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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text today is that letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11. Please be seated.
And in that chapter 11, it talks a lot about faith. And there’s a lot that can be said about faith. Faith is blind. Faith is knowing and not seeing. Amen. In the Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street, faith gets defined as believing in things when common sense tells you not to. And in a more recent movie called The Book of Eli, faith means you know something even though you don’t know it.
Well, a little more on the negative side, religious faith sometimes gets called a crutch. A crutch for weak people. A crutch for weak people to get through life. Maybe you’ve heard that or even have had to answer to that accusation about faith. But is faith a crutch? That’s a question I want to try to address today, along with the question, just what is faith?
And in that reading to the Hebrews today, in that reading is often what’s called the hall of fame of faith. This list of these Old Testament people who were commended for their faith. Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, all these people were commended for their faith and this is called the hall of fame of faith. I think it’s either funny or interesting, one of the two, that this reading, and it happens today, comes on Hall of Fame weekend for the National Football League. God has a great sense of humor.
God’s people have always been people of faith. It’s very important to understand because faith has always been this connector between people and God. Right? Faith has always been how people have a relationship with God. More so, it’s always been by faith that people are saved, how they’re forgiven of their sins by God. Faith is how people receive God’s grace and mercy. Yeah, even in the Old Testament, right? Even before Jesus came, it’s always been by faith that the people of God are, well, the people of God.
It’s always been by faith that the people of God are the people of God. And we can see that in the first two verses of the reading from Hebrews, which starts out with yet another definition of faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. There’s the biblical definition of faith. Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don’t see. In this, we can see how faith works.
That for the people of the Hall of Fame of Faith, their faith was in something not seen, but they were sure of it. Sure of it because it had been promised by God. And that promise was a Savior, which the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, call the Messiah. This was a person who someday was going to come, sent by God, to deliver his people from sin and to connect them in a relationship with God that gave us His grace and mercy. Faith is that connector.
In verse 2 of the reading, because of faith, they received their commendation. Not by what they did, but not by their works, not by how they responded to what God said to them, but by faith. These Hall of Famers of the Old Testament, that’s how they received from God this promise. They had faith in that coming Savior. And they were sure and certain of that, even though they hadn’t seen it, they were sure and certain because God had promised it.
Of course, we have the privilege of now being able to look back on God’s promise being fulfilled in Jesus. In his coming to earth in a virgin birth, taking on human flesh and dwelling with us and suffering like us and then dying on the cross for us and then rising again. Jesus did all of this to fulfill that promise, that the Hall of Famers believed and had faith in the promise that God would save His people, forgive their sin, take away death, and give them eternal life.
That’s how they received that promise, and that’s how we receive it too, by faith. Like the Old Testament Hall of Famers, we’re sure and certain because God promised it. And we have faith in that. See, the Christian faith isn’t a blind faith. You always hear that people talk about, well, faith is blind. And to be a Christian, you have to have blind faith and just believe things. Not true.
The Christian faith is built on what eye and ear witnesses saw and proclaimed and wrote down. We’re talking about the apostles of Jesus, right? Who followed him, were with him, heard him, and then they proclaimed this and wrote about it too. It’s a false assumption that the Christian faith is just built on old stories and superstitions or myths from an outdated book. Far from it. Christianity, the Christian faith, is based on history. On actual events witnessed by people.
The Christian faith is based on a historic person, Jesus. The Apostle John really writes about this well in one of his letters. He says, “What we’ve seen and heard, we proclaim to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.” See, the Christian faith is history. Or better yet, it’s his story. The Christian faith is in Jesus. The Christian faith is in the story of Jesus. In faith in what Jesus has done.
Faith in his death and resurrection. And faith in the promise to deliver us from sin and death. The same promise that the Old Testament Hall of Famers believed, we believe too. That Jesus’ death on the cross and the punishment for sin would be fulfilled. And forgiveness and eternal life are promised to us because of that.
Like the Old Testament faithful, we too have faith in what’s not seen: a promise. A promise of the forgiveness of sins. That’s been fulfilled in a historic, real person in his real death and resurrection. And that promise of grace and mercy comes through Christ’s work for us. And we receive it by believing it, by having faith in it.
When a person makes a promise, you can only believe that they’re going to do it. And in Jesus, it’s happened. And our faith is in what he’s done for us. So, is faith a crutch? Is faith a crutch for weak people? Well, aren’t all people weak? Aren’t all people imperfect, troubled, worried, stressed? It’s like we’re all limping around in life in need of help in some way.
Don’t all people, don’t we all need something to lean on in life? Even worse. It’s not only that we’re all weak, imperfect, and troubled, and worried, and stressed. We’re all sinful. We all break human laws. We all break God’s laws. And not only can we be worried and stressed and imperfect and weak, but sin can cripple us. We can walk around in life crippled by sin and burdened by it and not able to get any help. There seems to be no help, nothing to lean on.
But there is. There’s faith. Faith for us to lean on. To lean on God’s promises to save us, to forgive us, to forgive our imperfection, our troubled, worried, stressed out lives. Yes. To forgive the weakness of our sins and to forgive us. So, can Christians agree that faith is a crutch? Sure, I think we can say that. It’s a good one. It’s a good one because we all need something to lean on.
Even those Old Testament Hall of Famers, they needed to lean on God’s promises. They needed that crutch. Frankly, I don’t know how people who don’t have that crutch get through life, especially in difficult times. So yeah, is faith a crutch? Yeah. Even when people accuse you of it or kind of make fun of you and say, well, faith is just a crutch for weak people, I think you can say to them, yeah, it is. And maybe they’ll be surprised about that, but you can say, yeah, I think faith is a crutch.
Because I need something to lean on in life. And if they’re truthful, they’ll admit that they are too. But at the same time, faith isn’t a crutch. Or I should say, it’s at least not only a crutch. Faith is much more than that. See, because it’s one thing that we know that sin makes us imperfect and stressed and worried and crippled in life, but it’s actually much worse than that.
The Bible describes sin as making us spiritually dead. Dead. Yes, sin is that bad. Your sin is that bad. When you break God’s laws or sometimes hurt other people or lie or cheat or steal, no matter what level you think it is or how little it is, it is that bad that it makes you spiritually dead. Think about it. What do dead people do? Nothing. They just lay there. They can’t even lean on anything. Dead people need more than a crutch. Right? They need a crane.
They need a crane to pick them up from their spiritually dead life and raise them up to one of God’s grace and mercy, and to give them life. And faith is that crane that raises you up in the forgiveness of sins and gives you life. Check out a couple of these verses. This is from Ephesians, where Paul says, “You were dead in your sins, but because of his great love for you, God, who is rich in mercy, made you alive with Christ, even when you were dead in sins.”
And from Colossians, Paul also says, “When you were dead in your sins and your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ, and he forgave you all your sins.” Excuse me. So faith isn’t just a crutch that you lean on. It’s also a crane. Faith is a crutch, but when you think about it, nobody can even limp into heaven. You need something to pick you up and take you there and put you there.
Picked up, raised to spiritual life, and put in heaven. That’s your faith. Faith in what Jesus has done to forgive your sins, to give you life. And faith takes a hold of that promise, and that gives you life. Faith is a crutch. Faith is a crutch. But it’s more than that. It’s a crane.
So now, whenever you are driving around Austin and you see one of the many construction cranes in Austin, you can be reminded of this faith that you have and the promises of Jesus that give you life, raising you from your spiritual deadness—if that’s a word—into life.
And when people criticize you about faith as just being a crutch for weak people, again, you can agree with them and say, yeah, yeah, I’m weak. I need a crutch to lean on. I need my faith. And if they’re honest, they’re going to agree and say that they do too. But don’t leave it there. Tell them that all people are weak, and they’re troubled, and they’re stressed, and they’re limping around this world, and they need something to lean on.
And you can tell them about your faith in Jesus. How you lean on that, but keep going. You can tell them also that what your faith has done for you in giving you life, your faith has given you life. You can tell them they too are dead in their sin. They need God’s promises of Christ and their forgiveness for their sins, and they too need to be raised by that crane of faith.
Tell them about where this takes them, where the crane can take them. The faith in the promises of God takes you into eternal life in heaven where we’re all inducted into the hall of fame of faith. Faith in the promise of Christ’s work, of his forgiving, saving, life-giving work for you. Amen.
