By Faith

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 that are visible... But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:1–6)

Sixteen named men and women, and countless unnamed, persisted in faith against every reason to quit—and so must we.

The Hall of Faith

Before us today is one of the great chapters of the Bible. That's not to say the other chapters are not great; this one simply stands out among the others, like 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, or Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Jesus came to earth, or Psalm 119, the longest psalm, which speaks so beautifully about the Word of God.

Hebrews 11 is commonly referred to as the Hall of Faith because here there are sixteen names of men and women who were faithful to God, who had trust and faith in Him. It also gives passing reference to many others who were people of faith. As a result of their trust and confidence in God, they are listed in this chapter—and they are with the Lord in eternity, given this great reward of being named here because of their trust in God.

I could honestly spend several weeks going through this chapter, and part of me—the Bible college teacher side of me—would love to take each character in turn: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Barak, Jephthah, David, Samuel. But the problem with doing that is we can fail to realize the main point of the passage. I'm not saying deep Bible study isn't important; it is very important. As Paul told Timothy, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a worker who is not ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). But sometimes if we get fixated on every little syntax of a sentence, we miss the forest for the trees.

So we're not going to spend five weeks here. I'm going to endeavor to get through all forty verses today, and you'll notice the sermon guide has eleven points—twice my rule plus one—eleven things about faith from Hebrews 11.

The Context: The Just Shall Live by Faith

To understand why this is even in the passage, step back to Hebrews 10:35:

Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward... 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. (Hebrews 10:35–39)

It might seem like a perfect point to step right into 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." That would be a logical progression. But instead the author takes a detour and spends forty verses talking about men and women of faith. Why?

Because these were people who had every opportunity to draw back, to give up, to throw in the towel, and yet they remained faithful in the face of difficult circumstances, persecution, and all kinds of opposition. They had every reason to quit, and yet they persisted in faith.

Remember the context of this letter. It is written to Christians who came out of Judaism. The author quotes Habakkuk 2:4, "the just shall live by faith," cited three times in the New Testament—in Romans, Galatians, and here. It means that those who are righteous are righteous by faith. The original audience knew nothing of righteousness by faith. They lived a life exemplifying righteousness by works: appearing before priests, offering sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem, confessing sins over an animal to deal with their unrighteousness. That's religion, and that's what they had come out of.

We Are All Religious

The world is full of religion. Most every person you meet is religious—even those who profess to be non-religious are still religiously devoted to their non-religion. Their religion can be fitness, and they worship at the church called CrossFit. Their religion can be nature and Mother Earth, and their devotion is found out hiking. People are religiously devoted to whatever they are devoted to.

We are religious because it has so much to do with how God made us. Whether you believe in God or not, He created every person with a conscience. The Bible says that conscience either excuses or accuses us—telling us our behavior is right or wrong. The fact is, none of us live up to the conscience God gave us, and so we are convicted by it. Some people seem to have no conscience, but that's because they've gone against it so often it's become callous; they generally become sociopaths. The rest of us feel guilt and shame because we've gone against our conscience, and to solve that we opt toward religion. It makes us feel like we're living up to our potential. That's why religion is so huge everywhere we turn.

But the author references Habakkuk: the just shall live by faith. Having a right standing with God is not based upon my actions, deeds, or works, but on faith in God and His finished work. If all you've ever known is a life before God on the basis of your good works, this concept of righteousness by faith is awesomely liberating. It brings rest—the rest the author spoke of back in chapter 3.

Point 1: By Faith We Have Confident Hope in the Invisible God

Hebrews 11:1 answers what faith is. 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." Point number one: by faith we have confident hope in the invisible God.

We are living in a culture increasingly antagonistic toward those who have confident hope in the invisible God. More and more in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, there is a growing group who say that's absurd and foolish, and they mock that view. Maybe you've been on the receiving end of that mockery from neighbors, co-workers, or friends. In 21st-century Western culture, reason is now pitted against faith as if they are incompatible.

But it takes faith to believe the theories of evolution and its stories of origins, in the same way it takes faith to believe the biblical explanation that God spoke these things into existence. Reason and faith are not in opposition. The opening words of Hebrews 11 tell us it takes this confidence in the invisible God to be pleasing to Him.

Point 2: By Faith We Build an Enduring Reputation

"For by it the elders obtained a good testimony" (Hebrews 11:2). Point number two: by faith we build an enduring reputation.

In our culture there is a growing desire among a large populace for celebrity, recognition, and reputation. Research shows the generation now in high school and junior high has put fame, celebrity, and recognition at the number two or three spot of their greatest ambitions in life—a huge change in the last fifty years. Anybody can try to build celebrity merely by having a smartphone, establishing reputation by likes, subscribers, and followers. People strive to be the big person at VidCon. Just this last month a young couple of YouTubers were making a video where they tried to stop a bullet with a book; he held the book, she shot, and he died—all for celebrity.

But that kind of fame is about as temporary as you can get. The men and women in this passage have an enduring reputation, not just because their names are written in the best-selling book of all eternity, but because their names are written in heaven. When all these paper books are gone, when this whole creation has been renewed, their names are still written with God in heaven. That's an enduring reputation, far better to build than one that lasts only as long as your next Instagram post.

Point 3: By Faith We Understand Mysteries

"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God" (Hebrews 11:3). Point number three: by faith we understand mysteries.

Most who claim to believe in reason over faith are essentially atheistic or agnostic, yet they believe in evolutionary theory to go from nothing to what we now have. Even within science, it's held by nearly all that the universe had a sudden origin—generally placed 15 billion years ago at what they call the Big Bang. But it takes faith to believe that. Nobody is 15 billion years old; we don't have a Wayback Machine. We can't take the DeLorean back to see what happened. We take it on faith. It may be a reasonable faith, but it takes the same level of faith to believe that narrative 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; and there was light."

Out of nothing came something. Where did it come from? The biblical explanation is that God spoke it into existence. The non-biblical explanation is that it suddenly appeared and then assembled itself over billions of years of random chance and mutation—against the second law of thermodynamics. That takes faith to believe.

But here's the awesome thing: Christians understand by faith not only the mystery of origins, but also the mysteries of identity, purpose, destiny, and morality—all things evolutionary theory cannot answer. Ask the evolutionist why we are here, and they say, "I don't know." Ask where we go after death: "Into the ground." But the Christian understands by faith that God who created us for a purpose has an eternal purpose. We see the chaos of not knowing right and wrong in our culture every day, but the Christian by faith has good answers.

Point 4: By Faith We Obtain Righteousness

"By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous" (Hebrews 11:4). Point number four: by faith we obtain righteousness.

You could read Genesis 4 and wrongly conclude that Abel became right before God 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: "By faith Noah became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith." Even under the Old Covenant, men and women were 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.

Point 5: By Faith We Please God

"By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death... before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God" (Hebrews 11:5). Enoch was a man who walked with God, and one day God simply took him to heaven—a kind of rapture. Point number five: by faith we please God.

I assume you came to church today because it's a desire of your life 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 the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." The lowest level of faith pleasing to God is to believe that God exists and that He is gracious. Many today seek to please God by religious observance, by rites and rituals, but if you do not have trust in God, there is no pleasing Him. We must believe in His existence and in His grace.

Points 6: By Faith We Obey and Work Righteousness

The first person to receive grace in the scriptural story is Noah, who "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." By faith Noah, "being divinely warned of things not yet seen," built an ark. Some think it had never rained before, so when God said "It's going to rain," it was like saying "It's going to snarflat." Noah didn't know what rain or a flood was; he took it on faith. It took him a hundred years to build that boat, and surely people mocked him: "Why are you building a boat?" "Because big rain, big flood coming." "You're an idiot." But he prepared an ark by faith for the saving of his household.

Then Abraham, "by faith... 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, waiting for a city whose builder and maker is God.

Noah and Abraham teach us point number 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 real confidence, because you don't know if you did enough. The Bible teaches the opposite: obedience and good works are the response of saving faith, stirred up out of gratitude. In Christ we have absolute certainty because of His finished work.

Point 7: By Faith We Are Strengthened to Do the Impossible

"By faith Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11). Point number seven: by faith we are strengthened to do the impossible.

God promised Abraham descendants as many as the stars when he was 75 and his wife Sarah was 65, childless and barren. Fifteen years passed with nothing. Abraham tried to help God along his own way and made a total mess—don't try to help God out. Another ten years passed. At a hundred, with Sarah at ninety, God said the barren ninety-year-old would have a child. She laughed. But at ninety she conceived and bore a child. God made good on His promise in spite of the apparent impossibility.

Point 8: By Faith We Endure the Suffering of Affliction and Reproach

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... But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13–16)

These followed God by faith their entire lives and died never receiving the fulfillment in this life. It would seem worthless—but they said this isn't our home; the promise is a better home in a better place. If their focus had been here, they would have had every reason to give up. But they were not of those who draw back, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

The author continues with Abraham offering Isaac, believing God could raise him from the dead; with Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph blessing their sons; with Moses, who "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 endured as seeing Him who is invisible." By faith Israel passed through the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho fell, and Rahab the harlot was spared.

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... others were tortured... still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two... of whom the world was not worthy. (Hebrews 11:32–38)

Point number eight: by faith we endure the suffering of affliction and reproach. The walk of faith was not easy then, and it will not be easy now. We have lived for most of our time in a predominantly Christian nation, so there hasn't been huge opposition—but that is slowly changing. Throughout history, those who followed the invisible God by faith have been mocked, beaten, tortured, sawn in half, and thrown to lions. Why did they endure? Because they looked for the promise of the invisible God, and their focus was not in this world. They looked at the unseen instead of living by sight—and our culture constantly tells us that all there is, is sight. But there's more than meets the eye, and it's beyond this life.

Point 9: By Faith We See Miracles

Point number nine: by faith we see miracles. The children of Israel crossed over on dry ground at the Red Sea and later the Jordan. Daniel stopped the mouths of lions in the lion's den. Some were raised from the dead. Gideon, with just 300 men, subdued 150,000 Midianites. But the greatest miracle of all is the resurrection.

Point 10: By Faith We Become Good Witnesses

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. (Hebrews 11:39)

The promise is not here. Point number ten: by faith we become good witnesses. They obtained a good testimony with God and with man. We live in a culture where a whole bunch of people want their names to be 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 the "like" list and it's Jesus, that's awesome.

Point 11: By Faith We Receive the Promised Inheritance of Eternity

"God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us" (Hebrews 11:40). They will receive the promise just as we who believe will also receive it. Point number eleven: by faith we receive the promised inheritance of eternity.

Therefore, as chapter 12 opens:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, 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. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

Having considered those of old who walked by faith faithfully, let us run with endurance the race set before us, laying aside anything that might trip us up, because Jesus is at the finish line and we are 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 thee, and Your right hand upholds me." 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 any other thing that might come against our resolve of faith. Strengthen our faith, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.