Sermon

[Hebrews 11.1_6] 2025.12.14 Our Hope in the Christ of Christmas

 Our Hope in the Christ of Christmas

Big Idea: In Christ our Immanuel, God is pleased to reward those who express their hope in him by their faith in him.

Passage: Hebrews 11.1_6

1.        Faith is the reality of hope

2.        Faith pleases God the Rewarder

3.        Faith in Christ, our Immanuel - our Gift and our Reward

Good morning, my name is David Yung, the minister here at St Paul’s Kogarah.

It’s great to see you all here!

How many days is it until Christmas?

Four more days! Have you got all your presents yet?

Who’s excited about opening their presents?

As our children were growing up, they were very excited about opening their presents, usually after Church on Christmas Day or on Boxing Day.

Their eyes would light up as they tear the wrapping paper apart.

As a parent, it’s a beautiful moment to see your child smile with such a pure, unadulterated joy!

As our kids grow older, they start to buy Christmas presents, for the wider family, in Zoe’s case, her new extended family, for their friends, and for us their parents.

It’s now their turn to give gifts with the hope of seeing us and other people smile, and maybe, just maybe, to also see a glimpse of unadulterated joy when other people open their presents.

How about you? Whose smile do you hope to see this Christmas?

In today’s passage, we’ll see what happens when a person really wants to see another person smile.

But before we begin, let’s pray, “Our heavenly Father, thank you for your word, the Bible. We come before you by faith and ask that by your Holy Spirit, please open up our hearts so that we can receive your word. For we pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

1.       Faith is the reality of hope

Please open up with me to Hebrews, chapter 11, beginning from verse 1.

The author of Hebrews was writing to a group of Christians who were struggling.

They believed in Jesus, they were doing the right things, but it was getting harder to live as Christians.

They faced severe opposition and suffered for being Christians. ]

Many of them were beginning to lose their hope; many of them were beginning to lose their faith.

The author of Hebrews saw their struggle and wrote these words to them, in  Hebrews 10:36-39, “For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while,  the Coming One will come and not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him. But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.”

He reminded them that Jesus was coming and urged them to live by faith.

What is this faith that he was talking about?

Heb 11:1, “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.”

Faith is the reality of hope.

You can’t see someone’s hope.

They might have a mental picture of what they want to see or what they want to achieve.

They might even paint you a picture of what they want to see, but it hasn’t happened yet; it hasn’t been realised yet.

However, what you can see is how real that person’s hope is by the way that they live.

If their hope is real, they will believe it, and they will live according to their hope.

And so, if someone believes in God, they will show their hope in God by their faith in God, and you see their faith in God by the way they live.

It’s a little like this:

An 80s movie that I enjoyed watching over the years is Karate Kid.

Anyone else seen it?

In it, you have young Daniel Larusso or Mr Daniel San (生), who overcame a lot of difficulties to get through the final round of a karate tournament.

When Daniel San was about to play the final round, he was injured, he was in distress, and he was about to give up.

However, despite the odds, Mr Miyagi urged him to finish well.

And Daniel San did.

The very last frame of the movie was this mark of approval from Mr Miyagi; I love that shot (show My Miyagi’s photo)

It was so simple and yet it spoke so much.

Daniel San hoped to win the karate tournament.

However, to get there, he needed to train hard and believe that his sensei, Mr Miyagi actually knew what he’s doing.

Now I know that, besides a few people at Church who had been in Jujitsu tournaments, most of us are probably not called to participate in any martial arts tournament.

However, all of us are called to put our hope in God.

If we have placed our hope in God, the reality of that hope is seen in the way we live our lives.

People can’t see our hope, but they can see our lives.

The reality of our hope in God is seen in how we live our lives by faith, that is, by trusting in who Jesus is.

If we have hope in God, we will trust in what Jesus says.

If we have hope in God, we will follow Jesus’ footsteps as he leads us to God, even if the journey is tough, even if the journey is tiring.

Your faith in God, your trust in Jesus’ words, is proof that your hope is real.

What is the Christian hope? What is it that you want to see?

Verse 2, “For by this our ancestors were approved.”

As a Christian, your great hope, is to see God’s approval.

Everyone will come before God’s presence one day.

On that day, you want to see God’s nod of approval.

You want to see God smile at you as you come into his presence.

The author’s ancestors had God’s approval.

God smiled upon them because they had lived by faith.

They had put their hope in God and they had trust in God.

What does faith in God look like?

The first example is verse 3, “By faith we understand that the universe was  created by the word of God,  so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”

A key way we can show that our hope is in God is through our understanding of how the universe came into being.

If we believe that there is a God, and that we can trust what this God says, then we will by faith, trust that the world was created by his word.

While the Bible doesn’t tell us in detail, it does tell us that God created the universe by his powerful word.

He spoke, and they came into being; that’s the power of God’s word.

Those of us who have our hope in God also put our trust in God’s word, for God’s word is trustworthy and powerful.

By his word, God makes what is seen, what we can see, from what is invisible.

It is by the powerful words of the same God who brings life to the dead, who brings hope when there was no hope, who gives us faith when we had none.

It is by faith that we understand that God created the universe by his powerful word.

It is also by faith that we understand the universe and everything that’s in it.

It is by faith that we live our lives according to his powerful word.

Where does your hope lie? What do you hope for?

If your hope is in God, live by faith in the word of God.

Trust in what Jesus says, for as you live by faith, you will please God the Rewarder.

2.       Faith pleases God the Rewarder

From Hebrews 11:4 onwards, the author of Hebrews lists out the names of many people who had lived by faith in God because of their hope in God.

We won’t go through the whole list, but we’ll just look at the names of the first two: Abel and Enoch.

These two men had faith in God, and it pleased God the Rewarder.

First, Abel. Look with me at verse 4, “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith.”

Cain and Abel were the two sons of Adam and Eve.

You can read about them in Genesis chapter 4.

One day, both Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God.

Cain offered some of the produce of the land, and Abel offered the firstborn of his flock to God.

God was pleased with Abel’s offering and accepted it.

However, God was not pleased with Cain’s offering.

Cain was very upset about it.

So much so that he murdered his own brother, Abel.

Cain committed the first murder in history because he was upset that God was not pleased with his sacrifice but was pleased with his brother Abel’s sacrifice.

What was the difference between the two sacrifices?

Abel’s sacrifice was offered by faith, and Cain’s sacrifice wasn’t offered by faith.

Now notice that the Bible didn’t say that Abel’s sacrifice was better because of its quality.

Abel’s sacrifice from his flock wasn’t necessarily better than Cain’s produce.

Nor was Abel’s sacrifice better because of its quantity.

Abel’s sacrifice wasn’t better because he offered more to God.

At the heart of it is whether Abel or Cain offered their sacrifices in faith.

That’s how God determines the worthiness of our sacrifice.

The way God determines whether our sacrifices, our gifts to him, are good or not is based on whether they are given in faith or not.

That is, God determines the worthiness of our sacrifices based on whether we trust him or not.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a simple hand-drawn Christmas card from my children than the most expensive bottle of wine from a total stranger.

Similarly, God would rather you trust him and have a real relationship with him, than receive anything extravagant from you.

Even if we give God everything we own, and all the time that we have, but we don’t trust him, God won’t accept our gifts.

Our gifts will not be pleasing to God.

However, if our hope is in God, if we trust God, not just with our lips but with our hearts and with your lives, then even the smallest gift we bring will bring a smile to God, for it’s a gift given in faith.

Because Abel trusted in God, God approved him as a righteous man.

Abel had God’s nod of approval.

Imagine seeing that loving, pleasing smile of approval from God.

That’s what Abel lived for and that’s what Abel received from God, for he lived his life by faith.

The second example is Enoch.

Please look with me at verse 5, “By faith Enoch was taken away, and so he did not experience death. He was not to be found because God took him away.  For before he was taken away, he was approved as one who pleased God.”

The Bible doesn’t tell us a great deal about Enoch, except that he walked with God.

That is, he lived a life as if God were walking beside him.

He would’ve been conscious of God’s presence, going only where God wants him to go.

That doesn’t mean that he was perfect.

I’m certain that there would’ve been times when he was out of step with God, since there is only one person in history who is perfect, and he’s not Enoch, but Jesus.

Even so, when he is off track, he would come back to God.

He walked with God because his hope was in God.

He wanted to stay with God, and so he walked by faith with God.

And God was pleased with him; God approved him.

So much so, that God took Enoch straight to heaven, to be with him.

Enoch didn’t experience death because God took him away.

Both Abel and Enoch’s stories might sound strange in our modern ears.

By faith, Abel and Enoch lived a life of trust in God, and because their hope was in God, God was pleased with them and approved of them.

For many of us, we might think that God should be pleased with us by default.

We tend to think that we’re good people on the inside and God sees the good inside of us.

We think that God should be pleased with us; He ought to be pleased with us.

But that’s not what the Bible teaches.

Yes, God sees what’s inside of us, but that’s not a good thing for sinners.

We might think we are good, but we’re not.

Imagine for a minute what would happen if our world saw what’s really in our heart of hearts.

Imagine for a minute all the anger, all the bitterness, all the disappointments and all the hopelessness in your heart are out there for the world to see.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be gloating if you did see what’s in my heart of hearts.

But God sees what’s in my heart of hearts and he sees what’s in your heart of hearts.

Our hearts, by default, are not pleasing to him.

They disgust him because they show that we don’t trust him, we don’t love him and we have no time for him.

And so, what must happen for God to be pleased with us instead of being disgusted with us?

We need to have faith in him.

Look with me at verse 6, “Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

If you want a life that pleases God, if you want a life that draws near to God, you must have faith, you must believe that he exists.

To please God, you must put your trust in him.

If you don’t trust God, it’s impossible to please him, no matter what you think of yourself.

But if you trust him, if your hope is in him, if you seek him, he will reward you.

3. Faith in Christ, our Immanuel - our Gift and our Reward

What then does it mean to trust God?

It means to put our faith in Christ, our Immanuel, for Jesus is both our gift and our reward.

Months before the first Christmas, God sent an angel to Joseph and told him that Mary, the woman he was about to marry, would have a son.

The angel told Joseph not to be afraid but to take Mary home.

Look with me at Matthew 1:21-23, ‘She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus,  because he will save his people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel,

which is translated “God is with us.”

Jesus is our Immanuel, Jesus is God with us.’

Jesus is God’s gift to us.

This is what we celebrate every Christmas.

We remember that God sent His own Son to a people like us, to save us from our sins.

That’s what every Christmas gift ought to remind us of.

God loved us so much that He gave His One and Only Son, His greatest gift to us.

At the same time, Jesus is God’s reward to us. What do I mean by that?

In Hebrews, we see the relationship between hope and faith.

We see that faith is the reality of hope.

For someone to live by faith means that the person lives a life of trust in God.

They’ll walk with God, and they want to do what pleases God.

When someone lives a life of faith in God, God is pleased.

God approves of the person and rewards the person.

And so, this begs the question. What’s God’s reward? What does God give to the person who trusts in him, who pleases him?

What is God’s reward for those who have his nod of approval?

It comes back to the hope they have in God.

A person who hopes in God has God as their ultimate joy and their ultimate hope.

They want nothing more, and nothing less, than being in God’s loving presence.

To be in God’s loving presence is all they want, and it’s is all they hope for.

There’s nothing that compares with being in God’s loving presence.

There’s nothing that gives us more joy than to see God’s nod of approval.

How does anyone come into God’s presence?

How does anyone get God’s nod of approval?

It comes back to the name given to Jesus – Immanuel.

God with us.

To live a life of faith in God means putting your trust in the Lord Jesus.

To live a life of faith in God means walking with Jesus and following him, day by day.

For those of us who have already put our trust in Jesus, we already have a taste of what it means to be in God’s presences as we pray, as we hear from his word the Bible, as we follow in his footsteps.

To follow Jesus’ footsteps is not easy, but there’s nothing else that compares to it in this life.

However, as good as it is to walk with Jesus in this life, even that’s nothing compared to walking with him in the next life.

Nothing in this life or the next compare with walking with Jesus for all eternity.

When we walk with the Lord Jesus in heaven, the name Immanuel will find its ultimate fulfilment.

We’ll be walking with the Lord Jesus along with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, forever and ever.

That’s the reward that we seek.

It’s not a reward that we get because of how good we are.

Rather, it’s a reward that comes because Jesus came as our Immanuel, to die for our sins, to rise from the dead, and to take us all the way to His Father’s side.

That’s the great hope that all Christians have, when we stand before the presence of God, after living a life of faith in Jesus, after a life of hardship and suffering, seeing Jesus nod with a smile or approval and saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. 

To be with God forever is our great hope and our great reward.

Friends, it’s been a difficult month for many of our Church members and many people in our city.

Even this time last week, I thought we had already gone through one of the most difficult period as a Church.

However, the events from Bondi last week had just shaken many of us, not just in Sydney but around the world.

There were many distressing images that we’ve seen on TV and social media.

One that particularly stood out for me was the hopelessness of the shooters.

They had already given up hope of escaping as they walked up the pedestrian bridge at Bondi.

They knew that they had nowhere to go and so they brought as much harm as they could. They acted out their hopelessness with acts of destruction.

However, just hours before the shooting, our regional bishop, Bishop Michael Stead, spoke with us and shared these words with us: “This is what it will look like when we live as citizens of heaven. We will endure suffering patiently, because we know that this world is not our true home.  We will long for this world with an unshakeable hope in the perfect justice and righteousness of the kingdom to come, and that will enable us to patiently endure the injustices we experience in the here and now.”

I was struck by how God in his providence, gave us this word last week, as he reminded us through Bishop Stead how desperately our world needs to hear this hope that we have in Jesus.

If you are a Christian, please live out your hope in Christ by faith.

The world needs to know this hope that you have.

Show the world what this hope looks like by the way that you live.

Pray that somehow in your life, in our lives, the world will see the Gospel.

If you’re not a Christian yet, then I urge you to take this message about Jesus seriously.

Life is so fragile, so unpredictable.

Don’t delay any longer. Talk to either me or En Bo or Mark in the Welcomer’s tent.

We would love to share with you what it means to put your hope in Jesus.

So, whose smile do you hope to see this Christmas?

Make it your utmost ambition, your greatest hope, to see God’s smile this Christmas. 

Put your hope in nothing else, and nothing less than being in God’s presence forever.

Let that hope drive you to live a life of faith, a life of trust in the Lord Jesus.

Let Jesus be both your Gift and your Reward.

Here are three questions for us to think about this week:

1.     What’s the proof of the Christian’s hope in the invisible God?

2. According to the Bible, why would God be pleased with anything that we do?

3. What’s the danger of someone who claims to have hope in God but who shows no faith in God?

In Christ our Immanuel, God is pleased to reward those who express their hope in him by their faith in him.

May Christ our Immanuel be pleased with you by the way you trust in Him this Christmas.

Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for giving us hope when we deserved none. Father, by your Holy Spirit, help us see clearly the glorious hope we have in the Lord Jesus and please help us to live by faith because of we do have this hope. Father, please make it our ambition to live a life that pleases you, as we put our trust in Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.”