SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the North Iron Church podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to take the gospel from the upper peninsula to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message will inspire and encourage you in your faith journey.
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy our hero series where we dive deep into the lives of heroes in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: So when it when it comes to missions in God's economy, some go and some send.
SPEAKER_01: They're going, that means we get to send them.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't get to tell them this, uh, but we uh have decided to support this family uh on a monthly basis as they proclaim the gospel, make disciples, and and plant the church in sensitive area of of Eurasia.
SPEAKER_01: So it's it it really is it really is our our privilege to uh partner with them.
SPEAKER_01: So they have a table set up uh on uh in the lobby on this side.
SPEAKER_01: So stop by the table, grab one of their prayer cards, sign up for their newsletter list, and uh let's let them know that we're behind them in what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: So good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Mike Murray.
SPEAKER_01: I have the privilege of serving Northiron as executive pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say welcome.
SPEAKER_01: It's great to see all of you here in Ishbeming this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome as well to those in Antonagon and Lance and Marquette across the UP.
SPEAKER_01: And I also love the idea that we could have an international audience today as well.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're watching in Ulan Batar in Cairo in Helsinki, welcome as well.
SPEAKER_01: That's a that's uh that's a faith declaration that that the word of God's going around the world.
SPEAKER_01: So I have uh I have the honor this morning of wrapping up our sermon series on uh heroes of the Bible or heroes of the faith.
SPEAKER_01: So we've been in in Hebrews chapter 11 looking at great examples of the faith of God's people.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna turn to that section in uh Hebrews 11, the final nine verses this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bibles, you can turn to uh Hebrews 11, 32 and get a head start.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get there in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a Bible, uh just let one of these gentlemen know and we'll uh we'll make sure you have one.
SPEAKER_01: So what we've seen so far in Hebrews chapter 11 is one example after another of God intervening in the lives of his people.
SPEAKER_01: We've we've looked at people like Noah and Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and uh Joshua, and last week we looked at Rahab, and what we've seen is there are times when God steps into a dire circumstance and changes it to great victory.
SPEAKER_01: And I think if you've been a follower of Jesus for any length of time, you can look back at moments in your life where you've seen the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: You said, I need, I need God's hand in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I need miraculous provision.
SPEAKER_01: You've called out to him, and he's answered that prayer.
SPEAKER_01: I like to refer to this moment as when our faith intersects with God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at great examples of faith, but really the basis of this whole chapter is the faithfulness of God.
SPEAKER_01: It really isn't about us or or our worth.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture says that our faith itself is a gift from God.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have faith, it's because God gave you faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's all a gift, it's all grace.
SPEAKER_01: There, so there are probably moments in in your life where you can look back and see that exhibit of God's grace, the outpouring of his provision and protection in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And I can certainly look back at my own life and see examples.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to start out this morning by telling you about one of these cases.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna have to like jump into our time machines and go back to when I was a teenager.
SPEAKER_01: I was like 16 or 17 years old in this church, and I knew that God at some point in my life would call me to serve him overseas as a missionary.
SPEAKER_01: So I was 16 or 17, and I looked forward to that time.
SPEAKER_01: So all through my 20s, I was I was looking ahead to that time, looking ahead to that moment, preparing myself, letting God kind of form me and transform me so that he could use me.
SPEAKER_01: And that moment came a little over 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: I was in my early 30s, I was married by that point.
SPEAKER_01: We had two preschool aged kids, and we sensed that God was telling us, now is the time, and Kyrgyzstan is the place.
SPEAKER_01: And it was it was a very clear direction from God.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so, all right, we said, all right, we're gonna obey, God's calling us, we're gonna do this.
SPEAKER_01: So we put in our application for appointment.
SPEAKER_01: And I know you've heard Pastor Mark talk about this process of getting approved.
SPEAKER_01: And when I say process, I mean ordeal.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it there's all kinds of stuff involved.
SPEAKER_01: There's committees, paperwork, wiretaps, surveillance drones, private investigators, like maybe not all those things, but it felt like it.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we did in those days, I'm not sure if they still do this, is uh a psych evaluation.
SPEAKER_01: We did some psychological testing.
SPEAKER_01: And what people told us was they want to make sure you're not crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And having served in that organization, I want to say that's partially right.
SPEAKER_01: So they say, yeah, we'll make sure you're not crazy.
SPEAKER_01: What they really want to know is you're not too crazy, but just crazy enough.
SPEAKER_01: There's there's a sweet spot they're looking for, a pocket that they want everybody, because there are some countries, if you're not a little crazy, you're not gonna make it there.
SPEAKER_01: So they so they're looking for not too crazy, just crazy enough.
SPEAKER_01: So when we have kingdom forward partners uh with us, you know kind of that's the pocket that they sit in.
SPEAKER_01: Just crazy enough, right?
SPEAKER_01: So uh so now you know a little bit about our uh our guests today, you know a little bit about me.
SPEAKER_01: You've known this a long time about our lead pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Just crazy enough.
SPEAKER_01: So we we went through this process and they look at uh they look at your history, your education, they dig into your finances, they they want to see uh credit reports, bank statements, and they ask kind of sensitive personal questions about your spending sometimes, like, uh you seem to spend a lot of money at KFC.
SPEAKER_01: Can you explain this?
SPEAKER_01: That that might have happened to somebody I know.
SPEAKER_01: So they uh so we went through this process and they said, All right, we sense that God is calling you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're just crazy enough, you can go to Kyrgyzstan.
SPEAKER_01: And we felt great for a day and a half, and then the panic settled in.
SPEAKER_01: Because the next step in the process is we had to go out and raise all of the support that we were going to need for three years.
SPEAKER_01: They said, you need to get this this much in commitments every month.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a big number, and I knew what the average commitment at the time was, and I figured that we would need 100 financial partners.
SPEAKER_01: So, some combination of churches, families, individuals, businesses.
SPEAKER_01: We needed 100.
SPEAKER_01: That was the target.
SPEAKER_01: So I sat down and said, All right, how many pastors do I know?
SPEAKER_01: Who can I call?
SPEAKER_01: And I started to make a list, and it was a very short list.
SPEAKER_01: I knew a total of five pastors in our network, Wisconsin and the UP.
SPEAKER_01: I knew five.
SPEAKER_01: And I was I was very confident that three of them liked us and would support us, and they did.
SPEAKER_01: A fourth one, I was hopeful that he would return my calls, and he eventually did.
SPEAKER_01: And the fifth one had been one of my youth pastors growing up in this church.
SPEAKER_01: So he knew some things about me, and I wasn't sure if I would ever hear from him again.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, at that point, I had already quit my job as a sports writer.
SPEAKER_01: They'd already hired my replacement, which didn't make me feel great because they had somebody in the wings waiting for me to leave.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so there was no turning back at that point.
SPEAKER_01: Have I mentioned the panic?
SPEAKER_01: Uh early in that process, it would have been like the first week of January in 2005, so that's how long ago this was.
SPEAKER_01: I was attending a retreat with a bunch of other ministers, and I was I was so consumed with this idea of raising the support, I couldn't even pay attention to the speaker.
SPEAKER_01: Like this support-raising mountain in front of me, I was thinking, how how in the world am I gonna make this happen?
SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of that retreat, actually, in the middle of a message, I could show you where I was sitting in the retreat center in Spencer Lake, the Holy Spirit spoke to me.
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't an audible voice, but it was unmistakable.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit of God spoke to me and said this: I've called you and I will provide.
SPEAKER_01: I've called you and I will provide.
SPEAKER_01: And along with that word, God gave me just enough faith to believe it.
SPEAKER_01: So I got home the the following night, just kind of excited to get out on the on the support raising trail like our friends are today.
SPEAKER_01: And before I went to bed that night, I checked my email.
SPEAKER_01: Just wanted just jumped in before I went to bed, and there was a message there from a couple that I hadn't talked to in years, probably hadn't even thought of for years.
SPEAKER_01: These were old acquaintances from college days.
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at that email, opened it up, and they they had somehow heard about our plan to go overseas.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, We love missions, and for for a time they thought that they would serve themselves, but they said we've come to the realization that instead of going and serving ourselves, God is calling us to serve as senders.
SPEAKER_01: That's their exact phrase.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna serve as senders, meaning they're gonna stay here, they're gonna work hard, they're gonna make a lot of money, they're going to give sacrificially so people like us could go.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm reading this going, this sounds great.
SPEAKER_01: Kept going through, and they they said in this email that they were committing to a figure that amounted to 10% of our total budget.
SPEAKER_01: 10%.
SPEAKER_01: This is, I had to read that thing three times to make sure I it wasn't, I wasn't just seeing things through through faith lenses, but I read that thing and and I just sat there and said, one email 10% of our budget from somebody I wouldn't even have thought to ask.
SPEAKER_01: And and the voice of the Holy Spirit kind of echoing in my heart, not for the first time, not for the last time.
SPEAKER_01: I've called you and I will provide.
SPEAKER_01: So my tiny, puny faith intersected with God's immeasurable faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: And I think you can look back at times in your life where you've seen the same thing, and I'm confident that these heroes of the faith that we've been looking at in Hebrews 11 would say the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Because they they realized their need for God, they cried out to him for help, and he answered.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's the story that we've seen so far in the first 31 verses of Hebrews 11.
SPEAKER_01: Now we get to the end of this chapter, uh, beginning in verse 32, and there's a there's a transition.
SPEAKER_01: The writer realizes uh I need to land this plane so I can start talking about some other things.
SPEAKER_01: So let's let's read that that passage.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 11, 32 through 35.
SPEAKER_01: How much more do I need to say?
SPEAKER_01: It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets.
SPEAKER_01: By faith, these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them.
SPEAKER_01: They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword.
SPEAKER_01: Their weakness was turned to strength, they became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight.
SPEAKER_01: Women received their loved ones back again from death.
SPEAKER_01: We love this, right?
SPEAKER_01: We love it.
SPEAKER_01: So the writer is saying, uh, I'm running out of paper here, or parchment, or papyrus, whatever the technology is.
SPEAKER_01: I'm running out of room, I'm running out of time, I need to wrap this up.
SPEAKER_01: I could say a whole lot more, but you already know the stories of Gideon and David and Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: It's more of what we've been hearing through this whole chapter.
SPEAKER_01: It's stories of God's victory, his miraculous provision.
SPEAKER_01: And then right here in the middle of verse 35, there's a change of tone, there's a plot twist.
SPEAKER_01: But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free.
SPEAKER_01: They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips, others were chained in prisons, some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword.
SPEAKER_01: Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated.
SPEAKER_01: They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.
SPEAKER_01: That's quite a that's quite a shift.
SPEAKER_01: Things turned quickly here.
SPEAKER_01: How did we get from mountaintop, miracle, God's provision, to this?
SPEAKER_01: Torture, prison, swords.
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm sure you noticed this part that some were sawed in half.
SPEAKER_01: That kind of jumped out at me, so I did a little research.
SPEAKER_01: This, according to Jewish tradition, is what happened to the prophet Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: So Isaiah was doing his job, he was simply doing his job, right?
SPEAKER_01: Speaking God's truth to the evil king Manasseh, just over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: And Manasseh was really evil, so Isaiah had a lot to say to him from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And Manasseh got sick of it, and he ordered his men to stuff Isaiah into a hollowed-out tree.
SPEAKER_01: And then he ordered his men to cut that tree in half, with Isaiah still inside.
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's a big shift, that's a major plot twist.
SPEAKER_01: And I think the writer of Hebrews realizes at this point that we might be experiencing a little bit of whiplash.
SPEAKER_01: So I think when we when we come to a point like this when um when there's such a dramatic shift, and when there's something so shocking and surprising that it makes us kind of pause, it's helpful if we just take a breath and then ponder a very important theological question.
SPEAKER_01: And that question is this.
SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
SPEAKER_01: Like, where where did this come from?
SPEAKER_01: If you go to seminary, they refer to this as theological reflection.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna reflect on my circumstances based on what the truth I know about God.
SPEAKER_01: Theological reflection.
SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
SPEAKER_01: What's happening here?
SPEAKER_01: How did we get from victory to this?
SPEAKER_01: So I think the the writer realizes that there's been a major shift here, so then he moves into the final two sentences of this passage, verses 39 and 40.
SPEAKER_01: He writes, All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.
SPEAKER_01: For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna admit here, this is a little convoluted, a little opaque, maybe like clear as mud, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh there's there's a lot here, we're gonna work through it.
SPEAKER_01: But what the writer really wants us to know, and this is this is crucial for us as we consider life in this world, it's authentic kingdom faith is not based on our circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: It's not dependent on our circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it very well might be that our greatest expression of faith comes in our suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: The way we most clearly and obviously express our faith could be in our suffering.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna look at this.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is you know, this is one of those hard sections of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We love the victories, we love the miracles, but this is part of it too.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna we're gonna look at that.
SPEAKER_01: What is it what does it mean to live a life of faith in a fallen world?
SPEAKER_01: And I think there are three phrases in this passage that that we're looking at today.
SPEAKER_01: I want to dig into three three different phrases and kind of give us an idea of uh of how to live how to live a life of faith in this world that we're in.
SPEAKER_01: In the good times and the bad times.
SPEAKER_01: So three phrases I want to look at.
SPEAKER_01: The first one comes from verse 39, the first part of that verse, it says, All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: And we're talking about when when the writer says all these people, he means all the people that he's already mentioned in the whole chapter.
SPEAKER_01: The named people, the unnamed people.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about Abel and his offering, Noah and his boat, Abraham and his sacrifice, Rahab and her legacy, David and his armies, Daniel and his lions.
SPEAKER_01: They all experienced that miraculous hand of God and they were commended because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: They earned a good reputation because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: But then there's also this other group.
SPEAKER_01: There are those who were wandering around in animal skins.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here at Northiron we have a ministry called Royal Rangers.
SPEAKER_01: And occasionally you will see men and boys wandering around in animal skins.
SPEAKER_01: That's out of personal preference.
SPEAKER_01: These people had to do that because they weren't welcome in towns and cities.
SPEAKER_01: They had to wear the clothes of animals.
SPEAKER_01: Also, those who refused to turn away from God and were tortured because of it.
SPEAKER_01: And then we have poor Isaiah in his hollowed-out tree sitting there going, wait, what?
SPEAKER_01: The writer says, all of these people earned a good reputation because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: They were all commended because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: So what we see here are two distinct groups of people who are showing us two very different expressions of faith in God.
SPEAKER_01: So we and I want to look at it, just kind of frame it this way.
SPEAKER_01: One of the groups shows us faith that God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: Just the belief that God is bigger, and the second group shows us faith that God is better, a belief that God is better.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna talk about both of those.
SPEAKER_01: So starting with the first one, God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is the kind of faith that we see when we face an obstacle that's so much greater than we are, that we have to call out to God to deliver us from it.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what we've been talking about these last couple of months in this series.
SPEAKER_01: Just the belief that God is bigger than whatever that thing is in front of me right now.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll say this: if you are a follower of Jesus, if you've committed your life to him, if you've trusted him for salvation, you've already experienced a God is bigger moment.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the faith that draws us, pushes us, compels us to call out to him for salvation in the first place.
SPEAKER_01: This is faith that says, I'm a mess, I can't do this on my own, I'm dead in my sin, I can't pay my debt, I can't revive my dead heart.
SPEAKER_01: Only you can do that for me.
SPEAKER_01: That's faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's faith that God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: So we we look at this, and the the apostle Paul in in Romans chapter 10 tells us, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if we if we realize a lot of times that the the fact that we are following Jesus, we're in the kingdom of God, that is a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: You are a miracle, it's a miracle of resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: We were dead in sin, and God reached down and plucked us out of that and gave us life in his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: So God credits the perfection of Jesus, he credits the righteousness of Jesus to our account.
SPEAKER_01: So when God looks at us, he doesn't see us in our in our mess, in our sinfulness, our selfishness, our pride.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't see that.
SPEAKER_01: What he sees is the perfection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then he blesses us with the power of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Every salvation is a miracle of resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: This kind of faith shows us God is bigger than our sinfulness, He's bigger than our financial need, He's bigger than our health concerns, He's bigger than our relational difficulties.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to never lose sight of the fact that we serve a miracle-working God, and God has never stopped performing miracles.
SPEAKER_01: So we should never stop praying for them.
SPEAKER_01: The writer of Hebrews, a little bit later in this letter, in chapter 13, said this.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
SPEAKER_01: What a promise that is.
SPEAKER_01: I love A.
SPEAKER_01: W.
SPEAKER_01: Tozer's kind of paraphrase or explanation of this.
SPEAKER_01: He said, anything God has ever done, he can do now.
SPEAKER_01: Anything God has ever done anywhere, he can do here.
SPEAKER_01: He can do it in North Lake and National Mine and Palmer and Tronic and Autrain and Diorite and even Humboldt.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, Pastor Mike, you're just naming small towns that you know.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_01: But God can do that here.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said, and anything God has ever done for anyone, he can do for you.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll add this anything God has done for you before, he can do again.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great promise.
SPEAKER_01: One more, uh, one more favorite quotation here.
SPEAKER_01: This one's from Hudson Taylor, uh British missionary to China in the second half of the 1800s into the into the early 1900s.
SPEAKER_01: He said this.
SPEAKER_01: There are three stages to every great work of God.
SPEAKER_01: First, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.
SPEAKER_01: This is faith.
SPEAKER_01: This is faith that God is always at work transforming the seemingly impossible into reality.
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you this: where do you need to see this kind of faith in your life right now?
SPEAKER_01: Where do you need to trust him?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe another way to ask this is where does God want you to trust him for a miracle?
SPEAKER_01: Because he can do it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're praying for a son or a daughter, maybe you're praying for a health crisis that you're going for, a financial need.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're praying because you know that God is calling you to something that's far bigger than yourself and you're scared to death.
SPEAKER_01: So let's let's call out to him.
SPEAKER_01: Let's ask him to give us faith to realize that God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the first expression of faith.
SPEAKER_01: God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: The second, God is better.
SPEAKER_01: So the first one, obviously God's bigger than any obstacle in our way.
SPEAKER_01: God is better.
SPEAKER_01: This this shows that God is better than anything that we could get on earth.
SPEAKER_01: He's better than anything life can give, and anything better than death can take away.
SPEAKER_01: It's so much greater.
SPEAKER_01: So, what does this what does it look like in our lives?
SPEAKER_01: So, think about that thing that you've been praying about, that that obstacle, that mountain in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: You're in that mess, you're in you're you're in that difficulty, you're in that mud.
SPEAKER_01: So instead of acting and reacting with fear and anxiety and resentment and anger, God gives us his spirit and gives us the ability to live in a different way.
SPEAKER_01: So this is this is how the apostle Paul put it in Galatians 5.
SPEAKER_01: God gives us his spirit, and then the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
SPEAKER_01: And the thing with the fruit of the spirit is it's never out of season.
SPEAKER_01: Like we have seasons where it's a good time to get oranges, good time to get cherries, it's always a good time for the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This this the spirit can produce this fruit in our lives in every season, in every circumstance, not just when it's all lollipops and rainbows and cotton candy.
SPEAKER_01: And the amazing thing is when we when we can exhibit this kind of fruit in our lives, when we're in the middle of it, whatever it is you're you're going through, you're in the middle of the pain and the sorrow.
SPEAKER_01: When we can exhibit this kind of fruit in our lives, it shows the world around us that God's way is better.
SPEAKER_01: One uh one little uh I want I want to talk about joy, one of the fruits of the Spirit, uh, just as an example of how God's wisdom is greater than the world's.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to compare, contrast joy and happiness, because a lot of people get these confused.
SPEAKER_01: Joy is not the same as happiness.
SPEAKER_01: These are these are different things.
SPEAKER_01: Happiness is is uh a temporary state, a temporary emotional state based on how we feel about our circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: So um bank accounts looking good, I'm happy.
SPEAKER_01: Car hasn't had to go into the shop for months, happy.
SPEAKER_01: The fish are biting, happy.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the blueberry bushes look like it's gonna be a great year.
SPEAKER_01: Happy.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I get to preach to my mom about blueberries.
SPEAKER_01: Blueberries coming soon.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So this is this is all circumstantial.
SPEAKER_01: Happiness is circumstantial.
SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand, we see joy, true biblical kingdom joy that is a fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And and this is a deep, lasting, abiding peace and contentment, regardless of the circumstance that we're in.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's important to note that uh the Bible never promises constant happiness, at least in this life.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There's a place in the gospels where Jesus just flat out tells his disciples, in this world, you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, you know, but don't worry, I've I've overcome the world.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the promise that we're we'll face trouble.
SPEAKER_01: But this but the Bible also shows us that there is joy, true lasting joy through the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So don't settle for chasing momentary happiness when abundant joy is available.
SPEAKER_01: And this is this is the fruit in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Uh one so when when we when we can live in in this fruit, when we can flow in this fruit, when we can demonstrate this fruit in our lives in every circumstance, I think it can be more powerful than a miraculous answer to prayer and building our faith and letting people around us see God is better.
SPEAKER_01: So God is God is better, God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: Um I think also there's there's a there's a sense that when we see people live this way, it builds our own faith.
SPEAKER_01: So uh I I as a believer, this builds my faith.
SPEAKER_01: When I see other believers experiencing joy in the midst of pain, I see that and I don't always understand it, but it builds my faith.
SPEAKER_01: When I see hope in the midst of tragedy, peace in the midst of chaos.
SPEAKER_01: When we talk about God is better, this is the kind of faith we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: The the the work of his spirit and his fruit in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So wrapping up this point, all these people, all these people earned a good reputation because of their faith.
SPEAKER_01: And then the second part is uh of this verse is yet none of them received all that God had promised.
SPEAKER_01: This is the second part of verse 39.
SPEAKER_01: So we're still in this point referring to everybody that the writer has mentioned in this chapter, in Hebrews chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: They've all uh been commended because of their faith, but none have received all that God has promised.
SPEAKER_01: And then this can be a little confusing because a little earlier in this passage, I think it was verse 33, it says, they received what God had promised.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's right there.
SPEAKER_01: So what we see here though is a partial fulfillment of the promise.
SPEAKER_01: Noah really was saved through the ark.
SPEAKER_01: He received that part of the promise.
SPEAKER_01: Sarah really did give birth to a son who became a great nation.
SPEAKER_01: Partial fulfillment of that promise.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua actually did conquer the city of Jericho.
SPEAKER_01: Again, a partial fulfillment of the promise.
SPEAKER_01: But none of these Old Testament figures received all of God's promise because the fulfillment of that promise was still off in the future.
SPEAKER_01: The fulfillment of that promise had not yet arrived.
SPEAKER_01: So we can we can look at um these displays of God's power.
SPEAKER_01: Miraculous healings, divine interventions, provision, these are kind of like down payments on the greater promise that was still to come.
SPEAKER_01: And where we stand in the year of our Lord 2026, the place we stand in history, we can look back and identify what that great promise is.
SPEAKER_01: It's this God Himself has come to rescue and renew all creation through the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: God Himself has come to rescue and renew all creation through the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: This is the gospel, this is what the Old Testament figures figure they sensed was coming, they knew something was coming, and we have the privilege of hindsight and where we are in history and looking back.
SPEAKER_01: Saying, God Himself has come in a powerful way through the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So this is the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And in the next verse, verse 40, we see that God actually has a place for us in this great purpose, in this great plan.
SPEAKER_01: So verse 40 says, For God had something better in mind for us, so he's writing to followers of Jesus, and down through the centuries, this applies to us as well.
SPEAKER_01: So we are now in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: We've kind of been uh, you know, folded into this passage, for God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection or completion without us.
SPEAKER_01: So so here's an image to help us understand that.
SPEAKER_01: The work of faith is like a relay race.
SPEAKER_01: So when I was a kid, middle school, high school, I was a fast runner, I was a sprinter, I got to run sprint events, I also ran relays.
SPEAKER_01: So imagine I'm I'm the first runner in the 1600 relay.
SPEAKER_01: So I have my baton at the start line, the gun goes off, I run my lap, I hand the baton off to the next runner, I go off to the side and retch a little bit because the 400 is a brutal race.
SPEAKER_01: My portion is done, but my work hasn't reached its full completion yet because my team is still out on the track.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's the same thing with these people of the Old Testament, this uh this faith that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01: So the the baton goes uh to Noah, who passes it on to the next generation, and passes eventually makes its way to Abraham and David, and we are all uh part of this as well.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a question like, how does our work, how does our faith bring the faith of Abraham to completion or perfection?
SPEAKER_01: It's because we're still carrying the baton that he passed on.
SPEAKER_01: Like he's he's on the infield of the track, his portion is done, but the team is still out there running this relay.
SPEAKER_01: We are still taking part in God's great purpose of redeeming all of humanity through the work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And until this gospel of Jesus is proclaimed and believed throughout the world, his promise is still unfulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: So we get to run our leg.
SPEAKER_01: So when we understand this, it changes, it changes everything, it changes our perspective.
SPEAKER_01: So when we understand this, that God has a purpose in the world, that we're part of it, that we're running a leg of this relay, it changes how we view faith.
SPEAKER_01: We stop seeing that the point of faith is to make my life easier.
SPEAKER_01: And there's some truth in that, that uh if you follow the wisdom of God, your life's gonna be easier in general than people who don't.
SPEAKER_01: But it helps us to see that the point of faith is showing people, showing the world the power and worth of God revealed in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So this changes how I frame everything I experience.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm going through a circumstance and it feels like I'm walking through the suburbs of hell, no matter what circumstance I'm in, I can ask this question: how can I use this to glorify God?
SPEAKER_01: How can I use this moment to point people to the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: And this will require a shift in perspective for many of us.
SPEAKER_01: It'll require us to stop seeing ourselves as the center of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: Like there was a time in human history where we thought the earth was the center and the universe revolved around us.
SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes we act and think in ways that keep us at the center.
SPEAKER_01: So we need to get off the throne of our lives and let Jesus take his position there.
SPEAKER_01: So, one way, one way to illustrate this.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that you are at a family reunion.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're you're down at Van Riper, you spend the day with cousins and aunts and uncles, and you're on the lake tubing and fishing and eating, and then people start to get ready to leave, and somebody says, Oh, wait a second.
SPEAKER_01: We haven't taken a picture yet.
SPEAKER_01: We got to get a group photo.
SPEAKER_01: So the organizer says, All right, line up, tall people in the back.
SPEAKER_01: Twelve phones make their way to the front.
SPEAKER_01: Photographers, you know, snapping shots.
SPEAKER_01: Then later that night, you're home taking care of your sunburn, and you come across your cousin's social media feed.
SPEAKER_01: And uh what do you do?
SPEAKER_01: You see that picture of your family on there.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
SPEAKER_01: First thing, you look for yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me I'm lying.
SPEAKER_01: You look for yourself, right?
SPEAKER_01: You want to make sure your your eyes are open, make sure you don't have a finger up your nose.
SPEAKER_01: You need to make sure that you're not grinning like sloth in the Goonies.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: And if and if you laughed at that, it means you're you might be a Gen Xer.
SPEAKER_01: So that's my that's my Gen X dog whistle, Goonies.
SPEAKER_01: So this is true.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is human nature.
SPEAKER_01: We put ourselves in the center, and we we filter every experience in life through how it affects us.
SPEAKER_01: And the writer of Hebrews is telling us, and really all of scripture is telling us, yeah, yeah, you're you're in the movie, but you're not the star.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's not your name on the marquee, that's not your picture on the poster.
SPEAKER_01: We we have a part to play in this movie, but we are definitely not the star.
SPEAKER_01: We're not the main character.
SPEAKER_01: This is it's an invitation to step into the story of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The life of faith is an invitation to join with these great men and women of Hebrews 11 in a larger story about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a story in which we have a role to play.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us might even get to talk.
SPEAKER_01: And our our role might be sometimes to thrive, and sometimes it might be to suffer.
SPEAKER_01: But whatever role we're playing, our goal is to point people to Jesus and his infinite worth.
SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you this: what are you going through right now?
SPEAKER_01: What what difficulty?
SPEAKER_01: What unant what unanswered prayer?
SPEAKER_01: And then the next question, after you have that picture in your mind, is how can I use this to point people to Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: So we've we've looked at two phrases already.
SPEAKER_01: All these people earned a good reputation.
SPEAKER_01: None of them received all that God had promised because we're still running the relay race.
SPEAKER_01: The third passage I want to look at here is they were too good for this world.
SPEAKER_01: This is from verse 38.
SPEAKER_01: They were too good for this world.
SPEAKER_01: Another translation says, the world was not worthy of them.
SPEAKER_01: So what is this?
SPEAKER_01: What does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: It's it's an amazing phrase, but what are we talking about here?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a generation of people, or people in all in all generations, who have rejected the values of this world, so the world rejected them.
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected the priorities of this world, so the world rejected them.
SPEAKER_01: They rejected the materialism, the selfishness, the noise, the injustice, the greed of this world, so the world rejected them.
SPEAKER_01: The world was not worthy of them.
SPEAKER_01: These people, whether their prayers are answered, they still believe in that great promise.
SPEAKER_01: When they're crying out to God and it sounds like, it feels like no one is listening, they still put their trust in God.
SPEAKER_01: Always looking upward, saying, I know this kingdom is real.
SPEAKER_01: I know he'll keep his promises, and I know this life of faith is worth it.
SPEAKER_01: I want to close with close with a story.
SPEAKER_01: What's this look like in real life?
SPEAKER_01: So, uh summer of 2012, our family moved to Istanbul, Turkey to work on a church planting team.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the one of the people who met us at the airport was one of my best friends in the world, a guy named Stan.
SPEAKER_01: Stan was a former uh San Diego cop, he was a freelance photographer, one of the funniest people that God ever blessed the earth with.
SPEAKER_01: Just the life of the party.
SPEAKER_01: And uh Stan uh met us there, but uh he and his wife Anne and their two kids embedded themselves in a neighborhood in Istanbul simply to make Jesus famous among them.
SPEAKER_01: Their whole life was about loving Jesus and loving Turks and helping Turks come to see that God is bigger and better.
SPEAKER_01: And this is hard work.
SPEAKER_01: So they would they would call out to God at times and say, God, do whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_01: Do whatever it takes so that our Turkish friends can turn to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So that that was their passion.
SPEAKER_01: So that night at the airport, Stan was there to help us haul our luggage and get settled in our apartment.
SPEAKER_01: And I hadn't seen Stan in a year or two at that point.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I noticed that he'd lost some weight, 15, 20 pounds, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And I uh as we're hauling luggage, I said, Stan, don't take this the wrong way.
SPEAKER_01: But you're looking pretty good.
SPEAKER_01: Like, like, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, I'm trying to try to eat better, get exercise.
SPEAKER_01: But he also mentioned that he hadn't been feeling well lately.
SPEAKER_01: And his family had just been on an expedition out in the eastern part of the country, and he was afraid he had giardia, which is a nasty parasite.
SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of the sometimes the cost of doing business in in places like that.
SPEAKER_01: So, in the next couple of weeks, Stan went to his doctor, told him what was going on.
SPEAKER_01: Doctor put him on antibiotics, he said, we'll knock this giardia out.
SPEAKER_01: A couple weeks go by, and he's still in a lot of pain, still not feeling great.
SPEAKER_01: So doctor says, All right, we're gonna get you some imaging, send him to one specialist, some kind of inconclusive results, send him to another.
SPEAKER_01: And he gets the news.
SPEAKER_01: This this isn't giardia.
SPEAKER_01: Stan has stage four colon cancer.
SPEAKER_01: And Stan had a really good friend uh at the time who was at the very peak of our organization.
SPEAKER_01: The general superintendent of the Assemblies of God was a good friend of his.
SPEAKER_01: So he heard about Stan's diagnosis and said, Stan, called him up in his stumble.
SPEAKER_01: Stan, I'm gonna fly you and your family home.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna pay for it first class.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get you the best oncologists, we're gonna get you the best pain meds, we're gonna do whatever whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna believe God for a miracle, but uh, other than that, we're gonna make you comfortable.
SPEAKER_01: And Stan did not take him up on that offer.
SPEAKER_01: Because Stan, in in all his years in Turkey, had come to see that Turks are scared to death of death.
SPEAKER_01: In their Islamic belief system.
SPEAKER_01: They get to the end not knowing if they'd done enough to earn a place in paradise.
SPEAKER_01: They hoped that their good outweighed the bad, but there was no assurance.
SPEAKER_01: So, of course, there was fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody wanted to talk about dying, nobody wanted to think about dying.
SPEAKER_01: So Stan and Ann absorbed this diagnosis and they prayed through their options.
SPEAKER_01: Do we go back?
SPEAKER_01: What do we do?
SPEAKER_01: And they came to this conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: They would stay in Turkey.
SPEAKER_01: And Stan would die out loud.
SPEAKER_01: That was his phrase.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna die out loud.
SPEAKER_01: What he meant was this.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to show his neighborhood what it was like when a follower of Jesus reached the end.
SPEAKER_01: Because we believe in resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: When we put our trust in Jesus, there's life on the other side.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to be fearful.
SPEAKER_01: There's the promise of God's eternal kingdom waiting for us.
SPEAKER_01: We can reach the end knowing not that we've done enough, but that Jesus has done enough.
SPEAKER_01: So Stan said, I'm gonna stay here and I'm gonna die out loud.
SPEAKER_01: In his journal, Stan wrote this.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have room in your in your head and heart for one thing I say this uh this Sunday, think a picture of this, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, he wrote, sometimes works of sorrow, loss, and sacrifice speak louder than signs, wonders, and miracles.
SPEAKER_01: And we prayed for a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: Stan and Ann prayed for a miracle, hundreds, maybe thousands of people prayed for a miracle in his life.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, Stan said, I'm ready to complete my work of sorrow so that Turks can come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So over the next 11 months, Stan shriveled physically, but he grew into a giant spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: The love of Jesus flowed through him even when he couldn't speak in anything louder than a whisper.
SPEAKER_01: And in that August, during the month of Ramadan, Stan died.
SPEAKER_01: It was at sunset on the most meaningful night of Ramadan.
SPEAKER_01: It's a night the the Turks called a night of power.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of belief around that.
SPEAKER_01: And his neighbors noticed that, and they said, God's hand was on our friend.
SPEAKER_01: And I wish I could stand up here and say that that entire neighborhood turned to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could say that.
SPEAKER_01: Not what happened.
SPEAKER_01: They grieved, they mourned, and then they eventually moved on with their lives.
SPEAKER_01: But there was something happening back here in the States.
SPEAKER_01: God was taking Stan's story and his example and his words, and he was calling dozens of comfortable Americans to give up their small dreams and to take Stan's place on the mission field.
SPEAKER_01: Dozens.
SPEAKER_01: And these new workers arrived, and some of them went out and learned the language and learned the culture, and they went to cities and villages that hadn't seen followers of Jesus in centuries.
SPEAKER_01: And through the power of the Spirit, they they declared, they proclaimed the gospel, and Turkish Muslims have come to faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Stan.
SPEAKER_01: Stan would never say he's too good for this world.
SPEAKER_01: He would never say the world is not worthy of him.
SPEAKER_01: If you said something like that, he'd just mock you to your face.
SPEAKER_01: But his life and death and legacy show us what God can do when we put our hope in a life on the other side of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the legacy of Hebrews 11.
SPEAKER_01: This is the truth that we've been building toward over these two months.
SPEAKER_01: We can demonstrate a faith that God is bigger.
SPEAKER_01: We can demonstrate faith that God is better.
SPEAKER_01: We can get in line and receive the baton from previous generations and run our race and hand it to the next.
SPEAKER_01: And we can cause ripples that spread into eternity when we live in the light of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: The writer of Hebrews said it's impossible to please God without faith.
SPEAKER_01: So, what kind of faith do you need today?
SPEAKER_01: Do you need to believe that God is bigger?
SPEAKER_01: That he's better, that he has a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to pray for you so you can stand.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to pray for you, and I want to invite you to come forward.
SPEAKER_01: What kind of faith do you need today?
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to invite you to come find a place to worship, find a place to listen, find a place to surrender.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we love you.
SPEAKER_01: We know that you love us.
SPEAKER_01: I ask that you will do a work in our hearts this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Show us those obstacles in our way that you are greater, that you can overcome.
SPEAKER_01: Show us ways that you are better, that what you give us is better than anything life can give, and anything better than death can take away.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for the promise.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this word, and we gladly jump in and run our portion of this race.
SPEAKER_01: We pray these things in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this message.
SPEAKER_00: For past sermons, a giving link, and more.
SPEAKER_00: Check out the footnotes below or visit our website at northiron.church.
SPEAKER_00: We hope to see you soon.