Text: Hebrews 11:1-12:3 (selected verses read in worship)

As some of you have heard me say before, our faith is more than what we believe. I can believe a parachute will work, but having faith in a parachute involves jumping out of an airplane actually trusting the parachute with my life.

The question is, what is the parachute we trust? Whether we are aware of it or not, each of us lives by faith. The question is, in what do we place our faith? What do we trust so much, that it shapes the priorities of our daily living?

Some of us place our faith in comfort; believing being comfortable makes life worth living we give ourselves to the pursuit of comfort. Some of us place our faith in our children; believing what our children are and will be justifies our lives, we invest ourselves totally in our children, and we lay on them the responsibility for giving our lives meaning. Some of us place our faith in making money; believing money will give us the power and importance that will make our living matter, and the pursuit of money shapes our priorities.

When the writer of the Book of Hebrews wrote about faith, he was referring to a very special faith; the faith that shaped the living of Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Miriam, Gideon, David, Amos, and the list goes on and on. It is the kind of faith, confidence, trust we see in Jesus when he prayed, "Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done."

This is the kind of faith the Bible calls us to live. It is faith in God as God has made himself known in and through Jesus Christ. This is the kind of faith that trusts that the cross of Christ and other crucifixions of goodness and love we observe and experience are not the last word in life. This faith is living in the confidence that good will finally overcome evil. It is trusting the Easter proclamation that God finally wins. This faith enables us to live with hope, with confidence in God, regardless of the problems we see or the pain we must endure.

But all too often our days are so overwhelmed with bad news and painful experiences, it is difficult to believe God wins. It is difficult to believe that the God of grace and justice revealed in the Bible is the Lord of history -- especially in this world of Enron scandals and terrorists, in this world of C.E.O.s demanding multi-million dollar salaries while laying off workers because the corporation is not making more profit, in this world where winning the contract is used to justify cutting ethical corners, in this world where racial or ethnic prejudice continue to influence who gets the job or the raise, in this world where the uneducated poor are blamed for their poverty, in this world where hundreds die each day because of bad water and too little food, in this world where AIDS is rampant among so many impoverished nations, in this world where more is wrong than this brief list describes. To have hope while facing all this requires profound faith in God, the kind of faith the writer of Hebrews described as an assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Childless, Abraham and Sarah were old, well beyond child bearing age, and yet God continued to promise their descendents would be a great multitude. They lived with an inner assurance of things hoped for and with a confidence of things not seen. They had trouble believing the promise; at one point they even laughed at it, and yet they trusted - they lived by faith.

Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, living in exile herding sheep for his father in law, was called by God to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrew people from slavery. Moses had trouble believing, and yet he went - he lived by faith. He lived in an assurance of things hoped for and a conviction of things not seen.

So, what does it look like when our living is shaped by this kind of faith? We look at little bit like Abraham and Moses. Our faith exceeds our beliefs, and it is not at all unusual for our faith in God and God's grace to lead us, even push us, beyond the our familiar ways and our old notions of what serving God meant. Trusting the grace of God revealed in Christ, we move out in love, striving to love others as God in Christ has loved us. And as we do this, we find ourselves making discoveries in life that cause us to make changes in the beliefs that had previously mapped out our living. We are like explorers, making corrections to the map we started with. We move out by faith, not just any sort of faith, but faith in God as revealed in Christ, and as we move along, we discover our perceptions of life and God have to change if they are to reflect accurately what we have come to know because of our faith in God as revealed in Christ. When we live by faith in God, we live by faith in God.

Because we live, trusting God who raised Christ from dead, we live in the confidence that God wins. We live in faith, trusting that regardless of the mess we are in God does not abandon us, and not only does God forgive us for whatever needs forgiving, God embraces us in his family, giving our lives eternal meaning as we serve God's eternal purpose. When we live in faith we live in the confidence that God not only reclaims us from the mess we have made but that God is at work with us as we deal with the problems we face; we live trusting that somehow, someway God will use our efforts for good -- even though we may never know the use God makes of our efforts. We live in faith, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. To live in faith, is to live with confidence in God. And because of this confidence in God, we are able to live with a peace and joy we world seldom understands.

When we live by faith in God as revealed in Christ, we are not like a floating bit of dust, blown this way and that by the winds of the world; instead, we are like a ship on a mission heading into the future with purpose. We can face the future with confidence because we are living by faith, faith in God as revealed in Christ. We can let go of what is behind us -- the old hurts and the wonderful memories. We can let them go because we are moving on in faith.

When we live, trusting what has been revealed in Christ, we understand the New Testament riddle about the last being first and the first, last, and so we are set free to go to the end of the line at the status symbol market place. When we live by faith in Christ, like Jesus we too cry when our friend dies. We may even shake our fist at God and shout: "Why?" Or even cry out to God as Jesus did: "My God why have you forsaken me?" And yet, because we live by faith, the kind of faith we see in Jesus, we continue trusting God, even though the answer to our cry is one of silence.

When we live by faith, we are even able to climb into our caskets singing: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." When we live by faith, we can face hurricanes, cancer, car wrecks, business failures, broken love affairs, wars, hunger and not be defeated. Because when we live by faith, we know that even though our journey is taking us through life's darkest valleys, we will not be destroyed -- not even if we die. By faith we trust the profound truth proclaimed in the resurrection.

Whether we are aware of it or not, each of us lives by faith. The question is, in what do we place our faith? What do we trust so much, that it shapes the priorities of our daily living?

The kind of faith mentioned in the passage we read is trusting God as revealed in Christ with all we are and have. Having this kind of faith shapes the way we view life and deal with whatever comes our way -- be it some wonderful success or the tragedies that drive us to our knees. When we live in faith, trusting God as revealed in Jesus Christ, we are able to live our lives with a profound kind of confidence (not in ourselves as much as in God) and to experience a strange, unexplainable joy.

When we live by this faith and see a baby born, we see more than a baby born. When live by this faith and see persons in love, we see more than persons in love. When we live by this faith, and see a night sky sprinkled with stars, we see far more than stars in the darkness. When we live by this faith and see neighbors bringing food in a crisis, we see more than deeds of helpfulness. When we live by this faith and see strangers stopping to lend a hand, we see more than an act of random kindness. When we live by this faith, we see more than eyes alone can see, and we are able to affirm: "Life is an experience filled with grace and truth."

God, by your grace, through your grace give us this faith. Amen.

Pastoral prayer:
God, many of us are carrying loads of worry. Some of those worries are related to people we love; some of us are worried about business or jobs; some of us are worried about our health; some of us are worried about problems facing us as a society. God, you know what burdens us. Teach us how to let go of our worry while at the same time staying engaged, doing what we need to do. Expand and deepen our faith in you so we will have the inner peace that enables us to be our best selves, doing our best work. Give us the faith we need so we are able to discern what is truly important and set free from wasting our energies majoring on the minors. May your Holy Spirit work within us, so we are able to discern what you want us to do and able to recognize what we need to let go. Nourish our faith so that even in the difficult times we are able to live with confidence and even joy, trusting you and your love. Help us live as Jesus was teaching us to live when he taught us to pray: "Our Father ...."