Sermon preached at Billtown Baptist Church, Sunday September 28, 2025.

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11:1-40 (NRSV).

Faith is like a journey toward God’s destination, a journey we don’t see the end of, but we trust, knowing who God is, that God will bring us there.

Out of curiosity this week, I looked up the longest unbroken walk on record.

The longest unbroken walk on record was done between 1976 and 1983 by a man named George Meegan.

Meegan was born in England. He grew up in a disadvantaged home. His father left him after his mother died of cancer. He was raised by his uncle, and when he was old enough, he ran away to the Navy. He served in the British Merchant Navy until his early 20s and then retired from it with the idea that he would hike the furthest hike on foot anyone has ever done.

He started at the very bottom of South America, walked north, up along the mountain range that runs along the coast (up Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, into Colombia). He went up through Panama, Mexico, into the United States, turned East, and hiked up the Atlantic coast all the way to Canada. From there, he hiked across the Trans-Canada to the West Coast, then went north as far as he could go, ending his hike at the very top of Alaska.

In doing so, Meegan set the world record for longest unbroken walk, walking a total of 19,019 miles. That is roughly 41 million steps.

It took him six years and 12 and a half pairs of hiking shoes.

In crossing into Panama, he hiked through one of the most dangerous areas in the world at the time, the gap between Panama and Colombia, an area controlled by gangs, where he was shot at and someone tried to kill him with a knife. Yet he kept going.

Why did he do what he did? What inspires—or possesses, it depends on who you look at it—what drives a person to spend 6 years of their lives hiking non-stop?

Meegan gave a simple answer: He believed, as a person growing up disadvantaged, he needed to tell the world that “No journey is impossible, especially not if you have the courage to take the first step.”

Meegan went on to be an award-winning educator, inspiring kids in poverty to rise above their circumstances.

Meegan wanted to live his life as if his life was a message to inspire other people: nothing is impossible. Have Courage. You can do it. Take the first step in your life’s journey.

Faith is like a Journey

Faith is kind of like a journey. It can feel impossible, but with God it is possible. Take courage. Keep walking.

One Baptist theologian from about a century ago named William Newton Clarke once put it this way: “Faith is the daring of the soul to go further than it can see.”

This chapter in Hebrews is really a climactic moment for the book of Hebrews. And for the writers of Hebrews, faith is about continuing on the journey with God.

The author of the book of Hebrews is trying to encourage Jewish Christians who are being ostracized for their faith in Christ to continue and not renounce Jesus and go back to Judaism, even if that lands them in prison.

And so, if you read through the book of Hebrews, a book that some Christian scholars have called one of the most sophisticated books of the New Testament it is rich reading of the Old Testament and its careful presentation of faith in Christ—the book of Hebrews is building this case over 13 chapters that Jesus is worth preserving on with in the journey of faith.

Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word, says Chapter 1.

Jesus is superior to any angel and the law.

Jesus is superior to Moses and the promised land.

Jesus is superior to priests or even the mysterious figure Melchizedek.

Jesus is superior to any sacrifice or covenant in the Old Testament.

Jesus is worth staying on the journey of faith for. And the writer just keeps driving home this message: don’t fall away, keep going, Jesus is greater. The journey of faith in Jesus is worth it.

That brings us to chapter 11, where the writer gives the climax of their argument. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 

By faith, we know the world was made.

By faith, Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice over his brother Cain.

By faith Enoch was carried up to heaven.

By faith, Noah built the ark.

By faith, Abraham journeyed for God and became the father of a great nation.

By faith, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and to the promised land.

Example after example. By faith, great people of the Bible went on the journey with God; they endured difficult things, they did great things for God, and they persevered on the journey. You can do.

God can do amazing things in your life and through your life. Have faith.

Faith as Seeing

Now, I need to say this: Faith involves trust, but that does not mean it is utterly blind faith, nor is it irrational, nor is it foolish, properly understood.

You can only imagine that someone like George Meegan did a lot of planning. He didn’t just crack his knuckles and decide he was going to walk 19,000 miles on sheer willpower.

He had support. He had friends. He had encouragement.

He apparently had good shoes. The record is keen to tell us that they were Italian hiking shoes—fancy—so not just some pair you bought at Walmart for a few bucks in September for a new school year for your kids, since your kids’ feet grow like crazy, then they, in turn, wear out those by November, not like those shoes, thank-you very much. They were good shoes. Just saying.

He had help, but that did not make the task any less daunting.

He still had to start somewhere, and it began with him saying to himself: I want to do this. I believe I can do this. I believe in doing this in order to make myself a better person, to make the world a better place. This, I believe, is something worth doing.

In order to press on in the journey of faith, you need to believe certain things and keep reaffirming that belief. The writer of Hebrews suggests something similar:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 

This seems like one of those “Duh” moments. If you want to go on a journey with God, you need to believe in God. Thanks, Captain Obvious.

It seems simple, but it is true.

If you want to go on a journey with God, you need to trust that God is there. God is always there, but if you don’t trust that, you don’t know it, and you won’t see it.

One scripture says, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Faith is like a form of seeing. It is how we walk. It’s how we know where we are going. It’s how we know who we are walking with.

What We Believe in Changes How We Walk

Sometimes it is important to state the simple things because we forget the simple things: What we believe about God matters.

If we want to have a sense that we know where we are going and how to get there, we need to grow in our understanding of faith. We need to think about our convictions and work them out in reading our Bibles, studying the advice of saints who have walked before us, praying, and serving. That doesn’t mean we all have to be academics and go on and do courses at ADC (although you can, and that is my shameless plug to convince you to come and study with us there), but we all need to attend to what our convictions are. Why do I believe in Jesus? What does Jesus mean for my life? Why is Jesus’ way the best way?

Hebrews puts a fine point on it as the writer is encouraging Jewish Christians not to go back to Judaism. Why not? Don’t Jews and Christians believe a lot of the same things? In many ways, yes. We share three-quarters of the same Bible.

You can say the same thing about other religions like Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I am not of the view that we should be putting other religions down. There is much wisdom in these religious traditions, not that all religions are the same. I have read reflections by Islamic theologians that, in many ways, are far more kind and gracious than what some Christians believe.

But I don’t have a problem with this because I don’t believe Christianity teaches that we Christians are superior to others or that we always get things right, far from it. That’s essential advice for the journey.

However, with the author of Hebrews, I can’t get around the fact that Jesus is greater. Jesus is God revealed. Jesus is the perfect embodiment of the law—the perfect way to follow God, the perfect sacrifice—the perfect display of God’s forgiveness and mercy. There is no one else like him.

Jesus, his incarnation, cross, and resurrection show God drawing near to us, dying for us, and giving us hope in a way I just don’t see anywhere else.

Jesus shows us what God is truly like, and that changes things.

And this gives me a different way of seeing myself, others, and our world on this journey.

If I believe that God is revealed in Jesus, in his incarnation, I believe that God is on the side of every person. That changes how we walk the journey.

If I believe that God is revealed in Jesus, who died at the cross, I believe that God is on the side of every person, no matter what they have done, myself included, my worst enemy included. I believe that renouncing the quest for status and power and taking up a way of self-giving love for others reflects the very heart of God. That changes how we walk the journey.

If I believe that God is revealed in Jesus, who rose from the grave, I believe that death does not have the final say, there is no evil in this world that ultimately has victory, there is no sin that cannot be forgiven, no tragedy that cannot be righted, no pain that cannot be mended into joy. That changes how we walk the journey.

You can say it another way, by trusting Jesus, I know God is with us on this journey.

I know his cross is the best and only way to walk this journey—loving others, sacrificing for God’s kingdom, his justice and truth.

I know because of Jesus’ resurrection that nothing is going to stop us on this journey to God: not sin, not death, not anything.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Knowing those kinds of things, trusting those kinds of things, sustains us for the journey.

Faith Means Taking the Next Step

But here is the thing: You can have all the right food for the hike. You can have the right shoes, walking stick, everything packed. But it still comes down to whether you are going to choose to take those first steps.

It still comes down to wherever you are, you’ve got to keep on walking: One foot in front of the other.

Some of us are taking our first steps. Some of us are down the road a bit. Some of us —how shall I put this?—may be on their 12th pair of Italian hiking shoes.  

God is with us on this journey, but as the author knows, the journey is still tough. It will have rough spots. There will be wandering. You will feel lost at times. You might fall down, trip, and feel like quitting. Or you will have moments where you are walking, but the joy is gone, and you are just dragging your heels.

I can only imagine that after being shot at in Panama, Meegan was probably thinking, “What did I get myself into. I hiked across one continent. Maybe this is far enough.” He probably had a moment where he had to muster up the motivation and conviction to keep going, knowing it would be worth it.

Faith is a journey. There will be obstacles. Keep going.  

“Faith is the daring of the soul to go further than it can see.”

In recounting all the stories of people’s faith, the writer of Hebrews says knowing his audience is facing their obstacle of persecution: Some “were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking, flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy.”

We are not facing the same obstacles that the Jewish Christians of this time were facing. Ours is different. Ours are not the same, but we will have obstacles. If we somehow think that the walk of faith shouldn’t have obstacles in it, we are doing it wrong.

In our day, we could have our own list of modern-day saints, faith-trailblazers.

By faith, Billy Graham presented the Gospel to millions,

By faith, Mother Theresa served the destitute.

By faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer opposed tyranny.

By faith, Martin Luther King fought racism.

By faith, Jimmy Carter worked for peace.

By faith, believers today give witness to Jesus’ coming kingdom in big ways and small.

By faith, God is still working. God is still walking with us. Keep going.

By faith, daily sins are forgiven,

By faith, despair is overcome with hope,

By faith, hate is healed with love,

By faith, injustice is confronted with truth

By faith, lives are transformed by God’s grace.

By faith, God is still working in people’s lives. God is still walking with us. Do you see it? Can you trust this?

By faith, what do you trust God can do with your life?

No matter where you are in your journey, can you, by faith, trust God enough to take the next step?

Whether that is a step into baptism, a step into deeper discipleship and learning, a step into a new way of serving, a step into a new way of giving, a step into a new path for your life or career: big or small.

Can you trust that God is leading us into better things on this journey?

There is an old poem called Footprints about a person walking with God along the beach in life, and the person turns back and notices that during the toughest times of life, there was only one set of footprints. Angry, they turned to God and said, “Where were you in those difficult times?” And God replies, “That is when I carried you.”

My friend has an addendum to this poem: He looked back at some of the best times of life, and instead of footprints, he sees thrashing, claw marks. What happened there, God? God replies: My son, that was when I had to drag you!

Some of us know both of those moments in our journey with God. Hopefully that helps us to be a bit more aware that God is there in the dark times and a bit more ready to step forward in faith into better times God has prepared for us.

May you trust this so that you can take your next step.

And may you trust that wherever we go, God goes with us, leading us deeper into a relationship with him.

Let’s pray,

Faithful and loving God,

God, who is with us in the journey of life.

God, you have never left us or forsaken us.

God help us remember all the moments of our lives, good and bad, and see you there, with us, working goodness, leading us into better.

God, give us your grace so that we can keep walking forward.

God help us to know by trusting you, you are leading us ever deeper into eternal life.

God forgive us for how we stumble. Some of us may be feeling very lost on this journey. Remind us that your grace has no limits. Remind us that you are always with us.

God help us to take that next step.

God, we long to step out courageously as a church, to reach our community, to be witnesses of our kingdom. God give us the eyes of faith to see the opportunities around us.

God, for where you have been with us and where you are leading us, we are thankful.

Amen.