Hebrews 11:1-40
As a kid, when my cousins would all get together, we’d make our own sketch comedy videos. One time, right as I was about to shoot a commercial, I got so frustrated because my parents interrupted when it was time for my big scene. We had been involved since the beginning, but when we had to go, we missed out on the fulfillment. That drove me crazy, even though we came back the next day and I got to be in a different skit that was truthfully a little more fun to do. I was upset because I didn’t want to miss out, even though there was something better waiting in the wings. But missing out on things always ate at me. #FOMO
I want to finish the story – I want to see the end, the fulfillment, the denouement. Maybe that’s just me, but how many of us want to be the character who dies at the start of the third act? It’s difficult to not finish the story – yet this is exactly what God asks us to do. In fact, it is a huge portion of our discipleship journey. You may want the end of the story, but you don’t need it to be who you’re called to be.
Faith Over Knowledge
Right off the bat we see the focus of this section is all about faith. Faith is the goal, faith is the purpose, faith is how we see what is unseen. By faith we trust. Conversely, faith ends where knowledge begins. Knowledge removes faith. When we know, we don’t need to trust anymore. When you’re watching a movie or reading a book, everyone wants the hero to win and live. A large part of the joy in experiencing a story in whatever format is trusting that the story will finish out the way you expect or hope. You trust that everything will work out ok. That trust dies when the story is finished because it transitions to knowledge. Now you know. The first time I saw the movie Gladiator, I accidentially walked into the movie when it had about 15 minutes left – totally spoiled the story! Thankfully I was able to get past the spoiled ending and appreciate the emotional core of that story, but that’s the problem with knowledge – once we have it, we have it; it’s over.
In many areas of life, that’s a good thing. It’s better to know your multiplication tables than to trust that they’ll equal out. But when it comes to God, faith is the better way to live. The lives briefly touched on in this letter highlight a few key truths: 1) nobody knows everything – every single person since Adam has only lived during a small portion of the story. No one has seen the end yet and we all only get to learn (or know) small pieces of the larger picture. This means living on faith is a crucial part of our growth as believers. 2) It is faith that leads people toward action. Knowledge is an end point, faith is a catalyst. In each of the examples given by the author of Hebrews, it is faith that led them to move, led them to act in obedience. Knowledge is the completion, the culmination, but faith initiates the action. And 3) it is the action of faith that God is looking for in us. Faith pleases God because faith moves us toward Him and makes us obedient to His call. And to these people, that call was a shot in the dark.
A Hero Acts Now
The absolute mastery of planning to bring everything in the world to the point of where it was when the incarnation happened could only have ever been done supernaturally. The prophecies alone are staggering. Scholars debate somewhere between 300-600 prophetic claims of Christ in the Old Testament. The odds of those all being fulfilled by chance are astronomical. And all of these people, involved in those prophecies, lived on faith in obedience having no idea what they were a part of or where in the story they fit in. In baseball, you have no idea when you will come up to bat and what will be the situation, but must treat it like the game is on the line. It may be the 6th inning, but your at-bat with one out might be the swing that changes the game or the season, so you can’t mail it in. We live in an interesting time. We have a knowledge that they never received. We know about Jesus. So yes, we know some things. But because of our current time, we still have to live with faith because we are staking our eternal lives on something that history will not let us prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. So we still must act without full knowledge and remember that the story isn’t finished yet. So we, like those in this chapter, must live on, move in, and act now out of faith.
Next Steps
That’s all we need. We may want to know the end, but we have more than enough to trust and obey in the moment. Turn your trust to Him.
- Give God that piece of your life that you keep holding onto. Trust Him with your vulnerable moments by allowing them to come to light.
- Give financially as a way of actively trusting in God, even if the money doesn’t add up on paper.
- Treat every opportunity like it’s the bottom of the 9th. Don’t waste it!
Our portion in God’s story is now, but it’s not going to last. Don’t waste your time; move towards God today in faith and obedience making use of every moment for His glory.
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