What Is Faith?

WHAT IS FAITH? Spring Valley Mennonite; March 16, 2020; Hebrews 11:1-6 Legend has it that a man was lost in the desert, about to die of thirst. He stumbled upon an old shack—a ramshackle, windowless, roofless, weather beaten old shack. He looked about this place and found a little shade from the heat of the desert sun. As he glanced around, he saw a pump about fifteen feet away—an old, rusty water pump. He stumbled over to it, grabbed the handle, and began to pump up and down, up and down. Nothing came out. Disappointed, he staggered back. He noticed off to the side an old jug. He looked at it, wiped away the dirt and dust, and read a message that said, “You have to prime the pump with all the water in this jug, my friend. P.S.: Be sure you fill the jug again before you leave.” (Now, for all you youngsters who have never operated an old- style water pump, there is a leather gasket that has to be moistened so it can expand to create a vacuum seal which draws water up and out of the well. This gasket dries out when the pump is not used for a while. Pouring water down the well pipe is called “priming the pump”.) (Back to our story…) So, he popped the cork out of the jug and sure enough, it was almost full of water! Suddenly, he was faced with a decision. If he drank the water, he could live. Ah, but if he poured all the water into the old rusty pump, maybe it would yield fresh, cool water from down deep in the well, all the water he wanted. He studied the possibility of both options. What should he do, pour it into the old pump and take a chance on fresh, cool water or drink what was in the old jug and ignore its message? Should he waste all the water on the hopes of those flimsy instructions written, no telling how long ago? Reluctantly he poured all the water into the pump. Then he grabbed the handle and began to pump—squeak, squeak, squeak. Still nothing came out! Squeak, squeak, squeak. A little bit began to dribble out, then a small stream, and finally it gushed! To his relief fresh, cool water poured out of the rusty pump. Eagerly, he filled the jug and drank from it. He filled it another time and once again drank its refreshing contents. Then he filled the jug for the next thirsty traveler. He filled it up to the top, popped the cork back on, and added this little note: “Believe me, it really works. You have to give it all away before you can get anything back.” This man was faced with what we could call “A crisis of faith.” Should he trust the words written on the jug, place his faith in those instructions written by someone he never met, and take a chance the pump would work? At some point in our lives, we all have, or will face a life or death decision like this: will we believe what the Bible says about God? Will we trust Him with our lives and our eternal destiny? Will we place our faith in a God we cannot see? Chapter 11 of Hebrews has been called the “Faith’s Hall of Fame.” We easily can see the continuity with the ending verses of chapter 10: For those tempted to yield to the temptation to compromise their beliefs because of persecution and trials, we find the encouragement to live by faith. (Read 10:37-39) The author then defines and illustrates faith by the testimonies of faithful believers from Israel’s history. The point being made is that faith has always been the pathway to redemption. We find in verse 1: I. THE DEFINITION OF FAITH Read 11:1. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Assurance, confidence, firm belief, sure confidence—all terms meaning that faith is the conviction that something is going to happen. Contrary to the concept of “blind faith” which is like a leap into the dark, not knowing what will happen, we demonstrate faith every day. When I flip on a light switch, I have faith the light will come on. We have faith when we drive that other drivers will obey the law, although we also wisely drive defensively. We trust the surgeon has the required skills when we have an operation. We trust that the money we deposit in the bank will be there when we need it. We trust the food we receive in a restaurant is healthy and will not make us sick. But we also know that light bulbs burn out, some drivers disobey traffic laws, surgeons can make mistakes, people occasionally get food poisoning from restaurant food, and banks can be robbed. This points out something very profound: for faith to be rewarded, for things to turn out like we expect, THE OBJECT OF OUR FAITH MUST BE TRUSTWORTHY. For something to give us assurance of what we hope for, the object of our faith must be reliable and dependable. The foundation of our faith as a Christian is the character of God. The more I know about God’s character, the more I will trust Him. And where do we learn about the character of God? The character of God is found in His Word. The story of the Bible reveals Who God is, and how He has worked to redeem mankind from His fallenness. The Bible reveals the Plan of redemption. It is all laid out from Genesis to Revelation—Jesus, God’s Son, is always there. We read how God has made promises or covenants with man, beginning with Adam. He promised a Redeemer Who would crush Satan’s head. He promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. He promised Israel that they would possess Canaan for eternity. He promised blessing to Israel if they would obey His commandments but cursing if they turned away from Him. God promised King David that one of His descendants would rule the world from the throne of David. He promised through the Prophets a New Covenant which would fulfill the Old and which would be written on the hearts of man. And God kept every one of His promises! In addition to the major covenants, God has made over 30,000 individual promises of which He will keep every single one. God is trustworthy. The object of our faith is solid. The Bible is an amazing account demonstrating God can be trusted. We can have assurance. And we each have the choice to believe or disbelieve. We can express faith or not. The text also defines faith as the “conviction of things not seen.” Faith in the unseen is unnatural. The natural man says, “I will only believe what I see.” This is the basis of the scientific method, where we make a hypothesis, then seek to prove it by experimentation. A proof must be repeatable 100 percent of the time, and then it can be stated as a law of nature. But believing in a God that cannot be seen is unnatural and is only made possible by God’s grace. Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” God the Holy Spirit “turns on the light”, extending to us the grace which enables us to express belief in what we cannot see. By the way, the second commandment, that we are to not make any image or idol to worship takes on meaning when we understand it in light of faith which believes in the unseen God. This transitions nicely into the next verses which tells us that: II. FAITH IS NOT A NEW TESTAMENT CONCEPT Read vv. 2-5. We go all the way back to Genesis for the first illustration of faith. The first illustration of believing in what we cannot see is in the Creation of the World. God created all that is simply by speaking it into existence, out of nothing. Now we can see the result of God speaking all of creation into being, BUT we cannot prove by observation that He did it. Science cannot accept this, because something always comes from something. God created the material world out of absolutely nothing! Now, Creationism is logical and is by far the best “theory” of how everything came into being, but it remains a “theory” and cannot be conclusively be proven by science because it is non-repeatable. We believe that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” We accept this by faith. Actually, do you realize that anything that has happened in the past cannot be proven by the scientific method? But, there is another way things are proven, and that is by legal proof. We can call witnesses. This is the method the Holy Spirit, through the author, continues to demonstrate the meaning of faith. From the earliest history of mankind, we see faith as the entrance to righteousness. Abel, the son of Adam, expressed faith as he obeyed God in offering the acceptable sacrifice of a lamb. Abel offered from the “firstlings of his flock”. We can assume several things from this account in Genesis: first, Cain and Abel had been given instructions about sacrifices. There was also a time and a place for the sacrifices to be offered, as Genesis 4:3 states, “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground and Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.” As they sin until the promised Messiah, the ultimate and final sacrifice would be offered. brought sacrifices, as there had to be a place of offering, an altar is assumed. God had instructed them that sacrifice was the way to worship Him. The reason is that sin separates all of us from God. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a grain sacrifice, but a blood sacrifice always was to be offered first. These sacrifices were for the covering of their sin, and as clarified later in the Mosaic Law, a blood sacrifice alone was adequate for covering sin. A life of faith always must begin with an offering for sin. This was Abel’s sacrifice. Cain’s sacrifice, in effect, was a denial of his need for having his sin covered. In effect Cain was rejecting God’s method of atonement and substituting his own way. It can be said that Cain was the “Father of all false religions.” False religion is trying to come to God in any manner other than what He prescribes. Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way that seem right to a man but its end is the way of death.” Cain did not believe and obey God, and his offering was rejected. Abel’s faith in the blood sacrifice resulted in righteousness, and his life speaks to us today. John MacArthur describes what Abel says to us: “He says three things: man comes to God by faith, not works; man must accept and obey God’s revelation above his own reason and self-will; and sin is severely punished. This is Abel’s timeless three-point sermon to the world, which he has been preaching for thousands of years to those who will hear. It could be titled, “The Righteous Shall Live by Faith.”1 God’s revelation is progressive, and in Enoch we see a further aspect of faithfulness. Whereas Abel gained righteousness through his faith and obedience in properly worshipping God; Enoch gained righteousness by walking by faith. In addition to worship, Enoch walked with God in close fellowship. What Adam and Eve lost, they who walked with God in the Garden in fellowship, Enoch regained, and serves as an example of faith leading to close fellowship with God. Enoch lived in the days before the flood, a time when wickedness was all around. Through his faithful life of obedience and close relationship with God, he rose above his culture. He lived a life pleasing to God, to such an extent that God rewarded him with being directly “taken up” to heaven without dying, only he and Elijah have this distinctive. Read v. 6. In this verse we find: III. THE BEGINNING OF FAITH Enoch pleased God as a man of faith and was rewarded with an escape from death. He was rescued from seeing the downward spiral of mankind where it reached the point described in Genesis 6:5: “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Enoch was an example of a man of faith who first believed in a God that was and a God who rewards those who seek Him. The very beginning of faith is to believe in the existence of God, for unless one takes this first step and acknowledges that God exists, he can go no further. And once one believes that there is a God, he next must ask himself, “What is this God like?” Man is infinitely creative in imagining what God is like. It would be difficult to find any culture down through the history of the world which is not religious. But like Cain, man creates gods he feels he can control. These gods can be placated by things man can do. This is proven by the fact that every world religion is based on works, by keeping certain rules or performing certain rituals. The sinful nature of the heart is never changed by such rituals or rule-keeping. God not only exists but He has revealed Himself to man. HE IS KNOWABLE! HE DESIRES A RELATIONSHIP WITH US! He rewards those who seek Him! Out of His character of love, He has graciously removed the barrier of sin which separates sinful man from a holy God. Faith believes that God responds when we come to Him in humble repentance, acknowledging our sin (as did Abel) and seeking fellowship, as did Enoch. And as we approach God, responding to His gracious revelation to us through His Word, He responds, accepting us in the name of His Son Jesus and rewards us with His saving presence in our lives. He reveals what pleases Him which is simple faith and trust that He will do what He has promised. God is trustworthy. He rewards those who come to Him, believing what He has said and done. This is faith, and the righteous shall live by faith.