After walking through the great heroes of the faith, Hebrews 11:39 says, “All these were commended through their faith.” As I read it, there are two ways these people showed faith. I call them “God-is-bigger” faith and “God-is-better” faith.
God-is-bigger faith is when we face some obstacle that is so much bigger than us, and we have to trust God to overcome it for us. We all have to exercise this kind of faith when we call on God to do a work in our hearts to save us and change us. Being saved means saying to God, “I can’t save myself. I can’t pay my sin debt. I can’t change my heart. I need you to do that for me.” And to every person that calls on God that way, God answers miraculously. “For whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, he is resurrected from the dead, old things have passed away and all things have become new.” He imputes Jesus’ righteousness to your account and infuses the power of his resurrection into your heart.
But that’s not the only time you show this kind of faith.
Sometimes you need miraculous provision, or miraculous guidance, or miraculous healing, or you’re asking God to do a work in someone else’s heart. And God answers in a way that can only be regarded as miraculous. I hope you never lose sight of the fact that we serve a miracle-working God, and God hasn’t ceased doing these things. The whole basis of our faith is that God intervened in history miraculously. He brought resurrection from your death. And he hasn’t ceased bestowing that power.
The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which means that the same miracle-working Savior who walked the streets of Jerusalem years ago still listens to us when we pray today. And often he answers with miracles. Just before he left, he said to his
disciples: “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete” (John 16:14).
“In your name” means according to his will. This is not some kind of divine piñata God is offering to you that you can whack with a faith stick to get out whatever goodies you want. Praying “in his name” means perceiving something God wants to do for his kingdom and then asking him to do the miraculous in pursuit of it.
Hudson Taylor was a British missionary whose bold, borderline reckless acts of faith opened up inland China to the gospel. When everybody else said it was impossible, Hudson Taylor believed that nothing was impossible with God. I love what he said: “There are three stages to every great work of God; first it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.”
Because he and others after him believed God for the impossible, the church has grown faster in China in the last 150 years than it has anywhere else in the world. Even with Mao, President Xi, and all the Communism. This past Sunday, more Christian believers attended church in China than in all the countries of Europe combined, and the number of practicing Christians in China is equal to the number in the United States.
We need another generation with a God-is-bigger kind of faith like that, believing God for the gospel’s advance in unreached nations, college campuses, and career fields today. Taylor said, “All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them.”
God is bigger than whatever obstacle stands in his way. Oh, we need more of this kind of faith in our generation! Let’s pray for it! Let’s be people who trust God for impossible things, who press into unreached people groups with the gospel.
But there’s another type of faith: God-is better faith.
If God-is-bigger faith is when God shows off that he’s bigger than any obstacle, then God-is-better faith is when God uses you to show off that he’s better than any earthly outcome. In God-is-bigger faith, God shows off his power by giving you deliverance; in God-is-better faith, you show off God’s worth by your unflagging hope in the midst of suffering.
What Hebrews 11 shows us is that sometimes God withholds certain answers from us so that he can demonstrate to us that knowing him is more valuable—and, in fact, even more joy-giving—than anything else we might experience on earth.
It’s how God makes himself known to others through us, too. Sure, a miraculous answer to prayer can amaze an unbeliever, and sometimes—I know stories of this—a miraculous answer to prayer led to someone’s faith. But can I tell you what I’ve observed for many years? Quite often (in fact, more often than not), the unbeliever finds a way to write the miracle off, to dismiss it, to convince themselves it was a coincidence, or an exaggeration, or that they’re missing some part of the story.
What seems to be more convincing to the unbeliever is when a believer has joy in the midst of pain, an abiding and unshakeable hope in the midst of tragedy that shows them something better, something greater, something more permanent, than this temporary and decaying world. And that appeals to something deep in their heart. It shakes them and makes them say, “I need this kind of hope. I need this kind of joy.”
About a decade ago, our church did this thing called a “cardboard testimony” service. It was pretty awesome. If you’ve never seen one, they work like this: To the backdrop of some worship song, various church members walk across a stage one at a time, each holding up a 2’x2’ square piece of cardboard. On one side are a few words describing their life before Christ, something like: “Confused and afraid.” “Anxious, worried, and lonely.” “Thought I was never good enough.” And then, after a brief moment, they flip their cardboard over, revealing a brief phrase describing their life since meeting Jesus: “Set free.” “Secure and joyful.” “Beloved daughter.” “Real purpose in life.” Incredibly simple, but very powerful.
The best one I’ve ever seen was a young mom and a middle-aged man who walked out together on stage (this was at another church). On her card, it said, “Diagnosed with MS.” Then the older man held up his sign, which said, “Doctor who diagnosed her—Unchurched.” He then flipped his card over, which read, “Baptized this Easter.” Then, she flipped over hers, which said, simply, “Worth it.”
It was through her joy in suffering, her unquenchable hope, that he saw the reality of a God he’d been able to ignore and marginalize up to that point. Sometimes God is glorified when sick people get well; sometimes he is glorified when sick people suffer well, even die well.
I know we want God to give us the miracle, and I hope you have the faith for that. But are you ready to show the faith that glorifies God if you don’t get the miracle, to say that “God, you are better than anything else that life can give or anything that death could take away”?
Some of us show faith by believing what God can do, but all of us can show faith by resting in who God is.
Photo Credit: SWN Design
Pastor J.D. completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A, serves as a Council member for The Gospel Coalition, and recently served as the 62nd president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pastor J.D. and his wife Veronica are raising four awesome kids.
"Editor's Note: Pastor JD Greear's "Ask the Pastor" column regularly appears at Christianity.com, providing biblical, relatable, and reliable answers to your everyday questions about faith and life. Email him your questions at [email protected]."
