About this sermon
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith gives present reality to what believers hope for and changes how they see God, themselves, and others, as lost or saved instead of rich or poor. By faith the people of old received God’s commendation. By faith we understand that God created the universe by his word, so that he did not make what is seen out of visible things. No one comes to the Scriptures neutrally; the alternative to faith is rebellion, not innocent ignorance, so believers must come humbly, ready to submit and believe.
Sermon transcript
Well, our text is taken from the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. There are 95 of your pew Bibles, if you’d like to follow along. Reading verses one through three of Hebrews chapter 11. This is the word of God. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen. For by it, the people of old received by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, you who spoke the universe into being, you who have spoken new life into us, you who have breathed out this, your very word for us, and preserved it by your spirit throughout the ages for us to read and study this evening, we ask that you would send your spirit that this word would protect us, that we would have your spirit, that we might hear and live, that you would open the eyes of our hearts.
Lord, without you, if you do nothing, these are dead words. We ask that you would come by your spirit. You would make us alive and receptive to your word. We pray that you would come by your spirit. Amen. May be seated. What can you see? Many of you in the science class that our eyes can only detect a small range of electromagnetic waves. What we think of as light that we can see is a small bandwidth that lies within the wide range of electromagnetic waves. The waves are on the long end of the sun. The gamma rays are on the shortest end. But most of the waves are completely invisible to us. So how do we see these invisible waves? Well, some animals have actually two pairs of eyes. There are some rattlesnakes, for instance, that have a pair of eyes for seeing visible light and a pair of infrared eyes that can sense infrared rays, which are not visible light, so that even when it’s pitch black, they can see small animals that give off infrared rays.
Now, since our eyes can detect them, we have to use instruments to see these waves. Radio waves get turned into sound that we can hear. But infrared waves can only be seen using special equipment. We need special goggles or to see certain kinds of light that can’t be detected with our eyes. We have to rely on systems that detect these things. And today, we often take for granted the reality of these invisible realities. But it took science a long time to discover and confirm their existence. Over time, the evidence for these invisible realities is unmistakable and irrefutable. But it’s time for the scientific community to accept that these things are real, even though they could not see them with their own eyes in any way. Now, in our passage this evening, the writer of Hebrews is talking about seeing these realities as well.
But he’s not talking about light waves. He’s talking about seeing God and what God has done. We don’t use scientific instruments to see God. We use faith, faith by which we access invisible, but profoundly real reality. The author of Hebrews presents this in three plays out in our text, verses one, two, and three. Number one, faith gives hope reality. And number two, faith garners the commendation of God. Number three, faith grants hope. Number one, faith gives hope reality. Now, on the outset of our passage, we have to take a look at the translation of verse one. On the ESV, it says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, the way the ESV translates this verse is true with the rest of scripture. And there are many other translations that translate this passage similarly.
Would be more along the lines of faith is the reality of things hoped for, the demonstration of things unseen. The word translated by the ESV as assurance in verse one normally means reality in other contexts. It seems to be the one who pioneered the translation of this word as confidence or assurance. While that meaning does go along with the rest of what the author of Hebrews is talking about, it doesn’t do justice to the actual word choice in the Greek. The word is hypostasis, hypostatic union. It’s a term to talk about how while Christ has both a divine nature and a human nature, he exists as a single person. Two natures, but one person. Let me call this the hypostatic union coming from the word hypostasis. The Stoic philosophers used hypostasis about a being that has entered into material existence.
Or more generally, the term sometimes refers to a plan that could be made reality by action or construction. So when the ESV translates it as assurance, it is focusing on the subjective aspect of faith. The confidence assurance that a person possesses when they have faith. But the other place hypostasis, it appears that a more objective reality. And it seems to make more sense within our passage that the writer of Hebrews is speaking of the object of faith being the reality rather than the subjective aspect of faith. By using the word hypostasis, here the author is intending to say more than that faith is the assurance of hope. He’s highlighting how faith brings reality, existence to hope. In Romans chapter 8, verse 24, the apostle Paul talks about the nature of hope. He says, now hope that is seen is not hope.
For who hopes? Hope is looking forward to the future. It is intrinsically looking towards what has not yet happened. Faith then brings that reality into the present. John Piper sometimes defines hope as faith in future grace in an attempt to highlight the relationship that faith and hope have to each other. Faith, a present confidence in grace which is still yet to come. That is what hope is. Will God forgive my sins tomorrow? Will Jesus come back as he promised? Will I ever be free finally from the presence of sin? Will I have strength in the next hour to fight sin and hold on to Jesus? Hope looks ahead and says, I’m sure right now that the grace will be there when I need it. Hope looks forward to that which does not yet exist. It looks forward to what has not yet be seen.
But faith gives hope reality by connecting that future into the present. And the writer of Hebrews is highlighting the way that faith impacts us in the present. Hope is looking at something that has not yet happened. But faith is a present current. Faith takes what hope is looking at in the future and puts it in our hearts and lives now. Faith is the reality of things hoped for. And then we also see in verse one that it is the conviction of things not seen. Now this word conviction as the ESV translated is elikos, which means proof or proving. Now the ESV says conviction, but since the verse had just mentioned assurance, we might think in terms of conviction of belief. But rather this Greek word, we should think of convicting evidence. The scriptures never portray faith as a blind leap in the dark, as a baseless trust or something that goes against reason.
Faith is always based upon God’s word. It is a faith in what God has said and who he is based on what he has revealed. But what does it mean for faith to be the proving or the proof of things that cannot be seen? Well, it is through faith that things which are not visible currently become as certain, if not more, than what we can observe with our senses. The Christian life is all about laying hold of something not yet fully revealed. The writer of Hebrews will go on to give example after example in chapter 11 of the way that the saints who came before were grasping invisible realities as though they were more certain than what they could see with their eyes in front of them. This is what faith does. It enables the Christian to embrace, apprehend and possess certain realities that others are blind to.
The writer of Hebrews has just been talking about the contrast between sketches of the Old Testament priests, sacrifices, and tabernacle of Jesus, the true high priest, and sacrifice who enters into the true tabernacle, which is God’s presence. The sketches and shadows could be seen, touched, and smelled, but the reality they pointed to was invisible. Although Jesus Christ was not invisible, his glory was veiled. His death appeared as though another Jewish man was being crucified by the Romans. But the reality was he was offering himself as a sacrifice, acting as a high priest, entering the very presence of God to complete a cleansing for sin. And it is faith that sees and grasps what is really going on. Only faith can see what is more real than what eyes alone can see. And by this, we do not mean that faith conjures up reality by assertion, as the culture around us might suggest.
Disney films went through a season of time, a number of years, a number of them would recommend the character facing hard situations to have faith wishing upon a star. Faith in these films was an abstract concept of believing things, believing that things would get better despite a complete lack of evidence. While it is helpful to be optimistic about the future, this is not the kind of faith that the author of Hebrews is talking about. That faith was not in anyone or anything in particular, just belief despite evidence that circumstances are bound to get better sooner or later. But when faith is severed from God in that way, it loses its meaning. It loses the reality it’s meant to be connected to, it’s meant to demonstrate. On the other hand, there are some churches which mistakenly teach that our subjective belief somehow creates physical realities.
This is not what the author of Hebrews is saying either. He’s not saying that faith creates reality. He’s saying that faith can see it. Faith accesses it. Like infrared glasses, which are able to view light waves which are invisible otherwise to our eyes. Faith sees what is otherwise invisible. Faith is a means by which God’s intervention is channeled to the individual. Our own belief in God’s promises is the instrument by which God gives us salvation. God’s sovereign power is observed, embraced, and received by faith. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, 16 speaks about the way that faith transforms the way that we look at Christ. He says, from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him as thus no longer.
Regarding Christ according to the flesh is to despise him, to devalue him, to consider Christ and his work as of no consequence. The unbeliever looks at Christ and yawns. He sees neither the glory of Christ nor his own desperate need for Christ and his work. Only through the eyes of faith can a person begin to understand that without the life that is found in Christ, he is hopeless. But once God gives a person faith, they look at things differently. Just like the kid with the brand new infrared glasses who suddenly begins looking at everything that was ordinary with a new interest, suddenly being able to see things that were invisible to him before. It makes him take a second look and reevaluate everything in a new light. With the eyes of faith, we look at God differently.
We also look at ourselves and other people differently. Instead of seeing people as primarily rich or poor, black or white, we see them as primarily lost or saved. And this brings us to our second point in verse two. Number two, faith garners the commendation of God. Look at verse two, for by it the people of old received their commendation. Here we have the ground for why our faith. Why faith is our point of access to invisible realities. By faith, the saints of old received commendation. Now, the word here, commendation, is the Greek word martyreo. In the noun form, this is where we get the word martyr. But what’s confusing is that in English, martyr has come to mean someone who dies for his faith. The Greek word originally didn’t have anything to do with dying.
It was about being a witness, giving a testimony. But it was these early witnesses to Christ who were often persecuted to death for the faith they testified about. But in the Greek, it just means testimony. And in our passage, the verb is in the passive past tense. The people of old were testified about. They were spoken well of. In the past tense especially, this word has the implication of a favorable testimony. So by faith, the people of old were spoken well of. They were commended. But by whom? While the verse itself does not answer the question, clearly from the context, the one commending these people is God, as we’ll see in the rest of the chapter. In verse one, we were thinking about how faith allows us to see and access otherwise invisible realities. But in verse two, we’re moving to the application and declaration of those realities to us.
The reason we can see otherwise invisible things by faith is because otherwise impossible things have been declared of us. It is by faith that the saints of old were commended. Justification is the declaration of God’s people who have done everything wrong instead to be completely innocent and having done nothing wrong. But this declaration of righteousness does not come from lying or deception. It comes from the work of Christ. Second Corinthians 521 says, for our sake, he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Christ was legally credited with wickedness that he did not do and punished for it. But he rose from the dead and clothed his people with his own perfect righteousness. Justification is the commendation of God and is received by faith.
The apostle Paul in Romans chapter 4, verse 3, quoting from Genesis says, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. This verse, we have a restatement of what Hebrews 11, 2 is expressing. God’s commendation, his justification only comes by means of faith. The utter scandal of this concept causes many to reject it. Righteousness, the commendation of God, cannot come by any act on our part. Our own actions are unable to garner the slightest bit of commendation from God. As Romans 3, 20 says, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. All attempts to keep the law in any way, shape, or form cannot make up the slightest bit of difference to our guilty standing before God. And in fact, they only add to our guilt, since they are not according to faith.
The righteousness that God requires, that God approves of, the only true righteousness must come from outside ourselves and can only be accessed by faith. But the scandal of justification by faith, it’s not discount anything we might attempt to do to earn it. The scandal also comes from the fact that it seems too easy. How could true righteousness, God’s genuine commendation, be accessed merely by believing? But this is the beauty of the gospel. Since God’s commendation can only be garnered by faith, it highlights the one-sided nature of salvation. The only thing you can contribute to your own salvation is the sin that you must be saved from. The sin that Jesus was executed for is your contribution. What God contributes is everything. Your only role is to listen to God’s promise of justification and believe it.
In case we were tempted to think that we deserved credit for believing the promises, believing the promises of the most trustworthy being in all the universe, Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 assures us, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. Faith is the gift of God. The ability to believe God’s promise, as Abraham did, is itself a gift. And this is because all men and women, of course, are born with a rebellious disposition towards God. Not only do we disbelieve God, we also hate him. So for a person to turn from a hater of God to a lover and truster of God takes a miracle. When that miracle happens, a person hears God’s promise of salvation, and instead of hating it or being bored by it, they can see their own immense need for God’s righteousness and believe in God’s ability and willingness to give it when he is asked.
This leads to the possession of previously invisible realities. Suddenly hope of a future glorious salvation comes into the present and becomes a reality. God’s commendation of those who believe in him is on the grounds for their ability to see things otherwise unseen. Future realities of glory for the people of God are made possible by the commendation of God. As verse 2 says, for by faith the people of old receive their commendation. Faith gives hope reality because it garners the favor of God. And thirdly, faith grants understanding, verse 3. Finally, in verse 3, we see that faith doesn’t just reveal invisible realities and garner the favor of God. It also is the basis of our ability to understand reality. Verse 3, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Sinful man chases a myriad of ludicrous explanations for the existence of the universe, the Earth, and ourselves. The theory of evolution was not invented by Charles Darwin. He merely offered a more modern mechanism. We have writings from the ancient Greek philosophers absurdly speculating about random chance producing the entire universe. Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Without the fear of the Lord, wisdom is based upon man’s own rebellious attempt at autonomy. And true wisdom can never be found on that path. It is wicked and wrong. The theory of evolution does not arise from observation but from a rebellious attempt to take the credit of creation from God. Apart from regeneration, men with rebellious hearts hate God and will do anything to justify their own autonomy. Common tenet of the unbelieving worldview is that any invisible immaterial reality does not exist.
Because based on this assertion, they could rule out the existence of God. But of course, it also rules out the existence of logic, of love, immorality, which do not have material substance. Sinful man’s autonomous reasoning always ends up unable to account for the world that we live in and the reality that he takes for granted. Many people assume that man’s problem is ignorance. Secular humanism insists that man is basically good and only needs some education. In this view, understanding precedes faith. But unfortunately, many Christians easily fall into this thinking as well. We can easily begin thinking that the problem is unbelievers haven’t been convinced by the arguments for God’s existence. But actually, it’s not an understanding problem. It’s a heart problem. Last week, I spoke with a man who claimed he was an agnostic. When I pressed him to discover the truth by reading God’s word, he finally admitted he didn’t want to read it and didn’t want to find out if there was truth.
Now, praise God, two other young men who were agnostics I also spoke with last week were open to discovering God through the reading of the Gospel of John and praying for God to reveal himself to them. The writer of Hebrews is reminding us in verse 3 that it is faith that grants understanding, not understanding that grants faith. Augustine of Hippo was a North African pastor and writer in the early church. He lived in the 300s about 1,700 years ago. And he famously stated, I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather I believe in order that I may understand. Based on this, the study of Christian doctrine has often been described as faith seeking understanding. If we go back to the analogy of light waves or other invisible realities from the scientific realm, the starting point for understanding them has to be the belief that these realities exist.
It is impossible to study something you do not even believe exists. But the situation just described is assuming the possibility of neutrality. And as I mentioned earlier, the alternative to faith is not innocent ignorance, it’s rebellion. We must come to the scriptures with an attitude of humility, of acceptance, submission, and belief. And the writer of Hebrews says, is pointing out that this must come from the very beginning of the scriptures, from verse 1. The Bible says in the beginning that God created the heavens and the earth. It is by faith that we take this as true, and upon this basis alone, that we have any hope of making sense of everything else. Not only does faith provide the basis of understanding in general, understanding God as creator, but it also gives us understanding that invisible realities, especially God, are the basis of, origin of, and foundation for the visible realities.
We tend to prioritize our eyes. The good, the bad, and the ugly that we see right in front of us often holds our greatest attention. Our worries, our hopes, our dreams, our fears, and preoccupations are often what we see right in front of us. This is understandable. But it doesn’t take faith to live with the visible world that is here and now as a priority. What takes faith is to live as though this world that we see and touch is less real and less important than God. Faith understands the purpose of this world is to bring glory to God. The world has no independent purpose. It was not created for its own sake, and we were not created for our own sake. What is visible was made out of what is not visible. God created this world and us to be for his praise and his glory.
When you have faith, you begin to understand things properly. Without faith, people go out searching for all sorts of destinies for mankind that avoid God. But faith grants understanding of why we are here, because it can see who God is. All of this creation, including ourselves, is a contingent reality. Contingent means it’s depending on something else. You need food, air, all a myriad of things to continue existing. All of visible reality and ourselves is dependent on something outside of ourselves to continue existing, but not God. There’s nothing you can take away from God to make him die, weaken, or not exist. We call that necessary existence. God alone is the only necessary being in existence. Everything else that exists depends upon him, and he depends upon nothing. You can’t starve God, or make him lonely, or destroy him in any way, shape, or form.
He is self-contained and self-existent. Even within the fellowship of the Trinity, he needs nothing from no one, nothing from anyone. God is life in existence itself, the source of all life and existence. As such, his existence demands our complete adoration and worship. There’s no one and nothing greater. All we see around us pales in comparison to God in all his splendid glory. By faith, we understand God’s preeminence and begin to order our lives and priorities accordingly. Instead of putting ourselves and our plans at the center of our reality, we place God and his glory, his plans, at the center. He is the basis of this world, not the other way around. As we’re going to see throughout the rest of Hebrews 11, this kind of understanding that comes by faith enabled the saints of old to live radically different lives from the world around them.
The call to have faith is a call to fix your eyes, the eyes of your heart rather, upon God. And the more you look at God by faith, the less consequential the visible reality will be. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Faith gives us eyes to see the glory of God, his utter uniqueness and brightness with our hearts even when we can’t see him with our eyes. It is by faith that we see God, receive his commendation, and understand that he made the world for his own glory. So the call is to believe. Amen. Let’s pray. Amen. Father in heaven, Lord God, you who spoke the universe into existence, we depend upon you for our existence. You were not made for us, but we were made for you. Lord, we thank you for the gift of faith by which we can have a restored relationship with you.
We can receive your commendation. We can see and understand you and your purpose for us, for the world. And we can live in the light of your priority and glory. Lord, we ask that you would give us faith. You would increase our faith. We might see you better and better. We might understand you more and more. And we might live in the pleasure of your countenance, the pleasure of your fellowship. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. We’ll conclude by singing hymn 517. Let’s stand as we sing hymn 517. I know whom I have believed.
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