The Assurance of Things Hoped For

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

A lot of people struggle with the Letter to the Hebrews because it’s just too Hebrew. The language and the imagery seem to be very Hebrew ethno-specific. My issue with the letter is that Hebrews sounds too American!

Forgive me if that sounds like anti-American prejudice. I do love the United States, and I love its people, yet there’s a certain kind of power-of-positive-thinking motivational speaker whom I can only envisage with an American accent, and that’s the voice I keep hearing when I’m reading Hebrews, chapter eleven.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for,” it starts, and it just gets better from there:

by faith our ancestors received approval”
By faith we understand (various things) …
By faith Abraham obeyed …

And the whole chapter from there on is filled with all the amazing things our spiritual forebears did, all because they believed!

“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.” No, hang on … That’s not from Hebrews. That’s Tony Robbins, and that’s my problem. The letter to the Hebrews sounds like it’s pushing the same ‘you can do it’ philosophy that Tony Robbins preaches in “Awaken the Giant Within.” If you only believe, you can do anything!

“If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.”

Let’s be clear. That’s Tony Robins. It’s not from the Letter to the Hebrews. I think it’s from “Awaken the Giant Within”, though I never did finish that book. I think I got to the end of the introduction before giving up.

My issue with that book was that it didn’t seem to matter to the author what you believed or whether what you believed was true, so long as you believed it hard enough, and that didn’t sit right with me. I know Jesus said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you’” (Luke 17:6) but, even there, was Jesus really talking about us mustering up unshakeable confidence in our ability to do things that are entirely pointless?

Maybe the problem is me? Maybe I’m just disillusioned because I don’t have enough faith to make these sorts of things happen? Maybe that’s why I’m not as successful as Tony Robbins. I don’t seem to have enough faith even to move my daughter’s laundry pile into the washing machine. Perhaps that’s it, though I suspect too that Tony Robbins and I (and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews) do define success in different ways.

One of the striking things about the great panoply of faith heroes that the Letter to the Hebrews eulogises over in this chapter is that a lot of them were people who had really hard lives and saw little tangible success. Many of them too met with grizzly ends!

Moses, we’re told, “chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). Others were “mocked, flogged, imprisoned”, and “put to death by the sword” (Hebrews 11:36–37). Maybe you could still define all that as success and even as a path to self-actualisation, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the sort of result people who take on Tony Robbins as a mentor are looking for.

I suspect that the heart of the issue is Tony Robbins’ teaching that the power is within us. It’s a message about human potential—harnessing our focus and emotions to shape our destiny and find personal fulfilment.

What we see in the Letter to the Hebrews, on the other hand, is people responding to God’s initiatives. Noah, Abraham, and Moses didn’t conjure up belief from within themselves. They trusted in a God who called, and they acted, not because they believed in themselves, but because they believed in the One who was calling them.

They share a lot of the same vocabulary – Hebrews and Tony Robbins – but I have a feeling that they are travelling in different directions. Robbins invites us to believe in ourselves so as to take hold of the future we envision. Hebrews invites us to believe in God and from there to venture into a future that is almost entirely unknown. Robbins promises transformation through focus and action. Hebrews promises us an adventure (albeit a rocky one) found through trust and surrender.

Both messages are compelling in their own way, and I mean no offence to Tony Robbins or to any of the great American self-help gurus, nor to any of their Australian or European clones. Even so, it’s the wisdom of Hebrews, I believe, that leads us to a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28).

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Our Sunday Eucharist

We had an action-packed Sunday Eucharist last weekend, with David Baldwin and myself safe in the studio connecting with Tom Toby, live from the massive Free Palestine March across the Sydney Harbour Bridge!
The two most popular shorts from last week received more than 2,000 views each, just on YouTube. Predictably, they both focus on the rally rather than on any particular Scripture reading. It really was a very significant event.

As per usual, you can see all the shorts on our Sunday Eucharist Instagram page or watch any of our broadcasts in full on our YouTube channel.

This Sunday I’m excited to have two very special people sharing the panel with me:

Eric Fistler – Senior Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake, Illinois (USA). and former co-host of the Pulpit Fiction Podcast
Costandi Bastoli – the Community Director of Palestinian Christians in Australia and co-founder of the Disciples of Jesus Covenant Community

Eric and Costandi are both great souls in their own right, but what I’m really looking forward to is bringing them together. Last time Eric was with us, he shared how an encounter with a Palestinian family changed his life. Eric went on to work with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine. I have a feeling these two will have a lot to talk about.

As usual, we go live at noon on Sunday (Sydney time) @TheSundayEucharist.com, Facebook , YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia and Streamyard.

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What’s On?

Sunday, August 10 – Our Eucharist from noon @thesundayeucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard
Tuesday, August 12 – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
Wednesday, August 13 – Noon Bible study @ www.sundayeucharist.com/bible
Thursday, August 14 – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
August 15 to 17 – weekend @ Binacrombi. Please join me.

The pics above are from a wonderful gathering I was a part of this week at Parliament House in Sydney. The Shia Muslim community was commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain. Our topic was “Imam Hussain for ALL”, and I was privileged to be asked to speak at the event.

I’ll post the video of my 5-minute address below. To see it with transcript etc, visit my Christians and Muslims site – www.christiansandmuslims.com.

I have some painful news to close on. I’ve mentioned many times my beloved friend, Dr Ahmad Badr Aldin Hassoun – the former Grand Mufti of Syria – who was arrested at Damascus airport on March 25th of this year and was subsequently tortured. The terrorist regime in Syria is now putting him on trial due to his support of the previous government. I assume it is a show trial. I fear very much they want to execute him.

I am determined to do whatever I can to seek justice for this dear man. As I’ve said many times, he is the most Christlike man I have ever met. I’ll never forget the way he preached forgiveness after his son, Sariya, was murdered in 2011. Watch my interviews with him on YouTube if you want to get to know him, and please join me in praying for him. For me, he symbolises all that is good in Syria. God preserve him.

O God of justice and compassion,
You see what is hidden, and You hear the cries of those who are silenced.
We lift before You Dr. Ahmad Badr Aldin Hassoun, whose life now hangs in uncertainty.

May truth prevail with mercy.
May Your justice break through the darkness.
Comfort his family, protect his body, and stir the hearts of those with power to act.

May we never forget that every soul bears Your image
And every story deserves to be heard.
In Your name, we pray for healing, truth, justice and peace.

Amen.

Please share the graphic of this prayer that I have attached below. If we can get eveyryone praying, justice may yet prevail for this dear man and his family.

Your brother in the Good Fight,