BY FAITH:
Hebrews 11:1-12:2
(Verse 1) gives us a two-fold definition of faith:
“Faith is…
(1a) …the assurance of things hoped for.
(1b) …the conviction of things not seen.
It is important to understand that these two words, assurance (substance in KJV) and conviction are two very hard and difficult words to translate into English.
So what is the reality behind these two words and what is the definition of faith?
???? Think about it. Ask yourself the question, do you have faith? How do you know you have faith? What is faith, so you can know you have it? What hangs on whether you have faith or not?
These are very relevant questions to our life.
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Let’s start by explaining the second definition given in
(Verse 1b): “faith is the conviction of things not seen.”
The word here translated as “conviction” isn’t used anywhere else in the New Testament. Outside of the New Testament, its normal use is “proof” or “argument” or “evidence.”
Most translators don’t use the words “proof” or “evidence” because it doesn’t seem to make sense. How can faith be evidence or proof?
How is faith evidence? How is faith evidence of things not seen?
…I took my clue from another place in the New Testament where God’s invisible attributes are said to be clearly seen by man in Romans 1:20. “Since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
So Romans 1:20 seems to say that the evidence that God made the world is the things made – meaning they clearly point to a maker.
Hebrews 11:3 seems to say that the evidence that God made the world is faith.
So what do we make of this? Faith, at least in part, is the spiritual seeing or perceiving of the fingerprints of God on the things He has made. The fingerprints being the order, the beauty, the greatness, the complexity…
3-D Image Illustration: When I was growing up, we had those pictures with the hidden 3d images. They were art work where on one level they were one thing, but at another level is something quite different. At your first glance all you see is the surface color and chaos. But if you let your eyes focus more deeply, or more distantly, you may see a train or car not only appearing, but standing off the page. Some people stare at these pictures and see nothing but color and chaos, but others almost immediately see a farm animal or an airplane. If someone says, “How do you know the airplane is there?” the answer is, “I see it.” You’re seeing is the evidence. They may not see it, but that won’t change your mind.
Just So… Some people look at God’s creation and see nothing, but color and chaos and others have a deeper view and suddenly God’s fingerprints come into focus.
What evidence can they offer? They see it.
Now some might say, “Should that be called faith?”
…Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” Paul’s meaning was that Christ is not physically on earth for us to see with our physical eyes, but is in Heaven. He wasn’t saying that there is no spiritual perception of God’s reality.
Hebrews 11:3 says, “We understand by faith.” So we see that faith is not just a responding act of the soul, it is also a grasping or perceiving or understanding act. It is a spiritual act that sees the fingerprints of God. True faith is based on real truth. It looks deeply at the world God has made, looks through it and by the grace of God it sees the glory of God standing forth off the creation like a 3d image (Psalm 19:1).
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(Verse 1a): “…faith is the assurance of things hoped for…”
The word assurance here could also be translated as “substance” or “nature.”
- I think that what the writer is saying is that faith apprehends the goodness and the sweetness of what God promises so clearly that this goodness and sweetness are substantially present in faith. –
In other words, faith grasps or “lays a hold of” God’s goodness and sweetness.
Faith is a spiritual apprehending or perceiving or tasting or sensing of the beauty and sweetness and goodness of what God promises.
Explanation: Faith does not just feel confident that this day is coming some day. Faith has spiritually laid hold of and perceived and tasted that it is real. And this means that faith has the substance or the nature of what is hoped for in it.
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(Verse 2) “For by it the men of old gained approval.”
(Verse 2) gives a perfect bridge to the first two examples of faith. The writer is saying that by their faith they gained God’s approval.
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(Verses 4-6) Abel & Enoch
**The key to Abel’s offering was not just the offering, but that he offered it by faith.
Illustration: It is not just what we do that matters, but how we do it.
????? Do are actions express the assurance of things hoped for?
What’s interesting is that in neither of these Old Testament stories, faith is never even mentioned, but this is not a slip up.
He’s not saying that because I see faith mentioned in these stories, therefore faith must be the way they pleased God. He’s actually saying the complete opposite.
He sees the faith in these stories, not because it is mentioned, but because these men in fact did please God, and there is no other way to please Him than by faith.
Look at (Verse 6a) “And without faith it is impossible to please Him…”
Premise: Without faith it is impossible to please God.
Premise2: Enoch and Abel pleased God.
Conclusion: Enoch and Abel had faith.
????? How was Abel’s offering better than Cain’s?
…Cain’s offering was of his own good works. He was a tiller of the ground and so he brought his best fruit.
…Abel’s offering requires blood. In Genesis we read that he brought the first born of his flocks and their fat portions.
Cain’s bloodless sacrifice was a presentation of his own works and secured no acceptance from God. In contrast, Abel’s sacrifice secured God’s approval and testified to all men for all time that salvation is by faith in the atoning death of an acceptable substitute.
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Noah (v.7)
Noah built the ark because of his faith in God’s predictive words concerning an event that there was no visible sign of. As a matter of fact, rain has not even been mentioned at all up to this point. I imagine Noah being unsure of what was going on, but he took a step of faith and listened.
Because of his faith, his family was saved from judgment and he gained God’s approval over his life.
(The ark and the gospel) Faith provided salvation.
*Theology of the flood:
*The flood was a purification of the corrupt inhabitants of the earth. Just so, baptism is a symbol of purification of the old corrupt nature.
*Most historians as well as Old Testament scholars have agreed that there was only one door on the ark and so to board the ark and be saved from the flood you had to come through that door. Just so, there is only one door, Jesus Christ, which provides salvation from death.
*Noah was the new adam. Humanity was replanted on earth starting with Noah’s line. Just so, when one experiences the salvation experience the old passes away and we are a new creation.
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Abraham & Sarah (v. 8-12)
I drew three examples of faith from Abraham’s life:
1. Unquestioning Faith – (v.8) in which he did not know where he was going but set out on a journey anyway (Out of your comfort zone).
2. Pilgrim Faith – (v.9) in which he lived as an alien in a foreign land (Ambassadors of Christ).
3. Expectant Faith – in which he was “looking for” the city which has foundations, who’s architect and builder is God (Looking ahead to going home).
We see that by the faith of Sarah, she received physical strength to have a child.
We are never too old to be used of God.
By faith, Abraham and Sarah, even though physically they were as good as dead, became parents of multitudes as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore.
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Ambassadors for Christ (v. 13-22)
The life of Faith is the life of a sojourner.
I chose a sequence of sojourner text that I want us to see.
In Genesis 23:4 Abraham pleads with the sons of Heth for a burial sight for his wife – “I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me a burial site among you, that I may bury y dead out of my sight.”
In Genesis 47:9, towards the end of Jacob’s life, he says to Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty.”
In Psalm 39, King David includes himself in a lineage of sojourners. He says in verse 12, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give an ear to my cry; do not be silent at my tears; for I am a stranger with Thee, a sojourner like my fathers.”
In the New Testament Paul says in Philippians 3:20, “For our citizenship is in Heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul.”
In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul calls us ambassadors, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ…”
The point here is that the life of faith is also the life of a sojourner. The promises of God are our real home and we have seen them and tasted them. These promises have shaped our whole way of seeing, thinking, and feeling. We have been put out of sync (if you will) with this world because our treasure is in Heaven.
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(v. 13-16) Seeking and Desiring another Country: Inner Faith
Look at Verse 14, “For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.”
The key word here is “seeking.”
I think that when the writer wrote this, he had in mind what Jesus said in Matt. 6:25-34
In Verse 16a we see another key word, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
The “therefore” in the middle of this verse is great. Verse 16b, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.”
Do you want God to be unashamed of being your God? So what must we do?...desire Him! Desire the city of God rather than the city of man. Desire Heaven over earth.
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(v. 17-19) The Act of Faith
If this boy dies, everything in human experience says that the promise of God will fail.
???? Perhaps the call or command in your life right now is to stay married, or to stay at or leave a particular job, to speak up at work about Christ, to confront a person in sin, to venture a new vocation, or to be a missionary or go into full-time ministry or to join the military.
As we see these decisions in our limited minds, the idea of doing these things are terrible – it’s like the loss of Isaac. You have considered every human angle possible and it seems that there is no way that it could turn out well.
Now we know what it was like for Abraham. This story is in the Bible for us. God planned this message for us. The question is do we desire God? Do we seek after God? Do we trust in God’s promises? Will you trust Him in obedience?
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Faith is looking forward to the reward (v.23-29)
Remember the definition of faith in verse 1 as we look in at Moses’ and his parent’s life.
These are four points in Moses’ life from these verses. The point of these verses is that faith – the assurance of things hoped for – makes all the difference at those points in our lives. I think that we can also learn to walk through crisis situations by faith.
1: Were Moses’ Parents Afraid? (v.23)
This first situation has to do with the faith of Moses’ parents when he was born. If you recall, the king of Egypt was afraid because of the growing number of Jewish people in his land. So how do you stop a growing race? He commanded in Exodus 1:22 that every male child is thrown into the river, but to keep all of the girls alive for amusement and slaves.
There are two things I want you to see.
1. All Jewish baby boys are to be killed.
2. That if you were disobedient to the king’s commands, you were risking your own life.
They could kill their sons and save themselves or save their sons and risk their own lives.
So when Moses’ parents decide to not throw him in the Nile River but hide him, they are risking their lives. They basically decide that fear of death will not control their lives. The point to this crisis is that their act of courage against the king and act of love toward their son required faith.
???? How does faith produce that kind of courage and love? It frees us of the fear. More simply put, faith in God’s promises free us from the fear of death and makes us brave in the risks of love.
2: Moses’ choice of faith (v.24-26)
When Moses was grown, he willingly refused to be known as the “son of pharaoh’s daughter” and to take the royal position which would have been his.
He preferred ill treatment with God’s people rather than enjoying the luxuries of a sinful life.
This choice was made because his faith gave him a glimpse of the messiah to come, and Moses considered the suffering for him would be greater than all of the treasures of Egypt.
3: Moses flight of faith (v. 27)
Moses fled Egypt without fear of Pharaoh, enduring because he saw “Him who is unseen” which is only possible with faith. He was looking with an eye of faith and Jesus was standing there 3-d.
4: Moses’ Passover of faith (v. 28-29)
Moses instituted the Passover, having faith that the sprinkling of the lamb’s blood on the door posts would bring them salvation.
By faith, Moses led the Jewish nation through the parted red sea. Moses prayed to the Lord before parting the water. He had faith that the Lord would deliver the Israelites and provide salvation for them.
*Theology of the Passover:
*Passover required the blood of a slain, first born lamb which protected them from judgment. Salvation required the blood of the first born Son of God, Jesus Christ, which protects us from judgment.
*For the blood of the lamb to provide protection from judgment, the lamb had to be unblemished. Also, for us to receive protection from judgment, God requires the blood of His unblemished or sinful Son.
*After slaying the lamb for Passover, the people would eat the flesh of the lamb as a remembrance of the Passover. Also, we partake in communion which symbolizes Jesus’ flesh and blood for the remembrance of what Jesus Christ did for us.
*For the Passover, they would slay this unblemished, first born lamb and for their houses to be “passed over” they would apply the blood to the top and sided of the door. This foreshadows the cross, which also delivers us.
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Joshua’s march of faith (v.30)
March around the city walls once a day for six days and then on the seventh day march around them seven times and then sound the trumpets and shout.
The walls of Jericho did not fall from the shouts of the people, the trumpets blowing, or the marching. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell and crumbled. Joshua had faith that the Lord would crumble the walls and He did. Joshua 6.
???? Do we sometimes get an answer from the Lord and think it sounds so ridiculous we throw the idea out?
Rahab’s hospitality of faith (v. 31)
Although Rahab was involved in a very sinful life, she allowed the two spies into her home and displayed a personal faith in the God of Heaven.
We should never look at a person as if they cannot be redeemed.
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(v.32-38) What More shall I say?
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(v. 39-12:2) Run, don’t meander.
This command in 12:1b is not a surprise. I believe that this is what the whole book is about.
The whole book is telling us to run, endure, persevere, fight, and be alert, don’t drift, don’t neglect, don’t be sluggish, and don’t take your eternal security for granted.
Live and show your faith the same way all of these examples did that we just studied.
The main imperative in these verses is to “RUN.” Don’t meander, don’t stroll, don’t wander about aimlessly. Run the race as if everything depended on it.
We are not running the race when we ask, “What’s wrong with that,” but by asking, “Does it help me?”
Not just, “Is it a sin?” but “Is it in the way?”
*This is a command to look at your life, think hard about what you’re doing, and get ruthless about what stays and goes.
(v. 1b)“every encumbrance”
Hindrances could not be a direct sin in itself, but a sin if it is hindering you in your race.
Hindrances could be:
- the computer
- the hidden alcohol or candy
- the television, football games
- the videos
- the magazines or novels
I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with these things in themselves, but if it is a hindrance in your walk with God, this is a command to lay it aside.
Motivation for the Run
The first motivation is this cloud of witnesses. The example of these we talked about today is a witness and motivation for us.
