!

And because Abel had faith, his faith was his legacy. Cain killed Abel, but Abel still speaks. Abel’s faith testifies to a God who is worth dying for.

We don’t truly think much about dying for our faith, but it’s still a reality in our world. Some of the worst seems to be happening in Nigeria. At least 15 Christians were killed in Nigeria by Muslim extremists on December 28, in their own homes, with their throats being slit. Four days before that, 12 Christians were shot and killed on Christmas Eve, and 2 churches were burned down. In November, 11 Christians will killed after their church service by a suicide bomber. Earlier that month, a Muslim threw a grenade into a church and it detonated right above the pastor’s head as he was preaching, killing him and injuring 11 others. And these things all happened in one nation in the last two months. Voice of the Martyrs estimates that 105,000 Christians are killed every year for their faith. That’s 288 Christians per day being killed because of what they believe. That’s a Christian every 5 minutes. If I preach an average length sermon this morning, in that amount of time, 5 Christians will be killed for their faith.

But why? Why not renounce their faith? Why endure such persecution, and the threat of death, and even death itself? Because Jesus is worth dying for. Some might hear all these statistics and say, ?What a shame.? They could have lived so much longer! The pastor who died from the grenade blast was only 27 years old. ?What a shame.?

But we ought not think, ?What a shame.? Because right now, they’re all up in Heaven praising Jesus, joining the angels in crying out, ?Holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty!? And while they’re singing in Heaven, their deaths testify to the world that God is worthy of our lives. Christ is precious. Christ gave us His all, so that we might have joy in Him as we give Him our all. Abel is a perfect example of this, because he had faith in God, joy in God, and he gave his best to God out of joy, and Cain killed him over it, yet Abel’s witness extends to us today.

And Enoch is another example. Enoch was also commended as having pleased God (v. 5). Now, Enoch is kind of a mysterious person. His name is only mentioned in 10 verses of the Bible, and half of those are merely genealogical references. But the key verse about Enoch in the Old Testament is Genesis 5:24. When it says that Enoch walked with God, it’s not saying that Enoch was perfect. It’s not saying that Enoch never sinned, or that he always obeyed God perfectly. It’s saying that he walked by faith. He had a constant awareness of his Lord. And he sought to obey God, not that he always did it perfectly, but that this was the joy of his life: to walk with God. And because his joy was to walk with God, God took joy in Enoch as well. And God took Enoch home. God cared so much for Enoch that God didn’t want Enoch to experience death. He wanted to save Enoch from so much of the pain of life.

And some of you might be thinking, ?Man, I wish God would do that for me!? You feel so much pain and sorrow in life, that you wish God would just take you home. And I can see that perspective, and I’ve felt the same way sometimes, but that’s really missing the point. The point is, Enoch walked with God! He was commended for having pleased God! Enoch didn’t need to be taken out of the world to experience the joy of God. Enoch was living in the joy of knowing God every day he lived in the world!

Both of these men were commended not so much because of what they did, but because of the genuine faith that they had in God. The word commended means ?to be well reported of? or ?to obtain a good, or honest, report.? It’s the same word that we saw in verse 2. So to be commended by God would be for God to say of these people, ?I approve.? Their genuine faith led them to do the things that they did.

And without that kind of faith, it’s impossible to please God (v. 6). Without the faith that gives the acceptable sacrifice to God, it’s impossible to please Him. Without the faith that walks with God, it’s impossible to please Him. Without the faith that has joy in God, it’s impossible to please Him. Without the faith that forsakes this world and the pleasures in this world, looking forward to our true and eternal home, not striving after temporal things, but finding joy in living for Christ, without that kind of faith, it’s impossible to please God. Of course we saw the definition of faith in verse 1. But we get another description of the kind of faith that pleases God at the end of verse 6. Faith includes believing that God exists. And faith includes believing that God rewards those who seek Him.

It’s almost comical that it needs to be said that faith in God includes believing that God exists. But I’m convinced that the faith we often see in the world today, and especially in America, is not the kind of faith that pleases God. Even those who claim to be Christians don’t exhibit this kind of faith. People say they believe in God, and in Christ, but few go on to live for God. People who say they believe in God go out and live however they desire. They spend all their money on themselves. They waste hours upon ours doing things that matter zero for eternity. And when I say they, I mean we. If we’re going to be serious about our walk with God, we need to repent. Repent of our wastefulness, and repent of our selfishness. We walk by faith not by living perfect, but by humbling ourselves before the one who died for us, that we might be perfect in Him.

Because God rewards those who seek Him. He doesn’t reward those who strive to be perfect by their own strength. He doesn’t reward those who exhibit extraordinary talent or intelligence. God rewards those who seek Him. Christ is most valuable. Those who seek and find Christ find true treasure. We can’t bring anything to God that He needs. Faith is realizing that God is the giver of all good things, and we need what He’s giving. He gave us Jesus Christ, who died for our sin. He gave us the Holy Spirit, who lives in us if we know Christ. And He gives us eternal life, a home in Heaven, and never ending joy in His presence, not that we earned for ourselves, but by grace through faith in Christ.

We talk about grace a lot. And talking about it so often, I hope grace never becomes stale to you. Grace ought to stir us up, and get us moving, and get us fired up to serve God.

I need to share with you something I learned just a few minutes before I left to come here this morning. In John Piper’s sermon on this text, he pointed out that verses 1-6 are a sandwich of truth. Conviction of things unseen corresponds to believing that God exists. Assurance of things hoped for corresponds to believing that God rewards. This tells us faith is all about God. It’s about believing in Him, and it’s assurance that He’s real. It’s about believing that God rewards and gives, and it’s conviction that the rewards are real. And having these assurances and convictions about God aren’t icing on the cake, it’s the whole cake, and the ice cream, too.

Without faith it’s impossible to please God, but with faith, with genuine, true faith, we cannot help but please God. We joyfully surrender to His commands. We love to share Him with others. We cheerfully give to the needs of the church and to the needs of our neighbors because we know that God is a God who gives, who’s given to us, and we love to be reflect His goodness to the world! Faith isn’t not about what do, it’s about trusting in the one who has done everything for us.