By Faith (pt. 1)

Big Idea

Tension: How does the author of Hebrews seek to instill a lifelong faith in his audience?

Resolution: By mainly pointing them to the theological trajectory of those who trusted God, culminating in Christ, for examples.

Exegetical Idea: The author of Hebrews seeks to instill a lifelong faith in his audience by pointing them to the theological trajectory of those who trusted God, culminating in Christ, for examples.

Theological Idea: God has given his people a great cloud of witnesses, culminating in Christ, to understand and to imitate their faith.

Big Idea: Let us look to the heroes of our faith, and especially Christ, to strengthen our faith today.

Outline

Background:

Goal of perseverance in the faith

He points us to the hero Abraham in chapter 6 to understand faith

There will always be discontinuity with those we imitate

Yet, there will always be something we share in common with them

We share in common with all of these heroes of our faith the quality of faith, the one we have faith in, and the same rewards.

Introduction:

What is faith (vs. 1-3)?

Faith in Hebrews (Heb 4:1-3, 6:9-12, 10:19-22, 37-38). Faith is a dogged, daring trust that God really do what he says, that Christ really has died and risen and ascended, that the Spirit really is working.

This is an encomium - a particular literary form that seeks to highlight the wonders/praiseworthy features of something

Substance/evidence - This word is actually used in judicial contexts in other places. So the idea is that the very presence of Christian faith itself is evidence

Things hoped for/things not seen - This speaks to all the benefits of salvation, things that we do not see now. The very presence of faith tells us that these things exist. The very presence of people who believe in Jesus is evidence for us that the benefits of salvation exist.

Objection 1: But isn’t faith only as good as its object? What is the difference between this kind of faith and those who have faith in something that’s wrong? In other words, why is it that the faith that is in Christ is evidence that he really does save, while faith in false idols is just foolishness? Because this kind of faith is of a qualitiatively different kind. It’s of the sort that is made of sterner stuff. It’s the faith that endures. Listen to what he says in vs. 32-38…

Illustration: You see, true faith in Hebrews is a faith that endures. Let me give you an example. On Palm Sunday in 2017, the world was horrified by bombings on Christians in Egypt as ISIS suicide bombers attacked several churches. Many stories of heroism emerged, including that of Naseem Faheem who had spotted a suicide bomber and redirected him, whose actions saved dozens of people when the bomber denoated a suicide vest. But the most emphatic responses of Christians throughout Egypt were those of forgiveness. And as Naseem’s widow told the community of Muslims in Egypt on the country’s most popular talk show, “we forgive you” the host was stunned speechless. Twelve seconds later he stammered out, ““The Copts of Egypt … are made of … steel!” When you see that kind of faith, the faith that says, “I know you killed my husband out of hate, let me show you teh love of Christ” you know there is something strange, and otherworldly, and off about it. That, that is evidence that Jesus forgives, that that is evidence that there is life after death, that, that is evidence that God is not done in this world.

Objection 2: Well, I'm a man of reason. To whcih he points to verse 3. He says, “we believe that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of the things that are not visible.” Now what he’s doing there, is he is talking to his fellow Jewish people, and he’s saying, we know that God creates because of faith. In other words, he’s using the viewpoint that they share in common, and saying, “none of us were there, we just kind of have to believe it.” And maybe you’d say, “Well, I don’t believe God created the world. I believe in teh big bang.” Like okay… how do you know it was there? WEre you there? Oh, no, so you kind of just take it on faith. Maybe you say, “Well, look at all the scientific calculations that all these scientists have done...” and I’d just say, “OKay, you didn’t do those calculations yourself, much less come up with those calculations and mathematics yourself. You kind of just believe that they work and you trust them.” And I’d just say, that’s exactly what faith is. You believe it to be true and you trust people who told you. You see, there is absolutely no way to operate in life without faith. You have to believe something, don’t you? Philosophically this is true. There was a great philosopher of science called Michael Polanyi who argued that all knowledge begins with faith. You just have to accept certain presuppositions are true to believe in it. But it’s true practically. I mean, look no further than google maps. When was the last time you went on a road trip without looking at a map? You trusted that the people who gave the map did their homework, right? You trusted that they knew what they were talking about. And that’s the point that he’s making here. That faith is inseparable from teh human life. The difference between just this normal kind of human faith, and Christian faith, however, is that Christian faith changes you. It shapes you. It makes you new. It means that even though outwardly we’re wasting away, inwardly, we’re being renewed day by day.

Whose faith should we imitate?

Now, to help us in our faith, he gives us a whole spiel of examples. And we’re just going to talk about three of them today, and here’s our big idea, which will be the big idea of our sermon through Hebrews 11, which is simply this: “Let us look to the heroes of our faith, and especially Christ, to strengthen our faith today.”

Now he gives us three examples of faith, three examples of men who were “commended” because of their faith.

Abel (vs. 4)

“Abel offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain” - What was the difference? Cain offered a thanksgiving offering, but Abel offered a guilt offering. Abel offered a live sacrifice, he knew he needed atonement. Cain thought there was nothing wrong, Abel was asking for forgiveness.

It says that he was “commended as righteous-God commending him by accepting his gifts.” Now, I think that this is a reference to Genesis 15:6, in reference to Abraham, which says, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” In other words, Abraham was justified before God because of his faith. And the author to Hebrews is correctly saying that that verse in Genesis applies to all the people in Genesis. He is saying that just like Abraham, God commended Abel because of his faith.

Abel obviously was killed by Cain because of jealousy. Yet “though he died, he still speaks.” His death, his belief that God forgives, sstill speaks to us. And Abel is pointing us forward to Christ, because just as Abel’s death speaks to us today, so does Christ’s.

Enoch (vs. 5-6)

By faith Enoch was taken up so that he might not see death - Now, I think what he was saying was that Enoch was itself a type of the ascension. In other words, in Enoch’s being taken up was a prefiguration of the ascension of Christ. Enoch testifies to us what will happen with Christ. He points us forward to Christ.

“By faith,” Enoch was taken up by faith. What does that mean?

“Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” (5) Before he ever was a type for Christ, he was justified by faith. Before he ever did anything significant, he was commended. Not because of his piety, not because of how great he is, but because of his faith.

And listen to what vs. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (6) There is no way to make God happy other than this. There is no other hope for you to be commended than by believing. Not by having faith in faith, but by believing that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

What is the reward God gives to faith? Himself. Listen to this quote by Augustine, “It is God who wants himself to be loved, not in order to gain any reward for himself but to give to those who love him an eternal reward-namely himself, the object of their love.”

Noah (vs 7)

“God warned Noah concerning events that were as yet unseen” - What was this? This was the judgment God visited in the flood. God warned Noah that the flood was coming, and gave him a way of escape.

And Noah’s faith led him to construct an ark. Noah’s faith led him to obey. Because Noah believed that God meant what he said and said what he meant, because God meant that he really would judge, and Noah wanted to save his family.

In doing so, he condemned the world. Just like Christ condemned the world with his death.

He became the heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. He like Abel, like Enoch, like Abraham, they had faith, and they were credited as righteous by faith.

Christ is both the example of faith, because he trusted God, and the object of faith, because he is where our faith is directed.

Application:

First, all of us need to be commended by God. NOtice all the different ways that these verses tell us this. We are told that we need God to “commend us.” We need God to call us “righteous.” to impute on us, to place on us, the seal of his righteousness. We need to be justified. We need to “please God.” We need to “draw near to God.” We need to become heirs of righteousness. We need to be declared righteous, just, commended

But we cannot do that on our own, can we? Was Noah justified because he built an ark? Of course not. Was Enoch taken up because he was a pious person? No, he was taken up because of his faith. Was Abel commended because he did the right thing? No, he was commended because of his faith.

We can only do that by faith. Abel was commended by faith. Through his faith he speaks. Enoch was taken up because of his faith. Noah was an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

And, I say this week after week, but man, it is so easy to come to church week after week, to think, “Man, look at that fool three rows back.”

But, notice how all of those men, their faith leads to good works, doesn’t it? WE’re not justified by works, but the faith that justifies works.

And the particular work that Hebrews draws attention to is that of perseverance. It’s a faith that lasts. It’s a fiath that gets stretched out. It’s a faith that matters.

Which means this, if you don’t think that your faith