August 23,2009

Hebrews 11:1-6 # 33
Show Me

Several weeks have passed since our last study together in Hebrews, and last time, we were exhorted along with the Hebrew believers, to endure well in trials. WE WERE TO HOLD ON TO OUR CONFIDENCE IN Jesus Christ because he is coming back.

Now here in chapter 11 he takes us into a parenthesis in which he says this: “consider other examples of endurance,” This chapter is a SHOW ME chapter.

In Jan. 2009, young U.S. midfielder Tina DiMartino told one of her professors at UCLA that she would be missing class for this two-week training camp to play for the U.S. Women's National Team. The professor looked the five-foot-two DiMartino up and down and said incredulously, "I need proof." True, until she puts on her soccer cleats and becomes a dribbling dynamo, DiMartino, in her baggy sweats, may look more like a gymnast or a 10,000-meter runner, but we are talking about a player that finished in the top three for this season's Hermann Trophy (the Heisman of soccer), has played for the USA in U-20 Women's World Cup and has one cap for the WNT, a game in which she got an assist.

Proof! She delivered the goods, she had proof, she wasn’t just blowing smoke, she was the real deal. Show me, he said. She did.

Lets read this passage , pray then we will look at it in more detail.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see. For by it the people of old received God's commendation.
By faith we understand that the worlds were set in order at God's command, so that the visible has its origin in the invisible.
By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith he was commended as righteous, because God commended him for his offerings. And through his faith he still speaks, though he is dead.
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death, and he was not to be found because God took him up. For before his removal he had been commended as having pleased God.
Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

PRAY
There is a great stress on “faith” in this chapter, three time in these verses it says “by faith.” The focus here is on faith regarding something they did not see or possess as yet,
Ie Noah didn’t see the rain, but he did the arky arky thing anyway.

Further points out that their faith helped them to endure in spite of adversity.

This is in keeping with the conclusion of chapter 10 and with chapter 12 in which the writer encourages them to endure in spite of persecutions.

A secondary point in this chapter is that the faith of the Old Testament saints is what made them righteous before God.

So lets get down to it and see what God wants to show us.

1. The substance of faith verse 1
2. The explanation of faith vv2-5
3. The reason for faith verse 6.

1. THE SUBSTANCE OF FAITH

Now faith is the substance … a term that means to stand under, it is the confidence, the conviction, assurance, in the common usage it always has the underlying sense of “something that underlies visible condition and guarantees a future possession. It is a title deed! A guarantee of something you can’t see.
So verse one “ Faith is the absolute title deed, guarantee of things hoped for.

Not only that, it is the “evidence” of things not seen. Proof, inner conviction, that even though you can’t see it, it is real. Only faith does that, no amount of empirical evidence can replace that sweet faith.

Now that isn’t really intended as a definition of faith, but a description of one aspect, trust in a future promise, and that is what he has been exhorting them to do, trust in a future promise to help them endure trial. And he tells them that faith enables them to endure because it is what gives them the guarantee.

Side note: Karl Marx said “religion is the opiate of the masses.” But I have found in true faith not a dulling of reality but a life worth the living.

So the substance of our hope is faith, a conviction that what God says is true. I like living there.

Now in verses 2-5 he elaborates on that, modeling the concept in the lives of others. He says they were attested to by their own works recorded in the Bible (Elders= Old Testament Saints) they received God’s commendation. So verse 2 says “By means of their faith they produced actions in their lives that bore witness of their faith.

So faith, real trust, motivates to action.

In verse 3 a further example of faith is cited. Through the agency of faith (no objective proof is needed) we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Now I need to pause here because there is something I don’t want you to miss.

The term “word” here is not LOGOS. As in John 1:1. But it is the term “Rhema” a spoken word. Not the same as Logos which is a word embodying an idea or concept.

Why Am I pointing this out? Because here it says that GOD spoke the worlds into being. IN John 1:1 it says that Jesus Christ created the worlds, another statement that Jesus Christ is Jehovah God.

Now back to our main point which is: Faith enables us to confidently expect God to do things we cannot see. So by faith and only by faith we know that God made the worlds out of things not seen. (Atomic theory has borne this out) The first "atomic theorists" we have any record of were two fifth-century BC Greeks, Leucippus of Miletus (a town now in Turkey) and Democritus of Abdera. Their theories were naturally more philosophical than experimental in origin. The basic idea was that if you could look at matter on smaller and smaller scales (which they of course couldn't) ultimately you would see individual atoms - objects that could not be divided further (that was the definition of atom). Everything was made up of these atoms, which moved around in a void (a vacuum). The different physical properties -- color, taste, and so on -- of materials came about because atoms in them had different shapes and/or arrangements and orientations with respect to each other.
But to see that God made the world from nothing can honestly only be seen by faith. In the same way that seeing the world as formed by time and chance , if one is to be honest, can only be seen by faith in that as well.

Verse 4 gives us another example of faith < 4 By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith he was commended as righteous, because God commended him for his offerings. And through his faith he still speaks, though he is dead.
> Able offered his sacrifice in faith to God and by that sacrifice still speaks or is written in the Bible as an example for us.

Now verse 5 :

By faith Enoch was translated , changed, relocated to Heaven like NOW. Why? Because he had the testimony that he pleased God. Genesis 5:24 says that Enoch walked with God, lived a life pleasing to God. Why? Because he had faith.

So we see that these people had faith and their faith pleased God and because of their faith they acted in a manner pleasing to God.

Do you have faith? Does it make you act in a manner that pleases God? By having confidence in him even when the signs are for a bad time? (Dad, when it looks like a good outcome).

I rejoice to have seen examples of that sort of faith right among us. Thanks you for those who trust and do not despair when it doesn’t go your way for the present. Petulant babies are they who stomp their feet when they do not get their way.

Do you show your faith like Enoch did by daily walking with God and pleasing God?

Do you show it like Abel did by obeying God because of your faith in him? You see we must have faith, and these examples of faith are followed up in point 3 with the reason for faith. Look ate verse 6:
Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. / This is a parenthetical remark and he says “he who comes toward God with a view to salvation must a/ Believe that God exists, And b/ That he rewards diligent seekers.
Some people believe that God exists but most people are not diligently seeking him. And there is a problem with today’s “churchianity”

What is it to “believe God?” James 2:19 says “you say you believe? Whoop-dedoo, the devil believes….
But the faith that saves us tells us to diligently seek God. When we have that sort of faith it is a confident expectation not just mental assent to facts. Believing there is a God…well so do demons… but faith in Jesus Christ, means trusting and fully expecting him to keep his word to us with no fear or misgivings.

Why is he pointing this out to them? Because they were under pressure and some were backing off, but they are warned here, “don’t back off, be just as gung ho for Jesus as ever, He will come , the promise of heaven will be kept.

So to us; Do not back off,, be confident and hang in there in faith, knowing that God is and that he will keep his promises.

If you have no faith in the God of the Bible, then you cannot please God. Period. Many who say they believe do not live and love as he says…that is what my dad called “practical atheism.”

A real knowledge of God leads to a settled walk ever increasing in becoming more like him.