Faith

Good morning

Today I hope to guide you through an examination of faith.

Knowing full well that faith is something that is a gigantic topic in and of itself.

There’s no possible way that we can get through everything in one small sermon.

And hopefully that’s what this will be, a small sermon.

We’re going to be looking at scripture out of Hebrews chapter 11 verses 1-6.

Many of us, if we have been in church for much of our lives, will recognize chapter 11 as what is called the faith chapter.

And this is for good reason.

The opening verse gives us the biblical definition of faith.

Verse 1 in chapter 11 of Hebrews says faith is the assurance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen.

That is the English standard version translation

In the King James Version it says; “now Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.”

Lastly, in the New Living Translation it says “Faith shows the REALITY of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things unseen.”

One word that is consistent across the translations is that faith is EVIDENCE of what we cannot see.

Faith is the outcome of our hope

Faith is a tangible thing, something that can be seen and felt.

When we think about faith there should be a lot of things that come to mind.

One, is that we know that we are saved by grace through faith.

That alone should be enough to make faith a topic that we are urgently wanting to examine and know more about.

If faith is the thing that allows us to be saved by grace and allows us to have an eternal life then logic should dictate that we would want to know all we can about faith.

Instead, many times it seems that we throw the word faith around, without really having an intimate understanding of what it means.

Faith has become somewhat of a “Church Word”.

You know what I mean when I say church word, it is a word that means so much more than how we, in a church, usually use it.

A word that has become common.

It is a word that if you were not raised in the church, you may not even know its meaning because it has been taken completely for granted.

It’s used so much by people that have been in the church for a long time that it has lost its sacredness.

Instead I would make the argument to you that the word faith should be one of the most sacred words that we use

That it should be used with full knowledge of what it really is.

Faith is not something to be taken lightly and faith is not a throwaway word.

Faith is what brings us into direct relationship with the God of the universe.

Without faith, we are utterly hopeless.

Faith is absolutely necessary for salvation.

In Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 we find that we are saved by grace through faith.

It says this: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

What we see there is that the grace of God has saved us.

The definition of grace is a gift that we do not deserve.

However, we cannot reach out and take that gift that has been offered to us without faith.

By grace THROUGH faith

That is what this verse is talking about.

We are offered a free gift by the God of the universe

This is the gift of eternal life.

The ACTION of taking that gift is faith.

So what we see is that faith IS action.

In Hebrews chapter 11 we see many examples of what we would call “heroes of the faith” in action.

The faith in action here is these heroes proving out their belief.

Their actions are proving what they claim to believe.

That is why in James we see that faith without works is a dead faith.

You cannot have saving faith unless it produces something because faith in and of itself IS an action.

Faith that is alive, is proven by the good works that it produces.

Those works are not what save us, remember salvation comes from the grace of God.

However, the action of reaching out and accepting that grace is what we call faith.

I know I am really driving that point home

But I do it because it is so vitally important

It is almost like faith is the very arms and hands of the believer

Without it we could never hope to reach out and accept a gift

Without it we would be terminally handicapped.

We know that faith has a definite and specific definition in the Bible.

We also see throughout the Bible that there are different types of faith described.

We see in the book of James that it is possible to have a type of faith that is dead.

We also see in the book of James that Faith is not simply believing.

Because as James tells us even the demons believe and they shudder in terror.

There is also a type of faith that could be characterized as a vain faith.

And then there is the type of faith we are looking for in our lives, saving faith.

The first thing that I would like to do is to take a look at the different types of faith that I just mentioned.

I think it is incredibly important to see that the blanket term of faith is not necessarily all encompassing.

When we, in church, say the word “faith” we are generally referring to “saving faith”.

As I just mentioned though there are other types of faith and these are types of faith that we need to avoid at all cost.

First, we have DEAD FAITH

In James 2:17 we see James tell us this:

“So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

There are a two things that we can see from this.

One is that it is possible for faith to be dead.

It is possible that faith can have no power at all.

Two, we see that the thing that makes faith ALIVE is the good works that it leads us to do.

Good works, in keeping with the things that God has told us to do in His Word, are what literally makes our faith alive

They are what allows us to reach out and receive the grace that God has given us.

That is what Ephesians 2:8 tells us.

The works that our faith produces do not and can not save us.

Salvation is from the grace of God alone

However you cannot receive the gift, the grace that God offers, without a faith that is alive.

For faith to be alive it has to inspire us to action and to the good works that God commands.

The second type of faith is a VAIN faith.

This is a type of faith that indeed produces things, sometimes even good things

However, the motivation for these good things is not in keeping with what the Bible says should inspire us to good works

What produces action in a vain faith is, no surprise here, vanity.

Vanity can be defined as:

Excessive pride in or admiration of ones own appearance or achievements.

This type of faith is quite honestly running rampant in todays church especially here in America.

If we are not consistently on guard, we can fall into the trap of vain faith and do the things we do only to be seen by others or to fit in.

This is the type of faith in God that the Pharisees had and we know what Jesus said about them.

Jesus said in Matthew 15 8-9

Matthew 15:8–9 ESV

“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

We cannot value our own traditions and our own achievements as something that can save us.

Some examples of a vain faith would be;

coming to church because “its what a Christian does”

serving and helping others so that we can be noticed and receive a “pat on the back”

Always being first to pray because it makes us seem better than others.

Really, it all boils down to PRIDE.

Pride is the root cause of a vain faith

And a vain faith cannot and will not save us

We can sit in a seat at church every Sunday for 50 years and be the biggest tither in the church and be no more saved than a man that denies the very existence of God

None of the actions I mentioned are inherently bad things

I hope you come to church every Sunday

I hope you are faithful to tithe on every single bit of financial blessing that God allows you to have.

I hope you pray regularly

These things are important but it is the motivation behind them that is what counts.

When you give, do it quietly without show or even acknowledgement.

You are giving to God not man

When you come to church come to learn, get closer to God, and to serve

God puts tremendous value on humility and flat out hates pride

Do not be a victim of a vain faith

I would bet any amount of money that a vain faith has sent more people to hell than just about anything else. Its these people that will have this conversation with Jesus at judgement:

Jesus also tells us this in

Matthew 7:21–23““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

God desires your heart

God desires your submission

God desires your love, admiration, and relationship.

Simply knowing who God is and vainly doing the things he lists is not enough.

Your heart and soul must belong to him

The things you do must be motivated by your love for God and we should do these things without regard for recognition or acknowledgement.

This is the type of faith we strive for.

So, this leads us to SAVING FAITH

This is the end goal!

This is the type of faith that Able and Enoch had from our main text today.

I would like for us to go through and simply take a look at these verses in Hebrews 11:2-6 and at these heroes of faith.

The first example we see is the example of Abel.

There are many things we can learn from the story of Cain and Abel.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that we can take an example of real living and saving faith from the example of Abels sacrifice.

You see a sacrifice that was honorable to God.

It was what God wanted from him and it was given from an obedient heart.

We see the story of Cain and Abel in

Genesis 4:3–7 “In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.””

We find that Abel offered a sacrifice to God and God was pleased.

We also find that Cain offered to sacrifice to God and God was not pleased.

This of course angered Cain.

We are not told specifically what the issue was as to why God accepted one and rejected the other.

However, we are given a clue in verse 7.

In verse 7 we see God speaking to Cain and telling him that if he does what is right, he will be accepted.

What we can infer from that is that Cain was living a life that was not right.

You see I do not believe it was specifically about the type of thing that Cain was sacrificing, but instead it was about Cain‘s heart and Cain‘s pattern of actions.

Abel was living a life that was honoring to God, his motivation was genuine

Consequently, his sacrifice was accepted.

Cain was in danger of living a life that was not honoring to God and as a warning, possibly even an act of mercy, God simply rejected his sacrifice and was not pleased.

Not being required to, God actually explained to Cain why his sacrifice was rejected.

And in the explanation we see that Cain was not doing what was right.

Cain obviously had belief because he offered a sacrifice.

If Cain did not have belief that God was who he said he was he would not have offered valuable things as a sacrifice.

However, Cain did not have the true “saving faith” type of works that accompanied that belief.

Cains pattern of action was not at all what God was looking for.

Cain had either a VAIN FAITH or a DEAD FAITH

Abel, by faith through his actions and the life he was living, was honored by God for his sacrifice.

Abel had a saving faith

The lesson we should learn here is that God expects a certain type of action in the lives of His followers.

When we know what God expects we need to willingly and obediently do what we are commanded.

When we do, the sacrifices that we make and the worship we offer will be honored.

Obviously we do not have to sacrifice for our sins, Jesus took care of that in a way that we never could.

However, our relationship with God will indeed require sacrifices.

We see here in this example that Ables faith in God actually ended up causing him to die at the hands of his unrighteous and jealous brother.

However, Abels faith, his way of living, and his right sacrifice to God caused him to go down in all of history as a hero of the faith

He is honored even thousands of years later because of how he lived his life and what he gave to God.

The second example that we see in Hebrews 11 is the example of Enoch.

Enoch has the claim to fame of never having experienced death

In Genesis we see that Enoch lived a life pleasing to God in a world that was increasingly full of people that had a DEAD FAITH

Just a few generations later we find that the world had been so overtaken with this dead faith that God saw fit to destroy it with a great flood, saving only Noah and his family.

Here in Hebrews we get the abbreviated story

The emphasis, however, is placed on the fact that Enochs faith…his pattern of action in life, was pleasing to God.

So pleasing in fact that God honored him with the mercy of not seeing death.

In verse 5 we see that this was directly because of Enochs faith and the fact that it was pleasing to God

The writer of Hebrews goes on in verse 6 to say that it is actually impossible to please God without faith.

So what things are listed in the bible as pleasing to God?

If it is impossible to please God without faith then these things must at least have something to do with faith, right?

First, Jesus tells us this in John 8:29

John 8:29 ESV

And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

From the gate, we should know that anything Jesus did is pleasing to God.

What did Jesus do?

Jesus cared for the sick and needy

Jesus was humble

Jesus served others

Jesus spent regular time in prayer both speaking and listening to God

Jesus imparted the message of salvation into others and discipled them

Jesus loved all the way to the point of death

It is safe to say that real saving faith should include these things!

These things are summed up in Micah 6:8

Micah 6:8 ESV

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

These three things are the broad level basis for faith!

Be just

Love and practice kindness

Walk in humility with God, let Him lead us.

All of these things are pleasing to God

All of these things are examples of a living faith that is active and that can receive the gracious gift of salvation that God offers.

So what are the takeaways from today?

I hope you take these things away:

Faith is an action, it is more than belief.

Belief + Action = Faith

Faith is required to accept the gift of salvation that God offers

There are 3 different types of faith;

Dead faith

Vain faith

And saving faith

We must guard against the first 2 and embrace saving faith

To embrace saving faith, our faith must lead us to be just, be kind, and be humble and led by God

I will ask the band to come up.

In a moment I will pray and the alters will be open.

If you have used this time as I hope you have… to truly examine your life then you will see that you fall into 1 of 4 categories

You could have no faith

In which case you desperately need to come to God and give your life to him so that you can have HOPE

You may have dead faith

God can and will fix this, simply repent and commit your life to true saving faith

You may have vain faith

The same applies, repent and turn away from pride.

Humble yourself before God and truly look at WHY you do what you do.

You may have true living, saving faith

If you do then by all means praise God for what he has done in your life!

Please bow with me.