"By Faith"

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Preacher: Dan Horn Scripture: Hebrews 11:1-3

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So, I know you've been talking about discipleship, and this morning
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I want to talk about what discipleship is to lead to, because it's not just some random thing that you make disciples.
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Discipleship actually has a goal. It actually has an intention. It's the direction you're supposed to go to, and I want to define that as two things.
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The direction that you're supposed to make disciples and that you're supposed to disciple yourself is towards a greater hope in eternal life, and to have a greater understanding that it is the invisible things that control the visible things.
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It is God that controls the world. It is not the world controlling God, and that is what it means to grow in faith.
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To grow in faith is to have a greater hope of eternal life.
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That's why people could go and be sawn in two, because their hope was not in this world, their hope was not in the things of this world, their hope was in the world to come.
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And that's what it means to have faith. That's what it means to have stronger faith, is when you can look through your trials, look through your difficulties, look through the suffering in this world, and say, these things are all worth it because I get to be with God, with God the
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Father, with God the Son, for all eternity. In the way that it works out in obedience is if you see that the invisible things are what cause the visible things, then it all becomes about obeying
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God, because if God is the one who framed the world, if He's the one who caused all things to happen the way they happen, then we have to say, are we pleasing to God, not are we pleasing to the world?
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Are we doing what God wants, not does the, what the world says you need to do? And so when we think about faith, we read that chapter of the example of person after person after person, and what faith looks like, but it all comes back to that same thing.
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It all comes back to that they were looking towards eternal life instead of this life.
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It comes back that they were looking to be pleasing to God and not to be pleasing to men. Not to be pleasing to the things of the world, but to be pleasing to God.
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There's lots of fake faith. There's lots of fake faith that is even, they say,
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I, my hope is in Christ, but God says your hope is supposed to be in the work of Christ, which is,
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He gives eternal life to those who are His. There are lots of people who believe in Christ that will be in hell.
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The people in Matthew 7 that are standing before Christ in His glory, and they say, but, but we cast out demons.
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We healed, we prophesied in Your name, we trusted in You. And God says, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness, because they didn't believe that the invisible things are what causes the visible things.
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And so God says, you didn't think that you had to please Me. You thought you could just do things that pleased the world, and that that will be salvation.
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You didn't have faith. Go to hell. Well, just saying you believe in Christ is not enough.
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Your hope actually has to be in eternal life. You actually have to live by your faith.
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Faith is what we base our decisions on. It can be foolish faith, faith in government, faith in the goodness of man, faith in false gods, faith in prayer, even belief in Jesus Christ.
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But not a belief that actually changes and transforms your life. That's what saving faith is.
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Everyone lives according to their faith, and faith has important consequences.
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Somebody believes that they're appointed to do something, that faith can change the world. Napoleon was sure he was supposed to rule
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Europe, and so he goes to all these wars and he takes over all these nations, that was by faith.
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Not salvation, saving faith. Elon Musk is sure that we'll go to Mars, so by faith he builds rockets.
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But that's not saving faith. Faith even without a sound basis can transform the world.
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So if that's true for faith that's in false things, faith that's in false hopes, what should real faith do?
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Faith in the real God, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who rules from heaven. That faith should transform the world.
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And so as we read through these men and women who God changed the world through, we should recognize that we can see people changing the world.
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Donald Trump has no faith in God and he just bombed Iran and will change the world because of that.
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And that was false faith, and we need to understand how much more should be expected of us who believe in what is true.
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So easy for us to think that our faith shouldn't affect things, but all faith affects things. If we really have faith in eternal life, it changes how we live.
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If people who have no understanding of the world can change the world, how much more should those who understand that the visible things are caused by the invisible things.
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So, this chapter follows. God explaining why the new covenant is a better covenant.
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We have a better high priest. The old high priest, they would go in once a year on the Day of Atonement, they'd have to flee before the smoke that they put over the mercy seat would dissipate, otherwise they'd see
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God and die. And we have a faith that has a high priest that can go in and sit in the presence of God the
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Father for all eternity. So, how much more should we do better? What more should we exceed what the people in Hebrews 11 did?
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We have a better high priest, we have a better sacrifice. The sacrifices that Abraham made, the sacrifices
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Jacob made, the sacrifices Moses made, all those sacrifices, they were just pouring out the blood of animals, and none of them could take away sin.
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But we have a sacrifice that actually takes away sin. The blood of Jesus Christ takes away sin from believers, not even believers, it will take away sin from the whole world.
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It will completely undo everything that the first Adam did. So how much more should be expected of us than was expected of somebody like Abraham?
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We have a better sacrifice. We have better promises. Better promises in the old covenant.
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God made it clear Jesus Christ came to rise from the dead so that we would have eternal life.
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We have better promises than they understood, better promises than were declared to them. Not that they were categorically different, but they have been more completely declared.
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So the writer of Hebrews explains in Hebrews 10, 29 through 31, how much worse punishment do you suppose?
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Will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the
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Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the
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Lord, and again the Lord will judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hand of the living
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God. It's one thing for Aaron to have false faith.
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It's another thing for us to have false faith. Aaron knew when he made the golden calf, he knew a lot less than anybody in this room knows.
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He had a lot less revelation. But if you turn Christ into an idol, how much angrier do you think
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God will be towards you than he was towards Aaron who made a golden calf?
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We need to understand that in the new covenant, they're with what
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Christ did to establish and to shed his blood to establish that new covenant, that it means that because we have better promises, we also have greater judgment.
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Because you're judged based on what God has revealed. So since it's a better covenant with better promises, we should expect that rejecting those promises will have greater consequences.
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And then the verses immediately preceding this, this chapter on what the old saints did through faith.
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The writer had warned in verses 35 through 39, excuse me, Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.
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For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promise.
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For yet a little while, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry, now the just shall live by faith.
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But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but to those who believe to the saving of the soul.
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The writer of Hebrews is making a clear distinction here. He's making a distinction between those who profess to have faith, those who claim to have faith, but those who do not live by their faith.
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They don't live what they're hoping in eternal life. They live what they're hoping on this earth. And God says, they go to perdition, they go to hell.
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If your hope is not in eternal life, you go to hell. That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
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If your hope is not in what Christ came to do, you will go to perdition.
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He's trying to make it clear when we look at those saints, we're not supposed to look at them and go, wow, look at what
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Abraham did. He left his father's house in Ur. He wandered in the wilderness, he lived in tents, wow, can you believe his faith?
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We're supposed to look and say, we need to have greater faith than that, because we have better promises, we have better revelation, we have more knowledge, we have more understanding than Abraham had.
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So the writer of Hebrews is making a clear distinction between those who are not his disciples, those who profess
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Christ, those who say, I believe, and they can say it with sincerity, I believe in Christ, but their hope isn't in eternal life.
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This is the parable of the sower, right? The seed that follows on the shallow ground, those people all believe.
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When persecution comes, when the world makes it hard, their hope is in the world, so they fall away.
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Or the ones that go among the weeds, the weeds grow up and they choke out that faith.
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Why do they choke out that faith? Because their faith is to make them a better life now. And God says, if that's your faith,
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I have no desire for you, I have no pleasure in you. You don't have saving faith.
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Saving faith is those whose hope is in eternal life. Those who have actually been justified through the gift of faith of God, it produces real and substantial changes in their life.
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The just shall live by faith. Your life will be manifested by the faith you have.
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And if that's not where your hope is, then God says, I take no pleasure in you.
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Because it's only by true saving faith that you can be pleasing to God.
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So the context of these verses that we're going to cover this morning are those who have faith, and those who have a faith that leads to eternal life and not to eternal damnation.
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This is the faith that all those who have been justified by Christ have. This is a description of what saving faith is.
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In these first three verses, and then the rest of it is just examples of how
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Old Testament saints, they had that faith, because the nature of faith hasn't changed.
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Just the revelation, the knowledge that we have about that faith has changed. So verse one, now faith is the substance of things hoped for.
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The evidence of things not seen. So now, that word now is the
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Greek word de, which is frequently translated but, so it's not a strong contrast that can be used as a conjunction, but it is drawing a contrast to what was immediately said before.
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Immediately was said before is, this is what it looks like that those who will go to hell. And then he says, but this is what it looks like for those who will have eternal life.
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It's creating a contrast between those who draw back and those who have true faith. Those whose faith has a focus not on the things of this world, but on a hope for eternal life.
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On the promise of God. And this is a promise he stated back in Hebrews 9, 15.
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And for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant. By means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
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This is those who believe that you receive the promise of eternal inheritance, and if you have true faith, that is where your hope is.
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In that eternal inheritance. Remember the testimony of Abraham in Genesis 15, 5 and 6, and he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them.
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And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And he believed in the
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Lord and he accounted to him for righteousness. Faith is trusting the promises of God.
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Not just believing that Jesus Christ came to earth and died. It's trusting the promises of God.
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And Christ came and died to give his children and to give the world eternal righteousness.
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So that once again, heaven and earth, we can all be joined together, unified in Christ it talks about in Ephesians 1, and through that we can have perfect righteousness.
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And that's what Christ died for, and that's what you have to believe. That's what you have to trust in, that's what your hope has to be in.
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By this point, Abraham had heard God's voice, he obeyed and left his family, and God says you're still not counted righteousness in my sight.
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It's not until he actually believes the promises, that's what causes him to be accounted righteous.
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That's the testimony, that's the testimony in the New Testament. When it's quoted, it's about believing the promises of God.
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The promise of eternal life is the reason for the new covenant. So those who are called receive the promise of eternal life, those who are justified before God trust that promise, and it causes them to live according to that promise.
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You know, so many preachers preach your best life now, come to church, we'll fix your marriage, come to church, we'll fix your children, come to church, you'll get off drugs, come to church, all of that is false faith.
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Because true faith is your hope is in Christ, that he came to fix the problem that Adam introduced that we got cast out of the presence of God in thy faith and by Jesus Christ's work we'll be brought back into the presence of God.
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That's what Christ came for, and that's what you have to believe, that's where your hope has to be, that's where your trust has to be, that's why people could go and be slain, because their hope wasn't in this world, their hope was in the promise of eternal life.
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And how much more with the greater revelation do we have? How much more does that have to be true for us?
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So now faith, faith is pistis, which means believing the state of being persuaded. It's important for us to understand when we say we're saved by faith, it's faith in a particular thing, it's not just faith in some general thing.
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There's lots of unbelieving children, your children if they come every week, they will believe
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Jesus Christ was the Son of God. They will believe that in the
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Trinity, they will believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. They'll believe all these things, but they don't have saving faith unless their hope is in eternal life, because that's what saving faith is.
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This is what so much confusion is in Baptist churches, is you have children that say all the right things, but they don't have a testimony of hope, they're not saved.
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You're saved by believing and trusting in the promises of God. You're trusting in what
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Christ came to do that He will do it, He will accomplish it. Hebrews 10, 19 through 23 says, therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which
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He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promises is faithful.
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We have to confess this is our hope and we have to live according to this is our hope, our hope is in eternal life.
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The faith has to be in the promise of God, the promise of eternal life through the sacrifice of Christ.
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And this is consistent with what Christ said, Matthew 10, verses 38 and 39, and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.
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He who finds his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. If you live according to the things of this earth, if you live with your hope in this earth,
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Christ is saying you're not saved. You have to lose your life, you have to die to the things of this world in order to be saved.
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Your hope has to change from your hoping in this world to your hoping in eternal life.
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That's salvation. And so, now faith is the substance.
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Faith is that belief in Christ is the substance, that word substance is hupostasis, which means it's what stands under, is what the
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Greek means. So faith is what is the foundation, it's what hope is built on.
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And so think about it, if you see a building that's a skyscraper, what does that tell you about your foundation?
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Foundation has to be really big to support a skyscraper. Your hope and the way you live according to that hope, that is what tells you the size of your faith.
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If all you do is worry about things of the world, you know if you have faith at all it's very small faith because faith or hope is a testimony of your faith, which is the foundation of that hope.
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If you live chasing after the things of the world, if you live with saying, well
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I can't do that, I know God commands that, but I just can't do that, the world won't let me, it's not possible, understand that means your faith either is nonexistent or is very little.
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Those who read the word of God and say, well this seems really stupid to me, but I'm going to go do it anyway because my hope is in what
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God said, that's a testimony of having faith. That's what having faith looks like, is that you live with your hope in eternal life, you live with that being your focus, that being what's necessary, that being the foundation or that being a testimony of the foundation.
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So it's the substance of things hoped for, our ability to hope for things and we get a clearer picture of the things hoped for as you go through this chapter.
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You know, verse 6, the hope was that it would come to God, the hope is that what happened in Adam in the garden, that that would be reconciled, that would be fixed, that we can now approach
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God again, that's what our hope has to be in. That's what the Old Testament saints' hope was in.
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Their hope was in verse 10, a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
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That's what your hope has to be in. If your hope is in building this world, if your hope is in, you know,
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I'm not saying it's a bad thing to have political influence, but if that's where your hope is, forget it, it's not worth anything.
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If you say you're supposed to take all things captive for Christ, that's good. If you're saying, well, we'll fix
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Massachusetts by taking over Barry, that's horrible, because that's not faith, that's worldliness.
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The two can look very similar, but you have to understand, faith is not looking towards this world, it's looking towards God as your hope.
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Verse 16, a better country, a heavenly country, that's what their hope was in, that's why they had salvation.
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Moses when he says, your people, excuse me, Abraham, when God tells him your people will come back here in 430 years,
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Abraham's not thinking, I'm going to live that long. His hope wasn't in this world. He's going by faith,
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I trust that God will do this to my descendants as a testimony that there will be a real heavenly country, not that nation that's called
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Israel over in the Middle East now. Verse 35, they did all these things because they desired a better resurrection.
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Their hope was in the resurrection. All those ones, everything that they did by faith, it was always because their hope was in the resurrection.
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Their hope was in eternal life. Through faith in Christ, through the faith that God gives us, our hope changes so our hope is no longer in this world and the things of this world.
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Our hope becomes for eternal life and the things of eternal life. So it is faith that undergirds that, it's faith that's the foundation of that, it's the faith that allows us to deal with the issues, with the challenges, with the battles in this life because we recognize it's all a journey and we might fall in the battle, so what?
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We have eternal life in Christ, it doesn't matter. What's important is that we're pleasing to God and what's important is that we're doing what
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God said to do. That's what faith is. And when you think of discipling people, that's what you have to disciple them to, a greater hope in eternal life which responds in a greater obedience to His Word.
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So it's faith that undergirds that, that allows us to deal with those issues. It was like Abraham, he knew he died before the
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Israelites came but he still could rejoice because it's a picture of the promised land, even Abraham knew that was just a picture because he knew it wasn't of this world.
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His hope was in a better country, a heavenly country. And then it says the evidence of things not seen.
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This word translated evidence is only used in two other places in the scriptures. One is in Matthew 18 where it says if your brother offended you that you're to go to your brother and tell him the fault or his fault, perhaps more literately you're to evidence the fault to him.
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You have a duty not just to tell him his fault, you have a duty to say this is why it's sin. That's the same word that's evidence here.
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It's also used about the scriptures in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
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The word that's translated reproof is the same word here that's translated as evidence.
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The scriptures are an evidence, they're the evidence from God of what is righteous, what is a good work.
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And faith is what proves to you and what demonstrates to you, it's what shows you and causes you to believe in things not seen.
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The word things is pragma, obviously it's the word that we get pragmatic from.
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The word means that the things that are done, the deeds that are done, it's faith that testifies and proves that this is what happens.
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It's faith that causes you to say we're not wrestling with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities of the air, that we're wrestling not with, you know, so often because there's such immediacy to the physical things of this world.
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It is easy for us to go, oh we're wrestling with whatever the politics or whatever's going on in the world.
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But faith makes you think it's not the things in this world, they're just acting as agents for who we're supposed to be fighting.
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We're supposed to be fighting the powers and principalities of the air. That's why we fight it with the full armor of God.
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And we don't fight it with political petitions and we don't fight it with all these things that the world uses because if you're trying to fight in the spiritual realm, the physical realm will not win, it will always lose.
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But it's faith that testifies and it's the evidence and it proves that we're not dealing with physical things, we're dealing with things that can't be seen.
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That's what faith does is it opens your eyes to the reality of the world. And the reality of the world is not about materialism.
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Those who truly put their hope in Christ and not in this world, they see that the issue is the spiritual realms and not the physical realms.
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Faith is what makes it so we can understand what's going on around us. You know, a famous Augustine quote, which isn't really a quote, because he said more belief before understanding in Latin, but the way that it's quoted is,
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I do not understand to believe, but I believe to understand. And that's what it's saying here.
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Until we have faith, we can't understand how the world really works. Because we can't understand that it's, you know, you sin over here and all of a sudden it means you lose your job.
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Unless you understand that it's the spiritual realm that causes these things, you go, well, how could that have anything to do with this?
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And God says, it's all me, of course it connects. But that requires faith to see that.
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That requires faith to understand that. By sight you can look at the bombing that happened last night and go, well, we have the biggest bombs in the world, we're going to be a powerful nation.
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Or you can look, it was lawless, it was unjust war, God will judge America for it. One is by faith and one is by sight.
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By sight it was a brilliant move, by faith it was an idiotic move. There'll be another trillion dollars, another million lives, because God says there's ways to do it and we didn't do it that way.
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We have to understand these things are real and this is what faith opens your eyes to. By faith we can understand how the world really works.
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The invisible things, the things not seen, they're what causes the things that are seen. We can understand how
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Satan is being defeated even when we look and we see all these false Gospels preached.
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We see all this evil that seems to be increasing, the homosexual movement, this gender confusion, all these things.
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We can look at them and go, but it's getting worse, or by faith we can say Satan is defeated, he has been bound, things are going to get better,
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Christ will make all his enemies his footstool, it's the promise that he said, he said it over and over and over again in the
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Scriptures, and he's seated at the right hand of the Father until all his enemies are defeated. So we can either say this is part of how his enemies are going to be defeated, or we can walk without faith and say things are getting worse.
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This is what faith does. It causes you to see the world as it really is, not as it appears based on the physical things, the things that can be seen.
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Faith causes us, it produces evidence that what's really happening is behind the scenes, and not the things we can see with our eyes.
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So verse two, for by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By having faith, there was evidence of things hoped for, there was the testimony of things not seen.
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By having that faith, that's why Abraham could leave earth, that's why
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Abel was murdered. It's because they understood these things, because their faith, we have more knowledge so that we can have a fuller faith, but that faith hasn't changed.
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The faith of Abraham while he's building the Ark is no different than the faith of a
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Christian in the New Covenant. So four is the
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Greek word gar, which means assigning a reason. This is the reason for all those names in this chapter, all those names we read.
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It's all because they had that kind of faith. It's all because they had faith that is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
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It's because they had that faith that they could do those. And it's because why?
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We have more revelation, we have a responsibility to do greater things, not lesser things.
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So by it, through the exercise of faith, that's how they got a good testimony. The testimony that God recorded for us was really a testimony that they didn't draw back.
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In the day where the world was saying, don't do this, they didn't draw back. So God was pleased with them.
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They had a testimony because they walked by faith and not by sight. They trusted that the invisible was more important, more real, more substantial than the physical things that they could see.
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They trusted in the things not seen. Because they trusted in the things not seen, they could go be sawn in two, and they could also go and conquer kingdoms.
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No promise of how God will use our faith, but real faith, you don't shrink back from the world.
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They have a testimony that was recorded for us, not so that we can admire it, or not so that we can ignore it, but so we can exceed it, because we have a better covenant.
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We have better promises. We have better revelation. We have better understanding. We exceed what they have in every way.
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We have the Holy Spirit poured out upon his church so that the people of God have power that they didn't have.
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God didn't write Hebrews 11 so we can go, oh, look at the faith of Jephthah.
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He wrote it so we can say that should be nothing compared to the results of our faith, because what we've been given is far more than what he had.
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And so by it, the elders, this is the same word as the word for the leaders of the church. It's those who go before.
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It's those who God put in place for others to follow their example. The examples of the men and women of faith in the scriptures were put here so we can see what faith looks like, so we can follow that example.
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Not so we can look and go, wow, look at David. We can look and say, therefore, what should
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I do? This is what the power of faith was for him, so what should I do now? So by it, they obtained a good testimony.
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That's all one Greek word, materio, to be a martyr. They were a martyr not by losing their lives.
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That wasn't what made them a martyr. What made them a martyr was they testified of the reality of the hope that they had.
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That's what made them a martyr, through the faith that they had that produced the hope that they had, and that hope produced the works that they had so that they were able to do great things, to testify the power of the faith they had, to testify the foundation that was under their hope, that was holding up their hope, to testify that the visible things were controlled and led by the invisible.
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And again, remember, remember how much better of a high priest we have. Remember how much better promises we have.
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We're not supposed to go, look at how amazing they are. We're supposed to look and say, why haven't we exceeded them?
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We have a better high priest, we have a better covenant, we have better promises, Luke 7, 27 through 28, this is he of whom it is written, behold,
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I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. For I say unto you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the
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Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
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We're supposed to exceed their work. John the Baptist was the greatest. The least one, after the new covenant was established by the blood of Jesus Christ, the least person is greater than John the
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Baptist in their understanding. So verse three, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
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By faith, throughout this chapter, I think it's 18 times, statements start with by faith, with faith in the date of case, meaning that it's the indirect object.
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But God had that first in the sentence, so we could understand that's the focus of the sentence. The things that they did, we're supposed to look at it and say it's by faith that they did those things.
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So as we go through all those things that we read, all those people that we read, we're supposed to go, the reason they did that, the reason
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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in tents is because they had faith. They had the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
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Because of that, they lived in tents for 120 years, actually 230 years, let me get my math right.
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For 230 years they lived in tents as a testimony that they really had faith.
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Abraham was probably the richest person in the Middle East, and he lived in a tent to testify that he had faith.
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So it starts with this umbrella statement before it gives these lists of all these examples. And it's that it comes, the visible comes from the invisible.
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It comes starting with the Word of God, that we understand if you have faith, this is something that faith means that you understand.
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This isn't saying that I have faith and then somehow I'll grow to this understanding.
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It's that if you truly believe in God, you understand He's the one that causes the things on the earth, not the other way around.
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That He is the one that causes what happens on the earth to happen, that is the most basic form of faith.
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So that's this umbrella statement that the visible comes from the invisible, that it all flows from the Word of God.
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By we he's talking about those who believe, those who have true saving faith, those who
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Christ will gather at their end. Remember Matthew 25, right? Who will be on my right hand?
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I was hungry and you gave me food. Who will be on my left hand? I was hungry and you did not give me food. Why? The one is about trusting in God so you can be the widow that threw the last two mites into the jar.
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The other one is going, well where will my food come from? I can't give it away. That's the most basic definition of thinking the invisible causes the visible or the visible is the cause of all things.
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And that's what God's going to judge by. Do you believe that the invisible causes the visible? And God says, by faith, if you have faith, you understand that.
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That's the most fundamental thing that faith gives you, is it gives you that understanding. By faith we understand that the worlds, and that word worlds is really eons, it's really ages.
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It's not like talking about that that's why we have Mars. It's talking about that's why we have the times we live in.
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That's why what's going on in the world right now, it's framed by what God is doing and not by what man is doing.
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It's talking about God framed the world, he put everything in place for the coming of the
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Messiah, for the defeating of his enemies, all the things that are happening. By faith we're supposed to look and go, this is why it's happening because God is doing it.
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And then it says that the worlds were framed. That word framed, it's the idea that everything was put in its proper place, that it was completed thoroughly.
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It's not that he just kind of gave this framework that everybody's supposed to fill in, no, no, no, that's not what the word means, it means that everything was framed.
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He knew the end from the beginning, he knew what he was going to do in all things, he framed everything according to his decree, according to his will.
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It's through faith that we understand that. Through faith that we can understand the world around us, because God is the one that ordered it all.
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He is the invisible things, what made the visible things. And then he framed it by the word of God.
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When we read the word of God, we naturally think of Christ, but what is translated to Christ, what's translated like the word in John 1 is logos, and this is rhema, this is by his physically speaking, by him speaking.
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And so, what it's saying here is the most basic thing is if you have saving faith, you understand
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Genesis 1, because this is the most fundamental thing, there's a reason why God starts where he does in Genesis 1, verse 3, then
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God said, let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness,
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God called the light day, and in the darkness he called night, so the evening and morning were the first day, then
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God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters, then
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God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament, and it was so.
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And God called the firmament heaven, so the evening and the morning were the second day, then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.
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And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas, and God saw that it was good.
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The writer of Hebrews is saying the same thing Moses wrote in Genesis 1, that everything is caused because God speaks.
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And that's having faith, is to believe that, saving faith, is to believe that all things are caused because God speaks.
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Those who have faith understand that. And remember, he's drawing a distinction between those who will go to perdition and those who have everlasting life.
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Those who have everlasting life understand that it's by God speaking that everything happens that happens.
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He's the one that frames all things. That's why the Bible starts there, because this is the most fundamental thing that you must believe, is that God speaks, and the world conforms to what
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God says. We speak, we say things all the time, and the world doesn't change.
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A lot of times people think they can change the world with what they say, but they can't. But that's the opposite of God.
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If God ever says anything, the world conforms to God, because what is seen, what is visible, the ages, they're all formed, they're all framed, they all come to pass according to what
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God says. And so the Bible starts with faith. It starts, you have to believe that God said, let there be light.
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And there was light. And that ripples out in all kinds of things. You have to say that when you're sick,
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God said, Dan, be sick, and I'm sick. You also have to say, you know, make all this money.
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Well, God said make all this money, that's why I made it, not because of some, something that you did.
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Because you have to say whether good or bad, whether you're the David who conquers from the river of Egypt to the river
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Euphrates, or you're the person who's sawn in two, you have to say it was
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God who said, this is what will happen, so therefore it happened. That's faith.
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Faith. Not just the good things, not just the bad things, but both of them.
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So the writer of Hebrews is saying, this is the most basic thing that you'll understand if you have faith. So when
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God said, let there be light, it wasn't really about the physical, it was about the reality of he is light, he is, it's
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John 1. And yes, it had a physical manifestation that there was real light, but he was doing that so that we could understand the spiritual.
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And how the spiritual is more real than the physical. John 1, 7 through 10, this man came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe.
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He is not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
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He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. When God starts with let there be light, it's so that we can understand
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Christ, the Word of God, and speaking, and he's saying things, and he causes a physical light so we can understand the spiritual light.
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God speaking things into existence in Genesis 1, the writer of Hebrews is saying, this is really significant, this is, this is what faith looks like.
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Everything being framed, the earth, the animals, the man, all those being framed by God speaking.
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And so that we can understand that hasn't changed. That's still how it works.
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So the things which are seen, not just the physical things, but even, even the thoughts that you have, the idea of seeing somebody walking and not just the walking itself, but the process, everything that we see in the world, all of it is caused by the invisible.
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So the things which are seen were not made, they didn't come into existence, they weren't formed because of things that are visible.
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The priority is clear. The invisible is more significant than the visible.
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And that's what faith gives you, is it gives you that understanding. So easy, being physical creatures, for us to look at the world and think that the world is driven by the physical.
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But salvation, faith, you understand that's not true. That fundamental view that everybody in the world has, that everybody in the world is born into, it's not true.
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No one can resist the will of God, it says in Romans 11. He frames it,
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He says it, and it comes to pass. That's what happens in the world, that's what, that's what happens.
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The things, the visible things are caused by the invisible
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God. Let me give you some applications. So much of the preaching of the gospel is about believing, it's about being forgiven.
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But if all you talk about is temporal life, you've missed it, you've missed the whole point.
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If you're not talking about that the hope has to be an eternal life in Christ, you've missed the gospel.
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I've heard people evangelize many times and they completely miss the gospel. The gospel isn't your best life now, the gospel is you get to be with God for eternity.
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And as Paul said, look, if there is no resurrection we might as well eat, drink and be merry. He says if there is no resurrection we of all men are the most pitiable, because unless you understand the gospel is about eternal life, it's not a gospel.
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And too often in evangelism we don't make disciples, we make people who make professions that they believe in Jesus Christ, but their hope is not in eternity.
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If there's no eternal country, if there's no eternity, there's no reason to obey, and there's no hope.
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But faith is the foundation of things hoped for, it's what produces that hope.
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Another application, and I should warn you, I usually do 10 to 12 applications, so don't think, oh, the sermon's about to end.
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So my second application, very related to that, if you're not trusting in the promises of God for eternal life, if that's not what you believe, and you must believe in that promise, that has to be your hope, or you shouldn't think you're saved.
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Christ came to undo the separation made by the first Adam, and if that is not what you believe in, if that's not what you believe
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He did for you, don't think you're saved. He came so that we could go back into the presence of God for eternity.
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And then you must live your life that way, is what it says in 1 John 3, 2 and 3,
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Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when
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He is revealed, we shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is, and everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
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If your hope is that you will be in the eternal presence of God, the invisible hope produces real consequential things in this life, which is you turn from sin, you put to death the sin in your members, and so you can see your faith by what you do now, because faith is invisible.
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We can see our faith by where our hope is, but if our hope is there, then we prepare ourselves to be there.
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If our hope is in the better country, if our hope is in the city whose builder and maker is
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God, then we cleanse ourselves now, we pure ourselves now. We're the bride who is washing for the wedding day.
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I know you had a wedding here, I think it was last week, and there's all the scrambling that goes on for the wedding.
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That's all a picture of what we're supposed to be like every day, scrambling to get ready for the wedding to Christ.
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Another application, faith undergirds having hope. One of the ways to preach the gospel is to undermine the false faith that people have, because people trust in many things.
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Everybody lives by faith that they have, so you have to push people back to see the foolishness of their faith.
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And this isn't just for unbelievers. This is for people who made professions of faith. If you want to disciple somebody, when they're walking by sight and not by faith, you have to push them on that, because that's how you grow their faith.
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Because faith is saying, I trust the invisible things more than the visible things. Things that are seen can be used to validate the evidence of faith, but the visible comes from the invisible, so the visible cannot prove the invisible.
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Same reason that carnal man cannot understand spiritual things is because they're in a different realm.
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They're looking at the whole world differently. Faith is understanding that the invisible must come from the invisible so that the visible flows from the invisible, and the visible can only truly be understood by the invisible, because one is the product of the other.
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And when we're not pushing people to see that, when we're not pushing people to have that evidence, we're not making disciples of Christ.
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Because you can make disciples of the church, you can make personal disciples, but if you want disciples of Christ, you have to push people to build their hope in eternal life, which means sacrificing, or being willing to sacrifice things in this life.
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Again, it says, if they had a good testimony through the evidence, let me try again.
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If they had a good testimony through the exercise of faith, if all those people in Hebrews 11 did, how much more should our testimony be?
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God didn't put those examples so we could go, oh, look at those great men, let's do hero worship. God gave those examples.
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He had David be an adulterer and a murderer, so we could go, our faith must exceed that.
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He had Noah get drunk, so we could go, our faith must exceed that. Samson, right?
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Samson's in that list. You look at Samson's life and you go, how could this man have faith? And all you know is at the end, he freed
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Israel from the Philistines by pulling down the temple that they were worshiping in.
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Other than that, you go, how did he have faith? And the answer is he had faith, because he trusted in the living
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God, because he trusted in the one that couldn't be seen. And if they could do those things with the promises they had, with the revelation that they had, what does
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God expect you to do? God doesn't give us those examples so we can do hero worship, he gives us those examples so we can say, we've been given more.
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We have a greater duty. How much greater should our exploits be than theirs?
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Another application, understand, we live in a culture, a church culture that says
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Arminianism, you know, 90 % of churches are Arminian. You understand Arminianism is fundamentally against true faith.
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Faith is the belief that the visible things are caused by the invisible things.
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Arminianism is, you make a profession of faith and you can control the invisible
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God. Arminianism is completely contrary to true faith.
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We need to recognize that. And that doesn't mean that somebody who doesn't understand because they haven't been taught and they're professed to be an
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Arminian, that they're not saved. But salvation is being against Arminianism.
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That's what it says in the book of Hebrews. Arminianism, the fundamental view is the visible controls the invisible.
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Saving faith is the invisible controls the visible. It's that basic.
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And understand, carnal man always wants to believe that the visible controls the invisible. All the sacrifices offered by all the pagan religions, they're all about the belief that you can control invisible spirits if you just do the right thing in the visible realm.
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And that's not that much different than so many Christians today. You know, there was the name it and claim it movement, the prosperity gospel, the seeker sensitive movement.
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Every single one of these is about the belief that the visible controls the invisible.
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And saving faith is about the invisible controls the visible. It really is that basic.
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And so you look at all those false gospels out there, understand those false gospels are all destroyed by this one idea.
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That the writer of Hebrews is saying, this is reality.
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This is what real faith shows you, that the visible can't control the invisible.
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God controls all things, not the other way around. So when we look at what moves mountains, trusting and operating on that trust and the hope that God gives us of eternal life.
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It's why we can't, to fear death is contrary. That's why Christ came and he defeated death so that there is no more need to fear death.
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Because when you fear death, you're saying the physical, the visible things cause the invisible.
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Instead of saying a loving and righteous and perfect God killed me, that's great. He knows what he's doing.
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If he lets me live another 30 years, that's great. If he killed me driving out of here today, that's great. If I have a heart attack here, whatever.
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The invisible God knows what he's doing. We don't need to put our trust in the visible.
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We have to believe and have our hope, our hope in eternal life.
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It's the most basic statement of how faith is to work in Matthew 6, 32 through 34.
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For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
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Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
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Right? That's what Christ said on the Sermon on the Mount. It's the same thing that the writer of Hebrews is saying in Hebrews 11, 3.
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Trust in the invisible. Walk according to the invisible God and what he says to do.
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And he causes all the visible things. You don't need to go, well if I don't disobey here, if I don't work on the
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Sabbath, then how in the world can I have enough money to feed my family? Well why do you think you don't have enough money to feed your family?
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Maybe because you're violating the Sabbath. This is how it works. We have to understand cause and effect.
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God is the cause. And too often we want to look at the effect and say the effect is the cause.
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That's walking by sight, not by faith. And Christ says, look, you walk by faith, you walk according to what the invisible
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God tells you to do, and all the visible things, you'll have everything you need. That's the most basic statement of what faith looks like.
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Because by faith we understand that the things that are visible are made by things that are not seen.
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So Hebrews 11, going through it, it's going to talk about the outcome of having faith, what it looks like in the life of believers to understand that the world was framed by the word of God.
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That the invisible God is framing all the visible things. But Romans 1 tells us about the unbelievers,
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Romans 1, 18 through 21, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
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Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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Because the worlds were framed by the invisible. The reality of the invisible can be known through the visible, because the invisible is what causes all things.
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So this is why no man has an excuse, because there's plenty of testimony in the visible world of that it was the invisible hand that caused it.
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So just kind of an aside, but all those theories about creation, that it's symbolic of evolution or the gap theory or the idea that every day was a long period, understand all of those are attacks on the true gospel.
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Because all of those are saying it's the visible that had to control the invisible. God couldn't just speak and have animals exist, they had to evolve over time.
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The visible had to control the invisible God. All those theories, we have to see them for what they are.
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They are attacks on true faith, because by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the speaking of God.
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So another application, faith causes you to go to God for wisdom, right?
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If you understand by faith, if you understand that the word of God is what framed the ages, if you understand by faith that the visible things are made by things that are not seen, then
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James 1 becomes a practical outworking of that. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
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But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
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For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the
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Lord, his double -minded man unstable in all his ways. If you believe that the visible things are caused by the invisible, then where would you go for wisdom?
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You'd go to the invisible God, because he's the one that's framing all things. If you're double -minded and you can't figure out whether you believe in the invisible
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God or you believe in the power of the visible things that you can see, you don't have faith.
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So why would God answer you? So even asking for wisdom, God is saying, look, this is really basic.
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Those who have faith, they say God is the one that has wisdom in the last application, walking by faith.
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When you consider that the invisible is the driving force of the visible, that's how we're to further the kingdom of God.
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Ephesians 6, 10 through 13, finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
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For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
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Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand.
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The visible battle that we're called to wage, as we are called as his body to make his enemies his footstool, we always have to remember it's a visible battle, but the way we wage it is invisible things.
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The way we wage it is putting on the whole armor of God by having faith, by having trust, by having the belt of truth, the shield of faith.
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This is how we fight the battle. This is how we are to expand the kingdom of God, not with carnal weapons, but with spiritual weapons because the physical, the visible things, they're caused by the invisible.
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That's what faith in God is to produce, that we are to prepare ourselves with the invisible weaponry because that is how the visible world will be conquered.
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Let me pray. Oh Lord God, we do thank you. Thank you for this passage. We thank you that you reveal yourself to us through your word.
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We pray that you open our understanding, give us a greater zeal to purify ourselves, a greater zeal to trust in you and to not fear the things of the world, a greater zeal to see how you are working in the world and not reason by our sight, but reason by our faith, or grow us in our faith.
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Make us faithful disciples of yours and let us exceed the examples that you've given for your glory and for your namesake, amen.