Faith Defined

Please open your Bible at Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 is an exposition of faith. It begins with a definition, and then gives us examples or models of men and women who exercised faith. God willing, we will look at 10 of them in the coming weeks, and learn from them what it means for us to live by faith today.

Four Aims For This Series

1. That you will grasp what faith is and what faith does.

The Christian life, from beginning to end, is a journey of faith. We walk by faith (2 Cor 5:7). We stand by faith (Rom 11:20). We live by faith (Gal 2:20) and we are saved by faith (Eph 2:8).

If we are to walk, stand, live and be saved by faith, we need to know what faith is and what faith does. That is my first aim for the series that we are beginning today.

2. That faith will be formed in your soul

If you do not have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer for you is that through this series, you will receive this precious gift. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of Christ (Rom 10:17). So, I have planned this series with the hope and prayer that God will use His Word to form faith in your soul.

3. That your faith will grow

The disciples said to Jesus, Lord increase our faith (Lk 17:5). And I hope you will join me in making this your prayer for this series.

Paul wrote two letters to believers in Thessalonica. In the first he says, We give thanks to God…remembering your work of faith (1 Thess 1:2, 3). Then and he then describes the faith with which they received the gospel and turned from idols, to serve the living God.

In the second letter he says We ought always to give thanks to God for you because your faith is growing abundantly (2 Thess 1:3). That is what we want: a faith that is “growing abundantly.”

When Jesus said disciples, “O you of little faith” He was not giving them a compliment. Faith is like a small seed, but it is a living seed and where there is life there is growth.

When your faith grows, you will treasure Christ more. Eternal things will be more real to you. Your walk with God will be more steady and as a result you will have more strength, more stamina, more peace and more joy.

4. That you will find strength to endure

Hebrews was given first to Jewish believers who were facing difficult days. They had “endured a hard struggle with sufferings (vs. 32). They had been “publicly exposed to reproach and affliction (vs. 33). Their property had been plundered (vs. 34).

The strain of all this was beginning to tell, and the writer tells them, You have need of endurance (vs. 36). You may find yourself saying, “That’s me!  That’s what I need!”

How are you going to get it? How can you endure in the face of unrelenting pressure? The answer begins in vs. 38, My righteous one shall live by faith. And from there, the writer launches into this marvelous exposition of what faith is and what faith does.

Hebrews 11 was written to strengthen believers in the face of unrelenting pressure. This chapter deals with two questions: What faith is and what faith does. The opening verses deal that we are looking at today deal with what faith is. The rest of the chapter deals with what faith does.

Let’s begin with the definition: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).

1. Faith is an Assurance and a Conviction

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).

Faith is not a vague belief. It is a firm persuasion in the mind and in the heart. It is a steady confidence, a joyful anticipation.

The word that is translated “assurance” here is also used in Heb 3:14 where it is translated “confidence.” For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end (Heb 3:14).

Someone may say, “If faith is assurance, conviction, confidence, I don’t have faith, because my believing is mixed with many doubts.” Faith may be mixed with doubt, but faith is that which believes. It is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen.

Sugar is sweet. That is its nature. Salt is sharp. If sugar is mixed with salt it will taste very strange. But whatever sweetness there is in it comes from the sugar. Whatever sharpness is in it comes from the salt. In the same way, your faith will be mixed with many questions you cannot answer and many things you don’t understand. Doubt is what questions. Faith is what believes.

A man in the gospels said to Jesus, I believe; help my unbelief (Mk 9:24). The believing was faith that he wanted more of. And it was mixed with unbelief that he wanted less of.

Richard Sibbes used the analogy of smoke and fire to illustrate the mixture of faith and of doubt that is in us all. When Peter said to Jesus “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” – that was the fire of faith. But when, in the next breath, he told Jesus ‘You shall never go to the cross,’ that was the smoke of doubt. Your faith is like fire, your doubts are like smoke and they are always mixed together in some degree.

Calvin says, “Unbelief is, in all men, always mixed with faith.”[1] You may feel discouraged about the smoke, but where there’s smoke there’s fire. Faith is that which believes. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

2. Faith relates to things ‘hoped for’ and ‘not seen’

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).

a. Things hoped for

Things “hoped for” are things that we do not yet possess. Things that do not yet exist.

i. Redeemed bodies

No believer has a redeemed body yet, but some day you will have a redeemed body. Paul says “we eagerly wait” the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:23).

ii. A spotless church

No church on the planet that is spotless right now. We are gatherings of sinners in the process of being redeemed. Holiness is begun in us but it is far from complete, even in the best of us. But one day, Christ will present the church to Himself. When we see Him we will be like Him. On that Day the church will be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph 5:27).

iii. A perfect world

Our world is far from perfect and until Christ comes to reign, it always will be. But one day, God will create new heavens and a new earth (Rev 21:1). They will be the home of righteousness (2 Pet 3:13).

How can we have confidence, assurance, of things that are so far from what we experience? How can we be sure that we will enjoy redeemed bodies, a spotless church, a perfect world?

The answer is that faith trusts what God has promised. Faith rests on the promises of God.

Commands are to be obeyed. Promises are to be believed. If a father says to his daughter, “Do your homework” that is a command to be obeyed. If he then says, “When you are done, I will take your out for ice cream,” that is a promise to be believed. It is something to anticipate, look forward to, find joy in.

You obey commands. You believe promises. And faith trusts what God has promised. That is why it is the assurance of things hoped for.

Faith began when God gave the first promise. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden, God appeared to them in a visible form. They didn’t walk with God by faith, they walked with God by sight as one day we will. God walked with them in the Garden in the cool of the day.

So, when did faith begin? Faith began when God made the first promise. Adam and Eve had sinned in the Garden, but God promised that a Savior would come. An offspring of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15).

That was the promise of God.  And Adam and Eve believed it, and they found hope by trusting God’s promise.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith trusts what God has promised.

Faith relates to things hoped for and faith relates to:

b. Things not seen

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).

Things hoped for are things that do not yet exist: Redeemed bodies, spotless churches, a perfect world. Things not seen are things that do exist. They are present realities. They are already in place, though we cannot see them.

i. Christ is exalted at the right hand of the Father.

That is a present reality. We don’t see it because heaven is beyond our view, but right now, our Lord Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and He is there for you.

ii. All who are in Christ are forgiven, loved and destined for glory.

These are present realities. We don’t see them because the work of God’s Spirit is hidden from view, but right now, if you are in Christ, you are forgiven, loved, and destined for a glorious inheritance that is kept in heaven for you.

iii. Right now God is in sovereign control of all that happens in your life and all that happens in the world.

That is a present reality. Again we don’t see this because God’s providence is hidden from view.

But God works in all things for the good of those who love Him.

How do we know these things? How can we be convinced of things that are “not seen”? That we have a living Savior, that in Christ, we are forgiven, loved and destined for glory. That God is sovereign over all things?

The answer is that God has revealed them and faith believes what God has revealed.

The writer of Hebrews gives us the perfect illustration of believing something that we have not seen in the creation. 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 (Heb 11:3).

How could anyone know how the world was made? No one was there at the time to observe it. The creation is one of those things that was “not seen.”

So, how do we know that God created the world? The answer is that God revealed it. God said to Moses, “In the beginning I created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and void.  My spirit brooded over the waters. I spoke and said let there be light. I formed the first man from the dust of the ground.

Faith believes what God has revealed. Faith presupposes a divine revelation. It rests on what God has said. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom 10:17).

If God had not spoken.  If God had not made Himself known faith would be impossible. We could have no assurance of things hoped for no conviction of things not seen. All we would have would be speculation, vague hopes and dreams, opinions about what might be.

But here’s the good news: God has spoken, and that is why faith is possible.

Faith believes what God has revealed and trusts what God has promised. Faith rests on the Word of God. Faith believes what God has revealed (things not seen). Faith trusts what God has promised (things hoped for).

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).

Applications

1. Faith is not a capacity that some people are born with.

Some people are naturally athletic. I know that training is hard work and acquiring skills in a particular sport takes hours of practice. Some people have a propensity for this in them. They look good when they run. Others of us are just not so well coordinated, and however hard we try we are never going to be able to compete with our more athletic peers.

It’s the same with art, and with music. We can all have a go, but some people have this in them, and others of us not so much.

Now it would be easy to think that it’s the same when it comes to faith. I’ve heard people say, “some people have a disposition towards faith, but not me. I don’t think I could ever believe.”

If faith was something that lies within us, it would be terribly unfair. God would have put some people in a position of privilege and advantage in which it was easy for them to be saved, and others would barely have a chance.

I want to say at the beginning of this series on faith that faith is not a capacity that some people are born with. It is not a disposition that we have to find inside us.

Faith believes what God has revealed and trusts what God has promised and God has given the same revelation and the same promises to all people. So, no one has an advantage over anyone else when it comes to faith.

2. Faith involves personal trust based on compelling evidence.

Faith believes what God has revealed and trusts what God has promised. God does not lean out of heaven with a clenched fist shouting “Believe! Believe!” God reveals Himself and then invites us to examine the evidence.

You see this most clearly in the Gospels. People came to believe in Jesus by getting to know Him.

When Jesus came into the world, He did not say to Peter, James, and John and say, “I am the Son of God, you’d better believe it”. He called them to follow Him and as they did, He made Himself known to them.

One day, when they were in the boat with Him, He spoke to the wind and stilled a storm. And they said, Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him. As they heard what He said and saw what He did, they were compelled by the evidence to this conclusion. “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God!”

Was that the end of the matter? No! Like ours, the faith of the first disciples was mixed up with many doubts and many blunders, but through it all, faith believes what Christ has revealed and trusts what Christ has promised.

At the end of His Gospel John tells us, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (Jn 20:31).

Faith believes what God has revealed and trusts what God has promised. And faith is formed as you look at what God has revealed, and listen to what God has promised. Come and see!

Maybe you say, “I don’t trust. I can’t trust.” But why don’t you trust? Your distrust is based on evidence.

What you have seen is that people let you down. Your distrust is based on the compelling evidence of your own experience.

Faith is based not on your experience but on Scripture. God invites you to come out of your broken world of disappointment and to look into His very different world. He invites you to look away from your own experience and to find hope in what He has said and what He has done.

Look at other people like Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, and Rahab. See how they believed what God revealed and trusted what God promised.

Read their stories!  You will find that they too were broken, abused, led down. Who would you trust if you had been abused like Rahab? If you had been lied to like Sarah? If you had been falsely accused like Joseph?

But despite all their brokenness, these people believed. Their faith was based on compelling evidence

And that evidence is available to you.

3. Faith will enable you to endure under unrelenting pressure

Hebrews 11 offers robust encouragement. I need this chapter especially when I am tempted to feel sorry for myself and I expect there are times when you need this too. Remember that these chapters were first written to Jewish believers who were enduring a tough time, as many of us are enduring tough times today.

So, let me in these last moments, try to summarize the flow of Hebrews 10-12 so that you get the big picture of what God is saying: “These are difficult days for you. You’ve come through a lot since you came to faith in Jesus (10:32). And you have come through it with great resilience (vs. 34).

But here’s the thing:  You’re not done yet. You have a long way still to go and what you need is endurance (vs. 36). And there’s only one way to endure and that is by faith. My righteous one shall live by faith (vs. 38).

So, here’s what you need to grasp: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (11:1).

Faith believes what God has revealed and trusts what God has promised.

Think about what faith has enabled others to endure. You have had your property plundered, but others, were reduced to living in dens and in caves (11:38). You have been mocked, laughed at and insulted, but others have been sawn in two (11:37). And think about Jesus, and what He had to endure: He was nailed to a cross (12:3).

You have endured hard things, and you have done well, but now you are getting discouraged. So here is what you need to remember: Others have faced far worse than you. In your struggle…you have not yet got to the point of having to shed your blood (12:4). Others have. They believed what God has revealed and trusted what God has promised. And by faith they endured.

So, here’s what you must do: You must run with endurance the race that is set before you (12:2). Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Remember all that He endured, and think about the glory that right now is His, and one day will be yours (12:2).

So, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees! You belong to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant (12:24). You are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (12:28).

 

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[1] Institutes 3.2.4