Faith (Hebrews 11:1-3 Jeff Kliewer)

Cornerstone Church

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May 17, 2021

Faith Hebrews 11:1-3 Jeff Kliewer

01:59: That was one of those that just came to your mind, by the way. Good morning!
02:12: We're going to sing together.
14:50: Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the
14:58: Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. Blessed be all it should be.
15:17: Blessed be your name. Blessed be your name.
15:25: A blessing you pour out of me.
15:45: When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will stay.
15:52: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name.
15:59: Blessed be the name of the glorious name.
16:10: You give and take away. You give and take away.
16:18: My heart will choose to stay. Blessed be your name.
16:25: You give and take away. You give and take away.
16:33: My heart will choose to stay. Blessed be your name.
16:41: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name.
16:49: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name.
16:58: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name.
17:05: Blessed be the name of the Lord. Requires a lot of faith to believe the powerful name of Jesus makes makes salvation possible makes healing
17:41: Hebrews 11 6 it says without faith is impossible to please God Because anyone who comes to him
17:49: Must believe that he exists And that he rewards those who earnestly seek him
18:02: There is a truth Older than the ages
18:08: There is a promise things There is one born for our salvation
18:23: Jesus There is a kingdom
18:40: Things there is freedom from the chains that find us
18:49: Jesus Jesus who walks on Jesus The name
19:29: I call in times of trouble There is a song
19:37: Conference in the night There's a voice comes a storm that rages
19:47: It's Jesus Jesus Jesus Who walks?
19:57: Who speaks to the sea who stands in the fire beside He roars like a lion he
20:12: He carries my healing in his head
20:20: Jesus Messiah My Savior There is power in your name
20:38: You're my rock My Redeemer There is power in your name in your name
20:54: You walk on you speak to the sea you stand in the fire beside me
21:11: You are like a lion You speak to the sea
21:30: You stand in the fire Jesus Lord we want to follow you
22:18: It's not us To your name
23:24: I Strange and divine I can see
23:31: He is mine, yet not I. His dark boy side, the
23:57: Savior, he will stay. I shout,
24:32: Omar Khayyam! Oh fate,
24:51: I dread. I know I am sure.
24:58: The price has been paid. For my heart was raised to overgrow the grave.
25:14: He pleaded.
25:30: The chains are released. I can sing. I am free, yet not
25:37: I. The Son has said that he will raise
26:22: Jesus. Shall we plead?
26:51: The words of that hymn are amazing, aren't they?
27:22: Who knows who Isaac Watts is? Hymn writer? I saw a meme come across Facebook that showed
27:28: Isaac Watts and the songs that he wrote. And a modern day writer, he had some kind of contraption that had about seven pens all strung together.
27:39: And he was just writing the same phrase over and over again, just by writing it once.
27:45: And that's how so many of the praise courses are today. It's just the same phrase repeated a thousand times, which can be good because it helps you focus on it.
27:52: But I was glad to see a song that's kind of a little bit more Isaac Watts style, where the meaning of the words help you worship.
28:00: And that's a powerful song. Not I, but Christ in me. All right, let's go to the
28:07: Lord in prayer. So Father, thank you so much for the chance to come into this place and worship you.
28:16: And this is our confession to you. It is not I, but Christ in me.
28:22: We bring nothing to you but open hands. We have no offering.
28:29: We have nothing to make us redeemable. There's no good that dwells in us.
28:36: There are none who are good, no, not one. But we are here to exalt your grace, your goodness towards us, your salvation.
28:47: So we say thank you for what you are doing in us. We are just jars of clay.
28:52: The all -surpassing power comes from you and not from us. And so, Lord, I yield myself to you now and ask that you would work through this jar of clay.
29:03: No power in myself to do anything helpful here this morning. But I ask that you would take over and speak through me like a vessel that you use.
29:15: And I pray for all of us that we would be changed by grace this morning. That you would give us ears to hear, give us eyes to see, give us hearts that are open to your word.
29:26: By grace we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. What do Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon, William Carey, John MacArthur, and Votibachum all have in common?
29:47: That's kind of hard to piece together and make a one -sentence answer. Well, some could say they're all heroes of the faith.
29:55: And today we're going to study Hebrews chapter 11, the Hall of Faith. But another thing about those particular men, all of them kind of shifted the center of gravity of Christianity to a new place.
30:09: So some of you aren't familiar with all of those names, but they're some of the more famous heroes of the
30:15: Christian faith. Augustine of Hippo. In northern Africa, he wrote a million words of Christian theology, which directed the church, probably more than anybody since the
30:26: Apostle Paul. Augustine of Hippo. And then, of course, you heard of Martin Luther.
30:32: He nailed the 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, and he stood up against the lies that were being taught.
30:39: And then he translated the Bible from that Wartburg castle. And that then became the center of the
30:45: Reformation. Maybe you've heard of John Calvin, who wrote the Institutes of Christian Religion.
30:52: And as he was passing through Geneva in hopes to go and do more studying and writing, a man named
31:00: William Farrell, the original Will Ferrell, the good Will Ferrell, came to him and said, if you just go about your studies, curse is on you.
31:12: And it shook Calvin. And he said, what do you mean? You need to come lead and stand with the people and stand in faith and be noticed and lead this
31:22: Reformation. And so Calvin did, and Geneva became the seat of the Protestant Reformation. To the
31:28: New World, where Jonathan Edwards led the first great awakening from Massachusetts.
31:34: And then New Jersey, where he became the president of Princeton Theological Seminary, only to die very quickly thereafter.
31:44: William Carey, that missionary, the first, the father of modern missions, who left everything, left
31:51: England. And he was the first one to just go and bring the gospel to Serampore, India, where he translated the
32:00: Bible into so many languages and began the Christian movement there in India.
32:07: You guys have heard of Charles Spurgeon, right? The Metropolitan Tabernacle, where he preached and started a pastor's college and sent out hundreds of church planters across England and around the world.
32:18: John MacArthur. He's our modern -day hero of the faith, if you could be so bold to say so, in Sun Valley, California, preaching the gospel and started a seminary, now training pastors like James Coates in Canada and preachers all over the world who are teaching this theology.
32:39: And Vody Bokum, who you'll learn about in just a minute. All of these are considered heroes of the faith.
32:48: But they would answer this question differently. They would say, don't call me a hero.
32:54: They would say, according to 1 Corinthians 4 -7, what have
33:01: I that I did not receive? These men would be the first to give all the glory to God.
33:08: In fact, all of the ones that I just mentioned held the same theology.
33:14: What would later come to be called Calvinism. All of them believed that salvation is a gift from God and that even your faith, even believing in Christ, is a gift from God.
33:31: It is the outward call of the gospel that God sent to you. You didn't preach to yourself.
33:36: He sent a preacher to tell you the good news. And there was nothing in you so humble that would have responded to the gospel.
33:44: But God by his spirit drew you, John 6 -44. It was God who worked in your heart to give you the faith to believe.
33:54: All of these men held a very high view of God and a low view of man. And they recognized that faith is a gift from God.
34:05: I mentioned Vody Bokum. When he began preaching in the early 2000s, he was a rising star in the
34:12: Southern Baptist Convention. But there was one thing that Southern Baptists could not abide.
34:20: And that was Calvinism. When Vody used that dirty word, he lost his platform.
34:29: And he had to endure some ridicule. Many people hated his teaching because he called himself a fire -breathing, five -point
34:39: Calvinist. Wow. And he lost much because of that. But he continued to preach as he saw it in the word of God.
34:49: From Romans 9 and Ephesians 1 and John 6. This is what he found. That faith is a gift.
34:55: It's not something we drum up from our inner resources. It's something that God grants.
35:00: So, fast forward to 2006. The story gets very interesting, young people.
35:07: A man named Paul Washer came to Vody. And Paul Washer said,
35:13: Vody, you have got to check out what God is doing in Zambia. Dr.
35:19: Bokum said, well, what's God doing in Zambia? Well, the Reformed Baptists have created a seminary called
35:26: African Christian University. Led by Conrad Mbiwi. And God is raising up an army of God -centered theologians there.
35:37: You see, Africa has been reached largely by man -centered theology. For mostly
35:42: Pentecostal wings of the evangelical movement. And the problem is, even though many have come to genuine saving faith, there's also a great deal of syncretism in Africa.
35:54: So, belief in ancestor worship and things of this nature have been overlaid with the
36:00: Christian message. And there's not much depth to the theological thinking of the African church. But African Christian University is different.
36:08: And Paul Washer told Vody, you've got to go see what God is doing in Zambia. I mentioned how
36:15: Luther led from Wittenberg. And Augustine from Hippo. And Calvin from Geneva.
36:21: And Edwards from our neck of the woods. God seems to move like a wind through the earth for different times of revival.
36:30: And if there's a seat of the Protestant Reformation today, I don't think it resides in New Jersey.
36:36: Or California. I think our greatest hopes are probably sub -Saharan
36:41: Africa. Places like Lusaka in Zambia. Well, Paul Washer said you should go.
36:49: So, Vody Bakam took his oldest son and flew to Africa for a two -week mission trip.
36:57: When he was there, he saw the power of God and what was happening. The love for God's word.
37:04: The deep study of his word. And he came back from that two -week mission trip and he told
37:10: Bridget about it. Well, she actually asked first. And she said, honey, how did it go?
37:16: What did you think? And he answered this way, I want to be buried there.
37:23: Now, wives, if your husband says that to you, you're trembling in your boots, aren't you?
37:31: Because what that means is we're moving to Africa. And so Vody Bakam in faith packed up his family.
37:40: Mind you, nine children they have. Two of them were grown, so he has grandkids from them.
37:46: But he took the seven youngest kids and left the comforts of Houston, Texas.
37:53: And the church that he planted, which has become a church planting church. And he took his family with seven younger kids and moved to Zambia.
38:04: Did you guys ever consider doing that? Maybe this morning you woke up, maybe I should move to Zambia.
38:10: But this is the walk of faith. And as a quote unquote hero of the faith, this is a man who lives by the gospel that he preaches.
38:20: And so he is a good example to us. But he would say, not my strength.
38:28: Recently, God has elevated Vody's work. And he wrote a book called
38:33: Fault Lines, which is challenging the social justice, critical race theory, intersectionality, wokeism, nonsense of our culture.
38:41: He's come out against that in force. But lest it be perceived that Vody Bauckham is the hero of the faith.
38:52: Because of his lion heart, his willingness to stand up to the lies of the enemy.
38:58: Lest anyone think that the power resides in Vody. You know what happened to him in January? His physical heart failed.
39:08: He went into heart failure. And he could have died. But by the grace of God, he made it back to the
39:14: Mayo Clinic. And now he's recovering. So when you would think that he's most needed to go on a book tour.
39:23: To talk about fault lines. He's recovering in a hospital bed.
39:31: In order to show that the all surpassing power does not come from these jars of clay.
39:37: But comes from God. This book has gotten high on the Amazon.
39:42: Maybe number 16 in all of America. Not just religious books. But in the different best seller lists.
39:51: In which these things are scored. Of course, New York Times won't even list it at all. Strange how that happens.
39:58: I always like to make fun of the New York Times. Listen guys. Faith occupies a unique space in the
40:07: Christian life. This is the big idea today. I want for us to talk and think about what faith is.
40:17: Many of you say, well I know what faith is. It's just believing stuff you can't see.
40:24: That's not a precise enough definition. We need to look a little deeper. You might think, well faith is what
40:30: I do. But is it? We need to study the idea of faith from God's word.
40:38: Because it is so important. It is the uniquely important attribute of the
40:44: Christian. Are you justified by love? No.
40:51: Are you justified by hope? Are you justified by your good works?
40:57: Being a good enough person? No. We are justified by faith alone.
41:03: Why is it by faith alone? That's an important question. The just shall live by faith, says
41:12: Habakkuk. Why faith? Let's see that answer given to us in Hebrews 11, 1 -3.
41:21: Now before I read it, remember where we are in the text. This is the application part of the book of Hebrews.
41:28: All of this doctrine about the greatness of Christ, our high priest. How it is he even is a priest, even though he doesn't come from the tribe of Levi.
41:37: He's from Judah. Hebrews 7. He is our great high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
41:43: He is the sacrifice. Even though he's a human, he's not an animal. He's not a lamb.
41:49: He's not a goat. No, but it's his blood that God has given on the altar to make atonement for sin.
41:56: This is the doctrine of Hebrews. He's the sacrifice. He's the priest. And so we are to live in faith, hope, and love.
42:05: But faith becomes the preeminent teaching of Hebrews. And the warning is given in chapter 10, verses 19 -25.
42:13: That if you turn away from faith, if you apostatize, you will suffer eternal fire.
42:24: But if you hold on to faith, if you continue in the faith, you abide and endure in the faith, you will be rewarded.
42:33: Hebrews 10. 35 -39. Therefore do not throw away your confidence.
42:40: This word confidence is a synonym for faith, which has what?
42:47: A great reward. There will be a reward for faith. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.
42:59: For yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay. In verse 39, we are not of those who shrink back.
43:06: That means turning away from the faith, apostatizing, and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
43:14: So the idea is, you need to hold on to faith. Faith is key.
43:20: Your confidence in Christ is more important than life. Young people, there are things that matter to you, aren't there?
43:29: You're young, you have your whole life in front of you. There is nothing anywhere near as important as your faith in Christ.
43:36: If you lose your faith in Christ, you lost your life, your eternal life, your soul.
43:42: But we are not of those who shrink back, but of those who have faith and endure in the faith and preserve our souls.
43:50: So let's read it. Hebrews 11, 1 -3. We need to understand what faith is.
43:57: Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
44:04: The conviction of things not seen. For by it, the people of old receive their commendation.
44:12: By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God. So that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
44:28: In a word, faith is assurance. Verse 1.
44:36: Synonymously, because what we have in the first verse is a parallelism. Look at that sentence. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
44:46: The conviction of things not seen. The second phrase is reiterating the first and it runs parallel to say the same thing.
44:56: The first part says faith is what? Assurance. The second part says it's conviction.
45:03: So faith fundamentally is to be sure of something. I might have a number of opinions.
45:13: It was my opinion for a long time that LeBron James was the best basketball player.
45:22: I have changed my mind. I'm back to MJ. It's just an opinion. Some of you here have opinions about who the best sports team is.
45:33: Any Eagles fans? But aren't there some Giants fans? Any Giants fans in here? Okay, some willing to admit it.
45:40: Be careful on your way out. We have opinions. These are things that we think.
45:49: Faith is not an opinion. By definition, faith is a conviction. A conviction is something that you would die for.
45:59: You are convicted beyond just a hope. In fact, faith is held up over against mere hope in verse one.
46:06: Look at that. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Now, hope looks to the future and that's good.
46:18: There are things that you can hope are the case. But faith is to be sure of those things.
46:25: I began this sermon with the assertion from 1 Corinthians 4 -7 that we have nothing except what we received from God.
46:37: And I make the point that faith itself is the gift of God. This verse proves it.
46:46: Look at this. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen.
46:58: That's supernatural. That I can stand here as sure as I am that if I threw my
47:06: Bible in the air, it would come down. I'm sure of gravity in the same way
47:13: I am sure that Jesus is the Son of God. My hope is that he's coming back again.
47:21: We see this in chapter 10, verse 37. The coming one will come.
47:27: That's my hope. My hope is the forgiveness of sins,
47:32: Acts 10, verse 38 in your notes. By the way, if you don't have the notes, we have an app,
47:39: Church Center app. You can find my notes there. And it's also in the weekly email that I send out. If you don't have that, get that because at this point in time, we just haven't been printing them.
47:47: Acts 10 -43. My hope, according to John 10, verse 27, is that I'll have eternal life.
47:58: But I do not just merely hope that my sins are forgiven, that I'll be given this eternal entrance into the kingdom of God, that Jesus is coming back again.
48:09: It's not just a hope. It's something that I am sure of, as sure as I am, that gravity would pull my
48:16: Bible back down to this pulpit if I threw it in the air. How can that be? That's supernatural.
48:25: How can I know something that I've never seen? You see, the way that God has made humanity is that we know things by experience.
48:35: So John Locke taught his doctrines of empiricism, and he's right about this, that the way people come to knowledge is that we experience things.
48:45: And our brains form a web of reality. We have 86 billion neurons in our brain.
48:53: Think about that. Every neuron is attached to 50 to 100 other neurons.
48:59: And as we see things with our eyes, a map is formed in our minds.
49:07: So we know what things are. When we see a dog, we've seen dogs before, and we can recognize a dog.
49:13: And that's a chair, and this is a microphone. It comes by perception, things that we see and hear and taste and smell and feel.
49:22: And our minds form a web of understanding based on experiences. This is empiricism.
49:29: It's how we learn, how we know. There's a reality that we have access to because we're made in the image of God and able to perceive things.
49:38: But we are speaking of things that are beyond the senses.
49:43: How do you love Jesus? 1
49:51: Peter 1 verse 8 says, in the notes again,
49:58: Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
50:20: That's faith. That not seeing him, you see him. I have never seen
50:27: Jesus and be very wary of these so -called prophets who claim to have been visited by Jesus.
50:34: The point of 1 Peter 1 verse 8 is you have not seen him, but faith is a gift from God.
50:41: It is the eyes of the heart that God opens, what the Bible describes as new eyes.
50:46: In the new covenant, I will give you new eyes, new ears, a new heart. It is a supernatural work.
50:53: And so I say Hebrews 11 one is proof positive that faith itself is a gift.
51:02: It doesn't come from you because faith by nature is assurance.
51:08: You cannot be assured of things you've never seen unless God grant that to your heart.
51:15: It has to be a supernatural work. Otherwise, you're still just hoping things are true.
51:21: The people of this earth hope certain things are true. They hope their religion is true.
51:32: They hope their candidate wins. They hope their sports team wins.
51:38: They live by many opinions and hopes, but by definition, faith is not that. It is assurance.
51:45: It is conviction. It is the reason why
51:51: Voddie Bockham would leave this country and go to a place that has so much less in the things of this earth.
52:03: It's the reason why the Christian martyrs would choose to burn rather than to deny their faith.
52:13: I think of that young girl in Colorado when the shooter came in back in the 90s and asked who was a
52:22: Christian, and she was willing to identify with Christ and be killed rather than deny him. Why?
52:30: Because she was sure of the promise of eternal life. It's a conviction.
52:36: It's something deeper than mere hoping. If you doubt me that faith is in fact a gift,
52:44: I've given you some scriptures, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, Philippians 1, 29, 1
52:50: Timothy 1, 13 and 14, 1 Corinthians 4, 7, all refer to faith as the gift of God.
52:56: Even repentance is granted according to the scriptures. So where does that leave us?
53:05: Desperately in need of grace. We can't even open our own eyes to see the truth of Christ.
53:14: We need the work of grace in us to awaken faith, to give us the new birth, to regenerate us unto belief.
53:24: Because we cannot do that for ourselves. Many people think that maybe when they're older, they'll make the decision to follow
53:33: Christ. You know, I want to live life a little bit.
53:39: One day I'll follow Christ. As if the decision is yours.
53:48: Faith is like turning on a light bulb in your mind. But you have no access to the light.
53:56: You need the light of the world shed abroad in your heart. Christ is the light of the world. He must come and enlighten you.
54:04: It's not as it's often taught in evangelicalism. A mere decision of your will.
54:11: Now, hear me. When you come, your will is cooperative with that because he makes you new.
54:19: But having come, you are set free. And now you can walk by faith.
54:27: Having been gifted faith, you now enter into a brand new reality called the new birth.
54:33: This is important. Because many people are very complacent and lazy in their
54:39: Christian life. Thinking, you know, if God wants to do something with me, he will. And so they never step out in faith to obey the commands of scripture.
54:51: Before Christ came and gave you a new nature, you were unable to please God. Romans 8, 7 and 8 says the mindset on the flesh is hostile to God.
55:04: And it cannot please God. In fact, it uses that word, indeed, it cannot please
55:09: God. What that means in Romans 8, 7 and 8 is that prior to saving faith, you're a slave.
55:21: Your own mind and will is so captured by sin that you can't recognize the glory of God.
55:29: You can't see him in nature. You can't appreciate him in his word. Your mind and your heart are bound and chained in sin.
55:38: Theologians call this the noetic effects of sin. You can't even reason.
55:44: Your mind can't reason its way to God. All the evidences are there.
55:50: All the prophecies of the Old Testament were written ahead of time and Christ fulfilled them all. It would be rational to accept that because we're fallen in sin.
56:00: We don't accept those things. We're slaves to sin. That's what Jesus said. Whoever sins is a slave to sin.
56:07: But now, hear me out. This is where it gets challenging. Having come by faith to Christ, which is the gift of God, he now is pleased when you walk by faith.
56:24: The just shall live by faith. Look at verse 2. We're at Hebrews 11, in case you've been flipping to other scriptures.
56:34: Hebrews 11, verse 2. For by it the people of old received their commendation.
56:47: This is why God commended them. He was pleased with their faith.
56:53: Now, as we read the hall of faith, the hall of fame of the Christian faith, which is Hebrews chapter 11, you're going to see again and again that the genuine faith of the true believer will never fail.
57:06: It will endure. That's the point of the chapter. Through all of these hardships, no matter what is thrown at them, they do not shrink back.
57:16: They hold to the faith. And this pleases God. It says in verse 2, by it, it there refers to faith.
57:27: The people of old received their commendation. What you will not see in the following 40 verses, in the 40 verses of chapter 11, are any of the sins committed by these people.
57:41: Isn't that remarkable? Because if it's by faith, Noah, and you go back and read the story, after Noah came out of the boat, he got drunk.
57:52: And in that drunkenness, cursed one of his own sons. Abraham, by faith, went to the promised land.
58:01: And Abraham, offering Isaac, by faith, he also, Amalek, I think his name was.
58:08: That sounds wrong. What was his name? The king, where he pretended that his wife was only his sister.
58:18: What was that king's name? Come on, where's Rich? Is Rich here? No, he was first service. Abimelech, that sounds right.
58:26: See, Michael knew. That's why you're on staff, brother. You got it, you got it. He knows the word.
58:33: Abimelech, I drew a blank. Abraham goes to this king, Abimelech, and pretends that his wife is only his sister.
58:42: Because he's afraid that they'll kill him to take his wife. So he just throws her out in the lurch.
58:52: All of these men are flawed. Deeply flawed, like me.
58:58: Sinners. And yet, in the hall of faith, you see no mention of their sin.
59:04: Only their faith. Because this is what God commends. We know the sins of David.
59:12: But he was a man after God's own heart. He had faith in God. And God counted that faith as righteousness.
59:20: He covered all of their sin. And now, here's what pleased him about the way they lived their life.
59:26: Abraham left everything to go to the promised land. Left Ur of the Chaldees. Noah built an ark while being ridiculed for all of those years.
59:39: Moses, choosing to identify with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of Egypt. Willing to suffer.
59:46: Willing to step out in faith. And God commended them for it. David Livingston, that missionary from England, was the first to go and pioneer
59:58: Africa. So today, Zambia has become the center of the
01:00:04: Protestant Reformation. It was David Livingston that crossed from east to west.
01:00:11: Winning one convert along the way. A guy named Seychelles. Sounds like seashell.
01:00:17: But Seychelles, then, who was a young, immature believer, was left behind.
01:00:23: And he then went planting churches after Livingston's body was brought back to England. Livingston went in faith.
01:00:32: Laying down his life. Walking by faith. And we could mention again and again the people who have walked by faith.
01:00:42: But lastly, verse 3. Faith is not a blind leap into the unknown.
01:00:57: Faith is taking God at His word. Taking God at His word.
01:01:07: Genuine faith is placed in the proper object. You see, our culture loves to talk about faith.
01:01:13: You have faith, and you have faith. Everybody has their own faith. And that's good.
01:01:20: But that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about what faith is, right? Faith is an assurance of things hoped for.
01:01:28: I don't just hope that Jesus is the Son of God who died on a cross and rose from the dead. I know
01:01:34: He is. And that is what offends the world. You can say you have faith all day long.
01:01:40: Nobody will care. But you define faith the way the Bible does, and you say you're sure of it.
01:01:46: And you have certainty. Convicted in your heart. Well, by nature, that excludes anything that contradicts it.
01:01:55: And this is what the world cannot stand. But genuine faith is built on a solid referent.
01:02:03: In Hebrews 11 .1, that word assurance is hupostasis.
01:02:10: Hupo meaning under, and stasis meaning stand. It's what stands under something. A foundation, what makes it strong.
01:02:19: Any homeowners here? Everybody in your block knows that you own your house. They don't question it.
01:02:27: But if somebody challenged your ownership, you would go and find the deed that's recorded in the city archives.
01:02:36: That word hupostasis, sorry, means a deed that's recorded.
01:02:44: It's the assurance of the things that you're claiming. It's something solid that stands under it.
01:02:51: Faith is not just a wishy -washy feeling of invisible things. If you genuinely have faith, it is an assurance with substance.
01:03:01: That's why the NASB translates 11 .1 as faith is the substance of things hoped for.
01:03:07: The certainty of things not seen. It's the substance underneath you. And that substance, lastly here, needs to be placed in the right object.
01:03:17: So it says in verse 3, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
01:03:31: This is dealing with invisible realities. Empiricism won't get you there.
01:03:37: It's invisible. But it's based on what God has spoken.
01:03:43: He spoke the world into existence. That's looking back. He gives promises, forgiveness of sin, eternal life, that he's coming again.
01:03:55: And these invisible words from God are the object of our faith.
01:04:02: So in closing, what are we to make of this? There's really two categories of people who need to apply this.
01:04:09: One is the unconverted. Maybe you've sat and you've heard about Jesus Christ and you've thought, well, maybe one day
01:04:19: I'll decide. You wish you could, but you can't.
01:04:27: Your status before God is even more desperate than you know. You can't come if you want to because you can't want to.
01:04:40: You're corrupt by nature. The guilt of your sin is upon you. But good news, you call to him and say,
01:04:48: God, help my unbelief. Open my eyes. Save me. You come empty -handed and he'll rescue you.
01:04:56: See, the reason why faith is different than all the other attributes, what's so unique about faith is that it's empty -handed.
01:05:05: You bring nothing. You're desperate. God, I have nothing to offer you. I can't even believe.
01:05:12: I can't do anything. And that empty hand of faith is pleasing to God.
01:05:19: That is why it depends on faith in order that it might rest on grace, Romans 4, 16. His grace takes hold of that empty hand and rescues you.
01:05:30: As long as you're trying to hold on to something, like, yeah, you're gonna be good enough, you will not make it. John MacArthur puts it this way.
01:05:37: When you meet Christ, you either drop all the stuff that you've been counting on to infer your salvation and you trust
01:05:47: Christ alone, or you hold to all the stuff you've been holding on to for your salvation and you trust
01:05:55: Christ. You're either trusting yourself and your achievements or Christ.
01:06:02: When you come to trust Christ, all your achievements become rubbish. In other words, what this is saying, what
01:06:10: MacArthur's saying is, open up your hands and just let go. All your other hopes, your thought that maybe you'd be a good enough person, that maybe you could do it, let go of all of it.
01:06:21: You need to come empty -handed. That's why Jesus commended the tax collector who went to the front row and he beat his chest and said,
01:06:30: Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. That's empty -handedness. There's nothing for me to bring.
01:06:36: Have mercy on me, the sinner. And he's pleased to save you.
01:06:42: He brings you to that point of repentance even. So if that's you today, stop holding on to any other hope.
01:06:51: There is one object of faith that can save. His name is Jesus. He alone can save you.
01:06:57: There is no other. It doesn't matter if someone says they have faith in anything else.
01:07:05: Genuine faith must be placed in the object of God's affection. God is pleased with his son.
01:07:12: And when you place your faith in the son, he sees you united with him. And so he's pleased with you.
01:07:19: Faith unites you with God through the son. That's the only way. And for those of us who have come to saving faith, first I want to say this.
01:07:29: Recognize everything you have came from God. Even your faith. Even your faith.
01:07:40: Thank him. Take no credit for it. It was God that sent me, Walt and Jan Kleewer, to raise me in a
01:07:46: Christian home. To teach me the Bible verses. And I believed. That was nothing that I did.
01:07:53: That was God's work in me. And when somebody came to you with the gospel and you believed that was
01:07:59: God working in you. He opened your heart to believe it. John 6, 44.
01:08:05: Give him all glory for salvation. Faith itself is a gift. I know that's a hard teaching the more you contemplate it.
01:08:13: But it gives all glory to God, not to man. And if that's the case then let's live by it.
01:08:20: This summer I am dubbing the summer of faith.
01:08:27: Sound dramatic? I want us to be able to walk through walls by the end of the summer.
01:08:33: We're going to take time on each of these people.
01:08:39: And each one is an example of someone who already believing walked by faith. They're set free by Christ in order to live by faith.
01:08:50: And that's why they go places and do things. Taking steps of obedience.
01:08:58: You must read the word. The more you read the promises you begin to stand on them. The more you hear.
01:09:05: Faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of Christ. Then you have to learn to obey. And with each step of obedience your faith grows.
01:09:12: If you stay in the boat you never learn how to walk on water. But when you step out in faith you become bold.
01:09:21: I went for a run a couple days ago in the Laurel Acres Park and my son was with me.
01:09:27: He had his little motorbike, motorized bike, just cruising around doing that boy thing.
01:09:33: But then the spirit said to him go talk to that old lady sitting by herself at the park bench.
01:09:42: Well I'm just running my laps. And he's feeling that impression. Here is the moment where faith is tested.
01:09:51: Will you go to your classmate? Will you go to your next door neighbor? When you're prompted to do it, the spirit doesn't always prompt you to do it, but when you're prompted to do it faith means walking.
01:10:03: And so he parked that bike and he walked up and as I finished my last lap, there he is sharing the gospel with the lady at the park bench.
01:10:13: That's walking by faith. By the end of this summer I want myself, I want all of us willing to walk on water.
01:10:21: Not because we think we can, but by faith. So we'll take our time through Hebrews 11.
01:10:29: Because we've got to learn to walk by faith. It's the uniquely pleasing thing to the
01:10:36: Father. Now other things build on that. That's why the greatest of these is love. The person who has faith then begins to go beyond salvation to care about other people.
01:10:48: To do things for other people. So we'll learn about that. But let's close in prayer. Father, thank you so much for your word today.
01:10:58: As I read Hebrews 11 1 -3 I feel like there is so much more that could be said. And yet I know
01:11:04: I've said a mouthful already. Lord, I just ask that you would give faith to those who have not yet believed in the
01:11:14: Son of God. Open their eyes that they may see. Give them ears to hear.
01:11:21: Give them a heart to believe. Stir them to confession and repentance.
01:11:30: Give them the new birth. I pray that they would call out to you in desperation with open hands, nothing to offer.
01:11:38: Here I am, save me. The sinner. God, do this work.
01:11:45: We thank you for all the people who are being saved. The baptism service that's coming. Lord, we ask that this summer as we study through Hebrews 11 you would quicken our faith.
01:11:59: Strengthen our faith. Help us to walk by faith and not by sight.
01:12:05: In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing. His faithfulness in their hearts.
01:13:02: A city built by God's own hands. Where peace and justice reign.
01:13:11: We will stand. We will stand as children of the promise.
01:13:19: We will fix our eyes on Him, our souls. We will till the race is finished and the work is done.
01:13:32: We will walk by faith and not by the chains of sin and death.
01:14:02: Triumphant through the church was called to go.
01:14:14: The Spirit to the Lord. To deliver captives and to preach good news.
01:14:25: In every corner we will stand. We will stand as children of the promise.
01:14:36: We will fix our eyes on Him, our souls.
01:14:42: We will till the race is finished and the work is done.
01:14:50: We will walk by faith and not by the power of the gospel shall prevail.
01:15:10: For we know in Christ all things are possible for all who call upon His name.
01:15:23: We will stand as children of the promise.
01:15:29: We will fix our eyes on Him, our souls. We will till the race is finished and the work is done.
01:15:42: We will walk by faith and not by the... Before I read the benediction, you know a real practical way you can apply this is to bring a friend on May 30th who is struggling with this whole social justice, critical race theory woke thing.
01:16:07: We're doing a book conversation on Bodhi Bacchum's book. So you can give them that copy of the book or just bring them for the conversation because this can open eyes.
01:16:18: It could be a way to bring a friend to a clearer understanding of the gospel. So May 30th at 7pm we'll be doing that.
01:16:26: Benediction. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our
01:16:32: Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do
01:16:42: His will. Working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever.