Heroes of the Faith

Recently three children and a grandmother were pulled from a burning car by a hero who risked his life to save the trapped children. The Hero was a 52 year old who was driving his son from school to their home in Dairy Flat when he arrived at the crash scene, “It was on fire when I got there, because of the fact that it was on fire no one wanted to go there.” By the time he had pulled the grandmother and oldest child from the front seats, the car was “pretty well ablaze.” “There were a lot of spectators watching it and they didn’t want to go near it because they thought it would blow. I thought, It’s not going to blow before it gets to the tank. The kids... you just think, ‘stuff it, we’re gonna get them out of there’. It doesn’t matter what happens. They’re kids - I’m 50 years old. They’ve got their whole lives to go. I’ll take the risk.”

No lycra tights, super powers or supersonic weapons here, just an ordinary guy who did an extraordinary thing because he refused to let fear and circumstances prevent him from taking action. 

Three years ago I had the privilege of spending a week in Egypt. I was the odd one out because everyone else at the conference, men and women, were involved in evangelism and church planting in various countries across the Middle East. As I listened to their reports, stories and testimonies I couldn’t shake the impression… if the book of Hebrews was being written today, these men and women would be listed in chapter 11… These truly were today’s heroes of the faith.

From our accommodation we could see the Giza pyramids, tantalizingly close. We got even closer on the Friday, not only visiting the pyramids but venturing down into one of the chambers below the Great Pyramid. Access was via a long, low, downward sloping tunnel… quite a challenge for someone my size. As we reached the end of the tunnel the lights flickered and the power supply failed… leaving us in total darkness in a burial chamber built almost 4500 years ago. One of the women immediately started praying under her breath… this was no prayer of faith… but a prayer of desperation, motivated by fear. After a few minutes nerves slowly calmed and we realised that the lights were not coming back on anytime soon. Making the best of a bad situation we briefly explored the chamber by the light of cell phones before making our way back to the surface. 

Later as I reflected on the events of the day I was captured by the irony. Here was this wonderful woman of faith who had given her life to serve God, preaching the gospel and planting churches in the villages of Northern Sudan… the same woman whose heart was gripped by fear in the darkness deep below the pyramid. And then I realised… she really did deserve a place among the Hebrews 11 men and woman of faith. These were not extraordinary individuals… they were ordinary people whose lived their lives in extraordinary ways...

The Liar - Abraham

The Murderer - Moses

The Prostitute - Rahab

The Fearful - Gideon

The Adulterer - David

I think you get the idea…

In Hebrews 11:13 we read, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.”

These are heroes of faith because, in spite of their weaknesses and failures, in spite of their sin… the lived their lives on a trajectory that reflected a bigger picture, empowered, equipped and impassioned by God. They understood that were part of His-story. It has been said that courage is not the absence of fear, it is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. When we choose to respond to the call of God and push forward in obedience to that call, acknowledging that this is “all about Him”… then once more God can do extraordinary things through another ordinary person… and another hero is born!

Are you prepared to be a Hero of the faith?