Sermon Tone Analysis

The righteous live by their faith

Hebrews Sermon 8

By Faith

Hebrews 11: 1-4

Genesis 4: 2b -16

As we take a look at this great chapter, which for many people is one of their favourite chapters in the whole of the New Testament, we must always keep in mind the people to whom the letter was addressed.

Yes, it is for us, too, and we can apply so much of it to our own lives.

But it was the Jewish Christians, primarily, who were under great pressure to desert Christianity and to go back to the practices of the Old Covenant.

That’s why the writer of the letter knew that they needed to hear and understand from their own history, that the people they knew about and looked back to were also, by faith, partakers of the New Covenant.

The writer had just reminded them of the prophet Habakkuk, who was living at a time of great uncertainty, and great trouble, crying to God for help:

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

Why do you make me see wrongdoing

and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

Those words of Habakkuk can surely be echoed in our day, when we see what is going on in our world right now.

Like Habakkuk, we feel helpless and fearful.

What was God’s answer to Habakkuk?

the righteous live by their faith.

This is the key theme of Chapter 11, where we are presented with a record of some of those whose lives were marked by faith in God and by their faith received God’s approval, or another version puts it:

This is what the ancients were commended for.

What does it mean, when we read the words :”The Just shall live by their faith” ?

We need to go back to the context in which they were written.

In verse 36 of chapter 10 we read this:

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

At the beginning of his story Habakkuk is an impatient man : “How long shall I cry for help?”

Here’s a bit of God’s answer to Habakkuk:

3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

it speaks of the end

and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

it will certainly come

and will not delay.

The ultimate goal of any believer is to receive what God has promised.

Remember the words of 10:36

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

This was what Habakkuk needed to learn and it was what the ancients were commended for.

It was their patient endurance that characterised their faith.

They believed God and trusted Him even though in their daily lives they faced all the testing and temptations and trials that would lead them away from God. Hebrews 11.13:

All these people were still living by faith when they died.

They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth

A quote from John Calvin: “Faith directs us to things afar off which we do not as yet enjoy; it then necessarily includes patience.”

The first verse of chapter 11 gives us, not a definition, but a description of faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see

What faith does is to give us assurance that what we believe is sure and real, not just something fanciful.

Paul writes about this in Romans 10.

He had just made the statement that Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Romans 10: 6-9

But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’

”  (that is, to bring Christ down)  “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ”  (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

But what does it say?

“The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Do you remember when Jesus was teaching in the synagogue and some of his words were: “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them.”?

Many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

Peter, however, said:

Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

This is what faith does; it enables our hearts to fully accept that what God has promised us, eternal life, is the only sure foundation on which to build our lives.

It give substance to our believing.

And faith allows the believer to see and understand the world from a new perspective.

There is a divide between the believer and the non-believer.

1 Corinthians 2: 14

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4: 18, encouraged his readers when he wrote:

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

And then in the passage that follows:

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.

For we live by faith, not by sight

Verse 3 of Chapter 11 reminds us that it is faith alone which leads to an understanding that it was God who created the universe.

Scientists and philosophers have their place in the world, but a reading of Isaiah chapter 40 is something I would recommend to everyone.

Here are just a couple of small sections:

21 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,

25 “To whom will you compare me?

Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:

Who created all these?

He who brings out the starry host one by one

and calls forth each of them by name.

Because of his great power and mighty strength,

not one of them is missing.

We come now to all those whom the writer has chosen to include in the list of the men and women who were commended for their faith.

He begins with Abel

By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.

By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings.

And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.

This verse leads us to think about the beginning of the life of faith.

The story is told in Genesis chapter 4

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.