Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): We often want, even expect, a straight line between the exercise of faith and God and the results we're looking for. But as Charles Price shares today in his message, Faith Against the Odds, while a line from faith to experience, from promise to fulfillment is often straight and unbroken, real faith is about continuing to believe with certainty even when we don't see the end result. Charles will get started in just a moment. Everyone experiences disappointments in life, and when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises.

That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stewart and Jill Briscoe's five message series, Hope for the Disheartened. The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of telling the truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's our guest speaker, Charles Price, with today's message.

Charles Price: And I'm asking you to turn in your Bible to 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 13. Paul has just given this masterly explanation of love in that chapter. And he concludes by saying, and now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Faith is an attitude and disposition towards God. Hope is an attitude and disposition towards the future. Love is an attitude and disposition towards people. These three remain, says Paul in those verses. And I suggest you they're like a three-legged stool on which Christian experience sits. If you break one of those legs, the stool collapses.

We can't have faith at expense of love or love at the expense of hope or hope at the expense of faith. These three together, says Paul, remain. These are the bedrock ingredients in a living Christian experience. And I want to talk about these three qualities. Today we'll talk about faith and I'm going to read from Hebrews chapter 11. This is often known as the classic chapter on faith. And verse one, the writer says, now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. And then he gives names of people who lived by faith. You can see them there, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. And in verse 13, he says of these people, all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And then down in verse 32, there's a sort of summary statement here. What more shall I say?

I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions. That sounds like Daniel to me. Quenched the fury of the flames. That sounds like his three friends. Escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned into strength, and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead raised to life again. That's the exciting part. But it goes on to say others were tortured and refused to be released.

So they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and floggings, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheep skins and goat skins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground. Listen to this next verse. Yet these were all commended for their faith. Yet none of them received what had been promised. And the key I'm picking up as the basis of what I want to share with you is verse 13.

All these were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And then in verse 39, these were all commended for their faith. Yet none of them received what had been promised. Both those statements, summary statements, say they did not receive the things promised. The other one says none of them received what had been promised. And yet both statements say all these people were living by faith when they died. They were all commended for their faith. We want and expect in all likelihood an unbroken line between the exercise of faith in God and the results they were looking for when we do exercise faith in God.

We want a straight line from faith to experience, a straight line from promise to fulfillment. And of course, this is true in many instances. When it comes to the finished work of Jesus Christ, all that he made possible by his death, burial, and resurrection is available the moment we put our faith in Christ. We don't come to Christ and say, I want to trust you to save me and believe you died for me. And then say, well, I wonder if this is going to work. I may have to wait for 20 years before it takes.

No. That is instant. But the aspect in this chapter that I think I want to talk to you about and which we need to understand if we're going to have that leg of this three-legged stool secure is that it is often a broken line between faith and our experience of life.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Telling the Truth. And today guest speaker Charles Price is talking about faith that persists even when the experience we hope for doesn't yet come. He'll be back in just a moment. Did you know you can find more life-giving content from the Briscoes at tellingthetruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app. There you can sign up for daily devotionals, watch videos, read blogs, and access a variety of other resources to help you experience life. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world.

Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Here's Charles once more.

Charles Price: It is one of the primary reasons in conversation with people that they say they ditch the Christian faith because I believed God for this and it didn't happen. So I'm calling this faith against the odds. Now what is faith? There's a definition in verse one, chapter 11. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Now there's an ambiguity there. We are sure what we're sure of is what we don't yet have. It's what we hope for. We are certain, he says, but certain of what? Certain of what we do not see.

This is where the broken line comes in between being sure and hoping for, between certainty and not seeing what we are certain about. And these men and women that the writer of the Hebrews lists in these verses are all experiences to some extent. I won't go through them all because that would take all our time and the point is made anyway by going through one or two of them. But Abel is the first on the list in verse four. By faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain did. Cain was his brother, you remember. By faith he was commended as a righteous man when God spoke well of his offerings.

And by faith he still speaks even though he is dead. Why is he dead? Because when he offered in faith his sacrifice to God, his brother who did not offer in faith came behind him and stuck a knife into his back. So his reward for being faithful and demonstrating his faith is his brother Cain kills him and buries him and denies any knowledge of him when he's confronted. I I'm not my brother's keeper. I have no idea where he is. What kind of faith is that? We might be tempted to ask. Next one is Enoch.

Enoch disappeared and was never seen again, you remember. By faith verse five says Enoch was taken from this life, so he did not experience death. He could not be found because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. Now we know very little there about Enoch, but he was obviously a a great man, but he just disappeared one day. I mean, can can you imagine he sent his wife, I'm just popping out for something. And he pops out and downloads and and he's gone up into the air and disappeared.

No one saw him go. They looked for him, couldn't find him. It says so. It says that they they searched for him. But he he could not be found. God had whipped him away. Well, it may be nice for Enoch, but probably not for his wife and his kids or whatever else he had in his immediate family. Abraham is is the next one. We know a lot about Abraham. Remember Abraham set out having no idea where he was going. He was given the promise that when you get there, I'm going to give you something. I'll tell you something.

You probably won't believe it now, but when we get there, you'll start to believe it. And so he he set off and then when he got there, God said, look at the sky. You'll have as many descendants as the stars in the sky. You're going to have a son from the summer combination from that nation ultimately will come the Messiah, etc. And he set off, got the Canaan, was given that promise, expected his wife Sarah. They had no children. It says she was barren. He was 75. She was 65. She's past the menopause anyway, so no babies are likely.

He believes God and expected a baby in nine months. And he didn't get one in nine months, nor did he get one in 12 months, nor two years, nor three years, nor five years, nor seven years, nor 10 years. When his wife put up the subject, you sure it was God who talked to you about having a baby? Yes, it was God. You sure you had been eating something, you know, some fish or something that night and getting funny dreams. No, no, it was God who told me. Where's the baby? I don't know, Sarah. I don't know.

I know you're worn out. Maybe God didn't know how worn out. And she probably said, well, it says in the Bible you were your body was as good as dead, so maybe he didn't know how dead you were. But they decided then to help God out, which is always a mistake. They they committed themselves to do the will of God. What was the will of God? Have a child. Instead of waiting for God to bring it, they produced a boy called Ishmael. But 14 years later when Abraham was 99, God said, this time next year your wife will give birth to a son.

He had to wait. Had to wait. And then when he got that son, you know, instead of getting the son, getting you know, wife and getting married when he's 18 years of age to get this nation on the road, Isaac wasn't interested in girls. And when he was 40, his father tried to organize a wife for him. And when he got a wife for him, she did not conceive for 20 years. So he was 60 when he gave birth to his first They were twins. And they were fighters, etc. And then Jacob had 12 sons and they all went down to Egypt and they stayed there 40 years, etc., etc.

But but but you know, Jesus said in John 8:56, your father Abraham rejoiced as a thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad. When did he see it? He saw it 2000 years in advance to the eye of faith. He didn't experience it. And of course, the fruit of the promise God made to Abraham was Christ, the Messiah, Galatians 3:16. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The scripture does not say and to his seeds, meaning many people, but to and your seed, meaning one person who is Christ. All the promises God made to Abraham are not fulfilled in the multiplicity of physical descendants of Abraham.

They are fulfilled in the seed, singular, Christ. He had to wait a long time before that came to be. And we could look at Joseph, but we won't. Joseph had to wait 500 years for something. And and that was it. His bones would go back to Canaan. Joseph, you remember, was the hero in Egypt. And his brothers came down. They stayed there a long time. And when he died, he asked his bones be taken back and buried in a certain place in Canaan. And they stayed buried in Egypt for 500 years. And they took them back.

And Joshua had a ceremony in which they buried the bones of Joseph. He never saw it, but he believed it because God had shown it to him. All these people, verse 13 says, were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised when he saw them at a distance. And welcomed them from a distance. Notice they were living by faith when they died. That that is such an important phrase because living by faith is not deciding, today I'm going to have faith for something. It is living by faith. It is the basic attitude and disposition of our lives at all times, in all circumstances, in all discouragements, in all results, with all lack of things taking place.

And the back is against the wall. They live by faith. So what does that mean? Let me first point out something important. I I said Hebrews 11 is the classic chapter on faith in the Bible. Has all these people who lived by faith. And we say that because the people who made the chapter divisions which are not part of the original text, they were done for convenience, help us find our way around as useful of course. But they started chapter 11 and they finished chapter 11 to make it just a package about living by faith, but actually it isn't.

What this chapter is really about is about perseverance, sticking with things because in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 35 just a few verses before the beginning of chapter 11, so do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you've done the will of God, you will receive what has been promised. For in just a little while, he who is coming will come will not delay, but my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. But we are not like those who shrink back and are destroyed, but are those who believe and are saved.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for. So the context say he's talking about is we need to, he says, persevere. Don't throw away your confidence because you can't see what is going on. You persevere. You press on. You press on through dark periods. You press on without having in your hand what you are believing for and trusting God for. And one day he's coming and there will be everything coming to fulfillment. And then at the end in chapter 12 verse one, the beginning of the next chapter, therefore since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, these witnesses are the people listed in chapter 11.

We're surrounded by them. Because of this, because of their lives, because of their testimonies, because of their experience, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. And you read on in that chapter and you'll see some elements of perseverance and within them the discipline of God that keeps us on track.

So so the message here is not well just believe and you've got it all. The message is you believe and you believe and you believe and you put your faith in God and you put your faith in God and you live by faith in God and you live by faith in God whether anything seems at the time to be happening or not. That is where you persevere. Now to do that, we have to know certain things about God. I mean, I'm going to trust God. And God of course is the the object of our faith.

We're going to put our faith in God. We have to know certain things about him that give us the confidence to put our faith in God. Let me point out three things in Hebrews 11. First of all, Hebrews 11 verse six. Without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists. Now that's the first thing. The first ground of our faith is that God exists. No matter what we see and experience, God is. He that comes to God must believe that he is. You see true faith is not four things.

It is in God himself. What do I mean by that is this? So there are many folks who believe God for and then fill in the blank for what they would like to believe God for. We we have faith for someone's healing, for an example. And they die. We have faith for reconciliation in marriage. And they divorce. We have faith for financial success. And it doesn't come. And we start to think this this Christianity is is a bit of a mess. It's a fantasy. It's like the emperor with no clothes. We all believe it because we believe it because we believe when you poke it, there's nothing there.

Doesn't seem to work. True faith is not in what God himself may or may not do. It is in God himself period. So the best things God has done in scripture through people's lives were done through things that they would have done anything to avoid because of the difficulty and the pain of those things. And the faith of many was severely tested as we read just now where in verse 35 others were tortured. They refused to be released that they might gain a better resurrection. They faced jeers and floggings. Some were changed, put in prison.

They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheep skins and goat skins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated. They wandered in deserts and mountains in caves and holes in the ground. What a pathetic picture of people being brutalized and isolated. Yet these were all commended for their faith. Yet none of them received what had been promised. What was the nature of the faith they were commended for? Not that God would do this or do that or take the matter of here or switch that and change that and transform this.

Their faith in God was faith in God. What is God doing? That's his business, who God is. That's where we find our security too. We find our security not in our circumstances. We we look for our security there. We find our security in God himself.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. Everyone experiences disappointments in life. And when things don't go the way we expect or desire, either tragically or in similar ways, discouragement can become entrenched as we begin to believe destructive thoughts like it's always going to be this way or I'll never overcome this. And when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises. That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stewart and Jill Briscoe's five message series, Hope for the Disheartened.

In it Stewart and Jill help you discover why your hope must be tied to trusting God and reliant on his strength and timing. You'll learn that even in trouble times, you have a God who loves you and gives you every reason to look forward with unspeakable peace, hope, and joy. The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That 's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. We're glad you tuned in.

Come back tomorrow as special speaker Charles Price concludes his message, Faith Against the Odds. That's next time here on Telling the Truth.