Assurance Of Things Hoped For

Hebrews 11 and the Meaning of Faith

Please turn with me once again to the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. The epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11. I suppose in some sense we began this chapter this morning. I'm not sure if simply reading the first verse and noting the first three words is really entering into the chapter, but that's what we did and this evening we try to go a little further.

I'm not sure how much farther, but we will continue and press forward. Once again, as we saw this morning, it is a very meaty passage and so we stand in need of the Lord's help. Let us ask that he would join with us.

Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we confess once again that we are not handling the mere words of men. When we pray to you and ask for your presence, we are confessing that we are handling your word. You know its meaning, you inspired it, and we need your help to understand it.

Be with us now. Write upon our hearts your truth, we pray in Christ's name. This morning we asked the question, what is faith? And I'm sure that many of you over lunch today, possibly dinner, were quizzing one another about three Latin terms.

How many of you would feel confident if I called upon you right now to give us those three Latin terms? Some of you are looking down at your Bibles now. Some of you have found something fascinating on the floor to be looking at.

Even though there isn't much on our floor that's fascinating to look at at all. Some of you are smiling broadly because you know I would never do that anyways. But we did think about notitia. We thought about assensus and fiducia.

That is, we thought about knowledge, we thought about assent, we thought about trust. The elements of faith drawn from looking at a fully biblical, a full-orbed biblical discussion of what faith is. There are people who can have knowledge, but not really have faith.

There are people who can assent to the truthfulness of those things, but they're not committed to that. There is knowledge, there is the need to know the object of faith. There is the need to assent to the truthfulness of those things.

And then the act of the will, the volition, the commitment thereto. These are the elements of faith. And we saw the importance of this, that being the last verse of chapter 10. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.

And so we want to have faith to the preserving of the soul. And so what we are given in chapter 11 is one of the longest, continuous discussions of the examples of faith in all of the Bible. Now, I think we err when we try to categorize everything in Hebrews chapter 11 in nice, neat categories.

I don't think that was the author's intention. The examples that he gives us are of different people at different times in God's redemptive history, at different places in his dealing with them. And so I think we err if we go, okay, well, let's see, we have Abel in verse 4.

And so the faith that Abel had is exactly the same faith that Moses has, that Isaiah has. Well, no, there's been further revelation since that time. And there's very little that Abel knew in comparison to what an Isaiah would know.

And so we can't just say, well, that means that everything that's said about faith, about Abel, is the same thing about it. That would be inappropriate. What we have is we have an encouragement. Remember, that's really what this book is about.

It's an apologetic. It's a defense for people who are being pushed to go back. And think about the situation they were in for a moment. We're talking about Jews in the first century. They have found the Messiah.

They have been found by the Messiah, I guess would be a more appropriate way of putting it. They have made profession of faith in Him. And their families and their communities are putting pressure upon them to go back to the old ways.

And so, in a sense, many of them may have felt that, in a way, they had been removed from the people of God. That certainly would have been the argument the Jews were making. I mean, if you really followed Moses, you'd be with us.

If you really were the child of Abraham, you'd be with us. And so, in a sense, one of the arguments of Hebrews chapter 11 is that, no, you are walking in the consistent path of the people of God because you're walking in faith.

You're walking in faith in the prophecies and the fulfillment of these things. You, by being encouraged to continue in faith, are actually continuing in the people of God. It's those who have rejected what God has done in the Messiah.

They're the ones who are not walking in faith. And so, there is a sense in which that is part of the apologetic, part of the defense that is being offered. Well, we can't get through the chapter if we don't start reading it.

So, let's look at least at the first three verses. We're not going to get through them, but we can read them. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the men of old gained approval.

By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. Now, as I confessed quite honestly to you this morning, one of the reasons that it's taken us so long to get to this text is that as I looked at verse 1, I struggled with it.

I struggled with it because of the many translations and the many possibilities that come from the original language. And we'll look at those in just a moment. And I will try as best I can, without putting you to sleep, to explain why there are so many different renderings of this particular text.

But what finally helped me out was to continue reading. To be honest with you, what opened the door for me for verse 1 was verse 3. And you might say, ah, that's not how you do it. You've criticized many people.

For example, they go to John 6 and they skip down to verse 40 and they interpret that and read it back into verse 37 to get around its meaning. That's not what I was trying to do. Instead, verse 3 is an illustration of, an explanation of, this concept of what faith is.

And since the illustration gives us the parameters of the author's intention, it provided the light that I needed to feel sufficient confidence that I had grasped what the author's intention was in verse 1.

What do I mean by that? Well, you end up seeing, beginning in verse 3, you have this phrase, by faith. Now, in the original language, it's just one word. Pistai. And that's how verse 3 starts, and that's how verse 4 starts, and that's how verse 5 starts.

And that's how verse 7 starts. And over and over and over again, you just have this word. The Greek term pistos is faith. By means of, by the mechanism of faith. But I was looking at verse 3. By faith, we understand.

It's not the word to know. It's not gnosko. It is to understand. It is actually the operation of the mind. And that's what I needed to see. That's what helped me to understand what the author was talking about.

By faith, we understand that the world's repaired by the Word of God. Now, I wasn't there. Neither were any of you. So, what does it mean that by faith, we understand? Well, faith provides the foundation and the context in which we act and think as Christians.

As people who follow God, I think this is exactly how Adam was designed to live. Adam wasn't there at the creation. How then should Adam think about the creation? He should think about the creation in the exact way his Creator has revealed to him that he should.

We are to think God's thoughts after Him. We are made in the very image of God. In fact, there's this amazing statement from Paul. We have the mind of Christ. Who has ever thought more intimately and appropriately with God the Father than God the Son, the Incarnate One.

And if we have His mind, then we think in our innermost being in a way that is consistent with the way we've been created. And so you see, sin is rebellion. It's unbelief. It is questioning the only source of truth itself.

If God is the only source of truth, if the only way we can even know what is and what is not true is because God is the Creator of all things, He's the one who's established the very laws of logic and reasoning by which our minds function.

If we reject Him, we are led ultimately to futility. And is not a study of man's philosophy fundamentally an affirmation of that very thing? It most certainly is. And so as I thought about this, and as I thought, by faith we understand.

It's not some blind leap into the dark. It is aligning oneself with what God has said. We believe that God is truthful. We believe what God has revealed. Remember, what's the first element? Notitia. There is revelation.

There is truth that is given to us. And we ascent to that. And we line ourselves up in light of that. And that's the only reason why we can understand. Why our minds can function in such a way as to understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God.

And so when we go back to that first verse, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. We noted this morning that there's a lot of ways to translate that text. Let's remind ourselves once again, because basically what these different translations show us is that that first word translated assurance is the term hypostasis.

Now some of you have done some reading in systematic theology and you go, really? That was a very important word in the early church. That was involved in the discussions, the doctrines of Trinity, and the persons in the Trinity and their relationships to one another.

And that's the same term that was used in Hebrews chapter 1 when it talks about Jesus as the very representation of the hypostasis of the Father. And that's why some translations say substance. Faith is the substance.

And yet it's also used in Hebrews chapter 3 where it can only mean assurance. And so these different translations basically are reflecting the fact that this word can be taken objectively or subjectively.

Objectively in the sense of the substance, the foundation, that which gives reality to the things we hope for. That's the objective way of looking at it. And then subjectively is the assurance, the being certain of, which really there isn't that much difference in meaning because we couldn't have the subjective assurance or certainty if there was not an objective basis or reality.

And so if you really take in the objective viewpoint, you're going to have the subjective assurance. And so even though there's all these different translations, they're not really saying anything that's a massively different way of putting things.

So we've already heard the New American Standard. We saw another. Now, faith is being sure, so there's the subjective, of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see. Now, I did mention, before I read some others, let me just point out, this is a two-section verse.

The second clause, in some ways, just redefines the first. That can help us. I mean, that helps us so many times when we study through the Psalter. How many times have we been going through the Psalter and Hebrew poetry will use this kind of repetition of a phrase?

And sometimes the first phrase, we're not really certain exactly what it means, but, ah, the second phrase gives us that extra light, that extra interpretation that helps us. Same thing here. And so it would seem, if you're going to be consistent, that if you translate the first part objectively, then you'd want to translate the second part objectively, because the second word normally means the conviction, but it can also be taken in an objective way.

Evidence and things like that. So, both of them can be taken in that way, but if you could translate, it's good to translate both of them the same way, in essence, so that there's some consistency. So, we have now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, the King James. What's that? Both of them objective. Now, faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

They're taking both as objective. Now, faith is the assurance of the things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, both subjective. And finally, now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, both subjective.

So, in essence, each translation committee has to go, alright, what is the author intending us to understand here? Are we talking about the objective reality or the subjective experience of the certainty that comes from these things?

And that's why you have different translations. You might ask yourself the question, well, why use words that could be used in that way? I like to have everything black and white. Well, then I suggest you don't read John.

Because John loves to use terminology in that way, where there can be two different ways of looking at it. Now, yes, context will help and all those things, but sometimes our desire for a simplistic summary forces us to miss the fact that faith is more than a simplistic thing.

It has both elements of these things. There is the objective reality and the subjective experience of that. And so, I don't have any problem with the reality of the fact that the Holy Spirit of God used these words because it's certainly forced me to think about both possible ways of understanding it and seeing how both bring us to the same conclusion.

So, what is the faith that causes us to not draw back, to not be amongst those who shrink back to the destruction of our souls, but that causes us to persevere? Well, it is a faith that has assurance of things hoped for.

Things hoped for. Now, you and I have both heard this phrase abused over and over again. One thing we can say with absolute certainty is that what is being spoken of here is not some kind of you-name-it, you-create-reality type of theology.

By your words, you create your reality. Because you see, once you hope for something, then faith is the means by which you bring it into reality. Oh, is that preach. There's people driving around in...

What's the plural of Lexus? Lexuses or Lexi? I don't know, but they're driving around in really cool cars, and they're living in big houses, and they've got 401ks, and they're doing great. You know why?

Because they go around telling people, you just need to, in faith, name what you desire, and your words create your reality. That is pure paganism. Pure paganism. It has nothing to do with this text, and nothing to do with this Bible.

And anybody who preaches it, don't even believe they're a Christian. False gospel. Tell us what you really think about that. Well, I just did. You see, the idea that somehow we have this capacity is not what's being talked about at all.

So when we talk about the things hoped for, we need to listen to what Hebrews has said up to this point to know what those things are. And they're not wish fulfillment. They're not things to be wasted upon our earthly desires.

What is being hoped for? Our redemption. Our forgiveness of sins. Our adoption of the family of God. The inheritance of the saints. These are the things God has promised us, and that very term, Elpidzo, I hope, Elpidas is the noun form.

What is the hope that we are looking for? The appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Titus 2 .13. That's what we're looking for. That's our great hope. Our great hope is deliverance. Our great hope is eternal life.

It transcends any of the baubles and bangles and beads of this world that the Bible describes as stuff that's passing away. Oh, how easy it is for us to get our eyes glued to the things of this world to where they capture our hearts.

It happens all the time. I mean, you know, I like gadgets. But you know what's funny? I'm preaching to you from an iPad. And I love my iPad. I really do. I can actually read the Greek text from here. And I do not have my glasses on, and I'm what?

What, about two and a half, three feet away from the pulpit right now? I can read my Greek text from here. I like that. The pastor needs this. He really does. Those floaty things, they don't bother me right now.

It's a good thing, but it ain't gonna happen. Believe me. We could glue one to the top of this thing. He needs to put the Bible right over top of it. Not even worth trying. But you know what I've noticed?

My battery life on this thing is getting shorter and shorter. You know, it's passing away. I think they designed them that way to be perfect. Something tells me that the technology is actually out there.

It wouldn't do it that way, but then I wouldn't be needing to buy one for a long time. And so it's probably just designed in there. But you know, it's passing away. Someday I'm gonna hit that little button and nothing's gonna happen.

I can't be focused upon loving something like this. It passes away. And yet so many people read these texts and, Oh, I'm just gonna believe God for a new one of this and a new one of that. It's all earthly.

It's all passing away. It's decaying. What we are hoping for is beyond any of that. So many people who call themselves Christians have sold their birthright for a pot of porridge. Because they exercise their faith to try to bribe God into giving them stuff that can never satisfy, can never give you true happiness.

And it just ain't eternal. You ain't taking it with you. You're not gonna take it with you. So faith is the assurance of things hoped for. When you have notitia and assensus and fiducia, you believe that God is going to fulfill His promises that He's made in Christ Jesus to every single person who believes in Him.

You believe it and you act on it. Not just once. Not just twice. But what did Jesus say? He who endures to the end shall be saved. That's a wonderful verse. We should not run from it. Because it's a description of what God does in saving His people.

And it rips the ground out from underneath any boasting we could ever have. Why is it? And we all know this. Now, I don't want to pick on anybody. But Brick sits there. And we all get a little nervous when someone sits in Brick's seat.

And I think Brick probably does too. And there's the flock's row. And the ricket's row right behind. And there's the Callahan row. And have you noticed that people tend to... There's the Roxy row. You know, I mean, it's just...

We are weird this way, aren't we? Now, George has thrown everything off tonight. Have you noticed that? This is one time where a sermon illustration just goes right out the door. Because George is sitting someplace he's not supposed to be sitting right now.

Supposed to be right there. But be that as it may, we are accustomed to these things. And I hope when you see folks in the same spot, that you think back to the fact that, you know what? The flockers were there last year.

And the year before that. And the year before that. In fact, I've been around now and the decade before that. And the decade before that. And some of you have been around longer than that. And you go, the decade before that.

And the decade before that. And you might go, well, that means we're the chosen frozen. There's a testimony to God's grace. There's a testimony to God's grace. I hope you young folks, if you grew up in this church, sometimes it's real easy to look around and see, well, they're doing some really cool things over there.

There's some really neat things over there too. The problem is, you don't really see what you've got. Until you don't have it anymore. And sometimes you don't see what you've got until you've got enough age to have some perspective to start going, Man, it's nice to see that God sustains His people for long periods of time.

That's a wonderful thing. Because I know it ain't just... Brick ain't sitting there because Brick's just such a good guy. None of us are. We all recognize the need of grace. And it's that grace that has sustained our faith.

Especially when you know people long enough, you know some of the things they've gone through in those years and those decades. It's a precious thing to see God's work in people's lives. And so faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

Those things that God has provided. It's the conviction of things not seen. I can't see the future. And many of God's promises their fulfillment lies there. And the mechanism by which He's going to accomplish those promises is all in the future.

And I can't see the methodology. I can't see the mechanisms. I can't see the supernatural realm. I know I'm going to go through some trials and difficulties in this coming year. There may be some real hard ones.

And I can't see how God's faith is going to bear me up in that situation. But I have a conviction of things not seen. I have a conviction that God is going to be faithful to His promises. Now, when you're a new believer, you can have a conviction of those things, but remember, what do the disciples say?

Lord, increase our faith. And isn't it true, older saints in the Lord, that when you've seen God's faithfulness over and over and over again in your own life, in the life of those close to you, in the life of those around you, in the community, doesn't that cause your faith to grow?

Doesn't that cause you to have greater assurance that God is going to fulfill His promises? It does. And so, assurance, conviction, it's faith. But it's faith, not in some type of irrational realm, in the sense of, I'm going to have faith that I'm going to get X, Y, and Z for Christmas.

It has nothing to do with that at all. It is completely focused upon the steadfastness, consistency, trustworthiness of God's promises in Jesus. And if that's not enough for you, then I don't think you really understand what God's promises in Jesus are all about.

Because if it seems to you, and I just remember, when was it? It would be probably my junior year in high school. That would have been 1979, 1980. I was driving a 1972 Buick LeSabre. We called it the Brown Bomb.

V8 350, man, they don't make engines like that anymore. Thankfully, gas was about 49 cents a gallon, because I went through it. And I would drive all the way to school. They had messed up the districts and stuff like that, and I was north of Bell Road on 57th Avenue, and I went to school at Independence, which was 75th Avenue in Maryland.

So I had to drive every day. It was better than a bus, believe you me. And so I would listen to the Christian stations. This was before CDs, iPods, MP3 players, all that kind of stuff. Sometimes I would have a cassette tape player in the car to listen to music.

But that was back when, eventually, every cassette was doomed, because it would be eaten eventually. And you'd pull it out. Remember pulling those things out? Anyways. But I remember one morning, I'm tickling some of the older folks in the congregation, but I remember one morning, they had one of these word-faith teachers on.

And he was going on and on and on about how you destroy faith if you dare use the phrase, if God wills. See, you're not showing faith if you say, if God wills. Because, you see, you are to command faith.

You are to speak the reality, you see. And if you say, if God wills, you're showing you really don't believe. Now, I was a junior in high school, but I knew enough about the Bible to go, that guy is a charlatan.

He's a charlatan. He is deceiving people. He's leading people astray. That's not faith. See, faith is in God's promises. It's in what He has promised that He will do in Christ Jesus. And the only real faith is in accordance with the will of God.

And who are you to think you always know? And that was the other part of it. We always know what the will of God is. The will of God is your riches. And the will of God is your health. And they go on and on.

And of course, there's an organ playing in the background and the people with the tambourines, and they get you all emotional, but they never take you to the Bible to actually prove that kind of foolishness.

For some reason, that kind of stuff has even been exported to places like Africa. But you know what? It doesn't work real well there. People still glom onto it because they're desperate. It really doesn't work well.

When you live in a place where there's great poverty, where there's starvation, it doesn't work real well there. It's the assurance of things hoped for. And when our hearts and minds are set as believers they should be upon the promises of God that have been given to us in Christ Jesus, we will never be disappointed.

There has never been a soul that has turned to Jesus the Messiah that has been disappointed. You say, oh, I've known many people. Yeah, they were trying religion. That's not faith in Jesus. I am offended every time I see that bumper sticker, Try Jesus.

Don't try Jesus. Every soul that has ever fled to Him for refuge, for forgiveness, has found Him to be the all-sufficient Savior. Every soul. And that will always be the way that it is. He will lose none of those given to Him.

So, if we will recognize the things hoped for, the things not seen, faith gives us access to that which the unregenerate mind will never even acknowledge. Yes, faith takes us beyond the merely rational.

It is not anti-rational. It is super-rational. It is above. Because, you see, the reason can only deal with what is seen, what we can take in, and so many of the promises of God call us above this world, above this creation.

The world would say, Oh, your faith puts you lower. No, the world needs to understand. They're the ones stuck down here. The Christian faith, true faith, faith in the God who's created all things, that gives us access to another realm.

A realm that is just as real. It's not some mysterious thing in the sense of people just going into ecstatic utterances and things like that. It is a part of what God has revealed for us so that we might be better servants of Christ.

And so, faith. The assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. May God help us to have the full-orbed biblical faith that allows us to walk by faith, not by sight. And to by faith recognize we have peace with Him.

By faith to know the inheritance of the saints. By faith to experience what God has provided for His faithful people. Let's pray together. Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we thank You for the promise that You have given to us Your Word.

You have made promises to us. And You are faithful. And Lord, we would ask that once again, You would increase our faith. You would cause us to be people who walk by faith. To think and understand by faith.

A faith that is formed and informed by Your Word and Your Spirit. May we truly believe in everything our Lord has revealed to us. May we truly believe in the Gospel. May we be those who do not shrink back.

May we be those who are precious in Your sight. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.