Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Text: Hebrews 11:1-16 | Liturgical Date: Pentecost 9, Proper 14 C | Calendar Date: August 10., 2025 | Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County
316 W. Main St.
Forestville, WI 54213
920-856-6420
https://doorcounty.church
I had the great privilege this last week of going to Fort Benning in western Georgia, right on the border of Alabama. My son, Thomas, graduated from Airborne School on Friday. Airborne School is where you learn how to deploy from an airplane via parachute to defend the nation. Twenty-one years ago, believe it or not, your pastor was a lean, mean fighting machine.
My weapon was the word of God as a chaplain candidate. I went through Airborne School as well and graduated 21 years ago. It was a great honor to earn the paratrooper wings and to pin those on Thomas on Friday. However, Mary and I witnessed probably one of the more terrible things I’ve seen in my life. On Thursday night, as they were making some of their final jumps and the sun was setting, I was looking off to the right when Mary said, “Chris, what’s going on over there?”
A Sobering Incident
I looked over and saw a terrible sight. One of the paratroopers’ parachute and cord got tangled with another paratrooper’s gear. His own parachute had no air in it whatsoever; it was just flopping, doing nothing for him. The other paratrooper’s parachute was compromised, so it wasn’t as full as it should have been. They were coming down at a very fast rate of descent. The paratrooper who was lower, dangling from the other’s gear, was swinging back and forth. As soon as they hit the ground, medics rushed to them, and eventually, a full ambulance arrived. I’m not sure what happened to those two paratroopers.
We certainly pray that the Lord blesses them. But here’s the thing: that could have been me 21 years ago, or it could have been Thomas just a couple of days ago. It could have been the son of a kind Korean Presbyterian family we met there on the field, fellow parents of another West Point cadet. They were very reserved people, but in their few words, they made sure we knew they were Christians and that their son was a Christian. The first words out of their son’s mouth after his first jump, when he hit the ground, were, “Thank you, Jesus.”
Faith in the Face of Danger
I can tell you that 21 years ago, as I was going up into the plane and taking off, I was reciting the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. I was doing my best to keep the faith, should the very worst happen. If the worst had happened—if that had been the young Korean Presbyterian cadet, or Thomas, or me 21 years ago, dangling beneath another paratrooper, coming down at about 25 or 30 miles an hour—would that have meant I had less faith or didn’t believe in God enough?
Three Myths About Christian Faith
This brings us to the first point of what we’re discussing today: three myths about Christian faith. Some believe faith is optimism, but faith is not necessarily worldly optimism; rather, it is confidence in the goodness of God. Others believe faith is power over God, whereas we will compare it to saying, “God, thy will be done.” Finally, some believe faith is a work that merits salvation, but instead, faith receives the work of salvation that Christ earned for us on the cross.
Faith Is Not Worldly Optimism
Some believe faith is bold optimism—that things will work out, things will go well, and it’ll be all right in the end, at least in this world. As Christians, we believe it will be truly well in the end of ends when Christ Jesus returns in power, might, and glory. But until then, we have no guarantees. I once read an account of a Lutheran woman in labor who uttered an oral prayer. Her nurse said, “That’s right, honey, you just have to believe.” The nurse, while meaning well, conveyed that faith is mere optimism.
The plain fact is that, from a worldly perspective, God has made no promises about how things will go for us. It could have been me or Thomas dangling from another’s gear. We could face any kind of fate in this world. One of my favorite passages that conveys this is Romans chapter 8, verses 31 and following: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
Confidence in God’s Sovereignty
Listen to this, brothers and sisters: “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” That sounds bad enough, right? But then Paul adds something even worse: “As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’” Paul is saying that on this side of heaven, we can expect tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. While not an exhaustive list, these are possible examples.
Faith is not optimism concerning our circumstances in this world; rather, it is confidence that, despite and even through all these things, God is sovereign, God is good, and God is a God of love toward us. St. Paul goes on to say, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Notice what Paul says in verse 37: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” He didn’t say, “Despite these things”; he said, “In all these things.”
What Paul is getting at is that God, in His great wisdom, can use even things that seem terrible in this world for our sakes. We may not know or understand how God works all these things for our good, but we can be confident that the God who spared not His own Son for our sakes, who reigns over heaven and earth, is a God of love toward us. He is using all these things for us and ultimately for our salvation. That’s not bold optimism but confidence in who God is, whose wisdom and ways are above our own.
Faith Is Not Manipulation of God
Faith is not bold optimism, nor is it a power by which we manipulate God. Some believe that if we have enough faith and say the right prayers, God will give us what we desire. This idea goes by many names, sometimes called the “name it and claim it” movement. The notion is that God can be manipulated by us. But if that’s our perspective, can such a God be trusted? A God who can be manipulated is no God in whom we can have faith or trust. His ways and mind would be lower than ours, needing us to inform Him of what we need. That’s not what faith or prayer is. Prayer is not giving God instructions. I encourage you, as I did last week, to pray about the desires of your heart, lift up your cares, concerns, hopes, and anxieties to Him. Ultimately, prayer says, as Jesus taught us, “Thy kingdom come.”
In other words, we acknowledge that God’s power is above our power, His will above our will. We pray, “Thy kingdom come, you reign, you rule, not me,” and “Thy will be done, not my will, not my desires, but your will, your desires.” We say this because we trust God, because of who He is and what He has done.
Following Abraham’s Example
I love the passage in Hebrews today, verse 8: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” That’s the opposite of what some teach, even on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, about “manifesting” or “visualizing.” Whether they claim the name of Christ or not, it’s the same idea: that we can visualize what we want, and God will give it to us. But Abraham had no idea where he was going. He simply said, “Okay, God, lead me.” That’s faith.
Ultimately, God was leading Abraham not just to a patch of ground but to a greater inheritance—a homeland, a city with firm foundations laid by God Himself, a better country. God was leading Abraham to be a father, not only of a people of flesh and blood but of a people of faith. When God told Abraham his descendants would outnumber the stars, He was talking about you who believe. That is our inheritance as well: eternal life, something we don’t earn or make for ourselves. Abraham was led, and God did it all for him.
Faith as Receiving God’s Gift
Some make faith out to be a way to earn God’s good graces. When I was younger, I thought God looked at the world and said, “That one believes, so I accept that person, and they have eternal life and forgiveness because they believed.” But that’s not what Scripture teaches. Faith is not a decision we make or a merit by which God deems us acceptable. Rather, faith receives the gift God gives.
In Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and following, St. Paul teaches, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Grace is God’s work, not ours. Because God is a God of love, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son.” That Son, out of love, lived a life of complete obedience to the Father, gladly and willingly, in loving service to the neighbor, even you. His righteousness became your righteousness at the cross, where He took your sin upon Himself, bearing the just punishment for it.
Salvation as God’s Work
By this, He won God’s grace, the gift of salvation, which God offers to all gladly and willingly. Through the Holy Spirit, God uses the message of the gospel to transform our hearts, so that hearts once cold, hard, and dead against God now beat with faith and trust toward Him, receiving the gifts Christ won for us on the cross. It’s all God’s work. Salvation is God’s work from beginning to end. It is God who sent His Son, God in Christ who earned our salvation on the cross, and God the Holy Spirit who grants us faith to receive that gift. Faith is trust in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and the knowledge that salvation is ours through His work for our sakes.
Living with Confidence in God
If that’s where we set our eyes, our hopes, our trust—“seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you”—we go forth into this world not with bold optimism but with confidence, hope, and security in the knowledge that whatever befalls us, the sovereign God is a God of love. He works all things for our good. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.