Now Faith Is...

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Well, this morning we are back in the book of Hebrews, as we have been for the last couple of years and probably will continue on for at least that long in the future, and we have finished chapter 10.
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So if you want to open up your Bibles, we're going to be at Hebrews chapter 11.
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At the end of chapter 10, the writer quotes from the Old Testament about the absolute necessity of faith in the life of the believer.
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If you look at Hebrews 10, verse 38, it says, But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
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Then he goes on to say in verse 39, But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
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This statement regarding the necessity of faith then becomes the impetus for an entire chapter on the subject of faith.
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Hebrews chapter 11 has been called rightfully so by many people, the great faith chapter of the Bible.
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It uses the word faith over 26 times, and throughout it describes and gives an exposition of what true faith really is.
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And the subject of faith really does dovetail into the entire theme of the book of Hebrews, because the writer has been, since the beginning of the book, attempting to remind his readers of why they should not be leaving the faith.
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Many of them, of course, as we have heard many times, those of you who have been in these messages, you know the context of the book of Hebrews is that there were Jewish Christians who were going back to their Judaism.
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They were going backwards because they were suffering persecution as the early church.
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So the writer of Hebrews is writing to them, encouraging them and telling them you can't really go back because there's nothing to go back to.
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Christ is the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophecies.
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Christ is the fulfillment of the Jewish faith.
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And if you go back now to Judaism without Christ, you're returning to a false religion because Christ is the fulfillment of all of the truths of the Old Testament.
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And that's what he's told them so far.
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He's telling them, he says, to slip back and to go back is truly a foolish thing to do.
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So as a result, the church has been given this great chapter on the subject of faith that has been a treasure chest of discovery for believers of every generation.
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So this morning, we're going to begin our journey of discovery into this important text by studying just the first two verses.
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And I jokingly said this recently.
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I said, I said it's going to take all year to get through Hebrews 11.
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I wasn't kidding.
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It just made people laugh.
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I said it's going to take us all year.
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And I think it's appropriate.
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It's 2011.
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It's Hebrews chapter 11 kind of goes together.
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What do you think? But no, seriously, because we are going to be looking at each one of the individual characters that are described here, all of these faith heroes.
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And we're going to be doing biography, biographical studies of each one.
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I wouldn't be surprised if we're still in the 11th chapter at the end of this year.
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But our knowledge of the Old Testament is going to increase exponentially, though, because that's what Hebrews 11 is about.
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Showing the faith of those in the Old Testament and how it relates to our faith today.
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So it won't it definitely will not be in any way, shape or form a boring study.
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It should be one that is exciting.
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But like I said this morning, we're just going to begin with an introduction to this chapter by reading the first two verses and giving exposition of them.
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So let's stand together.
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We'll read Hebrews 11, 1 and 2, and then we will have our exposition.
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Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1.
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Now, faith.
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Is the assurance of things hoped for.
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The conviction.
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Of things not seen.
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For by it, the people of old.
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Received.
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Their commendation.
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Our father and our God, we thank you for your word.
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I pray that as I seek to give exposition this morning that you would keep me from error.
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As I am a fallible man.
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Able to preach error.
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Lord, I pray that you would keep me in the truth.
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Help me, O Lord, that as I preach.
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To stick to the text.
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I pray, O God.
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To fill me with your Holy Spirit.
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And for the congregation, O Lord, I pray that you would open their hearts.
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Instruct their minds.
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And use this as a time of true worship.
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To you and for you.
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In Jesus name we pray.
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Amen.
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When we were all introduced to Christianity.
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We were probably told first.
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About the concept of faith.
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We're told when we come to Christianity.
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When we learn about Christianity.
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When we receive Christ.
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We're told about having faith.
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And exercising faith.
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And walking in faith.
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And we're told that justification is by faith alone.
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So faith is a very big part of our introduction.
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Our early life as Christians.
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It's a part of our learning process.
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Learning about what it is to have faith.
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But so often this term faith.
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Is bantered around.
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Without concern.
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I think.
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For the certainty of it's definition.
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Pretty much it's just talked about.
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Without giving an exposition of it's genuine qualities.
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In fact so many people get confused about what faith really is.
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And how it is to be exercised.
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And this has been made exponentially worse.
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By what is called.
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It's the so called word faith movement.
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And I don't know how many of you are familiar with the word faith movement.
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But the word faith movement has infiltrated the church.
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And confused so many people on the subject of faith.
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The word faith movement has distorted genuine biblical faith.
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And replaced it with a false conception.
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Of what it means to believe.
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I want to share by way of testimony.
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Something that happened very early in my Christian life.
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On the subject of the word faith movement.
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In my early Christian life.
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I was very excited to learn.
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But I wasn't very discerning about what I learned.
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I don't know if any of you all went through that.
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But you know your first year or so as a new believer.
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You get real excited because you want to learn all this information.
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If you have cable there are two or three different Christian stations out there.
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And boy you can just laugh it up.
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You know just sit there.
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And the problem is so much of what is put out is bad information.
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But if you don't know as a young believer.
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You can get filled with a lot of bad information.
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I want to share with you something that happened to me.
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Early on in my Christian walk.
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I'm not proud of it.
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I'm not up here excited to tell you this story.
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But I wanted to tell it to you.
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Just to kind of give you a description of how the word faith movement can confuse people.
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Once when my wife was sick.
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I got mad at her.
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Not mad enough to like be angry.
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But I was upset with her.
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Because I said you know what the reason why you're sick.
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Is because you just don't have enough faith.
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Why did I say that? Because I've been confused.
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Because I was ignorant.
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And as I said I'm not proud of what I said.
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But you see that's the way that the word faith movement has infiltrated and influenced for the negative the church.
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It has given an idea of faith that is not a biblical idea of what faith is or what faith does.
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And it has harmed the church.
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The word faith movement proposes a faith for faith's sake type of faith.
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What do I mean by that? Well they propose faith as an object to pursue.
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They propose the idea that as long as you believe enough.
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As long as you trust enough.
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As long as you have enough faith.
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You'll be blessed.
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And sometimes you've heard the phrase the health and wealth.
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You'll be blessed with both health and wealth.
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And the problem is if a person gets sucked in by that teaching.
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He or she ends up with the concept that the more faith you have.
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The more blessings you'll receive and the less trials you'll undergo.
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And as a result more faith becomes the object of the quest.
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That's why I said it's faith for faith's sake.
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You just want to believe more because believing more brings more blessings and less trials.
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All the while faith is the object rather than God being the object.
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Because when you believe.
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When you have faith.
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Faith requires an object.
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And if faith is the object.
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It's faith for faith's sake.
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Rather than seeking to trust more in God.
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The word faith movement does not propose a true and biblical faith.
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But a distortion of it as I've said.
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And this is truly sad because the Bible gives us an exposition of what genuine faith is.
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And it's right here in our text for this morning.
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The Bible is very clear about what genuine faith is.
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And what the object of our faith should be.
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So this morning I want to simply go over an exposition of verses 1 and 2.
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And seek to better understand it.
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Let's look at verse 1.
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It says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.
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Now if you're taking notes you may want to make a note of this.
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This is the only place in the Bible where faith is given a definition.
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This is the only place where it's actually given a definition.
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Interestingly enough, when you look at this definition you'll notice something.
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Especially if you read it in the Greek.
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You'll notice the word pistis is the Greek word for faith here.
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And you'll notice that there is no article here.
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What do I mean by that? It doesn't say now a faith or the faith.
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It simply uses faith.
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Speaking of faith in general.
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This tells us that this passage is not talking about a specific type of faith.
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But it's simply talking about faith in general.
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Why is that important? Because it helps us to understand that what is being talked about here is a faith as a concept.
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In essence it is defining for us what faith is.
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And faith is not limited to Christianity.
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Look into the world and every person in the world has faith of some kind.
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Muslims have faith.
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Hindus have faith.
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Buddhists have faith.
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Even atheists have faith.
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In fact, they're getting more faithful all the time to their atheism.
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They're becoming very evangelical in their faithful attempt to spread their atheism.
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They believe there's no God.
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That's a faith.
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Everyone has faith of some kind.
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Now, the reason why I make that point is because when the writer here says now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.
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As I said, he's not defining Christian faith specifically.
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He's defining faith in general.
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He's saying that's what faith is.
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Faith is assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things or the conviction of things not seen.
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Now, we know from Scripture that the only type of faith that is pleasing to God is faith that is expressed through a belief in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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The Bible teaches us that.
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It's not questionable.
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It's not debatable.
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It's simply what the Bible teaches.
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So, that is the faith that the writer of Hebrews is espousing.
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But it's not necessarily what he's just referencing here.
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Here he's referencing the definition of faith.
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He's saying the definition of faith is simple.
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Faith has two phases.
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One is assurance of things hoped for.
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Two is conviction of things unseen.
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Now, let's break that down.
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What does he mean when he says faith is the assurance of things hoped for? Well, let me ask this question before we get started.
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How many of your Bibles use something other than the word assurance? Ms.
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Ray, of course.
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Ms.
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Ray has the King James Bible.
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I love it that you bring your King James Bible because you're the only one here that has one.
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And I always can reference you because yours says substance.
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That's right.
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Does anyone else have a Bible that says anything different than either assurance or substance? OK.
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What does it say? OK.
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Being sure.
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OK.
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So assurance.
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It's essentially similar to what the ESV or the NAS says.
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OK.
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The reason why I'm making this point is because the word in the Greek there for assurance or substance is the Greek word hoopostasis.
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And that word essentially does mean substance.
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However, when it is used in this context, it is not talking about substance in the way that we normally think of substance.
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Normally, when you think of substance, if you think about that word, you think of something that can be handled, something that can be managed.
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Substance has substance.
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It has being.
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You can touch it.
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You can feel it.
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You can manipulate it.
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It's got substance.
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Right.
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But in this particular instance, that word substance doesn't really do justice to what the underlying Greek is trying to say, because what the underlying Greek is trying to say here, it's talking about substance internally.
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It's talking about in your mind, it is a reality.
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Maybe I need to make this make sense a little bit better.
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Faith in the strictest sense is the internal assurance or the internal reality of something.
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And we exercise the insurance assurance like that all the time.
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We exercise assurance when we sit down in the chair.
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What are you internally assured of when you sit down in the chair? That the chair is not going to break.
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Sometimes it does.
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And you're the things you hope for didn't work out the way you thought.
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But the reason why you're able to sit back and lay all your weight down onto a chair is because you have an internal assurance.
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There's substance in your mind that believes that when you sit down, it's going to hold you.
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Why do you drive your car 65 miles an hour? Don't you know that at any moment it could fly into a million pieces? It's possible.
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It's going 65 miles an hour on four wheels made of rubber.
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But you are confident, assured that that's not going to happen.
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If you weren't confident or assured that wasn't going to happen, you wouldn't go 65 miles an hour.
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Why would you drive 65 miles an hour if you weren't assured that your brakes weren't going to work? You wouldn't.
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I know people who trust their brakes a little bit too much, they get right up to...
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But the point is assurance.
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Substance of things hoped for.
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It's the idea that you don't just hope your brakes are going to work.
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If you were just hoping your brakes were going to work, you wouldn't get in the car and go 65 miles an hour.
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You are assured that that's going to happen.
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Or you wouldn't even take the trip.
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You know who I think has the most faith? And for those of you who have heard me preach on faith before, you've heard this.
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I know Nathan's heard this back when he was in the youth group.
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I know you've heard this.
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Who has the most faith, do I think, has the most faith in the world? Do you remember? Skydivers.
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Skydivers have absolutely the most faith ever.
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Because they are willing to strap a 20-foot piece of fabric to their back with strings in a backpack and jump out of an airplane for no other reason but to say, Hey, that was fun.
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That's faith.
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Because you've got to have a lot of faith that, number one, the chute's packed correctly.
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Number two, it's going to open correctly.
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And number three, it's going to safely glide you to the ground without smacking like a pancake.
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That's faith.
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Why? Because everybody in that plane who's got those packs strapped to their back, their number one hope is the chute's going to open.
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But you know what? They wouldn't take the step out of the airplane if they didn't have assurance of that hope.
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If they weren't 100% sure that that chute was going to open, they wouldn't take a step.
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Thus, when the writer of Hebrews describes faith as the assurance of things hoped for, that's what he's talking about.
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He's talking about the trust that supersedes mere hope.
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I hope my son grows up to be a godly man.
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I hope my daughter grows up to be a godly woman.
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But I don't know how their lives are going to turn out yet.
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I pray for them every night.
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I seek to guide them as best I can.
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But I don't know for sure.
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I know many godly parents whose children do not grow up in godly ways.
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I don't have assurance 100% of everything that's going to happen in my life or my children's life or in my wife's life or any of that.
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But you know what? I do have assurance when God makes a promise that He's going to keep His promise.
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That is where my hope becomes trust.
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And that's what faith is.
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Faith is not just hoping that what God says is going to happen, but it's actually trusting that what God says is going to happen.
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God has promised that for those who believe in His Son Jesus Christ, there will be no wrath, but instead they will be glorified with His Son.
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You know what? If I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I do hope for that.
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But it's not the type of hope that says, oh, I wonder if it's going to happen.
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It's the hope of expectation that it will happen because God has promised that it will happen.
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It's no longer an if.
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It's a when.
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I don't mean to embarrass my dad, and I do this sometimes because I know he's here.
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But I want to talk about something that maybe will help illustrate this point.
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Because as I was writing this message and writing my notes down, the only way I knew how to make this point as clear as possible.
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As a child, my parents were not perfect, but I know they loved me.
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And that's not even the point of this.
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The point is, one thing about my dad that was real specific was that if he told me he was going to do something, if he made a promise, it was going to happen.
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Now, it might not happen when I wanted it to happen.
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It might not happen as fast as I wanted it to happen.
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It might not be according to Keith Fossey's timetable.
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But if there was a promise given at that point, there was no more question about if.
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At that point, it was just when.
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And you see, that's the way when we look at the faith in God that we are supposed to think about what it means when it says we have assurance of the things hoped for.
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What do we hope for as believers? We hope for eternal life with God.
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We hope for forgiveness of sins.
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We hope for God's glory to be increased in our life and our godliness to be increased, that we be conformed to the image of Christ.
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These are things that we hope for.
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But we don't hope in vain.
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We don't hope with a question mark.
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Because if we have faith, we have assurance of those things that we hope for.
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Because God has already promised that they will be.
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It's no longer an if.
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It's simply a when.
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And that's how we hope.
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We hope in trust that these things will actually come about.
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Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
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Did you know that when the Bible describes our condition, it describes us in the condition of already receiving the things that God has promised us? I want to remind you of one verse.
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The book of Ephesians, chapter 2.
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It says, we are seated in heavenly places.
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You know what? At this moment, I'm not seated in heavenly places.
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At this moment, right now, I'm with you all.
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But in God's economy, because the promise has been made, he can speak about my condition in the past tense.
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Think of this verse.
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Romans, chapter 8.
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For whom he predestined, he also called.
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Whom he called, he justified.
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Whom he justified, he glorified.
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Past tense.
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Beloved, if I'm one who has been called by God and has been justified by God, that means in God's economy, I'm already glorified.
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Has it happened yet? No, but because God's promises do not fail, it is as if it has already occurred.
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The Bible teaches us that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.
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I like the way the King James reads.
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It says, without repentance.
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It means God will not change his mind.
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When God makes a promise, he doesn't come back later and say, I was just kidding.
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Oh, I can't do it now.
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I lack the power.
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God never says that.
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That's what faith is.
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Faith is assurance in the promises of God.
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God has made a promise and we are assured that that promise is going to be fulfilled.
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Number two.
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Not only is it the assurance of things hoped for, but it's the conviction of things not seen.
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Now, if you have another Bible, you might not use that word conviction.
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It might say evidence, right? It says now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, substance of things hoped for and the conviction, which is what is in the ESV and NASV or the evidence of things hoped for.
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The concept that is contained within the idea of conviction is the idea that goes past assurance a step.
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This word, which is sometimes translated evidence or proof, speaks to our assurance and how it is practically worked out in our life.
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According to Marvin Vincent's commentary, here's what he says on this subject.
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He says this term conviction adds to the simple idea of assurance, a suggestion of influences operating to produce conviction, which carry the force of demonstration.
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I wrote that, but then I said, OK, let me put it in layman's terms, because this is a little hard to understand.
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In layman's terms, this is what he's saying.
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Faith not only includes mental assurance.
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Faith also includes practicing our conviction regarding the promises of God.
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It's not just about believing that these promises are true.
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It's about living as if these promises are true.
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Do we live as people who are convicted by the truth of the Scriptures? Do we live as people who are convicted by the truth of Christ and the truth of the Bible? Or do we simply say, I believe, but we don't have any action or conviction that goes along with our belief? Let me paint you a picture.
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Go back to the skydiver.
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I am fully convinced that a parachute will save a life.
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I've seen it happen.
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I go out to a shooting range for competition sometimes, and we go out there and when we're shooting, about a mile away there's a place where skydivers jump out of airplanes and they float down, which I always think is kind of crazy, because we're shooting in that direction.
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And they're just floating.
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Again, that fake thing, they got it worked out.
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But anyhow, those guys, again, they're absolutely assured.
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They have conviction because they stepped out of the plane.
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I have all the assurance in the world that a parachute would save me, but I lack conviction to the hilt because I ain't doing it.
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Absolutely lack conviction.
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And that's how these two things go together.
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Assurance is that inter-belief that something is as it says it will be.
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Assurance of things hoped for.
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Conviction is the external reality, the living out of that trust.
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Not only do I trust that Christ died for my sins, but I'm going to live as if Christ died for my sins.
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My internal assurance becomes external conviction.
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How many people say, I trust in Jesus, but they have just as much conviction as I do about skydiving.
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They're just not living it out.
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They're not allowing the faith internal to become a life lived in faith externally.
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So many people say they have assurance, but lack conviction.
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And beloved, those two things are definitional to what real faith is.
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Faith is not just internal assurance.
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It's also a conviction of what you're assured of that shows itself in your life.
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So this passage describes faith in two ways, but the two ways build upon one another.
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The assurance of things hoped for is what happens internally.
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We have an internal assurance that when God makes a promise, he'll fulfill that promise.
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And that internal assurance becomes an external conviction where we live for those promises on a daily basis.
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Now, to follow that, I want to look at verse 2 quickly.
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Because verse 2 says this.
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For by it, and the word it there is the antecedent of it, is faith.
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So we could say, for by faith, the people of old, in Greek it's Presbyteros, it actually says the elders, but it's not talking about like church elders.
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It's talking about the people who came before us, the older generations, which I think people of old is the best definition there.
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For by faith, the people of old, or the older generations, received their commendation.
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Now, we are going to study these people.
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Because that's the impetus for him going into this long line of believers.
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Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and all these characters he begins to list.
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He says, all of these people received their commendation because of their faith.
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And he begins to list off who they are.
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But, before we go there, I want to talk about this word commendation.
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And this is where we're going to find our conclusion.
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Because the word commendation there, I don't think is the best English translation.
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I don't know if you have a different word for commendation.
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And I know sometimes you guys might get tired because I always say this translation, this translation.
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I'm not trying to confuse you, I'm just trying to say, English will never be able to fully encapsulate all that the Greek language has to say.
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Because it's a different language.
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And it uses different nuances of usage.
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And if we can look back at what was said, we can better understand what we're reading.
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And when it says they received their commendation, the Greek word there is martyrio.
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And it literally could be translated witnesses.
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You might say they received their witnesses? No.
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What it's saying is they were witnesses.
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They received their good report.
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They received the statements that are about to be said about them because of their faith.
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If you go through the book of Hebrews chapter 11, and you walk through all the things that are said about Enoch, and about Noah, and about Abraham, and about Isaac, and about Jacob, and about David, and about Samson, and Jephthah, and all of the different characters that it's going to talk about.
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The reason why their names are listed is because their lives were lived as witnesses to their faith.
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The reason why they're even mentioned is because they had an assurance of the things that they hoped for.
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They had conviction of things.
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Beloved, we ought be ones who follow that example.
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That our faith is an assurance and a conviction that drives us to be witnesses for Christ.
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That our faith is a witness in and of itself.
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That our faith testifies to the world of who Christ is to us.
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Beloved, let it be that our faith be our greatest testimony.
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Let us pray.
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Our Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to be in your word.
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To examine the truth of what faith is.
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And we just pray, oh God, that as we come now to the conclusion of the service, that we would not conclude our pondering of this verse and how it affects us.
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Lord, we want our assurance to grow and our conviction to become ever more steadfast in our hearts.
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That when we go out into the world, that our very lifestyles become witnesses to our faith.
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That our very words and deeds and actions and speech glorify you.
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Because they show the world that we believe in you.
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That we have assurance of those things that we hope for.
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Eternal life, forgiveness of sins, glory for you to be increased.
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That we have assurance of those things because you have promised them.
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And that that assurance would become conviction that we live as people convinced and convicted.
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We pray all this, Lord.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.