“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. NASB
“For by it the men of old gained approval”
We will be wise, going into this great chapter about faith, to look behind us and be reminded of the solemn warning that ends chapter 10.
“But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if He shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”
There is no alternative offered. There is the walk of faith, or there is shrinking back. According to chapter 10 verse 39, [and remember that chapter and verse divisions came much later, so this is linked to chapter 11 verse 1 by a simple punctuation mark], those who shrink back do so to their destruction and those who persevere in faith do so to the preserving of their soul.
Then we have this very familiar definition of faith, given so that the reader who desires the preserving of his soul may know what sort of faith is required.
Faith is assurance. Faith itself is evidence of the unseen. By faith, men of old gained approval.
Now here is where a newcomer, hearing these words for the first time, would be inclined to ask, “Faith in what? Faith in whom?” And those are very important questions to ask since the word ‘faith’ is so carelessly tossed about these days.
Any form of religion is referred to as a faith. What people are talking about when they say it that way is a particular set of beliefs that mark that particular religion. “That man is of the Islamic faith” would be an example of how they would say it.
A religious person is commonly called a man of faith or a woman of faith. The word is used to encourage someone in a time of trouble, prompting them to ‘hang in there’ and have faith and everything will eventually be alright.
Now as I say, these are just general and careless uses of the word, because faith, by definition, must have a foundation – an object of focus. This should go without saying and I don’t want to get bogged down in it and bore you, but faith means ‘belief’; it means believing in something or someone, it means trusting in something or someone. You passively put your faith in a chair every time you sit on one. You actively put your faith in a person when you trust them to keep a promise or stay true to a vow. If there is no object or person of focus, telling someone to ‘have faith’, is like telling them to stand on air.
This is why immediately after warning his readers/hearers that the righteous man shall live by faith and that shrinking back from it displeases God, the writer defines faith, then lists example after example of those who exercised faith and gained God’s approval. The NIV says “This is what the ancients were commended for” (vs 2).
The Holy Spirit of God, through the writer, wants us to understand clearly what true God-pleasing faith is, so we’ll know what he is talking about when in chapter 12 he says, ‘Therefore…’ and encourages us to live in the faith that gained a good testimony for those who have trod this path we now tread.
So let’s set our own focus today on the kind of faith that pleases God, and each do our own inner checklist, so to speak, to see if this is the sort of faith to which we are holding fast.
HOW DO WE KNOW WE’RE WALKING BY FAITH?
A fellow pastor and friend of mine asked this question of his Wednesday evening congregation as their topic of study and discussion. How do we know we’re walking by faith?
He didn’t go into much detail about the things that were said, but he said that it provided for some very interesting discussion and some of the answers were surprising. I would venture to guess that the reasons some responses were surprising is that far too few Christians spend time contemplating what evidences of faith are demonstrated in their lives as they go through their days.
We say, “Yes, I have faith in Jesus Christ” or “I have faith in God” and we might even be able to go on even very deeply and explain what saving faith is and present a clear Gospel message. That is good and it is needful.
But I wonder how often that knowledge works itself into our lifestyles and our reactions and responses to whatever comes across our path in our daily life.
How do we know we walk by faith? The strictly doctrinal answer to that question is that we have heard the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose up from the dead and now gives new life to all who believe, and we repented, which means to turn around or to change the mind, and we believed in that good news and now we are a new creation in Him. That means we’re saved. It means we are born again or born from above and part of God’s family. We’ve come up with a lot of ways to say it over the years, haven’t we? Some are biblical terms and some have risen up within the ranks of the church. But in the final analysis, we know we’re walking by faith because that is what the Bible says the believer is doing. That’s why he is called a ‘believer’. He has believed the Gospel, he has put his faith and trust in the good news of Jesus Christ, so now he is, by virtue of belief and the new birth, walking by faith. That is not a reference to what he does, but what and who he now is; a faith-walker.
That’s Scriptural. That isn’t one of the things the church ‘made up’.
Listen for it here:
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Hear it? That’s Galatians 2:20 and Paul says in the first person what is true of every born again believer in Christ. “…the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me”. Every Christian can say that because it is true of every Christian.
In my early years as a Christian that verse intimidated me greatly. It saddened me to hear or read it, because I thought it was something the believer attained to by devotion and practice. I thought that Paul was about the only one who could say that about himself and for the rest of us it was pie in the sky. Now I realize it is a definition of all who are born from above through the gift of God which is by His grace alone, and that Paul was not just describing himself, but all believers as he wrote it.
We walk by faith. “My righteous one shall live by faith”. It’s not a command, it’s a fact.
Now that, as I said, is the purely doctrinal definition of the Christian faith; what we believe. That is what we believe that brings salvation. However it is not alone. We are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone, but the faith we are talking about is not alone – it issues in good works.
To put that another way, the faith by which we were saved and brought into God’s eternal family demonstrates itself through life and action. Let’s go to that side of the issue and make sure our thinking is clear.
HOW DO WE KNOW WE WALK BY FAITH?
As you may have noticed, I have given this second subsection the same title as the first. The reason I have done this is to emphasize the two-sidedness of this doctrine of faith.
The first response to the question was to give the purely doctrinal explanation of what saving faith is. Now we need to look at the practical side. In fact, I might have named this subsection ‘HOW DO OTHERS KNOW WE WALK BY FAITH?’, because this is what people see manifested in the flesh.
Let’s go to James for a moment and read a portion of his letter – chapter 2 verses 14-26
“What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18 But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
Are we seeing a contradiction in Scripture here? I assure you, we are not. When James says, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”, he is not contradicting Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 2:8-9.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
I want to explain the relation of these two passages to each other and then move quickly on.
The first thing we need to understand is that Paul and James were addressing two separate issues. Paul was explaining that saving faith is simply belief, not in what God has done to us, or what God has done in us, but what God has done for us. It is by faith in the Gospel – the good news of what Jesus Christ as done.
James on the other hand, was explaining that when a person has that saving faith and has been born from above through that faith, there will be evidence in the life. There will be fruit attesting to that inner transformation.
So his argument is, if a man says he has faith in God and in Christ, that must be more than an assent to some truths. There has to be more than head knowledge, even if that knowledge is entirely accurate and extensive.
You know, there are professors in our universities who teach religious studies, and they can teach the doctrines of the Christian faith as well as any preacher and better than some. But if you ask them if they are Christians they will tell you that they would never subscribe to such nonsense.
It is entirely possible to have a very thorough knowledge of theology and Bible doctrine and still be dead in trespasses and sins. James is saying that if there has been a true work of regeneration and salvation in the inner man, the evidence of Godly works and deeds will be evident.
Now let me add here, that all of those good deeds can also exist apart from saving faith. We all know there are many in this world who do good deeds but are not Christians. We call them philanthropists, but they are far from believing that God is and that He rewards faith. So good deeds cannot save you, and the doing of them does not necessarily prove that you are saved. But if you are saved, the doing of the deeds will be there. If they are not then you must question, as others around you will question, whether your faith is real at all, or whether there was a still birth.
What we have in HEBREWS chapter 11, is a list of examples of people who had true, saving faith. But notice that the writer doesn’t just say here are some ancients who had faith, and then jot down a list of names.
No, he says there was Abel, and here is what he did. Then there was Enoch, and here is what he did. Then came Noah, and here is what he did. And it goes on, in each case telling us what these people did that was pleasing to God as it demonstrated faith in Him.
Was it the works themselves that pleased God? No, it was that their works, their deeds, evidenced true faith relating to God and who He is and how according to His Divine Nature He relates to His creation.
Let’s have just a couple of definitions of faith and then go to list some of the things we as Christians believe or have faith in, that are distinctive to Christianity.
Faith is believing to the point of a settled conviction of the heart that translates into the attitudes and actions of life.
Faith itself is evidence of that which is invisible to the physical senses. When faith translates into action all who see witness the evidence of that which is not seen by their eyes. [Faith is the evidence of things not seen – vs 1]
Ok, so what are some of the things we have faith in as believers? I picked this list out of the text of Hebrews 11.
The universe was created by a Word – [God is able to call into being that which does not otherwise exist – Rom 4:17] That is in verse 3. The way JB Phillips paraphrases it is like this: “…by faith…our minds accept as fact that the whole scheme of time and space was created by God’s command”.
Now let’s not move too quickly here. Think about this. There were no witnesses to creation except the angels. God created, and He created man last. So He had to have told Adam what He did, and the information was passed down from there. So we either believe the Creation account, or we disbelieve and we accept some other explanation. But I would submit to you that no one was around to witness the process that modern science wants you to accept either, and while men have been able to punch holes, large holes, in those theories, God’s Word says “In the beginning God created” and we accept that by faith and that pleases God.
That God is. That is the next thing we see, and it is in the same verse that tells us God cannot be pleased apart from faith. We must believe that He exists, and that He rewards the one who diligently looks for Him by letting Himself be found.
The next thing I see is that God has our good in mind. It is implied in the text. If you read down through the chapter you can see that message just under the surface. I’ll leave that to your later reading, but I bring it out here because I think we often tend to forget that God has our good in mind in all of His actions toward us, His commands, His promises, His revelation. Check it out.
We see also in this chapter the demonstration that God keeps His promises. Men of old believed that He would and He did and always does.
We see Abraham believing that God is able to raise the dead in his obedient sacrifice of his son Isaac, and by faith he gained God’s approval.
We see Moses, by faith reckoning that the riches of Christ are greater than the world and its riches. Could he see those riches? No. Of course not, because the riches we have in Christ are spiritual, they are heavenly, they are eternal. But Moses saw with spiritual eyes; eyes of faith, and he looked forward to the reward instead of backward to Egypt.
Do you see what is presented here? In all these cases we have examples of people demonstrating the kind of faith that pleases God, by their actions. The writer finally runs out of time and goes from a walk through the hall of faith to a trot.
“And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 38 (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. 39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”
HOW IS FAITH SEEN?
How is faith evidenced then? One way true faith is in evidence is when the believer remains faithful to God’s Word against all contradictions. That means a person cannot have true, saving faith, and accept anything that is contrary to God’s revelation. You cannot believe the Bible and the theory of evolution. You cannot believe that there is more than one way to God than through Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection. You cannot believe any philosophy or scientific assertion or any claim of man that denies any Biblical claim. God is, God’s Word is truth, God is the rewarder of all who come to Him in sincere faith, for without faith it is impossible to please Him, which means that the kind of faith that manifests in obedience to His commands for life and worship pleases Him indeed.
Faith is looking past excruciating pain, debilitating illness, frustrating physical limitations, and knowing that His Spirit ‘will give life to your mortal body’. (Rom 8:11)
Faith is being content with what you have in this world, not jealous of those who have more, because there is laid up for you the crown of righteousness, ‘which the Lord will award…to all who have loved His appearing.’ (2 Tim 4:8)
Faith believes that God gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. (Rom 4:17)
For by it the men of old gained approval. They found His pleasure.
FAITH IN HIS GRACE
I don’t want to end without talking about the thing that we must have faith in, both in coming to God and in continuing with God every day of our lives.
In the Old Testament where we read the stories of these people who made it into Hebrews 11, we are told about their errors and their shortcomings. God graciously has left all that out of the New Testament and told us only of their faith.
But I want you to remember today that none of these stood justified before God on their own merit. Their faith is commended. By faith they gained God’s approval. But it was their faith He approved even when He did not necessarily approve their behavior.
Rahab was a prostitute. Moses murdered a man. Abraham tried to give his wife away to save his own neck. Gideon was a wise guy. Barak was a wimp. Jephthah literally sacrificed his own daughter to keep a vow he made in haste. I could go on. Most of us are familiar with the stories of Samson’s failures and David’s iniquity. Here is my point.
Our faith, the kind that pleases God, must include faith in His grace. The person who labors under the unbearable burden of thinking God has rejected him or her because they haven’t dropped a habit or because of something they’ve done that they haven’t even forgiven themselves for, is lacking in faith.
The person who refuses to come to God because he or she lives a moral and upright existence and feels no need for God is absolutely lacking in faith.
You need to know today that you will never be bad enough to be beyond God’s grace to save and to sanctify, and you could never be good enough to be beyond the need of His grace for the same purpose.
God gives life to the dead. You either are or were dead in your trespasses and sins, and no matter how good a person you are you will stay eternally in that condition apart from the grace of God alone.
God calls into being that which does not exist. If a relationship between you and God is non-existent He is able to call you to life and speak your justification into being. It is not dependent on your ability to do or to think or to say the right things.
Jesus paid it all, my friend, and no person ever lived who was either too bad to be within the grasp of grace, nor too good to be in need of it.
“And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.” Vs 39-40
Do you hear it? They received something and they did not receive something. They received approval. Why? Because of their faith in a promise that made them act like champions. They did not receive the promise. Why? Because the promise was for something better coming in the future; something better than what they had, and they were willing to lay hold of belief that manifested in life and action.
We have received that better thing – that promise has been fulfilled, in the Person of Jesus Christ who has redeemed us and made us to stand justified by His grace through faith, and now those who went before wait for our arrival so that final perfection, completion, can be experienced in full for all who are His.
Christians, we should accept the possession with the intensity with which they accepted the promise; choosing to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of this world.
Rise up O church of God, have done with lesser things. Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of Kings.
Are you a faith-walker? That is, are you saved by faith in the shed blood and resurrection of Christ? Then walk by faith. Let your life and behavior testify to the faith that saves you. We have witnesses. The world was not worthy of them. They gained God’s approval by faith.
Have you?
