08.15.2025 - Eastgate - Seeing the Unseeable

Scripture: Hebrews 11:1-3

Hebrews 11:1–3 NIV

1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Seeing the Unseeable

Opening Prayer

The Weather Report

We rely on our eyes to know what to believe. My dad used to watch the news three times a day. He wasn't interested in the politics or the police report or the celebrities and what they were up to. He wanted to watch the weather. He wanted to know how hot or cold it was going to be, whether it was going to rain or snow, and when the weather was going to change.

Eventually he wanted to see even more than they had on those short segments in the news. So he bought himself a contraption to put up on the roof so he could always see what the wind speed was, the temperature, and the barometric pressure. I usually told him the best way to find out what the weather was, was to go outside and look up at the sky.

Most of the time, the weather report on the news got the story right. And most of the time you could go outside and look up at the sky and know what the weather was going to do that day. But even with all that technology, there are a lot of times when we don't want to just hear about the weather. We want to see it for ourselves before we believe it.

We rely on our eyes to know what to do. There are many times in life where we hear things from other people, but we don't really believe it until we can see it. Too often, we've been told something was going to happen or someone would do something for us, and it doesn't come to pass, and we find ourselves disappointed. So we learn not to believe things unless we can see them.

What is something that you struggle to believe because you haven't seen it with your eyes?

Believing in Jesus and trusting and following him can be a challenge. Our Bible passage today tells us that our faith is defined as believing in a God that we cannot see. That's what makes it faith. We have to learn to trust that Jesus is greater than the world. And while the world may disappoint us with broken promises, Jesus will not. We show our faith by trusting our lives to and following the Savior that our world cannot see.

Unseen Things

There are things that we cannot see, but we do believe in. We can't see the wind, but we can see the effects that it has outside. We can see it blow through the grass and shake the leaves in the trees. In these next couple months, as the leaves fall, we may see the wind pick them up and make them dance through the air.

Another thing that we cannot see, but we believe in, is electricity. Electricity is something we trust in every day, to power our televisions and our radios, to help us cook our food, wash our laundry. It even helps light our way as we travel from one room to the next. While we can't see the currents of electricity flowing through the wires, we believe it's there. In fact, we know it's there. Because when it's broken, when the electricity is not coming through, everything around us comes to a halt, gets quiet, and gets dark. We may not always pay attention when the electricity is there, but it certainly gets our attention when it's gone.

We also believe in germs, even though we can't see them. We know they're bad for us, and that they make us sick. So we work hard to keep ourselves and our things clean, to keep those germs away, even when we don't know, even when we can't see them.

There are many things in life that we can't see, but we believe in, that we know are there. We build our lives around them.

See and Understand

Jesus told us if we keep seeking God we will find him. That seems to be the difference between people of faith and people that fall into sin and disaster. Hebrews chapter 11, after talking about faith, tells us that God formed the whole universe. Everything that is visible to us was made by him who is invisible.

Adam and Eve, when they were seeking God, found him and spent time with him in the garden. But when they stopped looking for him, stopped paying attention to him, they fell into sin and got in trouble. Their son, Abel, was faithful to God and believed God was there even if he couldn't see him and brought him worthy sacrifices. Cain, his brother, acted as though God wasn't there and couldn't see him and ended up in sin and destruction.

Noah heard the voice of God, heard God's plan to save him and his family in a boat full of animals from the flood. The rest of the world couldn't see God and paid him no attention and was destroyed.

Abraham heard God's voice calling him away from his family's land to a new place. He trusted God's voice to lead him to where he needed to go. He saw God when God sent messages, when God sent messengers to remind him of the promises God made to him.

All of these ancient people of God, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David, all the prophets, they heard God's voice and they learned to see him and what he was doing in their lives just as we see the wind around us by the effects it has on the world around us. They recognized when God sent messengers to them, whether they were angels or people sent with his words of encouragement or correction. Because they learned to see God through the effects that he had on the world around them, they were able to understand what they needed to do to live a faithful life.

Filled with and Sharing

The world tries to teach us not only to trust our eyes in what we see above all else, but it teaches us that the most important things in life are the things that we have, that we can see, that we can hold, that we possess. We pray about our bodies for healing from sickness and injury every day, but what about our minds? Do we pray for healthy thoughts? Do we pray that our hearts would be filled with good desires instead of bad ones?

Our bodies, like the world around us, are temporary. God gives them to us to hold our souls, our spirits, that are eternal. How much effort do we put into making sure our spirits are good and healthy? Jesus wants to do that work in us if we have the faith to ask him and to let him. He sends the Holy Spirit into our lives, into us, and while it may be invisible, the work that it does on our hearts and our minds and our souls leaves his mark upon us in a way that's undeniable and in a way that even people who don't know him can often recognize as they see his presence, his life, and his love in us.

You and I are kind of like sailboats out in the ocean. Left alone out there, we're at the mercy of the waves that toss us back and forth, crash us into the rocks, into each other, or take us out into deep waters and leave us alone and lonely. But sailboats aren't built to be pushed around by the waves. They're meant to ride over them and with them. And a sailboat is working correctly. It doesn't have to fear the waves. The waves just become another helper that lift it up and get it wherever it is going.

But that only works when the sailboat opens up those sails and allows it to be filled with that wind like the Holy Spirit that moves it from place to place. And if that sailboat opens its sails up enough and really trusts the wind, it can almost fly across the water as it carries gifts from place to place, from one person to another and becomes master of that ocean that once held it in the grip of terror.

Yes, life can be terrifying sometimes because there are so many things out there that we can't see or can't see clearly that have an impact on our life, both in positive and negative ways. But Jesus is greater than all of them. And if we put our trust, if we put our faith in him, and we learn to see what he's doing in our life by the effects that he has on us and everything around us, as we learn to trust not just with our words, but with our actions, letting him lead us, going where he takes us, and trusting him to care for us, he will lead us in his love, to his love, for we will experience new life with him forever.

We don't have to wait until we die and leave our bodies behind with this old life. He wants to send his spirit to live with us and bring that invisible part of us to life with him today.

With your eyes of faith, where do you see Jesus working in your life today?

How can you unfurl the sail of your heart and trust his Holy Spirit to fill and guide you into new life with him?

Closing Prayer