God’s Two in the Bush

Text: Hebrews 11:1-16

Focus: Faith

Function: To help people understand what great things happen when we partner with God.

Form: Bible Study

Intro:

I wrestled with titling this sermon either “God's Two in the Bush” or “How to Make God Proud of You.”

Obviously I choose the first because I don't think I can make God do anything. God has it figured out. He knows the end before the beginning starts. He doesn't force our actions, but He plans according to what He knows we will do. Remember, He sees the end at the same time He sees the beginning. That is why we can trust Him. That is why these men and women in our text trusted in Him.

I can't comprehend how God does it. If we were God we could comprehend how He does it, but we aren't and that is part of what makes Him God, and us “not God.”

We are talking about faith this morning and faith can sometimes be difficult.

Lee Stroebel in his book, “The case for faith” asks the question, am I a believer if sometimes I have some doubts?”

I think about this, if God sees the beginning and the end of every creature living on this planet, if God sees the eternal soul of every being that has a soul, if He knows every hair on our heads, every thought in our minds, every detail of our lives, things that we aren't even aware of, how does He do it?

How can He be that big? How can He be big enough to be personal with every single soul that chooses to trust in Him? When I think about that, I am tempted to doubt.

But then, I go outside and see the sunset. (SHOW) I imagine God painting the sky and saying to Himself, “I hope my children, right there on the West side of Dayton Ohio stop and look at this and remember Me because today, I gifted them with a beauty that will never be seen again.” My faith increases. Then night falls (SHOW) and I see the hugeness of the universe and I realize that God is bigger than even that. My faith increases more.

But sometimes doubt begins to creep in. Looking at those stars and the hugeness of the universe I wonder: “Doesn't that make God's job so much bigger?” How can God be that big?

So what is faith?

Does faith mean that we suspend our logical minds?

Does faith mean that we never ever have any doubts or questions?

Does faith mean a blind acceptance of something we cannot figure out?

Or is faith acceptance of something we cannot comprehend, but realize that it must be true?

Is faith logical or illogical?

The Message titles this passage with the words: “Faith in what is not seen.”

Vs 1 and 2 make it clear, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the ancients gained approval.

Faith, trust in God, brought them into a relationship with God.

(SHOW) Faith is trusting God. (Not just believing that He is.)

And yes, it was blind faith. Some of them never saw it until they died and went to glory.

Verse 6 tells us that it is impossible to have a relationship with God without faith.

Faith is trusting God, believing IN Him, not just believing that there is a God, but believing in Him.

But it does start with believing that He actually does exist.

Sometimes faith is blind, but it is never illogical.

Before the author of Hebrews goes into the litany of the great men and women of faith, and what they did, even though they didn't see the end result he shows us the first condition condition of faith. God does indeed exist.

During the age of modernity, science and religion argued the question: “Does God Exist?” With science only, neither side could prove it.

But if you add logic to science, believing in God does make sense.

Look at the text: (SHOW) ³By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.

The first step to trusting God, is believing that He exists.

The universe was created, it didn't always exist.

I want to talk about this, again.

Because, on April 25, as I was preaching in the book of Revelation, I did an extensive teaching about the fact that God is the first cause.

FIRST CAUSE

The women in my house are nice to me. During dinner, I try to get feedback about my sermons, mistakes, faux pas, what they liked about it, and what they didn't like and they know that during dinner, right after the event, is not the time for helpful criticism. They just agree that it was great, and then switch the subject to another part of the worship service if they think that it was less than great.

And then, mid to late afternoon, I do hear relevant feedback from them. On April 25^th, both Kathy and mom said that I lost them.

During the sermon, I spent an extended time explaining from philosophy and science how faith in God is the most logical response to the questions: “Why are we here? How did this happen?”

(SHOW) God is the FIRST CAUSE.

I want to simplify it.

If you think about it, there are only two things that could be eternal: It is either Matter or God, the Creator.

The universe always existed was, or God always was and created the universe.

This relationship with God starts with the faith that we believe God created this whole thing.

Those who don't believe in a Creator will say that matter has always existed. So, when they try to answer the question about the science that demonstrates that the universe began some 9 to 20 billion years ago, they point to a beginning, the big bang. Their theory is that the universe expands and contracts in these 20 to 100 billion year cycles and when it contracts, it become infinitely small and infinitely dense.

And, since the universe appears to be expanding, then it does indeed look like it started at one point and therefore, it may not have been created.

Humanity always thought that the universe was created “in tact.” But recent science implies that it is expanding. And, if it is growing, then it seems that it had a starting point.

So, there are two choices out there for belief.

One, it started in this little quark that exploded into the universe as it is growing, or it was created.

I am not mocking science, every time I study science and the natural universe, I am amazed. Solomon said, (SHOW) “God delights in concealing things, scientists delight in discovering things”

Just as I picture God creating that sunset for us to enjoy, I realize that He has hidden His wisdom and power in this natural world we live in.

So, scientists can prove that the universe is expanding and they believe it has been doing that for 9 to 20 billion years. And God gave humanity the ability to search these things out.

And some may be wondering, but wait a minute pastor, by faith we believe He created the universe in 7 days.

Well, Genesis 1:1,2 states that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then, verse 3 begins the time when God created light, separated light from darkness, separated land from water, created plants, created animals and finally, He created man. It doesn't say that on the 1^st day, God created the heavens and the earth, it says He created light.

So before those seven days, the earth and the universe were already here.

And this passage of Hebrews is saying, if you are going to have a relationship with God, then you must acknowledge Him as Creator, the first cause.

By faith we believe that God created.... This is a statement of faith and it is much more logical than believing that matter always existed.

Because science points to a time when the universe began and it all started with this minute speck of material that is so incredibly dense that all of the universe comes out of it.

Science theorizes that the universe has natural laws and those laws change, every time a new universe explodes out of this small tiny bit.

What they understand is this, the universe has natural laws.

But they run into problems with logic when sometimes the laws contradict the theory.

Like, how did it all begin. Did matter just suddenly decide to be? And if matter is just minerals and atoms and molecules, how did they decide to exist?

It takes a lot of faith to believe that there isn't a Creator. As science gets more and more advanced, we discover just how incredibly complex the intelligent design of the universe is.

The other choice to believing matter is eternal, is to believe that something exists beyond natural laws. Because natural laws cannot confine infinity, or eternity. Something had to have always existed.

If natural laws is all there are, “hard science” as the TV Character “Bones” would say, then somewhere the natural laws were aborted and matter created itself. Something other than natural happened.

The good news is that we have a term for “other than natural.”

That term is Supernatural.

So, either the natural laws stopped for a moment and matter created itself, or a Supernatural being created it all. We call that being God.

Something has to exist that never had a beginning. It is either matter or God.

Matter does not have intelligence or supernatural ability, it can't create itself, or even imagine. So it must be God. It is the only thing that makes sense.

(SHOW) Faith in God is logical.

By faith, we believe that we are created beings.

That does not in anyway discount science, nor does science discount the Bible. The bible is a book that describes things in the spiritual realm, it wasn't intended to be a science book. I believe that the bible is without error in its original text, but it isn't a science book.

Unbelievers want to discredit it, but it is a spiritual book, explaining the Spiritual realms, the realms that exist beyond known science.

I had a guy argue with me that the bible cannot be true because Moses refers to grasshoppers as “insects.” He was a scientist, and according to him, everyone knows that grasshoppers are not insects. (I didn't know that).

I simply asked him, “Is Pluto a planet?” (You can chew on that).

Okay, enough of that. There is a God, a Creator.

(SHOW) When people believe in the Creator God, great things happen.

There was a further proof to this belief in God and that proof was the ways that God changed natural laws in miraculous or supernatural fashion, or convinced the hearts of men to do extraordinary things.

These stories, are what happens when people move beyond the belief that He exists into the realm of trusting God.

And it happens right at the beginning of humanity.

By faith, Abel offered a more pleasing sacrifice than his brother Cain. There is a lot of speculation about this. We know that Abel offered a blood sacrifice and Cain offered a grain sacrifice. Both sacrifices are eventually commanded in the OT law. The Bible says that it wasn't really this notion of a blood sacrifice as an atonement for sin, and the confession of sin that Abel offered. It says he offered it because he was a shepherd and Cain offered grain because he was a farmer.

Both men gave up something they needed for livelihood in order to demonstrate to God that they trusted him.

Jewish scholars say that the difference must have been that Abel gave his best lamb, and Cain gave rotten grain.

Peterson says, that the difference was that Abel trusted God and Cain trusted only in himself, so Cain's sacrifice was insincere.

Abel's sacrifice was by faith, a symbol of his faith.

Enoch, walked with God and was not, because the Lord took him. By faith he “walked with God.” There was something about his life that was obvious to everyone else, his relationship with God. And God loved him so much, that he went straight to heaven without dying. I love this statement about him. He walked with God and it was obvious to everyone else.

Noah. His heart breaks because he sees the unjust way that people treat each other and God's creation. He cries out about it. He sees people mistreating others, taking advantage of the poor and the weak and shares the same pain with God. So, God befriends him and in the middle of dry land, he builds the boat. He trusted God at God's word.

Abraham and Sarah, what a story! God tells Abraham to leave his home, his family and the security of living among relatives and to go “wherever” God tells him. I imagine his relatives thought he was crazy, but he listened to God. So did his wife. She became pregnant in her 80's. And yet, Abraham is promised by God to inherit this whole land, he told the story to Isaac and Jacob, and none of them actually received the land, but they trusted. They didn't receive it until 430 years after Jacob. But they never lost sight of God's promise.

Does that mean they never doubted? Abraham was afraid on two occasions and took to lying to save his own hide. Sarah laughed when the Lord told her she would have a baby in her old age.

And then she got pregnant. And Abraham defeated an army of 4 kings with just his own family and servants. These men weren't even warriors.

When it fell to it, they lived their lives by faith. They lived their lives trusting in God.

So, I started with the question: “Can me make God proud of us?”

And it is true, we can't make God do anything, at least in one sense but in the sense of a loving Heavenly Father, we do make Him proud when we choose to trust in Him and live by faith. Just as a teacher is proud of a student when the student has achievement, and parents are made proud of their children.

So why: “God's two in the bush?”

You know the proverb: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

It means that we should be satisfied with what we have. It also means that the process of capturing the two birds, ending up with three, may cause us to lose the one bird and the risk isn't worth it.

But faith is different from that. Faith is reaching out beyond our human ability, strength and expectations into the realm of what God wants to do and accomplish through us.

(SHOW) Remember, Jesus said: “I will always be with you, even to the end of the ages.”

It is a choice we make. Never despair of God's promises. Don't look at the circumstances and quit believing. Look at the size of God who is on our side.