062 - What is Faith? Some examples

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. There's a lot of crazy ideas out there about what faith is.

What's the craziest one you've heard? Absolutely. Well, I think it's the people who see faith as kind of like the gasoline in the gas tank of their spiritual life, and if they have enough of it, they have the power to do anything they want.

Anything they want. Is that what faith really is? What does the Bible say? I don't think so.

Let's find out today on More Than Ink. Well, a wonderful morning to you. I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we are continuing in our trek through Hebrews, and we've come to probably, I don't know, maybe the most famous section of Hebrews? Well, yeah, it's kind of like walking through a portrait gallery. Yeah, yeah. But anytime someone talks about faith, faith.

They always go here. We come to Hebrews 11, and that's where we are today. But before we jump into it, because many times people jump into Hebrews 11 to talk about faith without really understanding the context of the previous 10 chapters. The question is, why is he talking about faith, and what does it apply to? Why is it so pivotal?

It's not just a religious word. It's something that's critical in the plan of God. So what's our context? Well, our context comes most directly from the end of chapter 10, where he had said all the way through chapter 10, we have confidence to enter the holy place through the blood of Christ. That's something we can't see in here and now, but we have confidence in it, the unseen. He says, hold fast the confession of your hope, because he who promised is faithful. And he had said right at the end of chapter 10, in verse 35, for you have need of endurance that when you've done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. And then he quotes Habakkuk for yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay, but my righteous one will live by faith. So that's kind of what he has laid down, and he says now, faith is.

That's where we're going. What does it mean to live by faith? Yeah, and you know, the biggest picture of Hebrews is he's talking about the fact that God wants great life for us, and it's life with him, and he used the metaphor of rest, like with the nation of Israel. They were going to Israel, but they wouldn't go in because they didn't believe God could do what he said he was going to do. So there really is this intention on God's part, this promise, that capital P word, that God promises life to us, and yet the prerequisite is faith. From the very beginning of the scriptures, as we're going to see, the first character that the writer of Hebrews brings up is Abel, right? Well, Abel shows up in the fourth chapter of Genesis, so we go way back to the beginning. So this isn't just a new covenant idea.

This has been an all the time, always covenant idea. From the nation of Israel all the way back to the beginning, and up until now, the issue is, if you want to participate in God's great intentions for life for you, well, then faith is the pivotal issue. You have to believe that what he says is true. So I think it's important for us to figure out what faith is, and that's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. If you want to participate in the life of God in his presence, you've got to nail faith down. You've got to understand what it is. Yeah, because faith is not just a feeling. No.

Right. Faith is a gift of God to us and the means by which we access the reality of his promises, but it is something that we have to exercise in accordance with truth. Yeah, and there's a lot of misconceptions about faith. I mean, you talk to anybody, and it'll go all the way from a spiritual fairy dust to some kind of magical powers to gasoline in my spiritual gas tank. I mean, it's so misunderstood. And how often do we hear that phrase, oh, if I have faith as a mustard seed, I can do anything.

Well, what really does that mean? Right, and many people look at faith as being a power. Faith is not a power.

No. So anyway, so what is it? Hebrews 11. If it's so critical, if it's so central to everything, well, then what in the world is faith? You know, it's interesting that we're doing this this week because I just finished a discussion with the women that I lead in Bible study this week in this very chapter about what is faith. And they were challenged after we had studied this very passage we're going to be talking about for the next few minutes to write in their own words a personal definition of faith. That's a challenge.

And that was an excellent exercise. Yeah. And so I'm hoping at the end of this week and next week, because it's going to take two weeks to cover the faith chapter of Hebrews 11, I'm hoping that you have a very simple way to communicate what faith is. You grab it. It's not complicated. It's easily misunderstood.

It's critical to everything. But I think you can come up with a good hip pocket definition yourself, which will be really straightforward. Can I read your mind? Well, okay.

You want to save it for the end? I'm just hoping people are intrigued enough to say, yeah, I'm not sure. I know what Hebrews is talking about with faith. I'm not sure I know what faith is. Oh, if it's faith, it's important. I better know.

So let's find out. Hebrews 11, verse 1. You want to read it for us? This is a great definition to start off with. And again, we're reading Hebrews 11 from the ESV, the English Standard Version. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

For by it, the men 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. Are we going on? Stop.

Yeah, let's stop. Because that's his definition. And in classic ancient style, he gives us his conclusion first rather than at the end. So he says, look, this is it. Remember when John's Gospel, he gave us a conclusion about who Jesus was at the very top, and then he used the rest of the book to prove it.

This is what he does here. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Sounds kind of flaky to me. Okay, so those are big words. Assurance and conviction are like, what? I mean, we use those words, but we sometimes don't really understand what they mean.

Right, right. I mean, if you're assured of something, you are confident that it's real. Yeah, something that's not in your hand but will be is going to happen. And you have a piece about it because you're sure of it, right? And what are we sure of here? Well, we're sure of the things that we have been told to hope for. What is our hope?

Yeah. So indeed, this seems to be in the realm of kind of the unseen. Unseen both in time and unseen both in dimensions of existence, like spiritual stuff is invisible. So if you want to have some kind of sense and a reliable conviction about something that you can't see or touch because it's either in the spiritual realm or it's in the future, which you can't touch, faith is your key. Faith is your link to that thing to give you a conviction about that, which seems kind of, I don't know, non-real. Well, he says faith is the assurance of things that we hope for, right? So that settled confidence of something that we hope in and the conviction that it's the things that we cannot see are more real and more concrete than the things that we can see. Right.

Right. So for me, the entry-level beginning understanding, I always use the metaphor of, you know, if you say you asked a neighborhood kid to watch your house while you go on vacation, you know, well, you would ask yourself while you're on vacation, yeah, I wonder if he's taking care of my house. I wonder if he's feeding the cat. I wonder if he's doing all these things that I'm hoping. The things that I'm hoping for, well, I will have a conviction that he's probably doing those things based on my track record of my understanding of his character.

His character. So I can actually have some assurance, some conviction that what I can't see and can't actively control, I can't be there, it's happening. So when you start with that simple understanding, we say that all the time, I have faith in this kid, he'll do fine. So there's something about the fact that we have a conviction of something that we can't directly see, it's in the future, it's distant from us. But it's based on the character of the person we know, the person we've entrusted that to.

Exactly. And in this particular case, in Hebrews, he's really relating faith as it connects us to God's promise. So, for instance, if the kid said he'll take care of the cat, I have faith because I know who he is. If God promises us a Sabbath rest, a rest, I mean good life, are you willing to say I put my trust in that based on my understanding of God's character in the same kind of way?

So this linkage starts to build. And so he says that's the operable thing. So in verse 3, he says by faith, this conviction, we understand the universe was created by the word of God. We weren't there, but we can have a conviction that indeed is what happened through faith. And the universe was made out of things that are not visible.

Right. And this strikes at the very heart of the beginning of scripture, right? And God said, and it was, that powerful word of God that speaks and reality happens. That happens, and our understanding of that happens in the realm of faith because we weren't there.

We couldn't see it. But we know that God spoke and reality came into being. And that is still true. That's exactly right. And so he actually takes us back to the beginning of creation. Right. We weren't there.

We couldn't see it. And then even with the promises of God, he's taking us metaphorically into the end of creation, this promise. Do we have faith that God will bring us to the place he's promised through Abraham that we're participating in that? And if he can bring everything into existence out of nothing, he can certainly keep his promise to us.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So from this point on, he launches us into, like, if you don't get what he just said in the first three verses, because it's a lot to chew on. Well, he's going to continue to amplify it.

He'll amplify it some, but the best way to do that is illustrations. Let's use some people from the Old Testament who were excellent examples of people who exercised faith as they looked forward to the fulfillment of God's promises for them. Well, and before we get into the actual list, it's interesting that in this section we have in front of us today, these first four characters are very, very early in the history of humankind with God. As I said before, Abel shows up in the fourth chapter of Genesis. Abel was Adam and Eve's son.

One of several, actually. Which is not an accident that the first place he quotes how our faith is active is in the creation itself. And then the next people that show up in the Bible are these people. So he's starting from the very beginning, like the super beginning. Well, it's interesting to me that he skips over Adam and Eve, but that's a conversation for another day.

Yeah, that's exactly right. In fact, he says at the end of chapter 11, he says, I could have talked about a lot of people. Could have talked about a lot of people, yeah. But let's see who he talks about. I'll start us into verse four.

So here come the examples, the illustrations, if you're still fuzzy about what he's talking about. So 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.

And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. So we just stop with Abel. You know, we know Cain and Abel, there was the sacrifices. And God didn't like Cain's sacrifice that he brought.

But he did like Abel's. And a lot of people try and draw too much conclusion. Well, you know, one guy brought his bell peppers and the other guy brought his lamb. So maybe it's meat versus vegetables.

It's not that at all. It's the heart of the two. Yeah, it is helpful to go back to Genesis 4 at this point and read that. So let me encourage you, with every one of these characters that the writer mentions, remember he's writing to a Jewish audience and they knew the stories. They know the stories. But we have to be reminded. So with Abel, go back to the first part of Genesis 4 and read what was the offering and what was the issue that God says. Yeah, exactly. So he's counting on the fact that you know these stories.

If you don't, go back. That's Genesis 4. And then he goes on in Genesis 5 to Enoch. Verse 5, by faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. And he was not found because God had taken him. Wow.

Well, what? You can read the story of Enoch in about 20 seconds. It's only three or four verses. It's very short.

It's very short. And what did Enoch do? He walked with God. He walked with God and so he didn't die. God took him.

That's a massive statement. What does it mean to walk with God? And what does it say about faith? Because faith, again, remember, it's kind of our mechanism in the way.

That's a poor way to say it, but it's our connection to the unseen. Well, God's unseen and Enoch still had a relationship with God who is unseen and what was the connection? It was his faith. And interestingly, the next character on the list is Noah and we'll read that in a second, but Genesis says the same thing about Noah.

Now we're talking about men that were like in the 6th and 9th generation from Adam and Eve, so very, very early in human history. Walking with God as opposed to walking with the direction the rest of mankind was going. So a little concluding statement even after those two guys in verse 6. Without faith, it's impossible to please him, to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So there's two confident expectations right there that God actually does exist and that in pursuing the nearness of God, he rewards pursuing God.

And those take us right back into verse 1. To believe that God exists means I am assured, I am convicted that there are things that are unseen and that they are real and that I am assured that there is a hope in this unseen reality because God keeps his promises. So it's perfect faith. So that's the kind of faith.

They're operating in an unseen realm by doing this. And speaking of unseen realms, you've got Noah. You want to pick up Noah in verse 7? Okay, by faith, Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. That's a fascinating phrase.

Oh, isn't it? What does it mean that he condemned the world? Well, if you go back and read in Genesis 6 God's assessment of the condition of the world, he says, I have already condemned them.

I'm just going to start over. And so Noah, when the writer here says Noah condemned the world, what he means is Noah aligned his own assessment of the world with God's. Yep. And God had said to Noah, says, you know, I'm taking these people out. And Noah said, I believe you. That's faith right there. It's interesting what these people did because it's a tremendous variety of stuff all coming from the fact that they believed that what God said was true. Abel made an offering. Enoch simply walked with God.

Noah built an ark. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're struggling to come up with a handy definition of faith, it has a lot to do with belief. Are you willing to embrace something about God, something about the unseen? Are you willing to embrace that and trust that and then act on that? So those are all aspects of faith as well. Not just embracing a fact, but actually changing your behavior as a result of that.

Yeah. I wouldn't say it has a lot to do with belief. I say it is essential. It centers on belief. And in fact, in the New Testament, when you look at the Greek word for faith and the Greek word for belief, they're almost interchangeable. And I've told people before that because of that, that faith really is, sometimes I substitute the word persuasion. Like I am persuaded that, so I will now. So faith is very much about being persuaded about a fact and then acting on it after that.

So it's very much a cognitive kind of thing. I choose to believe and then I go forward. In fact, it makes me think, to my favorite people in the New Testament, that Jesus commended for their faith, both non-Hebrews. One of them was a centurion who came to Jesus and said, well, you know, you're in charge of the universe so you can heal my servant. Well, you're in charge of the universe. How do you know that?

How do you have that kind of conviction? And so Jesus praises him as having, says, you know, I haven't found faith like this anywhere in Israel. And it was just him embracing the truth of who Jesus was. Well, and since you said they were non-Hebrews, they were not Jews, well, neither were any of these people listed right here in this passage.

That's right. Abel and Enoch and Noah all existed before there ever was a people of Israel. Abraham himself was not a Jew. Now that's sometimes a puzzler to Christians who haven't read their Old Testament, who really haven't put that together. God initiated the beginning of this people, the Jews, with Abraham, but it was much later.

Yeah, exactly. And this theme will come out a lot here when we talk about Abraham. So faith pre-exists the Jewish idea of faith. Before there was any law, before there was any temple, before there was any religious Jewish system, there was the essential faith. Faith pre-exists all of that and goes back to the very beginning.

But I want to focus on this last comment about Noah at the end of verse 7. He says, he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. And that starts to trigger thoughts about Abraham. Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness. And in a second we're going to look at Abraham as an example of that kind of faith, where he embraced an unseen truth about who God is and he embraced the unseen and unfulfilled promise of God.

So this is how he interacts in this invisible realm. Faith is what does that. Yeah, because that should raise that question in our mind. What kind of faith does God reckon as righteousness? If, as Genesis tells us later, Abraham believed God and God reckoned it as righteous.

What kind of faith is that? Because many times when we look at the word righteousness we think, well that's perfect living. It's what you do. You don't do anything wrong. You do everything right in fact.

You're perfect. You're sinless and stuff like that. Here he's saying that righteousness might be connected more to whether or not you take God at his word and act in response.

Yes. That might be more key than almost anything else. And he'll make that case as we go on here.

Because that's exactly what it is. That's how it worked for Abraham and if you're a child of Abraham that's all it will take for you as well. So let's move forward because he does go to Abraham in verse 8. You want to pick it up right there?

Okay. Verse 8. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive his inheritance.

And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.

Wow. So Abraham, his wife Sarah, they are both embracing an unseen truth and that for them that thing that makes them do that is faith. That's what empowers that to do that. Indeed a truth that is not at all based on their physical condition. Yeah, exactly.

Because the writer really drives this home and says Abraham was as good as dead at that. They were not going to be able to produce a child. And even relocating to the land of promise. They went there and they lived in tents. They didn't find a city. They didn't find any kind of great thing in that sense.

They lived in tents. But this is what's key about verse 10. He's looking forward to a city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. God said there will be a place you'll go.

Metaphorically a city that I have designed, that I have put together, a place of great living. It'll be there but he goes there and he doesn't find it. He lives in tents. So he actually continues to live looking forward to the completion of that promise which he didn't really get to although he went to the land. Well this comes very close to this whole idea of faith being the ability to live with that unseen reality clearly in view even in spite of our circumstances.

Even if I'm living in a tent. Exactly. And that also applied to Sarah when God said you're going to have a baby and she laughs.

She says yeah right that's going to happen. These things merit much more discussion than we give them here. This is a long story. In fact if I recall right, Isaac was born when Abraham was 100. But God promised that this promise would fulfill itself through his offspring. And there's some barriers there. They're both old.

I'm looking around going what offspring would that be? We'll come back to Abraham a little bit next week but let's finish 13 to the end because we're running short on time because this is a great summary statement. It is. These all, these four guys that he has listed so far, 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. For people who speak thus make it clear that they're seeking a homeland.

If they'd been thinking of the land from which they'd gone out they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is they desire a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them.

Yes. So the promise of God is actually a society, a culture, a place like a city. And if you think about ancient times the whole place was like the wild west in America.

There was nothing great in the wild west. But when you came to a city there was order, there was life, there was peace. A city is a wonderful place to live in the ancient times. Well, God's promise of rest for us is the promise metaphorically of a city. A great place to live where God himself will be the one who designs it and establishes it and welcomes us into it. And reigns.

He is the king of that city. And what's key to us looking forward, having our eyesight set forward in faith is to realize that the here and now, he says like in the end of verse 13, we're strangers and exiles here. This is not the end. And like I'm prone to quote Corey Ten Boom all the time, this is the best is yet to be. This isn't the end. That is so important because this is in view here that how does faith affect how I see myself in relation to the world?

Like right now. Because the writer says, you know, they clearly regarded themselves as aliens, as sojourners, as temporary. This world is not my home. I'm just passing through.

Just passing through. I'm on my way to a better place. And what informed you of the fact that there's a better place coming? God does. Yeah. And he gives you faith to embrace that. You embrace that promise. You say, you know, even though I'm living in a tent right now, my circumstances are not what I was hoping for.

Like I hear people say, I didn't sign up for this. Well, yeah, because God's promise of this place to live in great life with him is still to come. But we believe that promise based on his track record. Yeah, exactly.

On the fact that he has always done what he said he would do. Yeah, that's exactly right. So even as the writer of Hebrews back in chapter four said, you may be living in the promised land, but there still remains a Sabbath rest. A Sabbath rest for the people of God. It's not really fulfilled.

This is kind of like a shadow of that fulfillment. So here, you know, two things. These guys in verse 13 realize that their time now is temporary. They're strangers and exiles. And that's not going to change.

We're just passing through this place. And you could go back to your old life if you wanted to, but instead you're saying, no, I'm going to push forward and put my trust in the promise of God. In another place. I'm not that invested here. I'm invested in the other place. And God is faithful to his promise. Do you believe that? And will you act on that?

Because there is a better country. There's a better country coming. And it's a heavenly one, he says in 16. So is your trust placed in that? Does your faith inform you that that's something you want to embrace and push towards?

Or are you going to build a house here and hope for the best? And he's saying, no, no. In fact, if you put your trust in God, God is not ashamed to be called their God.

Because they put their trust in him. He's prepared for them a city. And that's still to come. You know, that sounds to me like what Jesus said. I'm going to prepare a place for you.

And I'm going to come back and take you to myself. That's the reward that he will take us to be with him and live with him. And the previous chapters in Hebrews says, you know, you're qualified to be there, not because you're anything hot, but because Jesus died for you. And he took care of the sins that would have kept you out of that city. Out of that promise. And you get a handle on that by believing it.

Yeah, exactly. So by faith we believe that he's paid the price for us. By faith we put our hope and expectation in the coming of this city where God's at the center of it. Faith is the thing that says, I'm going to wait for that to happen instead.

Well, we are like way out of time. So we're going to pick up the other half of the story of these examples in Hebrews 11 and talk a little bit more in depth about what faith is. We've made a good start, but we'll come back and look at some more examples and we'll be able to understand what's going on as we look at more examples. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. We want you to come back. This gets even better. So come back and join us on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content.

To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. You stopped sooner than I thought you would. I was so animated you just didn't know what to think. I was stunned. Stunt, absolutely stunned. Okay.