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Sunnyside Baptist Church Red Berry
Couldn't resist the temptation, sorry about that. Our subject tonight is something I ran across in my computer files two or three weeks ago, and that was a series that I did on faith, just titled Faith Is.
And the text for that is very short. David Kassin had two verses last week. I'm just going to use one tonight. But it's taken from the 11th chapter of Hebrews. And let me just read about six verses here with a gap in between, and that'll get us started.
Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it, that is, by faith, the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
And then to verse 6. But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And then the simple statement in Habakkuk 2 .4, The just shall live by his faith.
Now, that phrase from Habakkuk is quoted three times in the New Testament. Twice in the context of salvation by faith as opposed to works. That's Romans 1 .17 and Galatians 3 .11. Once in the context of sanctification.
That's Hebrews 10 .38. And taken together, the statement of verse 6 in the text we just read with its declaration puts us on notice that we must not neglect faith because there's no pleasing God without it.
Good enough reasoning, right? God himself has declared that life on earth is to be lived by faith. And this tells us immediately that we need an understanding or a definition of faith. Just what is it?
What's it like? What does it do? What do we expect to accomplish with it? The notorious and sometimes funny H .L. Minkins, who was editor of the Baltimore Sun newspaper for about 30 years, gave us his definition of faith.
He said,.
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. The Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood had another opinion.
Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations. Along the way somewhere, a Catholic theologian philosopher named Rene Descartes came along, and he was famous for saying, I think, therefore I am.
300 years later, H .L. Minkins, with the Baltimore Sun, came along and heard that and said, I doubt, therefore I must not be. So there you go. People that disagree. There are a lot of popular religious teachers today who would have us to believe that faith is exclusively getting something we want from God.
That's true only to a certain extent, but in a higher level, faith is wanting what we get from God. So what is faith? The word of God in our text shows us several ways to define its essence. I'm going to skip over the first one of those pretty quickly here in a minute.
But first let's consider the question, why is faith so important? Somebody wrote a gospel song about 50, 60 years ago that I heard just the other day. It said, prayer is the key to heaven, but faith unlocks the door.
Words are so easily spoken, but prayer without faith is like a boat without an oar. So have faith when you speak to the master. That's all he asks of you. Prayer is the key to heaven, but faith unlocks the door.
Now, faith is necessary in order to truly worship God. This is the part I'm going to skip through quite quickly because the other part is more important, I think. But there are several reasons, many reasons in Scripture that tell us that we have to worship God by faith.
We've never seen him. And that's the gist of all of this. You remember that Job, in all of his troubles, one time said, oh, if I just knew where I could find God and find out what's going on here. So faith requires us to deal with somebody and worship somebody that we haven't seen.
And so that's the first part I want to get to here is that faith is seeing and believing in the invisible. We don't have an idol. That's one of the most abominable things you can do is to build an idol and worship that.
If you want to infuriate God, just do that. But there are four words that I want to cover here that help us to understand this. Faith is the first one. Substance is the second one. Hope is the third. And evidence is the fourth.
Now faith, the word itself is Greek, P-I-S-T-I-S, pistis, and it simply means trustworthy, reliable, and dependable. God is certainly all of those things. What we want to look into is the things that we, how we need to worship him.
And so that's the first word is faith, but the second one is substance. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It's not something floating in the clouds, not a fog out there. Faith is something real.
It touches on reality. So we're not talking about mythology here. We're talking about what actually is real. And substance is the foundation of invisible reality. Now the primary sense of the word for substance is hypostasis, and it means something which stands underneath, a foundation, a ground of hope or confidence.
So it's the real nature of everything that supports from out form and properties. I'm mumbling here. Substance. It comes from a word that means under or below. And so what faith is is a foundation for everything.
That's clear enough, isn't it? There's a foundation here. What's the first thing that a builder builds when he builds a house? He's got any sense at all, he builds a foundation. And faith is the foundation of something else, things hoped for.
That's the next word, hope. Has anybody ever asked you if something that was important was going to happen in your life and you said, I hope so? You don't know when we use the word that way. But what it means in the Greek is something that is sure.
Our hope that Jesus is coming back, that's for sure. We may wonder when it's going to happen and wish he'd hurry up about it. But we don't doubt it. I'm saved. I know that I am. Something happened to me when I was seven years old that I tried to get away from and couldn't.
It's real. We're talking about reality here. We're not talking about mythology. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. It can be translated that which stands under. And it's the necessary foundation on which the invisible things we believe in and hope for rest until we can actually see them.
A .T. Robertson put it this way. Hupostasis is a very common word from Aristotle on down and means what stands under anything, a building, a contract, a promise. And this is the essential meaning in Hebrews 11 .1.
He says we venture to suggest this translation. Faith is the title deed of things hoped for. That's like you make a deal with somebody that's absolutely dependable, absolutely honest. You don't even want a piece of paper.
You know this person is going to do what he says he will do. That's what this hope is that we have. We don't doubt that Jesus is coming back. We don't doubt that God loves us. We don't doubt that he answers our prayers.
We don't doubt that he cares what happens to us. He's real. And that's the whole thing. As other religions, they got a hope so thing. You know the Mohammedans are still hoping that Mohammed really did take that midnight ride.
We're not worried about that. We know Jesus was here. And I'll get to that in just a minute. So hope is the next word I've just been talking about. And my favorite definition of that is it's security with a guarantee.
Think about that. And here's the thing. In the Greek, in the New Testament, this is always either or both. Hope is directed towards something or resting on something. Now do you see what's happening here?
You've got the foundation first. And then hope comes along and parks on that foundation. And you say, man, I'm good. I got nothing to worry about as far as eternity is concerned. I know where I'm going.
It's like the song on an old album we've got at home. I've read the back of the book and we win. No question about it. I feel so sorry for these people who think you can lose your salvation. I want to ask them, well, what does it take to do it?
I mean, how serious does the sin have to be? How bad do you have to be to lose your salvation? Well, I don't know. Well, if you do lose it, what do you have to do to get it back? Well, I don't know. I'm so thankful I grew up in a church that taught the doctrines of grace and that once saved, always saved.
If you're truly saved, you can't lose it. You may get a good whipping for fouling up, but you're not going to lose it. You may be one of God's most chastised children. That would be a wonderful thing to be, wouldn't it?
In Isaiah, it says, Isaiah says, there shall be the root of Jesse and he that arises to rule over the Gentiles. And these two words, on him. We're talking about Jesus here. On him, the Gentiles hope. That's from the Old Testament.
Folks, we're in pretty good shape, you know what? I mean, we can rest easy at night. I'm not going to wake up in hell if I die. I know where I'm going. I know who I'm going to see because of this hope, which is a guarantee that I'm going to get there.
All right?
Well, let's see. Our security with a guarantee, resting on our hupostasis.
All right, let me go on down.
Jesus promised us a dwelling place in John 14, 1 -5. We come to the next word, evidence. Evidence of things unseen.
Now, how can something that's invisible be seen? Well, that's what faith does. Faith sees this. It's a common word. A .T. Robertson calls it the proving of things not seen. It's an old and common word for proof or conviction, according to A .T. Robinson.
Evidence is that which persuades a jury and brings conviction of a crime when the crime itself is invisible because it's already happened and it cannot be either seen in its original occurrence or reproduced in the courtroom.
But it's evidence. I've got the evidence. In my life and what's happened to me and how in the years I backslid, I could not get away from God. I just couldn't. I drove all over a certain part of the country selling bank advertising for a while.
And two or three times, and I wouldn't even go to church then. Two or three times, maybe I'd pull over and park. I just remember I parked on the side of the road one day for some reason. And I was thinking about what I was doing, what I was living, what I had forsaken.
And I almost turned around and went back. I didn't make it that time. It took God scaring me half to death that maybe I was going to go to prison before I would actually come back and surrender to Him.
But the evidence was there.
It bugged me.
I could not shake that thing that happened to me when I was seven years old. It was real, and it's like every once in a while God's saying to you, you can get rid of that in your mind. Hope. And notice that these two words, the last two we're talking about here, are not two distinct and independent conceptions.
In other words, hope and evidence.
Go together.
They're almost like a synonym. So, therefore, A .T. Robertson's last statement on this is, therefore, it's not our religion he's talking about, our faith. Therefore, not a rash, feebly grounded hypothesis, a dream of hope, the child of a wish.
That's not what we've got.
Alright?
Now, on the other hand, we're talking about things we haven't seen, haven't done yet, and so forth. A lot of what we believe, in our faith, is provable because it rests on things that have already happened.
Right?
Like, I've been talking a lot here about my salvation. And I couldn't get away from that. So, I know that I'm not stumbling around out here in the woods anymore. I don't have any doubt that I'm a child of God.
None at all.
I couldn't have it if I wanted to. I did try to.
Wouldn't go to church,.
Wouldn't go to Sunday school. It's like one kind of music, country music. Loved being a disc jockey for about eight years. But finally, God said, there's enough of that.
You see.
Things that already exist. So, we've got proof in our pockets already.
Amen?
Is there anybody here that doesn't have any event in your Christian life that you could anchor to if you had to? To just hold up your faith, just to hang on to the fact that I am saved. I don't see any hands going up.
That's God speaking to us. Assuring us that we are his and will always be his. So, here's what Vincent writes. There's word in there, things. Things that we haven't seen. And he said, here's the thing.
This is interesting. It's strictly as a, he's talking about things that are done, accomplished facts. And there's things hoped for. And he said, that embraces not only future realities, but all that does fall under the cognizant of the senses, whether past, present, or future.
In other words, all of those things, whether they've happened yet or not, God is doing that. And we're assured of it. So, therefore, we find that the original biblical authors, we find them writing about things that they actually witnessed.
Now, see, here's another thing. Been talking about looking forward to things that haven't happened yet. Okay, that's fine. Let's look at things that have happened yet. 1 John 1 and 1 to 4. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, which our hands have handled of the word of life.
For the life was manifested, and we've seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you that you also may have fellowship with us.
And truly our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. We are on a good foundation.
Maybe Dr. Luke, the great historian, traveled with Paul and wrote two wonderful accounts in the Bible. He gives us the best account of the supernatural nature and divine power of Jesus in the first 11 verses of Acts.
The former treaties have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up after he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs.
Don't you love that language? Being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and being assembled together with them, commended them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father which, saith he, you have heard of me.
For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. And when they were therefore come together, they asked of him, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
And Jesus said to them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own power, but you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
And when he had spoken these things, they said, Jesus, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven?
This same Jesus, which is taken from you into heaven, you've been seeing him, he's going to be gone, he will come back as you have seen him go into heaven.
So, faith then is the foundation for believing in the building which is to come, and our assurance is that the materials are already there and it's already been built for us, we just don't see it yet.
Faith is also the evidence, the proof, and the conviction of and to our hearts that things we do not see are real. It's real. I have no doubt. And he's coming back. Father, we thank you for all the assurance that you've given us.
We thank you for your word. Thank you for all that it shows us. We thank you for the day when we will sit at Jesus' feet and learn things we've only wondered about and maybe never thought about here. Thank you for loving us.
Thank you for saving us. Thank you for keeping us saved. May we be faithful to you until we come to see you or you come and get us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Let us move.
