The Look of Faith
Hebrews • Sermon • Submitted
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· 37 viewsEven though faith may not be a fashionable look, for the Christian it is our essential look.
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Some may recall a show from the early 1980s called Mork and Mindy, starring Robin Williams. On one show, where Mork wanted to become a priest, he discovered something which was new to him.
In his final report to his superior, Orson, he reports that humans have this strong need to have faith in something, and for many it is having faith in God. Orson responded by questioning, “How can they believe in something that science cannot prove?”
Mork answers, “That’s where faith comes in. Many people believe in God and they don’t see Him.”
Orson: “Let me get this straight. Faith is a belief in something you can’t see.”
Mork gives Orson something to think about: “For example, to have faith all you have to do is look up into the sky. Where do stars come from?”
Orson, supposedly being extra smart, “They were created long ago by natural forces.”
Mork then gives the perfect question, “How do you know? Were you there?”
Orson: “Of course not. It’s a scientific theory. You just have to accept it.”
Mork: “On Faith.”
Orson stammers: “um . . .urr. . . um. What do your believe, Mork?”
“I don’t know, sir. But if God didn’t . . . “
Faith is the topic of the last three chapters of Hebrews. Today, we’ll be studying what faith looks like.
Hebrews 11:1–3 (NASB95)
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
This begins our look at faith. Chapter 11 has been a foundational part of our Bible recollection since early on in our lives. If you are new to this life with Jesus, you will discover in this chapter some pretty amazing things that have to deal directly with your own spiritual walk, as well.
Chapter 11 of Hebrews has been given many names, one of which I have used frequently, The Hall of Faith. It may not be Cooperstown with its baseball hall of fame; it’s even better and requires no ability on my part, just a dependence upon God doing His part.
When you consider how many of those people reading this were still struggling with the idea that heaven required works, this faith principle was a concept they had a difficult time accepting. In fact, today, this is still a difficult concept to fully accept because humanity finds it necessary to add works as a requirement for salvation. Otherwise, it seems too simple to be possible.
But faith was not foreign to God; in fact, that has always been the principle for salvation. It has never been the sacrifices and rituals and works. All of that was to be based on a person’s faith. The works which we do today are a result of our faith. Works do not produce faith, faith results in works. We see this from the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk.
Habakkuk 2:4 (NASB95)
“Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.
Even though faith may not be a fashionable look, for the Christian it is our essential look.
Assurance - 11.1
Assurance - 11.1
There are people who think that faith is a really strong form of hope or optimism. However, faith is not like hoping it doesn’t rain on your picnic. It’s not like hoping you are going to have chocolate cake for breakfast. It’s not a longing for that one special girl or guy to start liking you.
Warren Wiersbe says that True Bible faith is confident obedience to God’s Word in spite of circumstances and consequences. I’d like to also state that true biblical faith is not based on me or how strong I am. True biblical faith is based upon God and His Word.
Verse 1 is almost like a description of x in an algebra equation. X = faith. But what is faith? It actually contains two definitions. First, faith equals or is the assurance of things hoped for. To further explain, faith equals or is the conviction of things not seen. This is not a complete, exhaustive definition, but it does deal with certain aspects of faith that the author of Hebrews was trying to convey.
Let’s first of all, look at the phrase the assurance of things hoped for. Throughout the Bible, God has given promises to His people in which they had to rely on faith to believe. There were certain things that made no logical sense and there was no tangible evidence that the promises could be fulfilled. Yet, historically, God has never failed and His Word is always true. Since God said it, those who were faithful to God, chose to believe it. Even in believing it, many never got to see the promise realized in their lifetimes. Their assurance was so strong that they lived their lives based upon what God had promised. One commentator stated: All the Old Testament promises related to the future—for many believers, far into the future. But the faithful among God’s people acted as if they were in the present tense. They simply took God at His Word and lived on that basis.
We need to understand that this is not naive wishful thinking. It may fly in the face of the world’s logic and thinking, but this type of faith believes with absolute conviction and certainty that what God has promised, will indeed be fulfilled. John MacArthur says that Christian hope is belief in God against the world—not belief in the improbable against chance.
Let me share a couple of examples. When the Israelites sent out the spies to check out the land, though it was not an act of faith, two of them came back, believing by faith, God’s promises to give them the land. They saw the reality of what the other spies saw—the giants in comparison with them. They didn’t observe anything differently than the others. However, the other spies were walking by sight and not by faith.
When the three Jews in Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, were threatened with their lives if they didn’t worship the king, they knew quite well the reality of what happened to those who would defy King Nebuchadnezzar. They had seen with their own eyes the consequences with others. However, they knew and trusted God and His Word. Do we obey man or do we obey God? Their faith was so full of assurance that they had no hesitation to obey God, even though it appeared to everyone else, they were certainly going to die by fire.
The Greek word for assurance speaks to the essence, the real content, the reality, as opposed to mere appearance. In other words, when we respond in faith to God’s Word, we are acting in the present reality for what is most certainly going to happen in the future, even though it can’t be seen right now.
That leads to the second aspect of faith mentioned, conviction of things not seen. This seems to be actually a furthering of what we’ve been discussing. More than simply believing, the person is so convicted in their belief, that they choose to act upon that belief. This is living out one’s faith or belief.
Let’s consider another Old Testament example. In 2020, our family had the privilege of watching Noah in Branson, Missouri. What you are seeing was actually just a small part of this magnificent state presentation. This production further brought to life the reality of the story in Genesis that we can easily gloss over in our current time. Noah’s faith was seen in the extreme.
Consider several things which Noah faced. He lived among a very godless society, which wanted nothing to do with God. So, as Noah lived his life according to godly principles took a lot of faith. One never heard the phrase in their house, Well, everyone else is doing it. Noah’s family was going to do things God’s way.
Then God decides to enact judgment upon humanity and the whole earth because of the sinfulness of mankind. He tells Noah about it and describes how it’s going to happen. Noah is then left with the promise that God is going to save him and his family from destruction and judgment.
God speaks about destroying humanity and the earth with a worldwide flood caused by rain from above and water coming from below. Noah had never seen rain before, nor even heard about rain. To think that water would come from the sky in such huge amounts that it would drown every living thing would have seemed outrageous to everyone else, but Noah had faith in God and His Word.
Then God gives instruction about building a huge floating boat that would house two of every kind of creature, plus his family, in order that they might start over and fill the earth again. What in the world was a boat? And how to get all the animals and food onto the boat? Well, it took many years, possibly 75 years, to build the ark. And during that time, Noah was still preaching repentance to an unbelieving society.
There are probably more factors, but my point is that Noah was so convicted, he had such assurance of things not seen, that he acted upon it in active obedience.
Well, that was different back then, right? How do we practice faith in our time period? I mean, for the Christian, we speak of it and hopefully live like this, but how is this relevant to the average person? They seem to be able to live without faith.
Actually, everyone lives by faith in a lot of areas that most don’t consider. When driving 70 mph on the interstate, we exercise great faith that the tire lug nuts are on tight and that a wheel won’t come flying off. When we order food at a restaurant, we don’t have a chemist come with us to analyze the food to make sure that nobody poisoned it. When I step out the front door every morning, I have great confidence that the porch and steps I see are real and not a holograph that I’ll fall through to my death or a lot of broken bones. There are so many areas in the daily lives of every human that require faith.
Just like the examples I’ve listed requires faith, though I may not have tangible evidence or understand everything about, so it is in the spiritual realm. Spiritually, I must believe God’s Word to be true and His promises to be true; so much so, that I live my life as if the future promises are the present reality. This faith is not natural, so it stands to reason that it requires an understanding of Who God truly is.
Approval - 11.2
Approval - 11.2
It is faith that caused men of old to gain approval. Genuine faith pleases God. God lets it be known, when His children are acting and living in faith, with His affirmation, however it may come.
We know from later in this chapter that faith is the only way to please God. Listen to what the author states a few verses forward.
Hebrews 11:6 (NASB95)
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.
Regardless of what we say or what we may do in the form of works, faith is required. If we say things or do things without absolute faith, there is no way that God approves of it. We’ve seen that multiple times in the Old Testament. Sadly, currently, there seems to be an increasingly strong resistance to God. Everything we see in the world around us, seems to uplift man and reason and science as above and beyond God. Coincidence and circumstance has become the measuring stick to faith, as opposed to God being sovereign and in control. This very easily can lead a society toward a path of fatalism, humanism, and multiple other things which places groups against each other rather than living in harmony with one another, as we seek to live our lives for the glory of God. Every society that tries to live apart from God, espousing its own virtues and creating its own moral compass, is bound for destruction. And obviously, regardless of the religious works and words, will never gain God’s approval.
This faith that the author of Hebrews describes is what gives genuine hope. These men of old didn’t just blindly step out in a leap of faith. They were well acquainted with God and understood that His promises could be trusted. They had confidence and assurance. They were going to lives their lives for God in spite of what the world and society might tell them.
Acknowledgement - 11.3
Acknowledgement - 11.3
To acknowledge the reality of faith means to understand what God has revealed to us. Romans 1-2 remind us of how the whole world has been given knowledge of God by His very creation. Humanity has come up with some mind boggling ideas that require a greater degree of faith, than a simple trust that what God’s Word says is absolute truth. Like Mork and Orson from the earlier illustration, nobody was there at the beginning, yet our minds come to the conclusion that something incredible happened at one point in time that is far beyond our comprehension. For many, and especially in the group of those who were reading this, they understood that it was God.
The author uses the plural worlds when talking about God creating all that there is. And He did so by His actually speaking it into existence. And it’s not just the beginning, but the continuation of the worlds.
We know this by the use of the word rhema for Word, which means utterance, which in its context, refers to God speaking. God did this out of nothing. Everything that began to exist came out of nothing.
This is a challenge for many people, as humanity likes to think it can logically reason everything out and come up with an answer to every mystery. Believe it or not, understanding science and the whole galaxy or universe requires faith. No amount of experiments or hypotheses can ever go back far enough to eliminate the fact that God spoke everything into existence out of nothing.
Philosophy nor science can offer a reasonable explanation for the world, all that is in it, and how it continues on existing. There are those that suggest that the world’s issues and problems can be solved by intelligence and reasoning. The reality is that science defines itself as being limited to that which can be observed, measured, repeated, and tested. How does one do that with the creation of the world and all that is in it? Even among scientists, there are some who are recognizing the foolishness of some of the thinking and theories. Physics professor T. L. Moore of the University of Cincinnati has said, “To talk of the evolution of thought from sea slime to amoeba, from amoeba to a self-conscious thinking man, means nothing. It is the easy solution of a thoughtless brain.”
The author of Hebrews is clearly stating that to understand this world, we must rely upon faith. Even more so, the spiritual aspect of our lives.
Summary
Summary
An evangelist of many years ago told the beautiful story of two little boys he once visited in a London hospital.
The cots were side-by-side. One boy had a dangerous fever, the other had been struck by a truck and his body was badly mangled. The second one said to the first, “Say, Willie, I was down to the mission Sunday school and they told me about Jesus. I believe that if you ask Jesus, He will help you. They said that if we believe in Him and pray to God, then when we die He’ll come and take us with Him to heaven.” Willie replied, “But what if I’m asleep when He comes and I can’t ask Him?” His friend said, “Just hold up your hand; that’s what we did in Sunday school. I guess Jesus sees it.” Since Willie was too weak to hold up his arm, the other boy propped it up for him with a pillow. During that night, Willie died, but when the nurse found him the next morning, his arm was still propped up.
We can be sure that the Lord saw his arm, because the Lord sees faith and the Lord accepts faith. By faith Willie saw the way to heaven. By faith he saw what the learned will never discover on their own. God’s greatest truths are discovered by simple faith. It is not the world’s way to truth, but a thousand years from now—if the Lord tarries that long—the world will still be devising and rejecting its theories. The person of faith knows the truth now. Faith is the only way to God.
Dr. J. Oswald Sanders stated: Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen.
Even though faith may not be a fashionable look, for the Christian it is our essential look.