HEBREWS 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. [Heb. 11:1]
Do you understand that verse…what it says?…if that is the definition of faith …just me?…I struggle with that definition.
What is the author of Hebrews getting at in this verse? …I think possibly he’s presenting more than a definition of what faith is…he’s also offering a summary of what faith does.
As you read through the book of Hebrews you must pass through Hebrews 10:19-39 where we are warned against shirking back in faith…because in doing so results in not obtaining the promises of God.
This is contrasted in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews…where faith is described as the guarantee that we will receive what God has promised.
Have you ever attempted to define faith for yourself…we all know what faith is…but can you roughly describe it…can you define it? …for the next few minutes I want to unpack this verse by defining what the words are referring to.
Faith is not a power you possess to create your own future–Norman Vincent Peal who prepared the way for Robert Schuller, Joel Osteen, Oprah Winfrey, and others who teach the deceptive notion that if you believe it…you can have it…or be it…or you can do it…all you have to do is believe it and it will happen.
His book The Power of Positive Thinking sold 5 million copies…the idea was that thoughts are causative, that our thoughts can change our lives…our health, our destiny…He taught the lie that people can change themselves from the inside without any need for God.
People were thrilled with the notion that if you can believe it, you can achieve it as long as you believe it or think hard enough about it…you can have it.
One of the great fallacies in the self-help-positive-thinking industry is the notion that you can change your life with “positive thinking.”
None of this would be all that remarkable, except as a Christian minister Peal denied the very heart of the Christian faith and replaced it with his own doctrine of positive thinking.
Plug “positive thinking” into Amazon.com, and you’ll find a never-ending supply of products designed to help you see life through rose-colored lenses. Positive thinking products account for more than a billion dollars a year in direct-mail and Internet sales.
There are those who have always been…accomplished…successful…who excelled in sports…or academics…or business…with minimal effort.
Positive thinkers will tell you that is exactly the point…people who struggle without success are failing because they don’t really think they can succeed…if only they would change their thinking they would do better.
Now I can appreciate that…obviously how you think about something or yourself will have an effect on the outcome…and it’s not because I don’t think I can…it requires more than just positive thinking.
We do kids a great disservice when we tell them… ‘you can be anything you want’. NO you can’t…a lot of factors are involved.
Just concluded the Summer Olympic games…throughout the telecast they made reference to how with hard work you too can be an Olympian…that you can play in the NBA or the NFL…NO you can’t…what kind of foolishness is that?
The U. S. sent 613 athletics to Tokyo…wanna take a guess at what the odds are that you will make the Olympic team? 0.0013%…according to the NCAA…your odds of being drafted by an NBA team is 0.02% and going to the NFL is slightly higher at 0.03%.
For these people it’s having more than just a positive attitude that they can succeed…they have an athletic ability that surpasses over 99% of the people in the world.
Stand in front of the mirror in the morning and repeat 20 times: “I am a good person…I can do anything…I will be successful.” See how that works for you.
For those who are born with natural abilities they can excel with less effort… doesn’t matter if it’s athletics…academics or whatever…but what about the rest of the world? …what about the 80% of the population that bust their tails in school and get C’s…or who sat on the bench during ball games…who never received recognition awards.
Positive thinking doesn’t make you any smarter…any stronger…or any better suited for certain jobs.
So, what does this have to do with faith…a lot…because there is a marked difference between faith and positive thinking.
Verse 1 gives us a two-part definition of faith:
1) the assurance of things hoped for– having no doubt or uncertainty of what you’re hoping for.
2) the conviction of things not seen–being certain of what you do not see.
The word ‘faith’ appears 31 times in Hebrews…24 times in chapter 11 alone.
1) Faith is trusting in a future that God has prepared for you…I don’t want to lay out my own future…I did that for years… when I do what I want I can’t trust myself that it will be according to God’s plan…faith extends beyond what we learn from our senses…or what we learn from our own reasoning.
Faith is not just knowledge…it’s about confidence…of putting yourself…your life into someone else’s hands…faith is believing that God planned out your individual future…it’s not relying on our decision regarding our future.
When you read those people mentioned in Heb. 11 if they had the opportunity to write their own future, I’m sure it would have been different…certainly Abel wouldn’t have written that he would be killed by his own brother.
Our physical eyesight is what gives us evidence of the material world…in most cases if I can see it I can believe it…faith is the “sense” that gives us evidence of the invisible, spiritual world…faith is needed for what we can’t see and can’t touch.
Biblical faith is not a leap into the unknown…it is always based upon the firmest of foundations…the Word of God…the person who really walks in faith never needs to feel they’re just existing…having confidence that whatever occurs in their life God is able to use for His glory.
Let me share with you what faith is not…Faith is not a blank check…these name it and claim it preachers who tell you that if you want something from God then all you have to do is pray about it are liars and deceivers.
In the church today people are becoming disillusioned with their faith and disappointed with God because He doesn’t do like they were told He would…I prayed and nothing happened…God is larger than just waiting for me to come up with a new want in my life for Him to fulfill.
Faith is not a bad choice…there are those who say that it is foolish to walk in total and utter dependence upon the Lord…these people argue that God is an unknown…an unseen force which man cannot interact with…or have fellowship with…that Christians who live their lives in faith are fools.
As believers…we can either choose to please the Lord, or we can choose to please ourselves…if we are determined that we are going to please the Lord then we are going to have to walk by faith in Him and in His word and will.
Faith is not a feeling…there may be times when you don’t feel very loved by God…God’s love is unconditional…it doesn’t rely on feelings…it doesn’t require that I do or continue to do something…BUT if I sin He will discipline me…He doesn’t hate you…He still loves you…Biblical faith is not based on feeling but on God’s faithfulness.
2) The word ‘assurance’ (ὑπόστασις) …‘assurance’ and ‘conviction’ are unusual words and very difficult to translate into English…in this verse assurance means an underlying support…similar to support beams that hold up a bridge…it means literally “to stand under, to support” …faith is to a Christian what a foundation is to a house: gives confidence and assurance it will stand.
3) Hope (πίστις) is not just wishful thinking like when someone asks you, do you think things will get better? and you answer I hope so…it means to look forward with the confident expectation that what is promised will happen.
4) Conviction (ἔλεγχος) …a word that is used only two times in the entire New Testament…what does that mean…that by which invisible things are proved and we are convinced of their reality…an inner conviction that is not based on visibly seeing it…it’s what the believer is convinced of even when they are unable to see it.
Of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…is referring to that if you have something before you that you can see…that’s not faith…faith is needed for what we can’t see and can’t touch.
Based on the definition of all those words I prefer the better translation of Hebrews 11:1.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for—the confident expectation that it’s going to happen—and being certain of what we do not see.
Faith is having the confidence that events that we cannot yet see will in fact happen.
As we go through the book of Hebrews it’s important to remember that the overall theme of the book is: God has given us a superior New Covenant in Jesus to replace the inferior Old Covenant of animal sacrifices.
Chapter 10 ends with both a word of warning and a word of encouragement… the warning is to those who ‘shirk back’ …who are these people…the author makes repeated reference to them throughout the book.
They are the people who made an outward profession of faith in Jesus…maybe were intellectually convinced of Jesus’ existence…but did not possess an inward belief that Jesus was God…and returned to their former way of life.
These are the people referred to in the parable at the close of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is emphasizing that it is not enough to just “hear” the words of Jesus…but they must be believed and obeyed.
To the one who has an ear let him hear? …there’s a difference between having ears and having “ears to hear” …some hear the Word, yet they do not allow it to affect their decision regarding accepting Christ as their Savior…they have ears to hear…BUT…they lack the spiritual ears to hear…so they reject it.
John 5:24 – Jesus says: he that hears My word…having ears to hear…and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life…hence the importance of understanding…the mark of a Christian is understanding.
In Matthew 13 Jesus gave a series of parables…in these parables He’s explaining what will occur between the time He ascends into heaven and when He comes back…as well as in Matthew 24…the time period we commonly refer to as the church age…the time we’re living in today.
Here’s what is KEY in all these parables…Jesus uses the word ‘understand’ six times in Matt. 13 to emphasize the importance of understanding…even asking the disciples ‘have you understood all these things?’ [13:51].
Here’s what happens when we fail to understand the Bible…Jesus tells us Himself:
when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and takes away what has been sown in his heart. [13:19]
Without understanding …without spiritual ears to hear…we are like those who shirk back because there is no substance in their faith…we’re like the man who built his house on the sand.
The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. [matt. 7:27]
In [39] he uses the conjunction ‘but’ to make a contrast between those who shrink back…and those ‘who have faith.’
Couple things…1) some translations read ‘to the saving of the soul’ or ‘whose souls will be saved’ …neither one is an accurate translation giving an incorrect meaning to the verse…in the Greek the word ‘saved’ is not even used …because the phrase, ‘the preserving of the soul’ is not referring to eternal salvation.
2) He’s referring to those who have received eternal life by using the personal pronoun ‘we.’
The preserving of the soul has to do with the normal day-by-day life that if not watched carefully can ruin our Christian life…I went to church on Sunday…I’m good for the week…no you’re not.
Here’s what the word ‘soul’ means in this context…as believers be careful to not lose your spiritual lifestyle…the wasted opportunities…and thus your rewards in heaven…nothing to do with your eternal destiny. That’s why the translation ‘the saving of the soul’ is a bad translation.
It’s safe to say that anything of lasting value requires a patient commitment even in the face of adversity…that includes the Christian life…first-century believers really didn’t need to be reminded of that…they were suffering persecution… imprisonment…the loss of personal property…and death.
In America we’re not suffering to that extent…But we need to be reminded of the need to hold fast to what we have heard.
Goes back to the fundamental message of the book of Hebrews [10:35 / 36] and the importance of:
35 not throw(ing) away your confidence…36For you have need of endurance.
As Christians I hope you’re all aware that in Christ you have a better and lasting possession than you will ever have on earth…that’s not positive thinking…it’s reality…as a result we should continue to focus on doing God’s will in the present, especially when trials tempt you to compromise.
Building on that theme the author moves into chapter 11…giving 40 verses as examples of faith to help the discouraged…he defines what faith is using Old Testament saints as the example.
Hebrews 11 gives just some of the names of those who were examples of faith:
By faith Abel [11:4] …Enoch [11:5] …Noah [11:7] …Abraham [11:8] … Sarah [11:11] …Isaac [11:20] …Jacob [11:21] …Joseph [11:22] …
Moses [11:23] …Rahab [11:31] and many others who aren’t mentioned by name but by their deeds…they all had one other thing in common…they all died in faith. [11:13]
Old Testament saints were promised things they never saw…but they believed it even when they did not fully see it…that’s faith.
The evidence of their faith was in the way they lived their lives…they believed the promises of God and acted upon them…the way they lived their lives speaks of the reality of what they believed…and were commended for their faith.
For them, the reward of faith was one day seeing what they had always believed in while waiting patiently for it to happen.
All of what we have been looking at in Hebrews has been aimed at making us into this kind of people:
…people who are willing to risk their property and their lives in order to bring the love of God to others;
…People who do not look for comforts and ease and security as a necessary thing in life;
…people who are free from the American assumptions that life is built around safety…wealth…and leisure;
…people who put their trust in God to lead their lives instead of trusting in positive thinking that I can do it on my own;
…people who know there is one life to live and only what’s done in the name of Christ and for the eternal good of others will count in the end.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen
Makes it clear the way such a life comes about…by the unshakable faith in God beyond this life… having the confident expectation that what we hope for will happen…being certain that what we do not see will become a reality… having the assurance that you will receive what was promised.