Faith for Us

Our great God and heavenly Father, we gather together this evening for worship, in Spirit and in truth.  We give thanks for Your Word, which is sufficient and authoritative.  Tune our hearts now to attend carefully to it and be present with us by Your Spirit that we might be encouraged and empowered to faithful endurance in our lives.  Father, we pray this that You would perfect our faith through Your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.  Amen.   

Well, please open your Bibles to the book of Hebrews.  This is the first of five installments that will walk us through Hebrews chapter 11.  Five sermons, just one chapter.  That’s right.  But it is a pretty long chapter.  It is 40 verses and tonight we are getting only through the first three verses.  This is, of course, a very well-known chapter of the Bible, often referred to cleverly as the hall of faith by analogy to the idea of a hall of fame.  Everybody knows the baseball hall of fame, of course, the best hall of fame of all of them, but there are many other halls of fame.

As you may or may not know, I did not know that there is, for example, a badminton hall of fame.  There is a Texas cowboy hall of fame.  And there is even a roller derby hall of fame, believe it or not, among many others.

So there is good reason that Hebrews 11 is called the hall of faith, again by analogy, because we love to celebrate our heroes, whether they are hitting home runs or riding bulls or doing whatever you do to be good at roller derby.

We can look at chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews as a kind of highlight reel of the heroes of the faith, written for our instruction and edification.  But the chapter does not start with the heroes.  That brings us to our passage.

So look with me at your Bible, at Hebrews 11, verses 1 through 3. 

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the people of old received their commendation.  By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Well, the annual meeting of the PCA General Assembly was just about a month ago now.  Some of you were there.  I was there.  I took my accommodating family along with me.  This is the second year in a row we’ve gone to the General Assembly and for both years we’ve turned it into a bit of a family road trip.  This year, because it was in Richmond, we decided to stick around and do some of the fun things in the area and one of those things was Water Country USA, which is a massive water park, very fun, very hot, but also very wet, thankfully.  It’s been a long time since I was at a water park last.  Things have gotten a lot more intense than I remember.

One of the slides that we saw was called Vanish Point.  Vanish Point is a 75-foot tall platform.  At the top of the platform there is a tube-like chamber with a clear door on the front of it, sort of like the freezer at a grocery store.  What you do is you step into that chamber, 75 feet off the air, you look out through that plastic door into the eyes of a 17-year-old summertime employee working for minimum wage, and that person pushes a button which opens a hatch directly underneath your feet and down you go, into a tube like you’re being flushed down a toilet.  I did not do it.

But one of the most terrifying things about this ride is that the teenager operating it had a microphone just like this one right here and right before he would push that button he would lean into the microphone and say, “Are you ready?”  I would like to suggest to you that the brave souls who nodded their heads yes to that question were acting in faith, faith that was assured of things hoped for, convicted of things unseen, such as maintenance and upkeep of the slide, training for the employees, and their eventual safe arrival back on dry ground at the end of the ordeal.

An interesting thing happened as that each time someone nodded their head yes, affirming their faith and lived it out with resolute endurance to the end, it was a clear encouragement to the next person in line that they, too, could do the same thing.

Except for me.

That’s the basic idea in our passage tonight.  We’re going to unpack it by looking at these verses one at a time as each verse has something to say about the main subject of the passage and the chapter, which is faith.

First we are told what faith is in verse 1, then we’re told what faith does verse 2, and finally we are told what faith perceives, what it is, what it does, and what it perceives.

Now in a series like this it’s important to get our bearings a little bit as we are dropping into the midst of a rather long book.  Chapter 11 is towards the end of Hebrews and Hebrews as a whole is written much like a sermon.  The message of that sermon is this – Jesus Christ is greater than anything that has ever come before or will come after because He has achieved salvation for all who come to Him in faith and endure to the end.  The majority of the book the author is drawing deeply on the Old Testament to demonstrate in great detail how Christ is better than the angels, how Christ is better than Moses, better than the Levitical priesthood, not just as a better priest but also as a better sacrifice.  A perfect priest and sacrifice.

All of that, says the author of Hebrews, is how Christ has brought about a new and better covenant, a covenant in which sacrifice for sin occurs once for the redemption of all His people.

Now the author of Hebrews spends 10 chapters making that point and then, like a good preacher, turns to application, and that application in chapter 10 strikes two sides of a single coin.  On the one side he writes, in verse 22, that because of the work of Christ, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.  And then on the other side he says again, verse 23 of chapter 10, that because of the work of Christ, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.

Notice how these two exhortations in chapter 10 are based on the same reality, which is the work of Christ.  But they have different implications.  On the one side, you have to be completely assured that your sin is wiped away.  And on the other side, make sure you hold fast to that assurance.  The first is justification, which is once for all, and the second is sanctification, which is ongoing throughout the Christian life.  Both of those are tied to faith, which is why the author goes on towards the end of chapter 10 and says, in verse 39, we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Faith, he is saying, is everything.  It is how we are joined to Christ for salvation and on it hangs our very souls.

Because that is true, it is very important for the author of Hebrews to make sure we understand just exactly what faith is.  That is why he moves from hammering home how essential faith truly is at the end of chapter 10 to defining it, explaining it, and illustrating it for us in chapter 11.  He starts that off with a definition in verse 1 of chapter 11:  Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.     

Now, of course, as this is Scripture, we need to acknowledge that this definition of faith is true.  But we can also recognize that it is not exhaustive in the sense that there is plenty more we could and should say about what faith is and Scripture has plenty more to say about it.  But here in this verse, the definition of faith has two halves, two parts.

First, it is the assurance of things hoped for.  The key word here is the one translated “assurance.”  This word is used in a surprising variety of ways in Greek to convey a number of abstract ideas.  In fact, it’s the Greek word that’s behind the word “hypostatic” in the phrase “hypostatic union,” which is a theological term that we use to describe the relationship between the three persons of the trinity.  Right, talk about abstract. 

There’s one dictionary of ancient Greek that I find helpful explaining how this word is being used here.  It says although it’s used in a variety of ways, this word, it says in all c cases there is the same central idea of something that underlies the visible conditions and guarantees a future possession.

The idea is similar to the title for a car, or the deed to a property.  That’s the essential meaning of assurance in the first half of Hebrews 1:1 – faith is what entitles us to the hope we have in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

The second half of that definition is the conviction of things not seen.  Faith is the conviction of things not seen.  Again, the key word here is the one translated “conviction.”  Here the idea involved is a sense of confidence based on evidence.  You might think of this along the lines of the old saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”  Even if you can’t see the fire itself because you’re standing far off, for example, if you see that black column of smoke or if you smell it, you know that a fire is there.

The author of Hebrews is describing faith here as a kind of confident, evidence-based knowledge of something that you cannot see directly but also cannot deny.

So on this broad definition offered in verse 1, faith is something objective and something subjective.  Faith is a guarantee that comes from outside of us.  It is given.  And also faith is a confidence that comes from inside of us and it is lived.

Faith assures and accepts the reality of things as they are in God’s sight even if they are not yet visible to us.

Now whatever else we might say about faith, we do want to say for this verse is that this kind of faith as it’s defined here is what unites all of the Old Testament heroes we’re about to hear about in the weeks to come and the verses to come.  This is the kind of faith that they had in common.

So verse 1 tells us what faith is.  But verse 2 moves on to tell us something about what faith does.  Look again at your Bible, to verse 2, “for by it,” that is by faith, “the people of old received their commendation.”  Again, different translations, perhaps you’re looking at something other than the ESV tonight, would say something like “the people of old gained approval,” or “the people of old were commended,” different translations.  There again something in the original language that could be challenging to put into English, but yet again the basic idea is pretty clear.  This is a matter of verification, of validation, even authentication.  This is what happens for those who have the kind of faith just described in verse 1. 

You might say that faith is the reason that these people of old stand on record and are recognized.  So again the idea in this verse that faith is not merely confidence, it is that; faith is not merely a guarantee, it’s also that; faith does something.  Faith motivates us – the way we speak, the way we act, the way we use our time and our resources.  Faith is a reason or a cause for a basis for how we live our lives from day to day.  Faith is visible and it is audible.  It puts us on record in a distinct way. 

It does so, like verse 1 says, based on things unseen.  Faith creates a counter-intuitive life that considers God’s Word the most important thing, even more than any contrary tangible evidence of the world around us.

Now who exactly is in mind for the author when he writes the “people of old” in this verse, the people of old.  Well, it includes all of the individuals that he is about to list out in the coming 38 verses – Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and others.  These are the main characters of the Bible, so to speak, the lead actors.

So verse 2 sets up this idea of commendable forerunners of the faith, and this comment is what we’ll spend the next four weeks exploring.  Both of the first two heroes described in verses 4 and 5 are described in these very same terms.  Verse 4 says by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous.  God commending him by accepting his gifts.  Verse 5 similarly Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death.  Before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God.

Then all the way at the end of the chapter, verse 39, we are told that these people of old are commended through their faith.

So these main characters of the Bible, if you will, are certainly the ones the author of Hebrews has in mind when he’s talking about the people of old in verse 2.  They are the people who are verified and authenticated, who stand on record for us as a testimony of faith.

Yet as we go, as we’ll see in weeks to come, throughout the chapter, throughout this list of heroes, the author begins to realize that actually he could go on and on and he really does need to stop because he doesn’t have enough time and space to list everybody that he really would like to list.  By verse 32 he says, “I do not have time to tell about Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, David, and Samuel and the prophets.”  Then things get even broader from there.  After that he includes general references to men and women whose lives were marked by faith.   

Why does that matter?  Well, it matters because it means you don’t have to be a main character to be commended.  You don’t have to be a high visibility Bible influencer with thousands of followers to be commended.  You don’t need to be popular or rich or beautiful.  That may earn you commendation from the world, but that is not how the community of the saints works from one generation to the next.

No matter how ordinary our lives may be, no matter how forgettable we are in the world’s eyes, if our lives are marked by faith, God will use us to encourage others to spur one another on in hope and that will be our commendation.

So verse 1 tells us what faith is.  It’s a guarantee, that’s confidence.

Verse 2 tells us what faith does, it informs how we live and puts us on record.

Now in verse 3 the author tells us something about what or how faith perceives.  This verse is a little longer than the first two.  It says, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Now although we don’t get to the named heroes of the faith until the next verse, and therefore next week, this verse is in some ways the beginning of that list of heroes.  Like so many verses in the list, this verse, verse 3, begins with a key phrase, “by faith.”  That’s going to be the key phrase throughout the rest of the chapter.

The list of heroes that follows this verse moves generally through the timeline of the Old Testament and that timeline, of course, begins in the first chapters of Genesis with the creation account.  The purpose here in verse 3 is to demonstrate that the nature of faith is not just in spiritual realities.  It’s also connected to the material realm as well.  If we strip this verse down to just its core assertion, it’s this – we understand the universe was created.

Now inside of a church, that statement is so obvious it’s almost boring.  Right?  But once we step outside of this building and go almost anywhere else, the grocery store or the classroom or the doctor’s office, we realize that statement is theological.  We as Christians affirm that the universe is not the result of time and matter and chance.  To the world that is scientific doctrine. 

Now don’t do it now, but you can look up on Wikipedia creationism.  When you do that, you’ll see it’s described as pseudo-science.  Right?  Fake news.

Do you believe that God created the world?  Do you believe, like we read in Psalm 33:6 earlier in the service, that God created everything by the breath of His mouth?  Do you?  Well, you’re a crackpot.  You’re irrational.  At least to the world you are.  Why would you believe that the universe was created?  Answer:  Faith.  That’s the only reason.

I don’t think it’s an accident that the author of Hebrews begins this list of heroes with a statement about creation like this.  He says the universe was created by the Word of God.  God spoke, it came into being, simple enough.  But no one was there to see it.  None of us were there to see it.  Adam wasn’t there to see it.  So how do we know that God created the universe?  We know it because God tells us in Scripture, in Genesis 1 and 2.

Without Scripture recording the words of God for us, we would have no knowledge of His commandments, His judgments, or His promises.  So the author of Hebrews begins this chapter about faith, begins the list of heroes with a statement of belief.  That’s only possible if you believe what God has said.

That assumption carries throughout for every other hero of faith that’s listed in the rest of the chapter.  Each one of these people of old had a particular kind of faith, a particular object of faith.  It wasn’t just a vague faith that things would go well or that it would all just work out somehow.  Their faith was not blind trust.  Their faith was grounded in God’s Word in what God had said to them.  Their faith was a faith that what God said was trustworthy because God Himself is trustworthy.

Faith grants us proper perception, right understanding of the world that God has made because it takes God at His Word. 

Now as a final point to make on this verse before moving on to some application, this statement is one of the more important affirmations of the doctrine of creation.  In particular, this verse, verse 3, affirms creation ex nihilo, meaning that when God created the universe, He did so using nothing because there was nothing, except for God.

Now notice how in the second half of the verse it operates on the assumption that in the normal course of events any visible thing was made from some other visible thing.  Right?  To make a statue, you need a rock.  To grow a plant, you need a seed and water and so on.  But the author is saying that that’s not how the creation of the universe occurred.  What is seen, he writes, was not made out of things that are visible.  God needed no raw materials to create.  Instead, we might say all that is now visible was not but came into existence by something that was invisible, the Word of God.  It is that Word of God, the object of our faith, that the author of Hebrews tells us is living and active.

Now, I want to draw our time to a close this evening with a final few observations that relate to faith and the Christian life.  The first is this – true faith receives blessing.  The author of Hebrews doesn’t come right out and say here exactly what it is that faith grabs on to, only that it’s unseen and hoped for. 

But remember the first 10 chapters of Hebrews.  Christ, the perfect priest, the perfect sacrifice, has achieved salvation for His people and He now bestows good things to His own and of course Scripture as a whole is very clear about what those things are – justification, the forgiveness of sins, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the power to live holy lives that are pleasing in God’s sight.   

These things are assured to us when we are joined to Christ by faith that takes God at His Word, faith that is a solid and settled confidence that God’s promises and blessings will come to pass because God is trustworthy.  Faith receives blessing.

The second point is that faith grows up.  Faith changes us.  Coming to Christ in faith cannot and will not leave us unchanged.  God by His Spirit works in our hearts to free us from the grip of sin to make us pleasing to God, useful for His purposes, and loving towards others in our lives.  That transformative nature of faith will be obvious in our lives and it will be obvious in the lives of each one of the biblical examples that we’ll read about throughout the rest of the chapter.

In his book on holiness, J.C. Ryle writes that in walking with God a man will go just as far as he believes and no further.  His life will always be proportioned to his faith.  He goes on to say that faith is the root of a real Christian’s character.  Let your root be right and your fruit will soon abound.

So we can pray the same prayer, simple but profound prayer, as the apostles prayed – Lord, increase our faith.

The third and final point for application is this:  Faith sustains us in times of trial.

Many of us here tonight have been through times of great difficulty, sadness, suffering.  Some of you this week.  At times like that, faith gives us the assurance that nothing else can.  In times of trial, the world might offer us some comfort.  We might get some input on where to find new employment.  We might hear something about how to redirect our thoughts if we’re stuck in a cycle of sadness.  We might come across some promising tip or innovative treatment that promises to heal us.  All of those things may help in a real way but at best all the world can offer us is good advice.  When times are at their darkest, what we really need is good news, news that He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all will also with Him graciously give us all things.

So let us set our faith so that it is firmly fixed on our Savior Jesus Christ.   

Let me pray.  Father in heaven, we give thanks for Your work on our behalf through Your Son Jesus Christ.  Thank You for Your Word to us in Scripture, which is trustworthy and true, just as You are.  Lord, in Your grace, You have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses whose faith in You is a testament to Your goodness and Your mercy.  So would You empower us, too, to lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely so that we might run the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.  Amen.