Hebrews 11:5 (NKJV) 5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
We have been taking some time this week with this powerful verse from the book of Hebrews. I believe this is one of those verses that every Christian needs to know and meditate on continually. There are three basic elements to this verse and we have looked at two of them. The first is so simple that we usually just take it for granted. However, accepting this statement in its full measure changes everything in life. We accept it as theology and philosophy. For the last few years, the Lord has been bringing it to my attention in a more personal and practical way. That statement is, “God is.”
The second element is what we talked about yesterday. It actually appears first in the chronology of the verse. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. He does not say it is hard or impractical to please God without faith. He does not say faith is one way we please God. He says it is impossible to please God without faith.
Hebrews 11:1 defines the faith he is talking about. It is a faith that takes the possibility of hope and gives hope substance by finding a promise from the word.. It is then the ability to believe something that we cannot see with natural eyes or perceive with natural senses until those things appear in the natural world. Without the ability, or willingness, to do those two things we cannot please God.
Today I want to look at the third element of Hebrews 11:6. God is a rewarder. Why should I have faith that God will do what he says even though I do not yet see the manifestation of it? Why should I believe that God would cause things to work for my good when I see no natural evidence that he is doing so? Why should I believe that supernatural things are possible when I live in a natural world? I should belive them because God is a rewarder.
Religion usually portrays God as a punisher not a rewarder. For many, their religious life is about guilt. There is a standard joke that I have heard applied to both Jewish and Catholic mothers. Both are said to be masters at bringing guilt on their children. Although I am sure there are many Catholics, Protestants and Jews who practice their religion out of a pure heart, guilt is still a major element for most. They go to church because they feel guilty not going. They do religious things because God will get angry if they do not. They seek forgiveness of sins because they do not want to be punished by God.
I do not mean to imply that any of those groups function solely on the guilt and punishment principle. I do believe that religion lends itself to the thinking that God is a punisher. I believe this is true of any religion. That may not be a doctrinal or philosophical statement but I believe it is a reality of perception for most people, religious and non-religious alike.
I do not believe that Christianity is a religion in the sense that we usually think of the word. Christianity is a relationship. E. W. Kenyon wrote a powerful book many years ago entitled The Father and His Family. This is the proper view of what Christianity was meant to be. God the Eternal Father sent his only begotten son so that everyone who desired to could become part of his family.
A god who is all mighty, perfectly holy and all knowing could be a frightening prospect. I do not know about you, but I know that there are things in my life that I do not want everyone to know about. There are things I have had to repent of and things I still do that are not up to the standards of a holy God. In that context, I am going to want to do things that will keep me from being punished by this perfect god. I am going to do whatever it takes to make sure that he is not angry with me.
If I believe that this god is not just some impersonal deity but my loving and perfect Father, that changes everything. He is not a punisher. He is my Father. I do need to live according to his standards. When I sin against him, I open the door to death and bad things in my life. However, it is not God’s nature to punish. The bad things are a cause brought about by my actions. They are not ‘done to me” because I displeased God.
This verse tells us that God is by nature a rewarder not a punisher. We need to understand is that he does exist and he is intimately involved in our lives. We also need to know that it is his nature and his desire to reward us not punish us. God is a rewarder.
What is a reward? There is a commercial on a local sports network that I watch. The commercial is for a contest of some sort. The idea is that in this contest you actually win things you want. They have “interviews” with people who have won other contests and received prizes that were less than what they might have wanted. One man says, “I won an all expense paid trip to ________________. Have you ever been to _______________? It’s like punishment for winning.” That is not a reward.
God is a rewarder. A reward is something good. It is something to be desired. It is something that comes to you because you did something right. God is a rewarder. That means he is not looking for reasons to punish you. He is looking for anything that will enable him to reward you. There are things we can and must do to get the reward but they are not impossible things. They are not things we cannot do. God desires to give us the reward.
What is that we must do to obtain the reward from God? The first thing is what we discussed yesterday. We have to have faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God so it is impossible to get a reward. There is another condition presented in this verse. We must diligently seek him.
The Greek word here is one word that means diligently seek. If it were two words, diligently and seek, we might conclude that we could seek him less than diligently and get some reward. This is not so. There is no way to seek God but diligently. Look at the definition from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.
The word means to search out, i.e. (figurative) investigate, crave, demand, (by Hebrew) worship :- en- (re-) quire, seek after (carefully, diligently).
There is a lot in that definition. Remember it does not say we should diligently seek the reward. It says we must diligently seek him. Therefore, if we want the reward he promises we must search him out. We must investigate him. That means study him and find out who he is. We must crave to know him. We must demand of ourselves that we come to know him. We must worship him, enquire of him, require of him and of ourselves and seek after him carefully and diligently.
The English word means showing persistent and hard-working effort in doing something. This is a requirement for the reward God wants to give. It is not always easy to do, but it is always possible. It takes some time and effort on our part but imagine what we get. We get the reward of almighty God’s involvement in every area of our lives. What price can we put on that?
God is. It takes faith, a willingness to hope when there is no natural reason to hope and believe in the truth of the Word of God even when we cannot see any way what we hope for can happen in the natural world. God is a rewarder not a punisher. God is not looking for reasons to condemn. He has paid the price for all condemnation but sending Jesus so you and I can be part of his family. Let us seek him today. I do not know about you, but I need the reward.
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