FAITH LIKE CANDY

Too often Christianity is packaged and sold like any other product a person buys; cars, clothes, cereal, whatever... As if, when you, by faith, confess with your lips, repent of your sin, ask Jesus into your heart, and make Him Lord of your life, then your life will become unicorns and rainbows over night. Is this true? Who are the "others" in Scripture? Are you an "other"? Read with me and find out!

How big is your faith? Our greatest faith is exercised in adversity. Have you ever taken pride, in your faith? What kind of idiot would do that? I’ll give you one guess! Yep…ME!!!!

Some years back, I sat proudly in church, my chin raised and my chest puffed out as a preacher recounted the boy, in John 6:9, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish…”

And in faith that boy gave all that he had that the multitude (about 5,000 men) would be fed to the glory of God. As I sat and listened I decided I was just like THAT BOY and that I too had offered God all that I had, all my bread and all my fishes! 

It didn’t take long for God to grab me by the nap of the neck and show me my sin, my foolish pride, and bring deep conviction; the kind that humbles you and leaves you exposed and broken with an affirmed dependence upon God’s great grace and His ability to love a sinner like me. 

What is faith? “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for…(v1-2)

What is BIG FAITH?

"By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.” (v29)

“By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.”(v30)

Big faith “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised” (v33)

Big faith “shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword” (v34)

Big faith turns weakness into strength, becomes powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.(v34)

Big faith can even raise the dead!!!“Women received back their dead, raised to life again.”(v35)

THAT is the kind of faith we should aspire to as Christians! That’s the kind of faith I aspire to! We all want that winning kind of faith, that prosperous faith, that conquering faith! The kind of faith people can see and be inspired! The kind they can see and praise God and worship Him fully and completely. 

But there’s an even BIGGER FAITH! This bigger faith is the kind that costs you! It costs you greatly and possibly the people you love! Your family! Your friends! This is the faith that “the others” have, listen… 

“There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. (v35) 

“Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. (v36)

“They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— (v37)

^“the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.(v38)

Maybe you’re feeling like one of “the others” right now? Maybe you’re destitute, depressed, lonely, homeless, or desperately poor? Maybe you feel like you’ve done or at least tried to do everything right but your world is falling apart, your health is failing and you just cant seem to catch a break! If that’s you today, you are in great company! And you can learn something from the lives of “the others”.

While all of the saints mentioned were commended for their faith, they didn’t receive what was promised in this life, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (v39)

But how did they do it??? How did they keep their faith in such desperate and dire circumstances??? 

Here is the lesson friends, lift your eyes to heaven and fix them upon the promises of God! You may not receive those promises in this life and that’s okay because God has planned something better for you!!! A new home! A better country! A heavenly one! A city prepared by God, for you! Fix your eyes upon Him, through His Word, and find peace and rest in knowing He’s not against you, He’s working for you in the same way He did with these great Saints of old. 

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (v13-16)