I am really excited to be starting a brand new series. It is called, "Stepping Out in Faith." What you read just a moment ago were some quotes from our founding fathers. And what we see in their lives is that they were men of faith. They were believers, by and large. Not everyone, and not everyone to the same degree were followers of Christ. But they were men of faith.
Faith is required for doing great things—things like building a nation, fighting for liberty, risking everything. But what about the ordinary things of life: building a nest egg, fighting a cold, risking nothing?
I had set out months ago, knowing that I would have this time, to write a series on faith. And my initial presupposition, what I wanted to communicate to all of you was this: the idea that faith is something we need in the every day, that every ordinary aspect of life is something in which we need faith in order to operate correctly and according to Christian principles. But as I got into the Word of God and wrestled with this idea, God made it abundantly clear to me that that was totally wrong.
What I learned was that God has not called us to have faith in ordinary things. In fact, God has not called us at all to have ordinary lives. Faith is only understood in the context of the extraordinary—like we saw in our founding fathers of daring to risk life and limb and property, and risk everything, family included, for the cause of liberty. They put it all on the line. And as we look into the Bible, which we will tonight, we will begin our study, and over the next five weeks we want to devour Hebrews chapter 11, to find out, what is it about faith that God intends for us?
I encourage you to take a look at your outline tonight. I want you to see these verses here as we look at it. And I will walk you through this process. But, again, I want to suggest that faith is best understood only in the context of greatness—great daring, great deeds, great possibilities.
Now if this is true, that means that many of us are living faithless lives. And whether we like to admit it or not, no one wants to appear weak in faith. But deep down in us there is this ache, this longing, this desire that things could be different. If we can get quiet enough for just a few moments, and begin to look at that ache, and begin to understand that perhaps it is arising out of the reality that we are not living the life that God intended us to live.
You see, that is because though I had sought out in my planning to present to you how you could have faith in the ordinary of going down and opening up a checking account—we could do that by faith, and we could have faith in working out in the morning, such as it is. You know, every time I get the urge to exercise, I lay down until it passes. If that is true—if really faith is not intended for the ordinary, then unless there is something extraordinary, unless you are involved in the building of a nation, unless you are involved in the building of a church, unless you are involved in the building of God’s kingdom at some level, then your life is being lived day by day without faith. That is because the truth is it doesn’t require any faith to do the ordinary.
How many of you, getting out of bed, said, "Lord, by faith, I will make it to the kitchen this morning?" Even the thought not spoken, but in your heart, no, it is not there. Why? That is because it is not required. You say, "Wait a minute. Isn’t life itself to be lived by faith?" Yes, to a degree. But when we look at Hebrews 11, what we find is greatness. And by the end of our five weeks, I want you to understand your potential for greatness and how your faith in God can bring that out in extraordinary ways.
What Is Faith?
Look how the author starts in Hebrews 11:1-3. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."
The first thing I want you to notice here is:
1. The Nature of Faith
First of all, Faith is assurance based on God’s character. Now by assurance, I am trying to suggest that it is as good as seeing. We live in a world in which we operate by our senses—what we can see, what we can touch and feel and hear. You say that by faith. It is no faith at all to say that this is a chair. We see it. It requires little faith at all to even sit in it because I have good reason to believe it would support my weight.
Biblical faith, however, is assurance, as good as seeing, though we don’t see. And it is based on God’s character—who He is as a person. Now as an example, I want to jump out of Hebrews just a moment and into the Book of Job.
During my vacation I came across this incredible principle that I had never understood before out of the Book of Job. In fact, every sermon I have ever preached on Job is wrong. I take them all back. And I wish to issue a formal retraction for everything I ever said about Job. That is because every time I missed chapter 3, verse 25.
Now remember that Job is the one that God singled out to Satan, and said, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him." And Satan said, "He’s only following You because You protect him, and You provide for him." And God removes His hand of blessing and allows Satan to attack Job. And Job loses everything.
When he does, he says this: "What I feared has come upon me." Now I used to think that Job was a totally righteous guy. Why? That is because the book says that Job was a righteous man. However, there was something missing in Job’s life. And by Job’s own confession, we discover what it is—Job had no faith. He had obedience, he had righteousness, but he had no faith. Listen again to what he said, "What I feared has come upon me."
Brent Curtis and John Eldredge in their book, The Sacred Romance, sum it up this way: "In other words, I knew it. I knew I really couldn’t trust God—not with the things that matter most."
See, Job’s idol was control. And God was determined to save him from it. Job was not picked at random. Job was not picked because of his righteousness. God had a mission for Job from the very start, and it was to work out in him the one thing he lacked—faith.
Now when I read that, I suddenly realized that there was a lot of faith lacking in my life. And maybe you will identify with this. Have you ever had the thought, when something bad happens in your life, "I knew it?" "I knew God wouldn’t protect me from this." And there is that inkling of doubt in God every time something bad happens. You dare not speak it. The closest we ever get is to say, "God, where are You?" as if He didn’t know what was going on. And Job here says, "What I feared has come upon me," always believing that this would happen to him.
Now whether we want to admit it or not, we all fear that God really is not out for our good, else why would we suffer? So faith then is assurance based on what? Based on history? Never! Based on hope? Not quite. It is assurance based on God’s character—who He is, that He is a good God, a righteous God, a holy God, and a just God. And faith is believing in what is not seen and believing it is so because of who He is. And hand in hand with this—and that is what Hebrews means when it says it is, "the substance of things hoped for."
Faith is conviction based on God’s promise. Whereas assurance is as good as seeing, conviction is as good as knowing. Now there are plenty of things in our life that we know, and we don’t need faith to know them. I know that I have keys in my pocket. I know that I am really hot. Okay? I don’t need faith for that.
Now there are plenty of things though that I know, as good as know, based on my conviction in what? In God’s promise that what He said, He will do. Another Old Testament example, not brought out in Hebrews 11, is the example of Eve—and Adam, but I’m thinking first of Eve. Eve’s problem in the Garden of Eden was a faith problem. Think about what happened. The first moment of doubt we see in Eve is when the serpent suggests, "Has God really said?" And he gives the suggestion to Eve that God’s promise, that God’s spoken truth was unreliable, was somehow maybe not accurate. And faith, for us, the evidence of things not seen, is conviction, as good as knowing, based on God’s promise.
I love the way Andrew Murray puts it. He says this: "Faith always attaches itself to what God has said or promised." And that is part of the reason faith in the ordinary must become faith in the extraordinary. That is because God’s promises are built around extraordinary living. And I want to build a case for that just a little bit later. That is the nature of faith.
2. The Honor of Faith
Now the honor of faith is seen in verse 2. He says, "For by it the elders obtained a good testimony." Faith is essential to a healthy Christian life.
I want to read to you another quote from Andrew Murray that I thought was extraordinary. He said, "Never mourn over unbelief as if it were only a weakness which you cannot help. As God’s child, how ever weak you may be, you have the power to believe for the Spirit of God is in you. You have only to keep in mind this: No one apprehends anything before that he has the power to believe. He must simply begin and continue with saying to the Lord that he is sure that His Word is truth. He must hold fast the promise and rely upon God for the fulfillment."
Now I have read a lot of books on the spiritual disciplines. And they all pretty much say the same thing—something that we rarely practice in our day and age. And it is basically speaking the truth so that you can believe the truth. It is saying that what is, is. And it is speaking it out loud and embracing it as truth.
I have been out of the pulpit for over a month. I haven’t taught anything. I have barely prayed. I haven’t studied my Bible. I have been about as godless as you can be on a vacation and still hold a job. All that to say this, "Boy, it started hitting me this afternoon—I have got to preach tonight." And something happened to me, which hasn’t happened in a long time, I started getting nervous. And I started getting anxious. And I got here. And I walked in here, and it was hotter than Hades in here. And I said, "Oh, Lord." And I walked into the parlor, and there was nobody there to pray with me. Not yet. They showed up finally. But I spent ten minutes basically doing just this—claiming a promise until the promise claimed me. And the one that popped into my mind was one of the first verses I ever memorized: "Faithful is he who calls you, who also will do it."
That means if God has called you to do something, He is going to do it through you. And I am not really on the hot seat tonight. Well, it is hot—but you know what I am saying. You know, it is not really dependent on me. God has called me to speak. But you know what? I can rely on the fact that He is faithful. So I just kind of paced around a little bit. And I said, "Lord, faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it." And I said that enough times until I believed it. And peace and comfort—by the time Pastor George walked in, and he was all mad about the air conditioning—I was relaxed by then. I’m like, "Hey, who knows?"
Have you ever done that? "He must simply begin and continue with saying to the Lord that He is sure that His Word is truth." How can we be so sure? How can we be so sure that His Word is truth? It is because it is His Word. It is His Word to us. It is His love letter, penned over time for us. He has given us His truth. And it is absolutely essential to a healthy Christian life that we embrace it in faith with assurance and conviction.
The other aspect of honor here is that: Faith is the core of every good testimony. It says, "For by it the elders obtained a good testimony." Now by elders it is meant the ancestors, the forefathers, the patriarchs, the prophets, the one that He is about to give us a whole, long laundry list of saints in Hebrews 11. By faith all of these people obtained a good testimony.
It doesn’t say that by faith all of these people lived a good life, by faith all of these people had success and prosperity, by faith all of these people got what they wanted. That is not what it says at all. And that is not the truth historically about what happened to those people. In fact, when you get to the end of the list, he lists all of the people that then suffered miserably for their faith. But His whole point here is that everyone, no matter their suffering, no matter their service, no matter their life, it was faith that put them in that chapter. It was faith that made their lives stand out above others. It was faith that made the ordinary become extraordinary. And they obtained a good testimony because of it.
Now "obtained a good testimony" is literally, "were witnesses of." You see, that is because faith is not so much something that we must muster as something God is desiring to impart to us. And these people in Hebrews 11, as we will see, were the recipients of everything that God had for them. They were no more deserving than you or me. They weren’t better. They weren’t smarter. They weren’t more talented. They just believed. When God spoke, they believed.
3. The Eyes of Faith
In verse 3, it says, "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."
Faith is the essence of spiritual perception. And here in verse 3 is the first illustration of this. Now every illustration from this point on is going to be centered around a person. This first illustration is centered around an event—Creation. Creation is the first illustration that faith is believing without seeing. That is because there is no one, there never has been anyone who could witness what God did. Yet, we can believe.
Now for those of us with children in the public school system, might I say that we should hold our heads high as creationists, as believers in the fact that God created the heavens and the earth? That is not a position to hang your head in shame over. That is nothing to be embarrassed by as if it is not intellectually strong. It is full of faith.
Ultimately it comes down to believing in something you cannot see. But let me point out another fact. No evolutionist was there to witness it either. So no matter the position you fall down on, it is always a position of faith.
Now faith then is the essence of spiritual perception. Just as we can perceive that God created the heavens and the earth, and we do so with eyes of faith, so we can begin to perceive what God is going to do in and through our lives. And that will be the exploration as we step out in faith over the next five weeks. That will be the exploration for each of us.
God brought about this journey in my own life starting about a year ago. As my wife and I began the adoption journey, that for us was a huge faith step. And that was where God began to show me this Hebrews path, that at one point I was like Abel, at another point I was like Abraham, and at another point I was like Moses. And it took me all to way to Moses before I ever saw it. And by then it was almost over. And I am like, "Well, thank You, God, for nothing. Okay, I could have been learning this stuff ahead of time." But that is not how we learn is it? We learn the hard way.
Well, I want you to learn how God is working in and through your journey. I want you to be able to identify where you are in that journey. And as we start out though, we have got to ask ourselves the question:
How Do I Acquire Faith?
1. Read the Word of God.
Now before you just say, "Oh, yeah, I knew that was coming," let me tell you that is not what you think it is. I want to take Romans 10:17 a level deeper for us. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Simply, Bible study for Bible study sake is good, and it is profitable, but that is not really what faith is all about. Reading the Bible like a textbook, I am not going to say is a bad thing. I think there are lots of things you can learn from it. But it is not a textbook. The Bible is a love letter from God to us.
I want you to imagine a couple sitting in a coffee shop. And you are one table over. Have you ever done this? You just kind of eavesdrop. You know, those coffee shops are small enough; you can hear almost every conversation in the room. You know, just have your laptop open so they don’t know you are listening.
You are at the table next over, and there is a couple there. And they are in love. And they are absolutely head over heels for each other. They are staring, looking into each other’s eyes. And there is that longing and the sigh. And you can just feel the passion emanating. And finally she looks at him, and she says, "I want to know you." There is a little grin on her face, a little giggle.
And you are thinking, "Yeah, I know what she means." And he looks back at her, and he says, "Fine. I will send you a book I wrote about myself so you can read it. And you can know me." And she says, "No, you know, I want to be close." And he says, "I know. That is why I am sending you to this seminar that is all about my life, so that you can feel closer to me in a two-day experience." And she reaches over. She grabs his hand. And she says, "I want to be with you." He says, "Well, that is nice. There is a course at church that you can take where you can be with me."
See, knowing God—when I am talking about reading the Bible, I am not talking about increasing your knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. Knowledge has the power to make you arrogant, and that is just about it. That is all knowledge can do for you if it is divorced from what the real intent of knowledge is. It is to cause you to grow in love, grow in faith.
Next time you pick up the Word of God, can you try to find God in it? Can you imagine Him sitting across the table from you, pouring out His heart to you? If you can, then you will be ready for this next step.
2. Improve my view of God.
If I am going to have faith, I am going to have to understand what kind of God I have. I chose this example from the Gospels. Mark 4:39 says, Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?" And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, "Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!"
Can you imagine being so close to God and not really being able to see Him? Can you imagine sitting in the boat with the Almighty and having no idea of what He was capable of?
While on vacation, I did some fishing. I was out on the little boat. We had a couple of boats out there. There was a big boat and a little boat. I was out on the little boat with my daughter. I was catching fish left and right. My youngest daughter, Stephanie, was not catching anything. She was hating life. She said, and I quote, "I hate fishing. This is not fun."
I laid my rod down, and I invited the Almighty into the boat. I said, "Lord, please, let my daughter catch a fish." Have you ever prayed that way? And, well, about thirty minutes later of navigating, finding just the prime spots, and, you know, cheering her on, and I didn’t fish anymore—then she got a little tug and pulled in a little bream. Suddenly she was happy. This was the best thing ever. It turns out she doesn’t like fishing. She likes catching. There is a difference.
I can’t imagine those disciples being there in the boat with God Himself and not understanding. And, you know, what is even more unimaginable is that of Jesus’ promise, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age, I am with you."
And so, here He is every step of my journey. He is side by side. He is with me all the way. And still—still to this day there are times when I lack faith, when I don’t believe that God can be God and can do God-like stuff. And it is almost as if you can hear Him turning, and looking you dead in the eyes, and saying, "After all I have done, after all we have been through, how can you have so little faith?"
You need to improve your view of God. Who is God to you? Let me ask you that. Who is God? Is He an angry father, just trying to make your life miserable? Is He a jealous despot, wanting to make sure you know who is in control, make you suffer? Or is He an exciting lover, who pursued you all of your life and then caught you and is lavishing you, and every day you wake up, He looks you in the eyes, and says, "I love you; I love you with all My heart; I love you with everything; And today I want to make your day?" Who is God to you?
3. Be obedient to God.
And that is what you think it is. Yeah, it is being obedient. Another example from Acts in the early church says, "And as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep," that is, the apostles, they had determined which of the Laws were going to be kept. And they were passing it out through the early church. It says, "Which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and increased in number daily."
What I want you to see is they were strengthened in the faith. They were strengthened in Christianity. They were strengthened in belief and increased in number daily. The word or term here strengthen means, "to be made solid or firm." Stability and growth were the marks of a healthy church. Did you notice that? It was stability and growth. People often ask, "Why are we so growth-oriented?" Well, growth is a mark of a healthy church.
See, people were responding to the Word of God. They were being obedient. They were doing. And thereby, when they did, their faith was strengthened, and the faith was strengthened. Growth is a byproduct. Ultimately, if we follow it all the way down, growth then is the byproduct of faith. It is only in faith that we ever obey; and it is only that in obedience we are made strong; and it is only in strength and in health that we grow. And that would be true for a church and the body as a whole. And it would be true for a family—your family. It would be true for an individual—you.
Finally, the last question is:
When Do I Need Faith?
There is a classic passage here. I want to look at it in a different way though. Read with me Matthew 6. "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
Now the whole point, as I look at it now, tells me that I don’t need to worry about ordinary things. We often take that as, "Oh, don’t worry. Have faith for those ordinary things." That is not it at all.
Our passion, our focus, and ultimately our faith is to be where? He said, "Seek first what?" The kingdom of God. And let me tell you: That is about as great and grand and big as it gets—the kingdom of God.
If you have found that your day-to-day experience is faithless because there is nothing significant about it, I want to invite you to get in on the most significant thing in heaven and earth. And that is the kingdom of God.
Now, here is what happens. If we will join in, so to speak, with what God is doing with His kingdom business, which is only possible by faith, then all of the other things, all of the ordinary stuff, all of the every day, which so many of us consume ourselves with, God says, "I will take care of. I will take care of your nest egg. I will take care of your health. I will take care of what is on the table tonight." Just get involved in something big, something significant, and God will take care of the little stuff.
So when do we need it?
1. Every day.
2. Every circumstance.
But it is only in those great big things, those God moments.
Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, I want to thank You, Lord, for being faithful to me tonight, for ministering to my own heart in the last several months in this journey of faith, Lord, in what You are teaching me. And, Lord, I thank You that You are interested, not just interested, passionate, longing, desperate for every one of us to be involved in the grand plan that is Yours.
If that is you tonight, if you are ready to step out and to do something bigger than yourself, I want to encourage you to step out and do something that might seem uncomfortable. It might seem difficult. It might push beyond your comfort zone. I want to encourage you to get into a group of believers, to explore this journey of faith together. I want to encourage you to be a part of a small group. And if you are already in a small group, I want to encourage you to drop your guard, to be transparent, to say what’s really going on in your life, and that together, as a body of believers, you can explore the great, awesome plan of God.
If you are here tonight and you have never established a relationship with God, let me tell you another verse. Ephesians 2 says, "For by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves; it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast." What that means is God has provided a way of salvation. It is called grace. In grace, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins. And by faith we can appropriate that price paid for our own lives. If you would like to do that tonight, I would invite you, by faith, to call out to God and to say this, "Dear Lord, I know I have a sin problem. I want what You did, through Jesus Christ on the cross, to count for me. I believe by faith that He died and rose again for me. I don’t understand it all, but, God, I believe in Your character, and I believe in Your promises. I invite You to be my Savior tonight. Lord, we love You. Have Your way in our lives. Take us as we step out in faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen."
