Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain... By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death... But 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 diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:1–6)

A verse-by-verse journey through the hall of faith — eleven truths from the lives of those who trusted the invisible God against all odds.

One of the Great Chapters of the Bible

Before us today is one of the great chapters of the Bible. That's not to say the other chapters are not great; it's just that this one stands out. It's like 1 Corinthians 13, often called the love chapter, or Isaiah 53, that great passage written 700 years before Jesus came that describes His crucifixion for our salvation, or Psalm 119, the longest of the Psalms, which speaks so beautifully about the word of God. Hebrews 11 is one of those famous, standout passages. It's commonly referred to as the hall of faith, because here there are 16 men and women named who were faithful to God, along with many others given passing reference. As a result of their trust in God, they are listed in this chapter — and they are with the Lord in eternity.

I could honestly spend several weeks going through this chapter, going into each character — Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Barak, Jephthah, David, Samuel. The Bible-college teacher in me would love to do that. But the problem is that when we get stuck in a passage, we can fail to see the main point. We can miss the forest for the trees. Don't misunderstand me: deep Bible study is very important. Every faithful Christian should study God's word on their own throughout the week. You cannot rely only on a pastor's teaching. As Paul exhorted Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who is not ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." That's my exhortation to you as well. But for today, I'm going to endeavor to get through all 40 verses, considering eleven things about faith from Hebrews 11.

The Context: The Just Shall Live by Faith

We need to understand the context. Step back to Hebrews 10:35: "Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance... Now the just shall live by faith. But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul."

It might seem logical to jump straight from there to Hebrews 12:1 — "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." But instead the author takes a detour and spends 40 verses on these men and women of faith. Why? Because they had every opportunity to draw back, to throw in the towel, to quit the walk of faith. They faced difficult circumstances, persecution, and opposition. They had every reason to give up, and yet they persisted in faith.

Remember why this letter was written. The original readers were Christians who came out of Judaism. The author quotes Habakkuk 2:4, "The just shall live by faith," which is cited three times in the New Testament — in Romans, in Galatians, and here. It means that those who are righteous are righteous by faith. But the original audience knew nothing of righteousness by faith. They lived a life of righteousness by works — appearing before priests at the temple in Jerusalem, confessing sins over a sacrificed animal. That's religion, and that's what they had come out of.

The Universal Pull of Religion

The world is full of religion. Almost every person you meet is religious. Even those who profess to be non-religious are still devoted to their non-religion. Their religion can be fitness, and they worship at the church called CrossFit. Their religion can be devotion to nature and Mother Earth, and they worship out on a hiking trail. People are religiously devoted to whatever they are devoted to, because it has so much to do with the way God hardwired us.

God created every single person with a conscience. The Bible says it either excuses us or accuses us. The fact is, none of us live up to the conscience God gave us, and so we are convicted by it. Some people fearfully seem to have no conscience, because they have seared it — gone against it so often it has become callous. To salve our guilt and shame, we opt toward religion. It makes us feel like we're living up to our potential. That's why religion is everywhere.

But the author references that wonderful statement from Habakkuk: the just shall live by faith. Righteousness, a right standing with God, is not based on my works but on faith in God and His finished work. If all you've ever known is a life before God based on your good works, this concept is awesomely liberating. It brings rest — the very rest the author spoke of back in chapters 3 and 4. But it raises questions: What exactly is faith? Why is faith important? And the Jewish reader might object — why don't we see this under the old covenant? Hebrews 11 answers that third question by listing 16 individuals who lived under the first covenant and lived before God by faith.

1. By Faith We Have Confident Hope in the Invisible God

Verse 1 begins to answer what faith is: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The New Living Translation renders it, "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." I love that. Faith is the steadfast conviction that those things we hope for — to be with God in eternity — will actually happen.

Point one: by faith, we have confident hope in the invisible God. We live in a culture increasingly antagonistic toward those who have confident hope in an invisible God. In Western culture there is a growing group who mock that view, and maybe you've been on the receiving end of that mockery. In the 21st century, reason is now pitted against faith as if they are incompatible. But they fail to recognize that it takes faith to believe the theories of evolution and its stories of origins in the same way it takes faith to believe that God spoke these things into existence. Reason and faith are not in conflict.

2. By Faith We Build an Enduring Reputation

Verse 2: "For by it the elders obtained a good testimony." Point two: by faith, we build an enduring reputation. In our culture there is a growing desire for celebrity, recognition, and reputation. Research shows that the generation now in high school and college has put fame and celebrity at the number two or three spot of their greatest ambitions in life — a huge change in the last 50 years.

Anyone can now try to build celebrity merely with a smartphone — likes, subscribers, social media. We have YouTubers and social media celebrities, and people striving to be the big person at VidCon. Just this last month, a young couple — YouTubers — ended in tragedy when, filming a video to try to stop a bullet with a book, he held the book and she shot, and he died, all for celebrity. But likes and subscribers are about as temporary as you can get. By faith, the men and women in this passage have an enduring reputation — not just because their names are written in the bestselling book of all eternity, but because their names are written in heaven. When all these paper books are gone and this creation is renewed, their names are still written with God. That's an enduring reputation, far better than one that lasts only as long as your next Instagram post.

3. By Faith We Understand Mysteries

Verse 3: "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." Point three: by faith, we understand mysteries. Most who say they believe in reason over faith are essentially atheistic or agnostic, but they believe in evolutionary theory to go from nothing to what we now have. Even within science, it's held that everything had a sudden origin — the big bang, generally placed 15 billion years ago.

But that narrative takes faith. Nobody is 15 billion years old, and we don't have a time machine — we can't take the DeLorean back at 88 miles per hour to check. We take it on faith. It may be a reasonable faith, but it takes the same level of faith to believe that story as it does to believe the biblical explanation: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... and God said, 'Let there be light.'" Out of nothing came something. The biblical explanation is that God spoke it into existence.

Here's the awesome thing. Christians understand by faith not only the mystery of origins, but also the mystery of identity, purpose, destiny, and morality — all the things evolutionary theory cannot answer. Ask the evolutionist, "Why are we here?" and the answer is, "I don't know." Ask, "Where do we go after this?" and the answer is, "You just die." But the Christian understands by faith that God created us for a purpose and has an eternal destiny for us. We see the chaos of not knowing right from wrong all around us in our culture, but the Christian by faith has good answers for these mysteries.

4. By Faith We Obtain Righteousness

Verse 4: "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous." Who are Cain and Abel? Go read Genesis 4. Point four: by faith, we obtain righteousness. You could read Genesis 4 and wrongly conclude that Abel became righteous by his sacrifice. That's not what happened. Abel's sacrifice showed that he was righteous — and he was righteous by faith.

We see it again in verse 7 with Noah: "By faith Noah... became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith." Even under the old covenant, men and women are made right with a holy God not on the basis of their works or obedience, but on the basis of their trust in God for salvation. All the way back in Genesis, by faith we obtain righteousness.

5. By Faith We Please God

Verse 5: "By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death... because God had taken him." Who's Enoch? Read Genesis 5. He was a man who walked with God, and one day God simply took him to heaven — he didn't die. It's like a rapture. But before he was taken, "he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Point five: by faith, we please God.

I assume you came to church today because it's your desire to be pleasing to God. How can we please Him? Verse 6: "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 diligently seek Him." That's the lowest level of faith — that God exists and that He is gracious. Many today seek to please God by religious observance and rituals, but without trust in God, there is no pleasing God. We must believe in His existence and in His grace.

6. By Faith We Obey and Work Righteousness

The first recipient of grace in Scripture is Noah — "Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." Verse 7: "By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark." He was warned by the invisible God of a coming global flood that had never happened before. To him it was like being told something incomprehensible. "I want you to build a boat." "What's a boat?" It took him 100 years. The people around him surely said, "You're building a what? Because it's going to what? You're an idiot." Yet by faith he prepared the ark and "became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith."

Then there's Abraham, in verse 8: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going." He dwelt in the land of promise as a foreigner, in tents with Isaac and Jacob, "for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God."

Noah and Abraham teach us point six: by faith, we obey and work righteousness. Obedience and good works are the product of saving faith. Religion teaches that salvation is produced by obedience and good works — do this, don't do that, and then maybe you'll get salvation. But there's never any real confidence, because you never know if you did enough. The Bible teaches that obedience and good works are the response of saving faith, flowing out of gratitude. In Christ, we have absolute certainty because of His finished work.

7. By Faith We Are Strengthened to Do the Impossible

Verse 11: "By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised." Point seven: by faith, we are strengthened to do the impossible. God promised Abraham descendants as many as the stars and the sand — but spoke it when Abraham was 75 and Sarah was 65, barren and childless. Fifteen years passed and nothing happened. Abraham tried to help God out and made a total mess of it. Don't try to help God out. Ten more years passed. At 100, God told him his 90-year-old barren wife would have a child. Sarah laughed, because it was incredible. And at 90 she conceived and bore a son. By faith, we are strengthened to do the impossible. God made good on His promise in spite of the apparent impossibility.

They Died in Faith, Not Having Received the Promise

Verse 13: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." That's heavy — they followed God by faith their entire lives and died never receiving the fulfillment of the promise in this life. It would seem worthless. But they declared plainly that they sought a homeland. "And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return." If their focus had been here, they'd have had every reason to give up. But they desired "a better, that is, a heavenly country."

Verse 16 is awesome: "Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them." Abraham, when tested, offered up Isaac (Genesis 22), "concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead." He believed in the resurrection by faith. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau; by faith Jacob blessed Joseph's sons; by faith Joseph gave instructions concerning his bones; by faith Moses' parents hid him three months; by faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin... for he looked to the reward." He forsook Egypt, "for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible."

8. By Faith We Endure the Suffering of Affliction and Reproach

By faith they kept the Passover, passed through the Red Sea on dry land, and the walls of Jericho fell. By faith Rahab the harlot received the spies in peace. "And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire... Others were tortured... had trial of mockings and scourgings... were stoned, were sawn in two... of whom the world was not worthy."

Point eight: by faith, we endure the suffering of affliction and reproach. The walk of faith was not easy then, and it won't be easy now. We've lived most of our time in a nation predominantly Christian in its worldview, so there hasn't been huge opposition. That's slowly changing. History has been that those who follow the invisible God by faith are mocked, beaten, tortured, and put to death — and yet they endured. Why? They looked for the promise of the invisible God. By faith they looked at the unseen instead of living by sight. We live in a culture constantly telling us all there is, is sight — what you can see and touch. But there's more than meets the eye, and it's beyond this life. Maybe you've already endured a little mocking because you believe in the invisible God — "You go where on Sunday mornings? You give money? You take vacation time for Vacation Bible School? Are you a fool?"

9. By Faith We See Miracles

Point nine: by faith, we see miracles. The children of Israel crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, and later the Jordan River. We read of those who stopped the mouths of lions — think of Daniel in the lions' den. We read of those raised from the dead, of those who subdued entire kingdoms, like Gideon standing against 150,000 Midianites with 300 men. But the greatest miracle of all is the resurrection.

10. By Faith We Become Good Witnesses

Verse 39: "And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise." Read that again — they did not receive the promise here, because the promise is not here. But here is point ten: by faith, we become good witnesses. They obtained a good testimony with God and with man. We live in a culture where so many want their name known, but there's only one Person you want your name known with — God. If no one else knows who you are, and you die in obscurity, but God knows your name, you win. If you've got just one Person on your "like" list, and it's Jesus, that's awesome. If He's not on there, that's not good.

11. By Faith We Receive the Promised Inheritance of Eternity

Verse 40: "God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us." They're going to receive the promise just as we who believe will also receive it. Point eleven: by faith, we receive the promised inheritance of eternity.

Therefore, chapter 12, verse 1 — and don't worry, I'm not going through it; this is just a trailer of things to come — "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses" — that's them, those who lived by faith faithfully to the end — "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Having considered those of old who walked by faith, let us run with endurance the race set before us and lay aside anything that might trip us up — because Jesus is at the finish line, and we're looking unto Him. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Dear God, thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your word, which is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. God, strengthen us in our resolve to trust You and to follow faithfully after You. The psalmist said, "My soul follows hard after You, and Your right hand upholds me." God, there it is again — the responsibility of man and the sovereign grace of God. As our soul follows hard after You by faith, would You uphold us and strengthen our faith this week — in spite of opposition, in spite of mockery, in spite of anything that might come against our resolve of faith. Strengthen our faith, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those that agree, amen.