Hebrews 11

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Well, good morning, Saylorville. If you brought a copy of Scripture with you, you can find Hebrews 11, as we begin our new series, “God’s Hall of Faith,” and we look at the subject of faith. Jesus said in Mark 11, verse 22, “Have faith in God.” What does that mean? What does it mean to have faith? As we begin this series, I’d like to pray over this series and pray over you, in the hopes that those of you who have a real knowledge of God and a relationship with Him, will grow deeper in your faith and more courageous in your faith. And those of you, and I’m guessing there are many of you who don’t have a relationship yet with Him, might enter into that. So let’s pray together, shall we?

Our Father, that is our prayer, that we might know You and understand the subject of faith, what it means, and be inspired by those who’ve gone before us with great faith, courageous faith. And I pray for those who have never entered into a faith relationship with You, because You tell us clearly that it is necessary in order to have a salvation that You offer to us. We must exercise faith. So help us to that end, Lord. All around this room, there are people in various places and stages in life. Some have real faith crises going on in their lives right now. Some have issues with family and relationships and their work. Some have health issues. And there are all kinds of things, Lord, that would threaten to distract us from the subject at hand. Help us. Draw our attention. Take us like a parent would to his child. Take us by the chin. Pull us towards Yourself and help us to understand You better. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

All right, I’m going to ask you a question here. And as the question unfolds, raise your hand and then drop it if it doesn’t pertain to you. Raise your hand if it pertains to you and drop it if it doesn’t. How many of you have ever had a flat tire? Keep your hand up. Keep it up. That’s a lot of you. All right. Keep them up. In a really remote area, in a different country. Ah, there’s about four of you left. That’s what happened to us a couple of months ago. We were in Ireland. And if you know anything about the roads in Ireland, they’re like perilous. You literally take your life in your hands on these roads. You’re crossing cars within inches of each other. There’s no shoulder. In fact, against the shoulder are these brick walls covered in ivy. You can barely get off the road. And so I’m just kind of going like this. And I hit a rock, a sharp rock, and blew out the tire. And so, I mean, we’re just crawling as much as we can off the road in order to change this tire. But no worries because there’s a spare in the trunk, right? Well, there was a spare in the trunk. But how did I know there was a spare in the trunk? I didn’t check it before I took it away from the rental company. How did I know there was a spare in that trunk? I knew that by law, by my history with cars, and with those who’ve had similar experiences, there had to be a spare in that trunk, and there was.

We are talking about the subject of faith, biblical faith, God-honoring faith, faith that lays hold of God and lays down one’s life, faith that dramatically changes one’s circumstances, opens up new gospel territories, inspires God’s people, and baffles the opponents of God. And I’m here to tell you that kind of faith is not blind. It’s not blind. And it urges you and me to think. In fact, it uses a word in the text we’re going to be looking at which carries the idea of the use of your mind. Biblical faith is a thinking faith. It’s based on knowledge, on history, and on the examples of those who’ve gone before us. All within this chapter here. The late Tim Keller said, “Thinking is the very foundation of faith. Doubt,” he writes, “isn’t the consequence of too much thinking, but too little thinking.” So you see, God never refers to faith as blind. Neither does He ever instruct us to deny reason and thinking of facts and history.

And the very first verse, which is very foundational to this chapter, is, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things,” what? “Not seen,” and that’s a really important negative in this, which we’re going to bear down on here in a few moments. Many of you are more familiar with a more familiar verse. The Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians, “We walk by faith,” what? “Not by sight.” Why this emphasis, and repeatedly so, in the New Testament that our faith is not a sight faith, or at least is not intended to be. The reason is because sight can deceive. Have you ever been deceived by something you were looking at? I used to have a friend who said, “Don’t believe anything they say and only half of what you see.”

Just the other day we had our Vacation Bible School, which was alluded to, it was insane and so much fun. And a number of you were probably a part of this, it was just crazy. There’s a part every day in VBS where we get this tug of war going, guys versus girls. And it’s all about who gave the most money to our missionary. And for me, it’s sort of maddening because every year, kids are coming up, “Can I be in the tug of war? Can I be in the tug of war?” And it’s incessant all morning long, or evening. It’d be morning if they’re around then. And finally, I said, “What do you, I mean, this is so maddening. I mean, ’cause you can only have so many boys up here and so many girls up here.” And somebody came up with a brilliant idea. Tickets. Hand out tickets. Just give so many tickets to boys, so many tickets to girls, and you just say to the rest of them, “Sorry, no more tickets.” And that’s what I did. And that’s how we did it. And it was great.

And on the last night, I wanted to illustrate something. So, I told our staff, I said, “I’m gonna have some really upset parents for a little while.” What happened was all the boys got up, they got their tickets, and the girls, they got their tickets, and the girls were over here, the boys were over here, and they were getting ready to pull on that rope, and I stopped it. And I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” And I walked along the line of the boys, and I pointed out one boy, and I said, “Did you have a ticket?” And he had his hands on the rope. He goes, “No.” And I said, “Back down you go.” And he walked right on down dutifully. And you could just hear the groans. My wife was in the back yelling, “No!” Chill out, honey. Because when we got to the very end, I talked about if you want to go to heaven, you got to punch your ticket. And your ticket is Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him. And if you don’t have a relationship with Him, you will be told you cannot be here. You must go down. And when I did that, then I called out the little boy who stood up. It was all a ruse. We had talked about it earlier. He was all a part of the plan, and you could tell people said, “Okay, I take back all the evil thoughts I had of that pastor.”

But what was I doing? I was deceiving them. I mean, you know, their sight, so to speak. Another illustration, I was a wrestler, greatest sport of all time, and I hated the weight room. I hated it. I relied almost entirely on technique, the wrestling moves, that is. I was strong, but I wasn’t that strong. And I was in the finals of a big tournament, and I had to wrestle a guy who was just jacked like no man I’d ever seen before. And he was just scary to look at. And in fact, I was overwhelmed when I saw him with doubt. Not by what I knew, but what I saw. I knew, what I knew, I knew could win the match. But what I saw was keeping me from wanting to go out on the mat.

Now again, the writer of Hebrews says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” It’s the conviction of things we don’t see. This is a series on faith. What it is, and even more, how it was portrayed in olden times. Examples the Holy Spirit of God picked out as examples of great death-defying and sometimes death-experiencing faith. Listen to this. Not that we might marvel at them like one-time spiritual superstars, but that we might imitate them as those who form an ongoing continuous line of stars to the present hour. And believe you me, there are men and women in this world as we speak, some amongst us who have great faith, the same kind of faith embedded in the individuals in this chapter.

Those listed in this chapter, in this cavalcade include the likes of Abel, Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham. And there are women like Sarah and Rahab and others who just light up the Old Testament with their faith. You know what’s really interesting to me? When I studied this list, and we’ll be doing that throughout the summer, it also incorporates people whose faith did not shine, like Barak and Jephthah and David, whose faith both shined and was horribly tarnished. Even Samson is on this list. You think about his conflicted life and his ignominious death, it sort of serves like a black eye on the list. And why would God put those people in the list? It’s to tell you, it’s to tell me, that it’s all of God. Faith, salvation, knowing God, being courageous, is all of God, and the glory should go to Him.

These are the men and women who saw with the eyes of their heart Him who cannot be seen otherwise, who in the words of the writer of Hebrews, chapter 11, all the way down to verse 33, says, Hebrews 11:33-38, “For what shall we say for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel, and the prophets of those who through faith conquered kingdoms and forced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with a sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy.”

Those are the ones we’re going to be looking at. These make up chapter 12 and verse 1, the great cloud of witnesses that are to inspire us as well.

So, faith, what is faith? What does faith even mean? I’m guessing most of you have more than an inkling of what it means, but we better know because the word itself is used 24 times in this chapter. It’s the word, it’s the Greek word pistis, it means faith, it means belief, it means trust, it means confidence. But I love the root meaning of this Greek word and you should know it. The root of this word means, are you ready for it? It means to be persuaded. When you’re persuaded of something, a product, a car, a house, a move, when you’re really persuaded what do you do? You buy the product, you move to the place, you go, you do something and that’s embedded in this word, faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace are you saved through faith, this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” What’s the gift? Faith is the gift. It’s not a result of works. Why? So that we can’t brag about it. That’s why. And it’s for this reason that biblical faith has been defined as divine persuasion. You will exercise biblical faith when God himself by the Holy Spirit convinces your mind, convinces your heart, I want this. And you go get it. And there’s nothing stopping you from getting it. I had somebody come up to me right after this first service, somebody who had been sharing the gospel with, somebody else was sharing the gospel. I think four or five people have been sharing the gospel with this couple. And she came up and she said, “I became a child of God this week.” I mean she was like, I mean when faith is involved it’s like a spiritual tractor beam taking you to God.

Now the last two verses before this chapter sort of tee up the chapter. So just, we’re not going to put it up on the screen, I just want you to see it. Chapter 10 where it says in verse 37, Hebrews 10:37-39, “For yet,” God says, “Yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

So that tees up this chapter. And so chapter 11 both defines faith and describes what it does. Courageous faith, giving us a kind of comprehensive understanding of this great subject in scripture. So I mean faith, this whole subject, this is the faith chapter right here.

How vital is faith? How important is faith? Well look at the sixth verse right here.

Hebrews 11:6, “Without faith it’s impossible to please God. For he would come to God, must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek or diligently seek him.”

Faith isn’t simply a way to please God. It’s the only way to please him. That’s what the Bible says. We might say there’s only one way to know God, that’s through Jesus, right? And there’s only one way to please God, and that’s by faith. So faith, let’s look at it defined. Faith defined, okay?

Again Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen.”

Now most commentators say this is not a definition of faith so much as a description of what faith does and how it works. That’s true, but when we throw in words like it’s an assurance and it’s a conviction, that sounds descriptive to me. So assurance, it’s the assurance of things hoped for. The Greek word carries the idea of something that you stand upon. It’s only used one other time. This word assurance is actually used back in chapter one where it describes Jesus as the exact imprint of God. I love that. That’s the word. He’s the exact imprint of God. That’s the only time the word is ever used otherwise. It reminds me of, remember just before Jesus died, he’s having that conversation with the disciples. I’m the way, the truth, and life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And one of them says, “Hey, show us the Father Jesus and that’ll button it up.” How long have we been hanging out, Jesus says. If you’ve seen me, what? You’ve seen the Father.

So faith grants you the ability to see the unseen, the things we hope for. It says my hope is real. It’s the proof embedded in your heart. You’re convinced of it. Ten years ago, there was a movie that came out and a lot of Christians fell for it, showing shallowness. And I’m not going to criticize you if you went and saw the movie, okay? But you remember the movie, some of you. “Heaven is for Real”, based off the book. It was the movie and the books that was attempted to use the experience of a little boy, supposedly having died and gone to heaven and met all these people and all these juxtapositions and coincidences. Absolutely convincing us heaven is for real. I’m here to say to you, that’s foolishness. I’m not going to debate what happened in that little boy’s life. That’s not the reason we believe in heaven. It is the proof is in the truth of God. You don’t need a movie to prove that heaven is real. Faith is the inward assurance, the confidence that it is real.

By the way, if you’re out there going, “Yeah, not so sure. I really liked the movie and I think that’s kind of silly that you criticize it like that.” Then I’m going to tell you something. Let’s just quote what Jesus, and remember, do you remember when Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man died and went where? He went to hell. There’s this dialogue between him and the other man in Abraham’s bosom and there’s this chasm. You can’t go one to the other. Jesus is describing the eternality, the fixed aspects of heaven and hell. When he realizes he can’t get any relief, he says, that is the man in hell, pleads with Abraham like this. Watch this. Here’s what he says.

Luke 16:27-31, “Then I beg you, Father, to send Lazarus to my father’s house. I got five brothers so that they may warn them lest they come down into this place of,” that’s the Greek word basanas. That is the most descriptive word for pain anywhere in the Bible, right there, that word. But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.” That should have done it, right? In other words, they have the Bible, they have the truth, they have the scripture, they have the word of God, they have the promise of God. Let them hear that. But look, he’s not to be outdone. And he said, “No, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they’ll repent. Give them a miracle. Let them see the supernatural. Tear back the curtain. They’ll believe.” And Abraham doubles down. That’s not gonna happen. They have Moses and the prophets. If they won’t believe the truth of God, they’re not gonna believe even if somebody rises from the dead. And that’s the reason I believe films like that, I’m just gonna stop right there.

Hebrews 11:1, “It’s the conviction of things not seen.”

The word conviction means proof. This is why what I can’t see is real because it’s a conviction in your heart. This is why Peter says, “Even though we’ve not seen him, we love him. And even though we don’t see him now, yet believing,” there’s our word for faith, “we have joy inexpressible and full of glory.” Have you ever read that? Isn’t that beautiful? And that’s what we have in Christ.

One of my favorite scenes in Scripture is an individual who did not have this kind of faith. It’s a favorite scene of mine because I’m in the scene. Jesus dies and rises again, remember? And he appears to the disciples on day one on Easter morning. They’re all there except for Thomas. And so Thomas says, “In spite of being told beforehand and then has owned all of the history, now he doesn’t just have a promise, now he has history in front of him and he still doesn’t believe. I gotta see him, I gotta touch him. I gotta see him, I gotta touch him. I have to what? See him, I gotta touch him.” Is that faith? That is not faith. Thank you. Out of the mouth of babes. It’s true.

So Jesus, you know, Jesus shows up an hour later, right? No, he shows up a week later. He lets him sit on it for a week. I love that. He finally shows up and Thomas falls down and says, “Great thing on the deity of Jesus, my Lord and my God.” And Jesus says, “Awesome, way to go. Way to get the doctrine of the deity of Jesus right, Thomas.” Is that what he says? No, this is what he says,

John 20:29, “You believe because you’ve seen me? Blessed are those who believe when they haven’t seen me.”

That’s me. That’s you. That’s Jesus telling us that he loves it when people exercise faith. So how would we define, how would you define faith? There are many definitions of faith. I like all of them really, but there’s nothing better than the scripture. The scripture itself defines what faith is. The apostle Paul defined what faith is when he talked about the life of Abraham who in Genesis 15 was told, “Hey, you know, you’re going to have a bunch of kids.” “Oh yeah, well like I’m 100 and my wife’s 90.” Not going to happen. God said, “It’s going to happen and just like you can’t count the stars, that’s how many offspring you’re going to have.” And the Bible says, “Abraham,” what? He believed. He had faith. And the apostle Paul gave a commentary on this. Here it is,

Romans 4:20-21, “No unbelief made Abraham waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his, what? His faith as he gave glory to God. Here it is. This is what you ought to underline. Fully convinced. Remember what we said the root word of faith means to be what? Persuaded. Fully persuaded that God was able to do what he had promised.”

That is what faith is. Being fully convinced, fully persuaded, whatever God has said, God can do. Here’s my own personal definition of faith and it’s just based on what you just read. Faith is being fully convinced God is able to do what he promises. And by the way, baked into that definition is the belief in the character of God. Because it doesn’t really matter if God makes a promise that he doesn’t have the character to back it up. I can promise you a lot of things, but I can’t do anything about it. God backs it up. Titus 1 verse 2 says, “God never lies.” Right? He never lies. So remember that when you think about faith, it’s being fully persuaded or convinced that God’s able to do what he promised. And if he says, “He who comes to me, I will in no way cast out,” that’s a promise. Believe the promise. That’s what faith is.

And then briefly faith described in verses 2 and 3, you see here,

Hebrews 11:2-3, “For by it, the people of old received their commendation.” We’ll see this as we unpack this chapter in the days to come. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God so that what is seen,” there’s that emphasis again, “was not made out of things that are visible.”

Notice he says, “By this we understand.” The word understand literally means mind. This is why we say that faith is not blind. It’s a thinking thing. You use your mind. It’s perception through reflection. And he says the universe, that’s the word eon. It means, it’s the word for time and space. So everything God, he created everything, time, space, all material, God did it ex nihilo, out of nothing. Out of nothing.

Psalm 33:6, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the hosts thereof by the breath of his mouth. He commanded and it stood fast, he spoke and it was done.”

Have you ever read that? That’s Psalm 33, verses 6 and 9. That’s the ex nihilo. That’s the Hebrew expression for out of nothing God created everything. And you have it right here.

To you who embrace the theory of evolution or some form of theistic evolution, which means you believe in God but he just used evolution to make it all happen, he could have. The Bible just doesn’t teach that he did. I appeal to the character of God. God is omnipotent. That means he can do anything. Nothing is impossible with God. And I get a couple of amens out of that. The only thing impossible is our ability to please God without faith. And speaking of faith, salvation is by faith. We’ve already seen it. For by grace are you saved through faith. This is not of yourselves. It doesn’t come from you. It’s a gift from God. It’s not a result of works so that you can’t boast about it.

Salvation is by faith but not faith in faith. That doesn’t even make sense. I have faith. It’s always what’s the object of your faith? Saving faith requires a saving person. And that saving person is Jesus Christ who we’re told in this very same book back in chapter seven in verse 25 is able to save to the uttermost those who come to faith in him. Uttermost. It doesn’t matter what religion you have. It doesn’t matter where your morality is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a goody two shoes and you’ve been to church all your life. Without faith you die and go to hell. It doesn’t matter if you’re a prostitute living in prostitution as we speak. If you humble your heart and trust in the object of faith, the Lord Jesus who died for your prostitution, who rose again for your prostitution, you will be saved. Because the Bible says he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to faith in him. Amen? This is your hope. This is our hope. This is faith. Do you have it? Do you have it?

About a week after I came to Christ somebody gave me this acrostic. I’ll bet a bunch of you know it. But it seems like a simple way to end. Faith. F-A-I-T-H. Forsaking all, I trust him. Forsaking. Forsaking what? Forsaking everything you’ve ever trusted in. Your daddy, your mommy, your church, your baptism, the good things you’ve done, the good intentions you’ve had. Forsaking that. Forsaking all. All of that. Faith means that you no longer cling to anything of yourself in your life. You cling only to Jesus. Forsaking all, I, because it’s personal, trust. That’s the word for faith. Who? Him. The one who died for you and rose again. There are a number of you in this room right now who have never, never come to faith in Jesus. Like the young lady that came to me after the first service who embraced Jesus by faith just a couple of days ago. Some of you can embrace him today. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You know why I know that? Because he’s able to save to the uttermost those who come to faith in him. Will you do so today?

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of faith. We thank you for this great faith chapter. Thank you, Lord, for allowing us to define it today and we will unpack it in the lives of great men and women in the weeks to come. All to your glory and to the glory of your Son who alone is worthy, who alone is worthy to be praised, to be worshipped, to be trusted by faith. And it’s in his name we pray. Amen. Let’s stand.