I know that is a strange sermon title: Does God have feelings of pride or does He need to feel proud? But that is what this week’s text says – “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” On the Journey of faith we are looking at different people from Hebrews 11 that are commended for their faith. Right in the middle of covering Abraham’s stellar faith is a parenthetical break in verses 13-16 where the writer of Hebrews adds some commentary on what it means to be a person of faith. It concludes with that statement about God not being ashamed.
As we work our way through Hebrews 11 and the Journey of Faith, it is a reminder to each of us that we too can be enshrined in the Hall of Fame of Faith if we seek to follow the example of the heroes listed in this great chapter. Join me this Sunday as we discover how to live with faith that makes God proud.

Last summer Sue and I rode the Ferris Wheel at Carolina Beach for the first time. If you saw me that day, you would have noticed that I was more nervous than the average person is to ride a Ferris Wheel because I have an all too real fear of riding Ferris Wheels. When I was a young boy, the carnival used to come to our town every fall and I loved all the rides, including the Ferris Wheel, until I didn’t. You could say my faith got shaken in the safety of Ferris Wheels. One year I was there when they were assembling the rides, and I saw the people that were putting them together or should I say I saw the condition of the people putting the rides together. They were all drunk or high on drugs and I asked myself the question, do I have enough faith in them to put that Ferris Wheel together correctly? Was I willing to put the wellbeing of my life in their hands? The answer was no, and for years I would not ride on a Ferris Wheel because the object of one’s faith matters. In that situation, the object of my faith to ride a Ferris Wheel had to be in the men that were assembling the ride. I decided the object of my faith was lacking the proficiency for me to put my life in their hands.
When it comes to our spiritual life, we need to determine what is the object of our faith. For some people, the object of Christianity is the church. Some churches actually push this kind of thinking, but any church, including ours, will be found insufficient to meet all of our spiritual needs. Some people think of the pastor or a spiritual leader as the object of their faith. Others will look to a family member they admire as the object of faith. Many people look to themselves as the object of their faith. They may think, “Other people have let me down so the only person I trust is myself.” All of these people, including ourselves, will fall short of meeting our needs for time and eternity. Only God should be the object of our faith because He alone can meet our every need for time and eternity. This Sunday we will start to look at the life of Abraham on the Journey of Faith, as a man who made God and God alone the object of his faith. We will see from Hebrews 11:8-12 and other passages how Abrahm did this and the blessing it brought to him and others. Join us as we consider how the Object of our faith Matters.

A primary tenant of Christianity is that we receive salvation by faith and not by our works. Ephesians 2:8 & 9 makes that very clear: “It is by grace you have been saved through faith . . . not by works.” But works do play a significant role in the Christians life. While we don’t work to gain our salvation, we are saved to do good works.

On our tour through the Hall of Fame of Faith in Hebrews 11, this Sunday we look at the life of Noah. Hebrews 11 only devotes verse 7 to his life, but that one verse is a powerful commentary on the historical record of his life in Genesis 6-9. Noah is a great example of how genuine faith in God is validated by an active work for the glory of God. Noah devoted over 100 years of his life working in obedience to God building the Ark. His work was an act of faith! What Noah did was the equivalent of building an ocean liner in the middle of Kansas. It didn’t make sense to most people and Noah faced a lot of ridicule for doing this. But that didn’t stop him because he believed God’s word to be true. 

We are called to obey God in some ways that are counter to the trends of our current culture. Following God doesn’t always make sense to the world around us and we at times may face ridicule. Noah and his family were saved from God’s judgement in the flood because he acted in faith to God’s Word. If you have become a Christian by faith in God’s redemptive work through Christ, good works should follow. And like Noah, when you are active in the work of God, lives will be saved from the coming judgement. Join me this Sunday for a fascinating look into the life, faith and work of Noah to see how we can be like this hero of the faith.

This Sunday we look in Hebrews 11:4-6 at the first inductees to the Faith Hall of Fame: Able and Enoch. Neither of these men were some of the more famous or even consequential personalities from the book of Genesis, yet here they are at the beginning of the list. The reason they are in Hebrews 11 is because Able and Enoch both lived out their faith as an act of worship to God. Able brought a better sacrifice (the kind that conveyed a true worship of God) and Enoch spent his entire life simply walking with God in a very wicked society. As we strive to be faithful in our Christian journey we would do well to consider how these two men worshiped God.

Worship is the appropriate response of a sinful human toward a Holy God by first acknowledging who God rightfully is and then admitting who we are in comparison to God: sinners in need of His mercy and grace. Once we understand this, we can stop trying to prove our worth and simply live by faith in the abundant grace of God. That allows us to worship God with a pure motive because we love Him. Join me this Sunday as we continue The Journey of Faith!