Gaining approval here means they received commendation by God and by others. For by this kind of faith, this kind of hoping, this kind of seeing, the saints of old received commendation. They became worthy of what we now call them heroes.
There's one author said they took the first step even though they couldn't see the whole staircase and the lights were out and it was really steep and some of the steps were slippery. Sometimes they stumbled. What makes a person stand out as a hero of faith? Throughout history men and women have followed convictions that set them apart.
Hebrews 11 is filled with the stories of people who marched to the beat of a different drummer. Their choices shaped history and continue to inspire believers today. But what does faith really look like?
How does it function in daily life? In today's message you'll learn how faith provides a foundation for hope, produces conviction in the unseen, and prioritizes a life that pleases God. Stay with us as Stephen Davey begins this powerful series on faith in action.
This message is called The Beat of a Different Drummer. Has it ever occurred to you that the first person deeply interested in retelling the lives of men and women throughout history is none other than God? God loves biography. In fact most of the Bible is biographical. It gives us the histories of men and women and kings and nations, pioneers and prophets. God evidently is committed to the concept that you and I learn best when truth is brought to life in flesh and blood. And so throughout Scripture he sort of brings truth on stage for us, and we watch them parade across it. He brings us the biographies of people good and bad, wicked and godly, self-sacrificing and selfish. He brings them all across for a purpose, and we learn. I've started in fact just this past week a biography of a guy named G. Campbell Morgan now lost to my generation of expositors, and I couldn't get past the very first page without being challenged by one of his cryptic statements where he said, experience is a hard teacher and there are those who never learn.
Maybe it's because we don't read enough biography. Is it any surprise then to listen as God through his apostles makes these kinds of statements? Listen, he says imitate those who through faith and patience inherited what has been promised.
You can't imitate someone you don't know. So let's get a little hope and perseverance. Let's learn how to live and walk by faith. If you open your Bibles if you're not there already to Hebrews 11, you might miss the setting of the chapter and so actually don't quite get to chapter 11. Chapter 10 in verse 35, the writer of Hebrews sort of sets the stage for us and what God has in mind. So I want you to circle or underline or highlight that verse where he says, whatever you do, don't throw away your confidence.
I love that verse. In other words, don't throw in the towel. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how difficult it looks, don't give up. Remember the servants of God who walked by faith. Now if you skip over chapter 11 and you go to chapter 12, right away he encourages us by saying, look, now that you've discovered you've got this great cloud of witnesses, what are they?
The biographies of all of these saints of old run the race. Don't quit. Don't give up. Stay at it.
Keep pressing on in the race before you. Live by faith. Run by faith. And you say, okay, Lord, I got it in chapter 10 and you're telling me to do it in chapter 12.
Sign me up, but can you show me what that looks like? Hebrews 11 is the answer. It's almost a parenthesis between chapters 10 and chapter 12 where it's as if God says to all of us, okay, sit down a while and let me tell you some stories. They're real. They're about real people. Let me give you some biographies of people, in fact, that are a lot more like you than you think.
Ordinary people. They didn't sign up to become heroes. And, frankly, as you inspect their lives, there are many things about them that are not so heroic. They lived with moments of doubt and hesitation and even unbelief. But God says, let me show you that in hindsight there's this common thread running through their biographies. They saw the invisible and pursued the impossible.
They marched to a different drummer. In fact, it's so incredibly encouraging to understand the only thing they had going for them is the same thing available to all of us. Faith. It is the drumbeat by which we walk. With that, Hebrews 11, one opens, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, for by it the men of old gained approval. And immediately the Bible student takes out his pencil. He says, okay, this sounds like a good definition. Faith is, and you begin to dissect the verse and come up with, okay, faith is assurance and conviction about things I'm hoping for and things I can't see, but that doesn't fill in all the blanks and you're left wondering, okay, how exactly do I get this kind of assurance and how do I develop this kind of conviction?
So what's he going to do? Well, let me remind you, it is a definition of sorts, but there are several ways to define something. One of those ways is objectively. In other words, this is what it looks like. Let me tell you about the object. Let's look at it.
I'll observe it and I'll tell you the facts. That's an objective definition. Another way of defining something is subjectively. That is, as you relate to that object, here's what it feels like. There's a third way of defining something, there's a third way of defining something, and that is functionally. That's how it operates.
That's exactly what he's about to do. Let me illustrate it this way. Jonathan, bring me a bicycle. Okay, I'm going to define a bicycle three different ways. First of all, I'm going to define it objectively.
Objectively. What we happen to have here is an object. Bicycle, by the way, is a Latin word. It's a compound word made up of by, and cycle, by meaning two, cycle meaning wheel. We have two wheels.
You with me? Okay, they're round. They obviously roll. There are spokes.
It seems to be constructed of some sort of metal, maybe aluminum. There are all sorts of wires, cables, gears. There's a chain connected to the pedals.
It seems to me that those pedals operate that chain, which operates the, okay, what I'm doing is giving you an objective definition, simply making observations. Now, if I want to describe it or define it subjectively, I would say, Jonathan, if you rode that bicycle, it would be a great experience. If you're riding downhill, you could see the sun. You've got a front row to creation. The sun is on your face.
The wind is whipping through your hair. If you would ride that, oh, it would be wonderful for you. So one, what I'm doing is I'm defining it subjectively as it relates to how you and that object might interact. But if I want to define it functionally, I would say, Jonathan, I want you to sit on the bicycle, sit on the seat, and put one foot on one pedal and then another foot on the other pedal. Not at the same time, okay?
Smart aleck. Okay, push off and begin to pedal immediately. Now, you want to balance and hold those handlebars. Watch where you're going and ride. Look at him go. That's how it operates.
Next time, we'll talk about braking, okay? There you go. What the writer is doing is, I think, defining faith functionally. He wants us to know how it works.
He doesn't want to set it up for us and say, let me describe it for you, or simply tell us how it feels. He wants us to know how it operates. You see, Hebrews chapter 11 is not interested in a factual definition of faith, but a functional description of faith.
Here's how it works. You could sort of read in between the lines through this whole chapter and be telling yourself, okay, this is what faith does. This is how faith acts.
This is how it operates. This is what God wants me to learn about the walk of faith. And so, the Spirit of God is going to show us in this chapter that living by faith is not so much a definition.
It is a demonstration. Now, let's begin by breaking down this functional definition found in verse one into its three parts. Number one, if you have notes and you're taking them, faith continually provides a foundation for our hope.
That's the first point. Faith continually provides a foundation for our hope. The first part reads this.
Look there again. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Your translation might read, now faith is the confidence in what we hope for. Or yours might read, faith is the substance of things hoped for. Those words, assurance, conviction, substance, are fine and good.
Let me give you another word to add to the list. Based on the original word, hupostasis, stasis meaning to stand and hupo meaning to stand under. In other words, assurance or confidence or substance is a reference to a foundation. Faith is the foundation of things hoped for. Faith is effectively the legs that hold the body upon the foundation that's constantly growing. In fact, the present tense lets us know that this foundation is constantly being added to. It's constantly being strengthened. This is the foundation, our faith, which supports our hope.
And by the way, what are we hoping for? Christ's return for the church, our future glorified bodies, the reunion of all departed saints, coming literal earthly kingdom where Christ will reign for a thousand years and we with him, a future new world where we will eternally dwell as the Father's house descends and then forever resides upon a newly created earth, Revelation 21, which we forever worship him and on his assignment explore and discover and enjoy. Listen, your faith does not make something true. Your faith simply embraces the truth. And we know these things are true by means of our faith in the inspired words of God, which is continually building a foundation upon which we stand our hopes.
That's what he's saying. The truth is even a secular world, have you noticed, is uneasy in their growing conviction that something more is out there. I talked a little bit about it this morning. The foundation flawed our foundation that the world will be one day destroyed based on the objective revelation of God's Word will indeed we believe come true and that is the foundation upon which we stand. So our faith builds that foundation.
Our faith is in fact that foundation. I was in the pharmacy two days ago. Teenage girl behind the cash register, no one else around. I said to her, I hope you're having a good day. And she said, well, you know, I'm really not.
My foot's bothering me. And I said, well, what's the problem? And she went on to explain that she'd been hurt several times in a soccer game, a couple of different soccer games that had surgery.
And as a result, it had ruined her hopes of being a dancer in the future. And I said, well, I sure am sorry, but, you know, I believe that God has a reason for everything. Sort of just to kind of, okay, let's open this door and see what she says next. And she said, oh, I know, I know, I know, I know. It's given me time to focus on my religion. I said, really? What religion? She said, well, I'm a pagan.
I said, well, I know some people that fit that description, but tell me what it means to you. She went on to tell me that she was studying to be a witch. I said, really? I said, well, what are you going to do after that? She said, well, I'm going to start my own coven. I said, wow, what are you going to do next? She said, well, I want to start my own earth church.
I was glad she was talking about church. I said, well, what are you going to do after that? She said, well, I think I want to be a teacher. I said, what are you going to do after that? She said, well, I don't know. I said, what are you going to do one minute after you die? She just kind of twisted her hands together and smiled at me. She said, well, I don't know.
I hope the divine will be good to me. I said, so you believe in God after all? She said, well, you know, not that, not like that.
You know, I mean, whatever. Another customer came up, and she was relieved. I decided to leave by saying, I hope you'll think about that. And I pray she will. You see, her foundation, the foundation of her faith was so rickety that in the face of a few questions, it didn't stand up. She was hoping for something, but had no foundation for her hopes. So here's the first observation of faith. Faith continually provides a true foundation for all our hopes.
It isn't wistful thinking. It isn't hoping that someday some divine thing will be good to me. Faith, Hebrews 1 says, is a solid foundation that provides the building up of our assurance.
Now, I want you to watch this carefully. It would be true to say then that faith is not a feeling. However, it would also be true to say that faith affects, deeply affects our feelings.
Having a growing foundation for our hope causes us to feel a sense of urgency toward winning that teenage girl and the people in your world. It causes us to anticipate with desire the return of Christ. Our faith causes us to feel a longing for the redemption of our bodies, Romans 8. It leads us to pray with contentment and thanksgiving, 1 Thessalonians 4. It causes us to love and humbly serve our fellow believers, Colossians 3. Faith is not a feeling. It is a foundation for the certainty of our hope which will come to pass, but it can deeply affect the way we feel.
Think about it. What difference do you think it would make in the way I drove to the bank if my friend told me that he had just deposited a million dollars in my bank account? How do you think I'd feel? How do you think I would allow my emotions to affect my driving over to the bank?
I would break the sound barrier to get there. Actually, how I drove over to the bank and how I felt while driving there would all be determined on how much faith, how strong my faith was in the promise and the credibility of my friend. If I really trusted him, I could keep the speed limit. I might wait until tomorrow to drive over there.
I might even sit down immediately and just without going there begin to write checks. You see, my faith in the promise of my friend makes all the difference in the world to me personally, and it affects how I feel. That's why your faith and mine and the lives we are now living are really nothing more than our estimation of the character of God. Our faith is our estimation of the character of God.
That's the first observation. It provides a foundation for our hope. Secondly, it produces a conviction that invisible things exist. Notice the text again, faith is not only the assurance of things hoped for, but note this, faith is the conviction of things not seen. Your translation may read the evidence of things not seen. It's a Greek word that appears only this time in the entire New Testament in this form, and it refers to proof.
Aristotle used the word to refer to a convincing argument. Your faith is a convincing argument. It is the proof of an invisible world. So watch this.
I love what he's saying here. He's not saying that your faith proves invisible things exist. He's saying that your faith is the proof that invisible things exist. And that's enough, for our faith is founded on the living Word and the living Lord.
And what are these invisible things you become convinced of? What is your faith proof of? The cross of Christ was sufficient 2,000 years ago to pay the penalty for your sin so you can pillow your head in peace. You didn't see him die. You didn't see him rise from the dead. Your faith is the proof of that. By faith, you believe in the resurrection of Christ too. You didn't see that either. You believe with conviction that the preached Word will never be void or fruitless.
I depended my entire life on that one. I may or may not see any evidence of that, but my proof is the evidence of that. By faith, you believe in the ministry of an invisible spirit who indwells you. You believe in the ascended and enthroned Messiah, and you've never seen it. You believe in an ongoing spiritual invisible war determined to discourage and defeat you, and you can't see any of them. You believe in the existence of invisible demons and angels.
You've never met one. So I could paraphrase this phrase, this text again to capture the present tense word by reading it this way. Faith produces a growing conviction that invisible things really do exist. Eyesight proves the reality of the physical world.
Faith proves the reality of the spiritual world. Now we know we can all use help in the physical world, can't we? I mean, I'm wearing glasses right now, not because I want to, but because they correct the weaknesses in my eyes brought on by age and too much peanut butter.
I knew I'd pay for it one day. I understand that you fishermen, how many fishermen we have in here? Yeah, I understand that you guys can actually go and buy a pair of fisherman's glasses to remove much of the glare so that you can see the fish below the surface of the water better.
That's what I needed. I've never caught a fish ever. You can buy night vision lenses. How many hunters in here? That can penetrate the darkness. If you're a hunter, you can spot the game. If you're a soldier, you can identify the enemy.
You can sort of see the danger ahead with those night vision lenses. That's exactly what faith does for the believer. It is corrective lenses which brings things into focus, compensating for our weaknesses.
It is a pair of fisherman's glasses. It helps us see past the glare around us and focus on our mission as fishers of men. Faith is a pair of night lenses which allows us to spot the enemy, that old serpent who puts traps in our path. You see, faith helps us see in the dark. Maybe right now you're walking there. Maybe your valley is dark.
Maybe right now the lights are low if not out. God has brought you to a place where you cannot depend on your senses. You can only depend on the Spirit. The growing Christian is someone who comes to trust in the Spirit more than he does his senses. One more principle in this functional description, faith prioritizes a lifestyle worthy of commendation. Verse 2 says, for by it men of old gained approval.
He's referring to Old Testament believers and he's about to pull out about 12 biographies and we'll get into the first one. Gaining approval here means they received commendation by God and by others. Why were they commended?
He told us, for by it. That is, for by this kind of faith, this kind of hoping, this kind of seeing, the saints of old received commendation. They became worthy of what we now call them heroes.
This is what Arthur said, they took the first step even though they couldn't see the whole staircase, and the lights were out, and it was really steep, and some of the steps were slippery. Sometimes they stumbled, but they pressed on clinging with conviction to the reality of invisible things standing upon a foundation which bolstered their hopes. So today they are worthy of studying and imitating and following, as Paul exhorted the New Testament believer to do, because in them we will see a living demonstration of how faith operates, how it works.
It prioritizes a lifestyle worthy of commendation. It produces a conviction of invisible reality. It provides a foundation upon which we rest our hope. We are going to see a demonstration of faith that marches to the beat of a different drummer. Faith is more than belief, it's a way of life. The heroes of Hebrews 11 didn't just talk about faith, they lived it. They walked with conviction, built their lives on unseen promises, and left a legacy that still speaks today.
That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called The Beat of a Different Drummer. This message is the first in a series from Hebrews 11 entitled Heroes, but I want to make you aware that Stephen has a book through this chapter as well. It's a resource that'll encourage and inspire you as you explore the lives of those whom God chose to list in this hall of faith. If you'd like information about this book, give us a call today at 866-48-Bible. That's 866-48-Bible or 866-482-4253. You'll also find this resource on our website if you'd like to go online and order it for yourself. That's wisdomonline.org. It's discounted during this series, so take advantage of this opportunity to get that resource now. Be sure and join us next time as we continue through Hebrews 11 here on Wisdom for the Heart.
