Sermon Tone Analysis

*THE FAITH THAT PLEASES GOD*

*Part 2*

*Hebrews 11*

*/"/**And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."

\\ Hebrews 11:6ESV*

We are taking a short detour from our study of the book of Galatians to examine true biblical faith.

Just to refresh your memory, the book of Galatians was written by the Apostle Paul to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ, to defend the biblical truth that sinful mankind cannot be made right through their works only through faith.

You cannot defend the gospel of Jesus Christ apart from what is really the heart, the central tenet of the gospel and that is how sinful man is made right with a thrice holy, righteous God.

Sinful man is made right with a holy righteous God by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ.

That is the doctrine or the teaching known as Justification by faith.

The Christian life begins with faith, and in order for that life, in order for our Christianity to be pleasing to God it must be lived by faith.

I draw your attention back to verse 6 of Hebrews 11, “*without faith it is impossible to please Him…” *

* *

If we were brutally honest with each other our hearts sink when we read that verse.

When we read that verse and the writer of Hebrews says that it is impossible to please God apart from faith.

We look at ourselves and our lives and we say I’m not pleasing God because I’m not living by faith.

I just don’t have the faith that other people have.

Therefore I must not be pleasing to God.

And what is the result?

Discouragement, perhaps a sense of frustration, maybe even failure and what happens to most Christians is that because they have been taught unbiblical concepts about what faith is they just give up and they don’t attempt to do anything at all for God.

Or there are still others who again they don’t truly understand biblical faith, so they keep on trying and despite their failure they paste on a fake smile and keep plugging alone, and all the while down deep inside they wonder what they are doing wrong.

The problem isn’t with them; it is what they have been taught.

Many people hold false beliefs about faith.

1.

Faith is more than just a sanctified hope.

They have faith that something is going to happen, but in reality their “faith” is nothing more than a hope that they have.

2.

Yet others equate faith with a feeling.

They have to wait for a feeling before they will attempt to do anything for God. 

3.

Faith is more than simply believing it to be so because you believe it to be so.

Some people mistakenly believe that if they just believe hard enough, if they never have any doubts that something is going to happen then it will surely happen.

4.

Faith for others is coming up with some big plan, some grand scheme and then we either ask God to bless our plans while we neglect His plan, or we leave God out of the equation and we set out to accomplish some big thing for God that God hasn’t told us to do.

I think at this point we must stop and ask ourselves this question.

What kind of faith are we talking about here?

What kind of faith is the writer of Hebrews talking about?

As far as I know there are only two kinds of faith.

(Let me say at this point, I realize that the term faith is used in the Scriptures as an all encompassing term of what we believe as Christians)  The Bible recognizes that there is a faith that is divine in its origin.

The bible also recognizes that there is a faith that is natural in origin.

Divine faith comes from God and natural faith comes from man.

The faith that comes from God’s gift and results in salvation, that faith is called saving faith; saving faith is a faith that produces life.

The faith that comes from man is non-saving faith, it is a dead faith.

Therefore is cannot, it will not produce spiritual life.

The faith that is demonstrated throughout Hebrews 11 is saving faith.

It is the faith that comes from God.  Please don’t take my word for it, let’s see what the Scriptures teach.

Look at Hebrews 10:39.

*/"/**But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

Hebrews 10:39ESV*

Pay particular attention to the last part of the verse.

‘*…but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

*A faith that preserves your soul is what kind of faith?

It is saving faith!

What are the practical implications resulting from the discovery of this truth?

Hold on to your seats, because when this sinks in it will open up a new world of possibilities for you.

The writer of Hebrews is talking about saving faith, the faith that comes from God and then he immediately launches into a demonstration of what that same saving faith produced in the lives of all those that are mentioned in Hebrews 11.

That means that the kind of faith that is demonstrated in Hebrews 11 is the same kind of faith that every child of God, that every true born from above Christian possesses!

If you have been born again, if you have been born from above then you too possesses the faith to build an ark if God would tell you to; to have a child when you are eighty years old; to offer your only child as a sacrifice, to march around the walls of Jericho.

To suffer mocking, beatings, or being put in prison.

That is the kind of faith that God gave to them and it is the kind of faith that God has given to you.

Please don’t take my word for it, go home and study what comes before and what comes after Hebrews 11. 

 

 

*/Faith is now all about getting what we want, rather than seeing the exercising of true biblical faith as the accomplishment of what God wants.

Can I repeat that?

Listen carefully; faith has become more about getting what we want when in reality faith is one of the means that God has chosen to use for the accomplishment of his will./*

*/ /*

Therefore what is faith?

Biblical faith is simple obedience.

Faith is your obedience to God’s will as it has been revealed in God’s Word.

This truth is abundantly illustrated in Hebrews 11.

For instance…

Ø      Abel offered his sacrifice because God had told him to

Ø      Abraham left home because God told him to

Ø      Sarah had a baby not because she believed, she had been hoping for a child all of her life, but when did she have one?

When God told her she would have one

Ø      Abraham offered Isaac not because he thought it was a good idea, he did it because God told him to

Ø      Moses left Egypt because God told him to

Ø      Noah built an ark because God told him to

Ø      The children of Israel crossed the Red Sea because God told them to

Ø      The children of Israel walked around Jericho because God told them to

Faith is exercised when we simply obey what God has revealed to be His will in His Word.

You’re not a person of great faith?

Alright, then be a person of great obedience.

Let me remind you one more time that Hebrews 11 is not designed to be a strict definition of faith; rather it is a demonstration of faith as it was lived in the lives of people who faced the same struggles that you and I face.

That is not to say that Hebrews 11 doesn’t teach us about faith, in fact it teaches us a great deal about faith.

What does Hebrews 11 teach us about the faith that pleases God?

*1.

A FAITH THAT PLEASES GOD DOES NOT ASSURE US AND WAS NEVER INTENDED TO GIVE US A PROBLEM FREE LIFE.

Hebrews 11:36-37*

*/"/**/Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword.

They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—" Hebrews 11:36-37ESV/*

Again this stands in stark contrast to the modern day message of the gospel that God has a wonderful plan for your life.

If you ‘accept” Christ then your life will be one of ease, of plenty, and your trouble will just melt away like an ice cube on a hot sidewalk.

That is the popular message that is masquerading as the gospel.

Yet the Scriptures are full of examples of those who truly had faith and their lives were full of problems and suffering and in some cases death.

Many Christians live a life of discouragement because they have been sold a bill of goods that the Christian life is a problem free life and when that doesn’t materialize they either think something is wrong with them or with their faith and sometimes they give up on God because they think He has somehow let them down, when in reality they hold a false view of faith.

Listen to what A.W. Pink wrote about faith.

*Faith endures as seeing Him who is invisible (Heb.

11:27); endures the disappointments, the hardships, and the heart-aches of life, by recognizing that all comes from the hand of Him who is too wise to err and too loving to be unkind.

But so long as we are occupied with any other object than God Himself, there will be neither rest for the heart nor peace for the mind.

But when we receive all that enters our lives as from His hand, then, no matter what may be our circumstances or surroundings—whether in a hovel or prison-dungeon, or at a martyr's stake—we shall be enabled to say, " The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places" (Ps.

16:6).

But that is the language of faith, not of sight nor of sense.*

*—Arthur W. Pink*

*2.

THE FAITH THAT PLEASES GOD IS A FAITH THAT SACRIFICES IN THE PRESENT AND ENDURES PRESENT TROUBLE FOR THE CERTAINTY OF FUTURE BLESSINGS.

*

*"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."

Hebrews 11:13ESV *

*/"/**He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward."