Faith Has a Cost

Scripture: Hebrews 11.29 – 12.2; Luke 12.49-56


Faith is a bold move. Faith costs something. It’s more than an easy belief. You might have to suffer loss or pain. But hey, no guts, no glory! If you want to walk on water you have to get out of the boat!

Some years ago in my first parish I invited a missionary to come speak at our church. This missionary was the sister of a friend of mine from seminary. Her name was Joy and she was doing some great work at a medical center in Kenya called Tenwek. Joy did a great job communicating the importance of the Tenwek medical center to that whole area of Kenya. She connected her medical work and the work of the gospel. By the time she was done speaking she had us. The church committed two thousand dollars to build a water tower in an area desperately in need of fresh water. One of the things Joy said to us as we were contemplating our response to her talk was this,

“My grandfather once told me that there is no free lunch. Someone always has to pay. My work continues because people generously give. Maybe you can give to this mission as well.”

I was impressed by her straightforwardness and so was the church. It was obvious that she had faith that God was going to provide for the work. That faith built a water tower and continues to support her mission in Kenya.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. (Heb. 11.1-2)

In our reading we are given many examples of these “ancients” who trusted that God was going to come through for them, if not now, later. They threw themselves into what needed to be done and they were willing to pay the cost of faith themselves, because they believed it was worth it. It was worth it to leave Egypt, it was worth it to be whipped and stoned and shipwrecked and thrown in jail. It was worth it.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Heb. 11.3)

Mark Buchanan writes, “The bedrock of faith is the conviction that what matters most is more than matter. The material world, the stuff I touch and see and smell, is not the “real world.” The real world is unseen. Things visible are actually made from and sustained by things unseen. . .what matters is more than matter.”

The musician Ray Charles went blind at age seven. Something gathered over his eyes, turned his world grainy and gray, finally closed him in utter darkness. He lived his childhood in rural poverty, in a one-room shack at the edge of a sharecropper’s field. In the movie about him, in a scene from his childhood, he runs into his house and trips over a chair. He starts to wail for his mother. She stands at the stove, right in front of him, and instinctively reaches out to lift him. Then she stops. Backs up. Stands still. Watches.

Ray stops crying. He quiets. He listens. He hears, behind him, the water on the wood stove whistling to a boil. He hears, outside, the wind pass like a hand through the cornstalks. He hears the thud of horse hooves on the road, the creak and clatter of the wagon they pull. Then he hears, in front of him, the thin faint scratch of a grasshopper walking the worn floorboards of his mama’s cottage. He inches over and, attentive now to every sigh and twitch, gathers the tiny insect in his hand. He holds it in his open palm.
“I hear you, too, Mama,” he says. She weeps with pride and sorrow and wonder.

Later he explains to someone, “I hear like you see.”

“That’s faith’s motto: I hear like you see. I trust in God – in what he’s done and is doing and will do – as much, even more, as others trust in what they touch and taste and see.”

I look at this list of Faith Heroes in Hebrews and as much as I’m inspired, I’m also depressed when I compare what they did with what I’ve done –on this hand you have this great cloud of witnesses and over here you have me, a puff of steam, a wisp of smoke.

It reminds me of an old Simpson’s episode where their pastor, Rev. Lovejoy, is going through a faith crisis of his own. Alone one day in the church, he paces up and down the aisle praying aloud as to why he is seemingly unwanted and ineffective. As he is praying the figures in the stained windows begin to talk to him. They are figures of saints and martyrs. They cry out at him in accusation, “I was beheaded!” cries one. “I was whipped and stoned!” cries another. “What have you done?!!” they all cry out to Rev. Lovejoy.

The timid pastor stammers for a second, and says, “Well, last year I had the vestibule carpeted.”

Sometimes I feel like Rev. Lovejoy. My faith seems small. I can’t really point to much where I’ve believed big, you know, and stepped out and paid a price for faith.

But here’s a word of caution. Faith doesn’t usually happen with big heroics. Faith happens quietly, with little things, everyday. Maybe we want the dramatic (so we can be the hero of our own drama) but it’s the behind the scenes stuff that matters most. Are we praying? Are we studying the Word? Are we serving our brothers and sisters? Are we loving the least and the lost?

Jesus said if you are faithful in the little things then I will give you big things to be faithful in. (my paraphrase)


The bible heroes weren’t going for drama, they weren’t trying to be heroes, they were just being faithful. If there has been any faithfulness in the small things of our lives then I know there have been some moments of big faith. I want you to think about one such time.

When in your life have you really trusted God for something? When have you paid the price of faith? When have you stepped out of the boat to walk on water?

Maybe you prayed about that sickness; or you walked through an open door to a new job; or you gave to that need til it hurt a little. You had faith. You heard like other people see.

The scripture counsels us to look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Look at the example he gives. He went to the cross because he was able to see beyond the pain and the shame immediately before him and glimpsed the joy on the other side.

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

What does the death of Jesus and the death of so many believers through the years mean to us? Well, people died for this faith that we so casually believe! People literally died because they would not renounce their faith. If they died, we can at least live! We can live strongly in this faith too! We can pay the cost of following Jesus Christ.