Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Welcome back everyone and welcome to the second night in the spring semester.

Go ahead and turn in your bibles to Hebrews chapter 11.

As you’re doing that I have just a couple announcements for you.

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Everyone in chapter 11 of Hebrews?

Good.

Let me pray for us.

Prayer

Alright, as I mentioned last week and in the GroupMe this week.

We are starting our brand new series tonight in the book of Hebrews.

It’s called “By Faith”.

And the reason for that is because if you glance through the 11th chapter of Hebrews, you’re going to see that phrase all over the place.

I took some time a few weeks ago and actually underlined every time in the chapter that the word “by faith” or “through faith” are used.

20 times.

20 times that that phrase is used as a way of driving home the point that the author of Hebrews is trying to make.

Simply put.

The Author is trying to drive home that Faith is a mighty thing that God uses in the life of a believer.

It’s a spiritual concept that has very physical realities in our life.

Faith should shape us, inspire us, cause us to act, and bring about a security and assurance in our lives that can only come from God.

Faith is something that doesn’t just exist in the lives of those who have come after Jesus died on the cross, but rather Faith is something God has used since the beginning of time.

And in Hebrews 11, we see what is called the Hall of Faith.

That is, a list of many of the saints of the Old Testament who “by faith” saw God work mightily in their lives.

And “by faith” conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the moths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight…and so many more thing.

And, through their faith…they were commended.

Meaning, honored by God.

Now, they did not all receive what they were promised…we’re not saying they lived in prosperity because of their faith…but they were honored by God…and…their lives exist to show us that there is something better in life than receiving promises.

That is the ultimate promise.

Jesus.

Take a quick look at the beginning of Chapter 12.

In order for us to understand what we are doing in this semester, we need to see where we are going.

Our desire as a leadership every spring semester is to show you the value, the richness, the importance of the Old Testament.

We want to show you how it is a valid part of the life of a Christian…and how it demands to be read in order to have a fullness in your discipleship and understanding of God.

And Hebrews 11 is the perfect springboard to do that.

And the beginning of Hebrews 12 shows us why.

“Therefore”…meaning because of everything listed in Hebrews 11…all the saints of old… “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”…that’s the men and women of Hebrews 11 that we are going to be studying… “since we are surround, let us ALSO lay aside every weight, and sin, which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter…of what?…of our faith.”

So all the people we will read about in Hebrews 11, should cause us to turn our eyes to Jesus.

The Old Testament…should inspire us to deepen our relationship with Christ.

And not just deepen it…but the saints of Hebrews 11 should cause us to have endurance for the race that is set before us.

That’s why the graphic for this series has a runner, looking down the road…not seeing the finish line…not seeing the end goal…but commited to run with endurance until he reaches the end.

Endurance is an amazing thing…any of you ever run long distances?

Like over 3 miles.

3 years ago I got super into running.

Ran a half marathon…13.1 miles.

When I started out…I couldn’t even run 1 mile without stopping and walking.

There are a few things that helped with that.

One, motivational videos and music.

Things that got me excited to run every morning…to be facing a challenge that my body had never done.

Two, community.

A community of other runners and small group members from our church that were also going to be running the same race and encouraged me and spurred me on to keep going.

Three, wisdom from those who had done it before.

A training plan from those experienced…to help prevent injury…to keep me growing and going.

To the point where I was actually able to run 13.1 miles in a little over two hours.

Why do I bring this up?

Because the people found in Hebrews 11 are like those things that kept me going for the half marathon…that helped me run the race that was set before me with endurance.

The saints found in Hebrews 11 are meant to 1) motivate us with their stories of faith.

2) be a community to lean on...a community of people who belonged to God…and 3) show us what has been done before so that we may glean wisdom from them.

So…with all that said…here’s what we are going to be looking at tonight.

I titled the message Defining Faith.

For two reason.

We will be defining what faith means tonight.

We will be seeing how faith defines us.

How it’s a defining faith.

So, look at Hebrews 11 again as we work through the first three verses together.

I’ll read the whole thing, and then we will take it verse by verse.

So first point when defining faith.

Faith provides certainty.

We see this in verse 1 and if we break it down we see two specific ways faith provides certainty.

First one.

Certainty of the things to come.

We see this in the first part of verse one when it defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for”.

When things are hoped for…they are anticipated.

They haven’t come yet.

You don’t hope for something you already have.

For example, as a married man…I’m not going to sit here and hope for a wife.

The Lord has already provided that.

That’s why when it says hoped for…it means things to come.

But let’s talk about this word assurance.

We need to make a clear distinction here between objective assurance, and subjective assurance.

Because drawing that line here matters.

Objective: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

So…easy way to think about it…the object what matters.

It is true.

It is unaffected by us.

Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Easy way to think about it…in subjective things…the object is subject to you, under you and your feelings about it.

So when the author of Hebrews is saying faith is the assurance of things hoped for…what type of assurance is that?

One dictated by your emotions and tastes?

Or one dictated by objective truth.

Well, in reality, it’s sort of both…because one affects the other.

But…where we should land on…and what the author is clearly stating here…is that faith is an objective certainty of things to come.

Meaning, it is factual.

Unchanged by your feelings.

In fact, not only is it unchanged by your feelings…but it’s the thing that controls your feelings.

So the author of hebrews is NOT saying “faith is the feeling we get when we feel certain we are going to get what we hope for”.

It’s like getting a Christmas present from someone who asked us the things that we like.

We told them we like something, so we hope that we are going to get it…and because we hope that we are going to get it…that brings about a happiness…and maybe even some certainty that it’s going to be a good Christmas.

That’s not the type of hope coming from faith here in this passage.

In this passage, the assurance we have comes from the idea of having cold hard truth.