Most of us confidently believe that we have faith. The problem is that the faith we often display is quite different from what is defined here in Hebrews 11. We have been conditioned to believe that we must see in order to believe. We analyze and reanalyze in order to establish hard evidence to determine what is logical to believe. This often leads us to approach God much like we would approach an algebra problem, trying to solve Him using a slide rule and calculator. The natural result of this approach is being lead to the mistaken belief that God will only help us accomplish what we can logically conclude is possible. This has led human reason to produce such unbiblical sayings as, “There’s a fine line between faith and stupidity.” The faith we read about in the Bible is based on the fact that God is not bound by human logic and natural laws and that He can do more than we can even begin to imagine. This type of faith is extremely difficult because it goes against our natural tendencies. It causes us to move beyond what we are comfortable with. But this is exactly the type of faith that we are called to display in our lives and His church. Today, I would like to paint a picture of what true Biblical faith looks like.
I. There are four important things we must understand about faith.
A. Faith always involves assurance and conviction.
1. Faith is the assurance or being sure of what we hope for. The Greek word is hypostasis which means to give something substance or to make something a reality.
2. Warren Wiersbe writes, “This faith operates quite simply. God speaks and we hear His Word. We trust His Word and act on it no matter what the circumstances are or what the consequences may be. The circumstances may be impossible, and the consequences frightening and unknown; but we obey God’s Word just the same and believe Him to do what is right and what is best.”
3. Faith is the proof, conviction or certainty of what is not seen. The Greek word is elengchos which is a legal term and often means proof or test.
4. When you put these two pieces together we discover that faith is absolutely certain that what it believes is true and that what it expects will come to pass.
B. Faith always involves things that are still yet to come.
1. The word hope always points toward the future and focuses upon what is yet to come.
2. Faith causes our hope to rest on God’s ability instead of human ability and logic.
3. Without faith in God, hope can never be any more than wishful thinking.
C. Faith has as its object things that are presently unseen.
1. We really need to think for a moment. Heaven, the promised resurrection, eternal life, the work of the Holy Spirit and even Jesus Himself are beyond our ability to physically see.
2. Without fail, amazing things will begin to happen when we focus the eyes of our heart on the unseen realities of God.
3. When we begin seeing through faith rather than human senses, what God is doing in our lives and in the world around us begins to become visible.
4. Faith enables us to make God honoring decisions based on unseen realities.
D. Faith involves maintaining our focus on God.
1. When our commitment is not what it ought to be it is really easy to see our faith beginning to erode and trusting God’s ability becomes much more difficult.
2. Without faith it is impossible to believe that God exists. God’s existence cannot be verified, proved or substantiated. It can only be believed and faith makes that possible.
3. It is time to pause for a probing question, “By watching our lives could someone conclude that God exists?”
4. God has intended that our lives be the way that the world sees Jesus and for that to happen our lives must be focused on Him.
II. There are three reasons that faith is essential to pleasing God.
A. Faith enables us to believe that God does exist.
1. Faith enables us to see what others cannot see, do what others cannot do and to understand how God works.
2. Dr. J. Oswald Sanders puts it this way: “Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.”
3. Belief in God’s existence is more than just a simple acknowledgement; it is the understanding not only that God is there but He is working in our lives and in control of circumstances.
4. Faith in God’s existences has three important elements.
a. Belief that God speaks through His Word.
b. Sensitivity to God’s movement in our lives.
c. Obedience to God’s will for our lives.
B. Faith enables us to see the necessity of developing a personal relationship with God.
1. Enoch was able to please God because He had developed a close personal relationship with Him.
2. There is no amount of good works or religious activity that will enable us to please God. A faithful, growing personal relationship is the only way to please Him.
3. God does not want a mere acknowledgement of His presence; He desires to have a dynamic personal relationship with us that will transform us.
4. When we develop this type of personal relationship with God our faith assures us of the fact that God truly rewards us for this type of pursuit of Him.
5. Faith means turning from human wisdom and logic to God and obediently walking with Him on a daily basis,
6. George Mueller is quoted as saying, “Faith begins where man’s power ends.”
C. Faith enables us to believe in God’s ability to accomplish what we believe to be an impossibility.
1. As you read through the entirety of chapter 11 you discover that people shook their heads and laughed at these people who willingly took God at His Word and stepped out to follow Him.
2. Faith is not contrary to wisdom it is beyond reason. Faith is learning to live by insight rather than sight.
3. Faith is not going against the facts. Faith is not ignoring the facts. Faith is including God in the equation and moving beyond the facts based on His ability rather than ours.
4. “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3:20—The Message)
III. Suggestions for coming to grips with the need for Biblical faith in our lives.
A. We must discover the reason why we personally struggle with living according to the Biblical concept of faith.
1. Maybe it is because we believe that God will not help us. We really needed Him once and asked for His help but He ignored our cries.
2. Our text when it says God rewards those who seek Him, is not talking about someone that only seeks Him when there is a crisis. It is talking about a person who seeks God on a daily basis. Seeking God is a lifestyle.
3. Sometimes pride causes us not to release our lives completely to God. An attitude of self sufficiency is always a great enemy of faith.
4. When we answer this question we will find that we can remove a significant barrier to displaying a faith that pleases God. In fact we will begin seeing God work in ways we never dreamed.
B. We need to live in the present leaving the future to God.
1. We are an anxious people. We often make our lives full of terrible misfortunes, most of which have never happened.
2. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:25-27—NIV)
3. We need to learn to bite off life in daily chunks and not tie ourselves in knots by imagining the worst case scenarios about tomorrow.
4. When we are constantly worrying about tomorrow we will never be able to truly live today to its fullest.
5. Seize today. Live for today. Make the most of each and every opportunity. By doing so we will truly see ourselves living with a faith that pleases God.
C.S. Lewis writes in his book, “The Problem of Pain:”
We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the “intolerable compliment.” Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble; he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life, the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child; he will take endless trouble and would doubtless thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were important.
One can imagine a beautiful picture, after being rubbed and scrapped and recommenced for the tenth time. If it was alive it would probably wish it was a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish God had designed for us a less glorious destiny and a less painful way to get there; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.
