And the Second Greatest of These...

Hebrews 11:1-16

Here today we encounter the great faith 'continental divide' of the letter to the Hebrews. The first ten chapters have reveled in the superiority of Jesus above all angels & patriarchs & priests. He has been presented as the better covenant, sanctuary, & sacrifice. Now these last three chapters seem to ask of us, "So how will you respond to this Jesus?".

And to prime us for this question, the extraordinary model of old testament saints looking forward to promise is held out for us. But two provocative claims arrest my attention before entering the corridors of the faith hall of fame lined with such personalities as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah.

The second of these is the claim of verse 3,
By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

In other words, even before the patriarchs' faith is held up for admiration, the creation story is held out to us as the first repository of faith. I won't try to untangle much of the ongoing debate over the relationship of faith and scientific discovery in understanding creation. But, we ought not miss at least this simple assertion in verse 3: it necessarily will require faith to grasp understanding of a creation whose Genesis of formation rests with "God's command". It necessarily will require faith acceptance that all "natural" that can be seen ultimately comes from His unseen Word. There is no microscope large enough to put God beneath. At some point, at some time, all will bow confessing that creation entirely belongs to God.

But the first marvel to me is in the first verse of the chapter, and is something I have never noticed in scores of reading it before.
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen...

Here is what I notice: the great Apostle told us at the end of his I Corinthian 13 'love chapter' that, Three things will last forever - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love. But here, in Hebrews 11:1, I believe I hear today that "the second greatest of these is faith". Hope is an extraordinary thing. I couldn't face a morning without hope. Life is despair without hope.

But, faith is hope's improvement. Perhaps any human being possesses some measure of hope, but it is faith - faith in this better Jesus we have been hearing about for ten chapters - that gives us the bedrock confidence that God's promises we hope for will actually happen. When our eyes are turned in faith to this Jesus, His love, His sacrifice for us -- in that focus, that resting, all my hope is given confidence. Does some part of life seem hopeless? God give us faith to believe Jesus.

-Pastor Paul