Sermon for St Edward’s, Sun 10 August, 2025.
Readings: Hebrews 11.1–3, 8–16 / Luke 12.32–40
Have any of you ever been to Hollywood? Have you seen the Walk of Fame? I’m sure you all know what I mean – stars set into the pavement, featuring the names of famous movie stars?
The whole thing began in the 1950s when E M Stuart, who served as the President of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce proposed the idea, to “maintain the glory of a community whose name means glamour and excitement in the four corners of the world.” Construction began in 1960 with 8 stars, most of whom we wouldn’t recognise today but some might know the name of Bert Lancaster.
A committee now meets once a year to look at nominations, and the original team included such names as Cecil B. DeMille, Samuel Goldwyn and Walt Disney. 24-30 ‘stars’ are chosen each year by a committee, and the process is very rigid. If someone is accepted the person who nominated them has to pay a fee of $85,000! Despite this there are now over 2600 stars. Only the most famous or “worthy” are selected. The committee looks at things like, professional achievement, longevity, contributions to the community, and they need a guarantee that the celebrity will attend the dedication ceremony if selected.
Our passage today from Hebrews, of which we heard about half, is sometimes called the Hall of Faith or the Heroes of Faith. We don’t see all their names in the section we heard today but they include Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, David and Samuel…
What is it that is so special about them? why do they get into this hall of faith?
Well, these are people, we read, who are honoured for their faith. vs 2 says,
Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval [from God]
For God, inclusion on the roll of honour, comes from living a life of faith. It’s not about individual glory, or fame, indeed most of these people were not known until well after their death when their stories were shared.
And notice these are not all the central figures of the OT. Yes we have Abraham and Sarah, but Enoch and Rahab? do any of you remember what they did?
For example, we actually know very little about Enoch at all. He was the great great great grandson of Adam and the great grandfather of Noah. There are several non canonical books ascribed to him – i.e. non canonical means not in the Bible.
Gen 5:24 tells us this one thing about his life:
24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.
Enoch did not die, God took him straight to be with him.
And Rahab? well her story is shared in Joshua 2.
Joshua had sent 2 spies to check out Jericho, and they stayed in the house of Rahab, who was a prostitute. The King found out about the spies and demanded Rahab give them up, but instead she hid them on the roof of her house. Rahab said that she had come to believe in God because her and the people saw that the Lord had given them victory in battle. She said, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land…’ The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. (vs 9-11). Then she asked for their help so that when they came to attack the city, her and her family would be safe. She helps them escape and they tell her to tie a red cord in her window as a sign that it is her house.
Later in Joshua 6 we read that the spies do indeed go in and rescue her and her family.
Rahab had faith in God but she was not a Jewish woman, she saw the work of God and was convinced by it.
The people in our Hebrews 11 list are all very different but the thing they all had in common was faith. They believed and trusted in God. That is what matters to God. Indeed vs 6 tells us ‘without faith it is impossible to please God’.
So, what do we learn from them and their faith? How can they be helpful to us in our own walk of faith?
Firstly, we read in v3 that it is by faith we understand that ‘the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible’.
We believe in a God who created the world out of nothing. ‘ex nihilo’ we call it, Latin for from nothing. We didn’t see it being made but we believe God did, that is an act of faith that is a fundamental reminder for us all. If we can believe that God made the world (however that happened, in 7 days or through a big bang) which none of us saw, then surely we can have faith for other smaller things too?
Then as the passage goes on, we learn from the heroes of faith. From those we didn’t hear about in verses 4-7 we have:
Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve. Abel looked after flocks, Cain the crops. And in Genesis 4 we read that Cain brought ‘an offering from the crops’, but Abel brought the firstlings of his flocks – the first fruits as it were. Giving of the first fruits was always done with the faith that God would ensure the rest of the flock or harvest would be productive and healthy.
So Abel is mentioned in v4 here. God saw his gift as righteous because he trusted, he had faith and he gave his first born lambs. Cain was just going through the motions.
Abel gives us an example of righteousness from a place of faith. He did the right thing by God. He trusted God for provision.
Then there’s Noah – Noah had the most amazing act of faith. Have any of you seen the film ‘Evan Almighty’ with Steve Carrell? It’s a funny take on Noah’s Ark but it shows just how much Noah did in his act of faith. I mean can you imagine? there was no rain in sight, in a very dry land, and this man says God told him to build a massive boat. It must have cost him a lot. In time, financially – all that wood!, and his reputation – what did people think of him? Was he resected or a laughing stock?
But we read in Gen 6:9, ‘Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God.’Noah acted out of faith because be trusted and believed in God in eveything.
And then as we heard in our reading, Abraham. Abraham had the most amazing faith. At the age of 99 God told him to go to a place far from his home, to take his family with him, and gave him a promise for the future. God said,
‘for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 ‘(Gen 19:6-7)
And he went, he didn’t know where he was going or how he would provide for his family, or whether they would be safe. But he went because God asked him. And because God gave him a promise, mostly for a future Abraham would never see. He would never see the ending.
By faith 19:8, Abraham obeyed when called and set out not knowing where he was going. v9 by faith he stayed for a time in a foreign land, he had been promised, v11 By faith he was given the gift of children in his and his wife’s old age. I mean Abraham literally trusted God for every aspect of his life.
And of these first few in the list (Abraham, Sarah, Abel, Noah, Enoch) we read that they died in faith withouthaving received the promises God had given to them. They lived their whole lives in faith, trusting in a promise for their ancestors, a hope and a future for others.
We touched on Peter last week, and often the disciples are reminders for us that it’s ok to make mistakes, to get things wrong, which is a really helpful reminder for us, we’re all broken people in one way or another. But it is also good to be reminded of people who did amazing things for God, who serve as an example to us. It is good to be inspired to be better than we are, to do more, so long as it doesn’t become a stick to beat ourselves with! I hope that when we read of people like these it helps us to be more faithful, to ‘up our game’ as it were.
Do we live our lives to be faithful, to be led by and to trust in God and God’s plans for us? or do we value personal glory, success and achievement like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
We said goodbye to our dear sister Penny this week. I’ve said it several times, we all have, but there was a woman with an amazing faith. It was wonderful to hear how much she had impacted so many, at her service on Thursday. Penny wasn’t a celeb, she wasn’t famous. She received an award yes, but for her service to God, not because of any personal seeking glory. She was someone who always sought the glory of God, living a life of obvious faith.
I think the main challenge for each of us through this passage is what are we seeking out of life? Are we seeking glory and honour or success for ourselves, or are we seeking glory for our God? Are we living lives of faith, being led unto God’s plans and purposes, or going our own way?
French philosopher Blaise Pascal is famously quoted as talking of a ‘God shaped hole’ in our lives. Let me read you what he wrote (translated from the French),
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in [humankind]a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?
This [we try] in vain to fill with everything around [us], seeking in things that are not there the help [we]cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself“.
Blaise Pascal ‘Pensees’ (New York; Penguin Books, 1966).]
So often we seek to fill this sense of emptiness within us with other things. Just like the Hollywood walk of fame, society seems to value more and more success, achievement, making a name for oneself, fame, money, power…
But all God seeks of us is to live lives of faith.
We don’t need to be or do anything other than we are, who God has made us to be, and recognising God in our lives. That faith of course may lead us to want to serve or to do or to give or to help but our foundation is a life of faith.
So let us be inspired by these heroes of faith in the Bible and around us, to build our lives of faith, feeding our faith, building it up, so that we give glory to God in all we do.
Amen
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