Faith in the Superior Christ

If you haven't already, turn in your Bible to the Book of Hebrews and we continue our sort of expository series.

When I say sort of, what I mean by that is typically when you do expository preaching, that definitively is verse by verse preaching. And though we are handling all the verses in Hebrews, I have chosen for my first time preaching Hebrews because this is the first time I've been a pastor 20, this is my 22nd year, and I've been a Christian 30 and taught almost all of that.

The first time I've ever officially preached the Book of Hebrews, I taught it once on Wednesday night that I chose because of the nature of the book and years of experience and teaching and dialoguing and having conversations with people that there are books in the Bible that in my opinion, now this is just me talking, suffer more than other books because of decontextualization, Meaning there are verses in the Bible that sort of fit, taking a chunk of it or a verse or two from it or something like that. And the book doesn't suffer from that.

For example, a book in that regard would be Ephesians. You could take a verse From Ephesians, chapter 2 on Grace and have a very meaningful understanding of grace from a few verses. Or marriage, Ephesians chapter five and six and family. You can just take a few verses there and get a lot of it. But you get the most out of Ephesians when you understand the grace of chapters one through three and is what leads to the obedience of chapter four through six.

So some books suffer more than other books when you only use a verse or two or a thought or two. One of those books, for example, are two are the letters to Timothy. Those books is books really suffer when you only use verses in them. You know, people do it all the time. Let them not despise your youth. How many youth groups have used that verse to say that young people are important? Well, that's not what that's saying at all. It's saying that Timothy was a young pastor and, and in the culture, young men were not respected by older men. So, hey, Timothy, don't let those old men tell you that your calling is not real. You know, so some books suffer more than others when you take a verse or two out of context.

Hebrews is one of those books that almost entirely gets quoted apart from its broader context. So I chose, when I was planning the series, to do big portions of Hebrews at a time to keep us in our broader context of the overall picture of The Book of Hebrews. So that when we're done, we don't just know our favorite three verses from Hebrews, we know the Book of Hebrews, that we have a big grasp.

And the big theme, in my opinion, of the Book of Hebrews is the superiority of Christ. That the author of Hebrews is talking to a primarily, if not exclusively Jewish audience and telling these Jewish Christians, not Jews, not people who stayed in Judaism, but Jews who now, because of the gospel being spread and now because of the opening of the eyes of the Holy Spirit and group of people that were Jewish, are also now Christian. So they are ethnically Jews. They are historically Jews, but they are also now believers in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

But as is always the case, they brought baggage with them into their Christianity. We all do. We all bring our previous life into our Christianity. And sometimes our previous life tells us what we should think about Christianity. And we need a teacher to come along and say, no, your previous life is not your authority. The Bible is the authority. Let me tell you what the Bible says.

The author of Hebrews is now in this book up till this point. We're in chapter 11. And you'll get to the hall of Faith next time, not today. The author of Hebrews has gone through great lengths, even pains to tell us, hey, Jewish Christian, as much as you love your Judaism, and the author loves his Judaism too, you could tell this author loves Judaism as much as you love your Judaism, as much as you love the message of the angels, as much as you love Moses, as much as you love Abraham, as much as you love the temple, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the system, as much as you love all of that.

And as great as it was, it was all pointing to Jesus. God did all of that throughout history so that we now would see Jesus as the fulfillment of all of his promises. He had a plan through the ages. God was going to have a people. He was going to be worshiped. And people have a problem that keep them from worship. It's called sin. And God had set about from day one. From day one, he had a plan to bring people to himself.

And the Jewish people were that chosen vessel of a nation through which the gospel would come to the whole world. And guess what Jews did? They do what we all do. They thought they were great. They got proud, and they thought they deserved all that attention. Well, if God is using me, I must be great. Everybody does it. Everybody does that. We come through the door marked humility. And it isn't three weeks into our Christianity. We think we're something special.

So the Lord had to humble those Jews over and over again. And the Jews could not fulfill all of the promises of God to the world to because the Jews themselves had the same problem that the world has sin. And so God now through the promises and the fulfillment and Jesus brings about the solution to the world's problem.

And Jesus and the author of Hebrews wants the Jews to know it and the author of Hebrews wants us to know it that up till this point from chapters 1 through 10, the message essentially has been one message. Don't choose the old that can't make you perfect, that can't save your soul. Don't choose law when you can. Choose grace. Don't choose ceremony when you can choose Jesus. Don't choose a high priest who can die or a priest that can die. Choose the one who can live. Don't choose sacrifices like bulls and ghosts that can't save you. Choose the sacrifice of Jesus.

Then the last time we that back in chapter eight, somewhere around verse one, I believe it's the beginning of chapter eight is the idea that we have a high priest in Jesus. And then the author spells out the temple and I mean the tabernacle in the system. He's essentially telling these Jews all the things you loved about what God did are supposed to tell you that Jesus is better than those things.

And he's building and building and building to where? Now last time in the end of the book of Chapter 10, he essentially tells us, since we have all of that, you can look back in 22ish, chapter 10, 22 and so on. Since we are supposed to come now because Jesus did all he did by faith, holding fast, not wavering, not compromising because Jesus did everything.

You Hebrew believers need to turn to Jesus and live like people who turn to Jesus, gather with the body of Christ, serve one another, love one another, exhort one another. And he says, come with the assurance of faith in chapter 10. And the Hebrew believers might say like you might say, okay, well tell me what faith is now.

Let me take a time out. We don't say that. Americans don't say that because Americans are know it alls. We already think we know what faith is. We already think we understand it. We already think we have all the answers. Okay, let's just skip this part about faith and get on to the rest of the book. Wrong. You might not understand what faith is. Faith is way more simple than you understand. And your invention of faith is way, way worse than the best version of faith which God invented.

So we are going to get clarified on faith. So here's what we're doing today. I'm making one exception to the whole Book of Hebrews rule. I have kept up to this point. My idea was to do a survey of the whole book of Hebrews to make sure we see the big context. I just spelled it out for you by. I just verbalized it to you. That's the big context. Jesus is better. And you Jewish believers need to pick Jesus over your Old Testament ceremony. That ceremony can't make you perfect. Only Jesus can. So you need to choose him.

And when you choose him, it means really choose him. And it also means if you don't choose him, the last part of chapter 10, if you neglect him, it's not an option. If you choose not to follow Jesus, it is like you're walking through the blood of Christ dripping at the foot of the cross. You're telling God his Son doesn't matter if you choose not to follow him with your whole heart.

So faithfulness is required because Jesus is so awesome. He deserves your faithfulness. He deserves all glory be to Christ. Like the song just said, he deserves your glory. And so it isn't just better for your life that you follow Jesus. You are sinning when you don't follow Jesus. I want to make sure we're clear about that.

And so the author says, now it's time to turn to Jesus. And you might say, okay, I understand. You're right. You're telling me I need to serve Jesus, so I. I need to do better. That's the way most people think I need to do better.

No, you need to get over it in your mind. Because if you think that what you need to do is do better, that's what everybody thinks is the solution to their problem. Especially when they're in trouble or in sin or in whatever. When they're in the valley, they think I need to do better.

No, it was your doing that got you in the valley. What you need is the grace of Christ. You need a change of heart. It isn't that you need to do better. You need to better. You need to be a different thing. You need them to stop being the thing that got you in the valley and in trouble. That only comes by faith. That does not come by doing. That comes by faith.

And we are going to understand very clearly today what faith is. So this is the one exception to the whole series where I'm stopping down and looking at a couple of verses. I didn't do it. In the gathering verse of chapter 10. I didn't do it back in chapter five or six. I. I didn't stop down in any other place except now.

So this is effectively today, from the first two verses of chapter 11 is a topical message in an expository series. And then next week, I will connect the subject back to the hall of faith of chapter 11, or at least I will hope to. It's my desire to.

So we're going on a little bit of a side quest. We're taking a quick time out from the overall survey of the Book of Hebrews. I just gave you the survey. And the author of Hebrews is saying, you, you have to come to Christ. The better option, the best option, the high priest, the sacrifice. You have to come to him by faith.

And I'm saying in some sense that the book of Hebrews audience might be saying, what does that mean? What is faith? What do you mean, come to him by faith alone? What does that mean? And the author of Hebrews is saying, verses one and two is my answer. I'll explain it. This is what it means to come to Christ by faith. This is what faith looks like.

So I've already said it over and over again that lots of books can suffer when you decontextualize or you0in so focused. You get so focused on one line of a book that you miss the book forest and trees situation. I've given this analogy multiple times. I was going to say thousands of times, but a lot of times, I always remember my friend in seminary used to say that to me. He told me, johnny, I've told you a million times not to exaggerate. Isn't that great? You can borrow that. I don't. You don't even need to credit me or my friend Dennis. Just. You can say it to everybody

if you've never played chess before. First of all, hey, get on it. Chess is the best game in the world. Okay, But. But aside from that, chess is great. But one thing that's true of chess, in chess, there are black and white pieces. White always moves first, and after white moves, and then black moves in response, that is considered one move. That's not two moves. You think, well, two pieces move, that's two. No, it's one. It's move one. Move number one is white then black. Move number two, white then black. Move number three. White then black. Got it.

So after three moves, which in your head you're thinking, no, that's six. No, it's three. Okay. After three moves, white, black, one, white, black two, white, black, three. After three moves, a chess board can be in 9 million different combinations. After three moves of play, there are 9 million options that that board could be in depending on the moves that the two sides chose.

I bring that out to you because the goal of every chess game is. Is checkmate. And every new player to chess forgets that after about three moves, you start the game of chess. What's my goal is to take out the opponent's king. That's the only thing that counts. A win is only if I take out their king. But no new player can remember that. No new player does.

They always think it's about the moves. Oh, I can get his knight. Oh, I can move a pawn. Oh, I can move a bishop. And they forget that the goal of the game is to win the game, not move pieces. Everybody does that in their Bible interpretation too. Everybody.

The book of Hebrews, Christ is superior, and don't you dare neglect it. That's the book of Hebrews. I just summarized it for you. Christ is superior. Don't neglect it. So as I zoom in today and we get into a rook and a bishop, I don't want you to think it's all that matters. It matters in our context.

It matters when you understand faith, what it is and how it works and its functional reality to Christians, that you take that thing now that you understand and put it in Jesus because he's better, he's superior, he's awesome. He deserves your attention and worship.

So please don't get lost. Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. Sometimes we miss the trees for the leaves. We get so zoomed in and we think this, look at this thing. I learned this thing. And this verb and this word and this thing. And you're missing the big picture that Jesus is awesome.

We're going to do it in the sermon, and then we're going to go to communion and talk more about how he's awesome. So I want you to leave here today. I'm going to say some really dumb things to say. I have somewhere right now in my notes, at the bottom of the page, I'm looking at the word stuffness. I am not going to impress you academically today.

I want us to understand what faith is correctly because it's one of the most misunderstood yet simple concepts of all of scripture. It's so easy to understand, but we always muddy it up. Always. We turn it into something. We make it into something because it makes us feel important that we are the people of the faith.

And we turn it into something that we can mold and own and act like we have something special, but the right proper understanding of it is super basic. And then once it's super basic and understood, you realize, oh, it's hard to do. It's easy to understand. It's hard to live.

Maybe we make it difficult to understand so that we don't have to do it. If it's confusing, if it's mystical, if it's magical, if it's something else, then we don't really ever know if we're doing it right.

I have a question for you real quick. Do you know if you're breathing right now? Do you know if you're breathing? How do you know that you're breathing? How do I have to prove to you that you're breathing or not? What would happen if you didn't breathe? How hard is that to understand what I just told you? Are you breathing or aren't you? And. And do you know that you're breathing?

It is that easy to understand faith. It is that easy. It's an either or, an A or B. A black or white A yes or no. It's so simple, it hurts. The reason I say it hurts is because people think that there's some mysterious monster out there keeping them from obeying God, that there's some mysterious thing they are missing in their life that other people seem to have that they don't have.

Why does it seem so easy for you to have faith and I don't? No, that's not it at all. It's really easy, but people just don't do it. They choose to hold their breath.

Pray with me, Father, as we open the book of Hebrews again, especially these couple of verses that we think we understand. I would just ask that we would really understand.

Would you please teach us by your spirit who authored them? And then, Father, if I'm able and in the coming weeks to connect what we learn here today with what comes after it ultimately, so that we see the point. The reason that your servant, whoever they were that wrote this book by the Holy Spirit, the goal of this book is to exalt your Son and Father.

If we knew the book and every word and we could read it and understand it backwards and forwards, but we don't exalt your son. We have wasted our time. So would you help us learn today what faith is so that we can learn how it was used by your people throughout the ages in. And how we can exercise faith in our life too. In Jesus name, Amen.

All right, so I'm going word by word here. This is. We're breaking down. We're going full exegetical, hermeneutical, expository. We're going all the way in.

If you didn't know, some of you, there are folks that are new to the faith. The original Bible, the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew, the Hebrew language of the Jews. There's a little bit of Aramaic in there, but it's small enough that you can just say it's in Hebrew, but there is some Aramaic.

And then in the New Testament, the New Testament is entirely written in Greek. And not just any Greek, not classical Greek, but Koine Greek, a specific kind of conversational Greek. I say that to you because that was the language of the people at the time. And so when you hear me giving Greek words today, I just want you to know why. That's just the study in the original language.

You don't need to know the original language. Your English Bible is accurate, but I'm going to the original because there's some details here that I think are valuable and might even help us exercise faith.

So the very first words of verse one. Now, faith. Now, I could read the whole thing. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. I could talk about that. But first, I want to start with now faith.

Well, first I have to start with now the word. Now, this is an interesting word that's used here. Whoever the author is, he picked a weird word because he didn't pick the normal word for now. The normal word for now is this Greek word, noon. It's not N o o n, but it would be. I don't want. Don't tell Dr. Walker. If I use English, he gets mad. You're supposed to do it in Greek. So. Nu, upsilon, nuke. Okay, so now if he hears this, I won't get my grades docked from school.

But that word now is the typical word, nun. But that's not the word here. Oddly, I'm not even sure I can fully explain it. The word here is the word that is almost always translated. But B U t. Now, there's two words that can be translated but the adversity of. But one of them is ala, and the other one is de.

That little word can be translated. Other things like it is here. But the reason I bring that up to you is if you were to translate this. But faith is the thing, is the substance of things. If you put the word but there, you can see. Well, wait a second. What does that have to do with before?

I think the Idea is he's saying, which he just ended with in chapter 10, we are not like the people who do the wrong thing and neglect the gathering and don't live our faith. We are not like them, but instead we are of the faith.

I think he's doing a little bit of a contrast there. And unlike the people who did do it. And then he says, or didn't do it. And then he says, we did do it. We have faith because. Or. But faith is this thing.

So I'm not exactly sure yet, but how it should be translated. But now is a good. A good way to translate it. And then here comes our word of the day. The word is faith.

Now, faith is so easy to understand, but you do have to have a little bit of a grasp of grammar. Not Greek grammar, but English grammar. Incidentally, I dramatically improved my English grammar after I took Greek because I realized how much English I didn't know formally until I had to start translating Greek. What's a nominative? I don't know. You have to learn those things. Okay?

But here it's very important to understand what I'm about to tell you. And it's simple. It's not hard to understand. But so don't try to think in the clouds. Right now, let's get down to earth. We're in about sixth grade or seventh grade English, okay?

A noun and a verb. Everybody got it. A noun is a thing, A verb is an action. You all got that? But there are words, even in English that we use that are both. And I don't mean all nouns can be verbs. What I mean is sometimes it's the same word, like the word run. R, U, N. You can run, which is the verb, or you can go for a run, which is a noun. Got it?

There's lots of words like that, but then there's some words where there's a little bit of change. Like, see, you don't go for A.C. you go for acite. Got it? So those words are different.

But I do want you to see that the word faith is one of those words that is a noun and a verb. Now, we don't usually use the word faith as a verb, but I will today. And you're going to think I'm dumb, but it's smart that I'm doing it. Okay? It's smart that I'm saying faithing. Like, we need to do more faith because you need to have more faith, but you need to do more faith. More faithing. I'll put it in a participle. Form. Okay, so the word faith is like that.

There is a noun form and a verb form. In the Greek, by the way, it's two different words. It's not the same word. The Greek, a noun is pistis. That's the noun version. When you see it as a noun, when it's used as a thing or a stuff, when I'll get to the stuffness in a little bit. And then the other form of it in action, when faith is being done, when somebody is again faithing, that is pistuo. So pistis is the noun. Pistuo is the verb. Okay, that's important because.

Well, like, for example, side note, John the apostle John uses the word in its verb form something like 70 times. So in John's Gospels, when he's using the word faith, his faith is moving. It's working, right? So there's something to that.

So what does this word mean, the word faith, simply the most basic understanding of the word faith is to use the synonym trust. It's the easiest way to understand. What does it mean when you trust somebody? It means the same thing when you have faith in them. That's what it means.

Trust is a confidence. It's a leaning. The word can be translated assurance. It can be translated to commit. Like to commit your trust to somebody. Like, I'm committing this to you. Hold on dear to it. I have confidence in you to take care of this thing, right? I'm going to loan this to you or that kind of thing. I'm trusting you with this thing that all of that is faith.

It is a simple action of putting your confidence or assurance or trust in something. So we could be done right there. That could be the whole sermon. Because that's all faith ever is.

The dictionary definition, the lexical form of the word faith in the Bible is belief, trust, confidence, assurance. I always use the same dumb example, but I'm going to use it again. I've used it a thousand times. Today's a thousand and one.

What you are doing on the chair right now, not sitting, that's another verb. What you are doing right now mentally with the chair you're sitting in is putting your confidence in that chair to hold you up.

Now, some of you didn't think about that. You were doing it passively, but you're still doing it. You're still doing the verb of putting your faith into your chair right now. Unless you're sitting here and you have some sort of strange phobia or something where, like, I'm afraid of chairs falling. That might be A real thing. I don't know. What would that be? Chair phobia or whatever. If there is a phobia of chairs falling, then you're the exception. But everybody else who sat down in your chair today had a hundred percent confidence in the chair to hold you up.

That confidence you had in the chair, the word for that is faith. And that's all faith is, all the time.

So whenever Christians are using the word faith in a biblical way, when they're using the Bible word faith, that's what they mean. They mean trust. Now I haven't even talked about what the faith is in yet.

Your body has faith in that chair or your mind. The chair is the object, right? The action, the verb is sitting or trusting, right? Your action is sitting, but you're sitting by faith.

We usually say walk by faith. No one ever says I sit by faith, not by sight. But you did. You had faith in that chair 100%.

So, so we're clear. Everything else I say today, that is the most important thing I say today, that faith. When the author of Hebrews uses the word now, faith, the thing he is talking about is the thing called trust. Belief, confidence, assurance. That's all it means.

There's no more meaning in, doesn't have nuance. There aren't elements to it. There aren't other parts to it that make more sense. If you go to seminary, it is simply trust.

Now I haven't talked about how much of that stuff you can have. I haven't talked about where you put that stuff. I haven't talked about how you use that stuff. I'm just talking about the stuff, the stuff called faith.

However big, however little, the stuffness of the thing called faith is trust, confidence, assurance. And you can trust anything. People trust friends, people trust politicians, if you can imagine, right? People trust all kinds of things. People trust medicine, people trust doctors, people trust used car salesmen. That might surprise you. People trust, I don't know, car companies.

There's any number of places where people will put confidence, trust, belief, faith. But what we're clear on today, I hope you understand before you leave here today, it is not magic.

If you have trouble trusting God, it isn't because there is a mysterious thing called faith that you don't understand that you haven't understood correctly. Somebody didn't teach it to you correctly. You didn't go to school and properly understand it. No, no, no. It's simple.

Just like you didn't need to go to school to understand how to sit down and trust that chair to hold you up just like you didn't need to go to school to breathe. Breathing keeps you alive. Faithing keeps you faithful. It's simple. It's simple.

Again, I'll get to what we put our faith in that's coming. So that's what faith is.

Faith is not the object. That's important too. Like a windmill is not wind. Right. Plumbing is not water. You understand what I'm saying? Faith is not the object. Faith is the thing that you put in the object. You trust an object.

Now let's get into the more substance of part of it, because it's the word substance. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The word order here in the original is different. The hoped for substance is more accurate. But that's. We'll stick to English for now.

So faith is a stuff. I've already said that. The evidence is. The text just told you. Faith is a stuff. It says it right there. It's a substance. That's a stuff.

I told you I was going to sound dumb. I knew it was going to sound dumb and now I'm hearing it come out of my mouth. It sounds even dumber than I thought. Substance is a stuff.

By the way, the word stuff is in the old King James. So those of you King James people, that word is in the old King James. So that is good old English.

The word that's used here for substance or that I'm calling stuff, is an important word. It's a word that's a very important historical word. In Christianity, it is the word hupostasis. And those of you who know, we just came out of Christmas, the hupostasis is what we call the hypostatic union. That is the union of the two natures of Christ. His spiritual nature and his human nature being joined into one. Because the substance is one, it is the deity.

So when you talk about the hypostatic union, the union of his, of the invisible part to the physical, that hypostatic union is a union of two natures, but one stuff, one substance, one thing.

So faith is a thing or a stuff. Got it again. What if faith is a thing or a stuff, then it is not magic. It is not a mystery. It is not something else. Faith is. Is. It's not an emotion. Faith is not a force, like in Star Wars. Faith is not an incantation. Faith is not some sense you have that bigger things are happening.

No, faith is a verb. And when it's exercised, it's a noun. When you faith, you have faith. When you believe you have belief. When you trust, you have trust again. Still haven't gotten to where it goes yet. It's now we're getting to where it goes.

It is a stuff. That's the most important part, is that don't think of faith as a mystery. It's not a mystery. It's absolutely an easy thing to understand. Faith is not at all difficult to understand. It's difficult to do because we're sinful, but it's not difficult to understand.

If you ever sit around and say, wonder, why don't I act more obedient? Why am I not more faithful? And the answer to that question is, you're not doing faith. That's it. That's the answer.

Now you might have to figure out why. Because there is reason. Just so you know, you love sin more than you love God. That's why. I can even help with that. That's simple, too. You always do what you love. You say, no, I hate the thing I was doing over and over again that was hurting me. No, you don't. You love it or you stop doing it.

It's pretty simple. This stuff is simple. Why is everybody struggling? Why is everybody having trouble? Why are their marriages falling apart and addiction and every other thing? Because we put our faith in the bottle. We put our faith in the drug to take care of us. We put our faith in the politician to take care.

This is why we struggle. We all have faith. You all exercise that thing called faith. We just don't put it in the right object.

Faith is the substance, the stuff. And then the next phrase is neat in English. It's a little neater in Greek, but I can't translate it so that it makes sense. In Greek, the word things is a neat word. So hypostasis is the word. Substance, stuff, the matter, the stuff. Assurance, confidence, the substance.

The next word for things is pragma. You know that word? That's where we get pragmatic. But what it is is an act or a thing or a matter of. So if you say, what's the matter? What's the pragma?

Okay, so substance, faith, the stuff called faith, the thing called faith, the noun called faith, the trust, the confidence. The belief is the stuff. And it is the hoped for thing. Stuff. Okay, I know that's a weird translation, but that is the way it's actually written. Faith is the hoped for, thing. Stuff. Okay?

So faith is a stuff. And the kind of stuff that's the real stuff is when it is placed in a hopeful pragma thing.

Now, this is not in general. This is the part this verse gets plucked out of its context. The things hoped for in this context are not just anything that you might hope for. It's not hope for your life to turn out right or to marry the right person or to get the right job. That is not what faith is. This verse gets used like that all the time.

No, the things hoped for have just been defined for us for 10 chapters. The author just told us for 10 chapters the things that we should be hoping for instead of hoping in ourself, instead of hoping for an earthly priest, instead of hoping for an earthly tabernacle, instead of hoping in an earthly sacrifice. You're supposed to see something, someone better than those things.

So God gave promises, those promises were forward looking to the people that were going to be listed here in chapter 11. They were forward. They were ahead of them in time. They're behind us in time, right? But to them, they were looking forward to something.

So Abraham, when God said in you, all of the nations of the world will be blessed, he looked forward to that. And he had hope because God promised him that. And when he trusted God, that thing called trust, and the thing hoped for, the stuff of faith was trust. It's really basic.

I even struggled with how do you preach such a basic thing without messing it up by making it too complex? Because it's so basic.

Abraham looked and saw a future because God said, there's your future. And Abraham said, I believe him, now I have hope. That's it. That's the whole thing. God said it, Abraham heard it, then he believed it. That's faith.

That's the Is it better for you or worse for you to do what God says when it comes to your family, kids, is it better for you or worse for you if God says to obey your parents, is it better for you or worse for you to obey your parents? There is no math that needs to be done there. You don't have to get out your calculator. You don't have to read a book, you don't have to listen to a podcast. Stay away from YouTube.

It is better for you if God says to do a thing, to do that thing. And when you have confidence in God saying the thing and you trust what God says, do the thing, you have faith. Pretty simple.

God's way is best and I trust him. That's it. And that trust is faith. It's not more than that. It's not less than that either.

Faith is not merely thinking God has good ideas. Faith is the verb of trust and confidence in those ideas. The demons know that Jesus is real, but what do they do when they know it, according to James, that there's one God? What do the demons do? They tremble. They know it, but they don't trust it.

Knowledge and faith are not the same. Faith is the trust and the confidence.

The dictionary has the idea of hope as a thing you want to happen. That's the way modern use of the word hope. That word is, by the way, elpidzo. I always liked that word when we had to study that word, el pidzo, hope.

So the stuff, the hypostasis of the things of the matter of the pragma of the. Of the. The things that God has planned that you put your hope in happening, because God planned them.

The hope part of that is el pidzo. And it's very important to see, like right now, if I were to say, do you hope? I'm telling you right now, in the room right now, those of you who are looking at me right now and somewhat awake, I'm asking you right now how silly it would be of me if I said, do you hope you get to go to church today?

Doesn't that seem silly? Why is it silly for me to ask you that? Do you hope you get to go to church today? Why? Why is that silly? Because you went to church today.

That is how biblical hope works. Just like that. It's like the thing already happened. Biblical hope is just like that, only for the things that happen next. That's it.

So in the Bible, hope doesn't have any doubt. The Bible word for hope doesn't have. It might not happen. It doesn't. Now, you might not come to church tonight. You should. Sergio worked really hard. You should come in here and preach. Okay, but some of you might say, I hope to come tonight. But in your heart, you have a little bit of maybe not.

There is none of that in the Bible word hope. In the Bible word hope, it is as though the thing has already happened. Do you want to know why that word is like that? Because it is God's word that you're hoping in. And God cannot fail. So that if God says a thing and God lives in eternity and everything he says comes to pass, he purposes it, he will do it.

There is no thing that God says will happen that can't happen. It always has to happen so that hope is never a hope in God's word. But maybe not. It is an absolute assurance. Just like you could say, I hope I go to church today. Even though I'm already here.

I hope Jesus comes back. I don't have to say that with any doubt. He said he's coming back. That's it. I believe him. So you all just witnessed me do the faith. I faith right there in front of you. You all witnessed it.

Jesus is coming back. How do I know? Because he said so. That is faith. I'm telling you, that's faith. Because I trust it, that God said it and Jesus is coming back. And I put my confidence in it, that faith turns into obedience.

Okay, but it starts with confidence. It starts with confidence. That's why back in verse 22, the assurance of faith, you're supposed to move in the assurance of faith.

So chapter 10 ends with this idea. You're you, the people. The author is talking to me. We have faith and we're supposed to move like people who have faith, gathering together, exhorting one another, promoting the gospel, promoting faith and exhorting and strengthening the body of believers. Because the day is approaching. Jesus is coming. Right? That's the idea.

We, we are exercising our faith. And now what the author of Hebrews is doing said, just be clear what faith is. This is what faith is. It's the stuff of the matters that God has promised and you have all your hope in. That's what faith, the right kind of faith is put in what God says and the things that, the promises that are made.

So don't take this verse out of its context and think you're using it right. Keep it in its Hebrews context. Hebrews starts with the Jesus and God had in former times spoken to us by the prophets, as in these latter times spoken to us by his Son. Right? His son. His Son is the main character over and over again.

And we don't want to neglect those things and we don't want to put aside those things. We don't like Paul. It might be Paul here too. He doesn't want to set aside the grace of God. Instead of setting aside the grace, he wants to exalt the grace of Christ.

So Jesus is on display for 10 chapters. And now the things hoped for are everything the author just told us.

And when you put your confidence, these Jewish Christians are supposed to put their confidence in the things that were just promised to them. Then they can have hope, confident God tells the truth and I have hope.

And then it goes on to say the last part of verse one, the evidence of things not seen. That's sort of almost a summary of what's been said.

The word evidence here is the same word that you know really well from 2nd Timothy 3. All scripture is given by God and is profitable for the things that it's profitable for. And the one called reproof, is that the same word that's used here for evidence? It is sort of like a legal, forensic kind of word.

Now, side note, because some people have trouble when I say this. And so I'll just take a moment to clarify. If you think that you are obligated as a Christian to prove to unbelievers that God is real and the gospel is true, I want to tell you something I say a lot, and then I want to qualify it with this verse. You cannot prove anything to anyone, ever. There is no such thing as the absolute proof.

Now, we can be. Why do you think it's in our legal language? How does it go in our courtrooms? Proof beyond what do you understand? Beyond a reasonable doubt means that you can't prove anything absolutely, even in court. That's there to say you have to prove it to the best you can prove it to. But nobody can be absolutely proven. Nothing can be absolutely proven.

I remember my teacher in class, I got in trouble here. Jamie's not in the room, so I won't get in trouble today. But he said something like, you can't prove. He said something about a pencil, and then he said something about, like, women. You can't prove that. That anybody could understand women or something. And then I joked and said something about that and got in trouble in class. So I won't do it here.

But the idea is that I want you to know that there's no such thing as an absolute proof to subjects, because absolute proof is an object of reality. And we are incapable as subjects of understanding something absolutely objectively.

I bring all that up to you because I say that all the time so that you understand you cannot prove to somebody that God is real. And no matter what evidence you bring, that doesn't mean they will. To them, it will be beyond a reasonable doubt. You're stuck with other subjects, right?

But God is the object, and God is objective. And if God says a thing is true and God believes that thing that he says is true, guess what? It is proven. That is the final word.

Now, you and I have to accept it by faith and not have any doubts, because there is no reasonable doubt of God's word. All doubting of God's word is unreasonable. But I do want you to understand that we cannot objectively, absolutely know anything. So to us, it will always be beyond a reasonable doubt for us subjects. But To God. He says these things are true, that he promised, he fulfilled them in Christ. So they're absolutely true. That means they are evidence.

They're not evidence that needs to be bounced off you first to decide whether it's true. They are evidence according to God. And God says, I am satisfied with the evidence because I did it.

Now this becomes really important. The reason I'm emphasizing this now, I have a reason for it. It isn't just semantic, it's not just those kind of things. It's because the faith and the truth associated with our faith pretty much has nothing to do with you.

If all Christians were hypocrites, it would not change the validity of Christianity. If every Christian was a hypocrite, it would not mean Christianity is false. And by the way, it means nothing has nothing to do with you either. Your belief doesn't change Christianity at all. So you say, well, I believe it now. So that it's true. No, it was true before you believed it.

So the object of reality, the evidence, is true, As a matter of fact, absolutely. Because God said it. And you by faith and seeing the hope that that evidence gives you in the gospel, put your trust in it.

So don't think that faith depends on you. It doesn't. God doesn't depend on you for anything. You're not dependable, by the way, he shouldn't depend on you for anything. You depend on him for everything.

So you exercise faith, you do faith, you faith in God, you have faith the stuff, but you also act in faith toward Him. It's really important that we don't think Christianity is dependent on us. Very important. You understand that.

In fact, that's a big part of your problem if you get in trouble, is that you think your Christianity depends on you. The arrogant of you think that God is really sad because you're not there. The sad and broken of you think that he can't fix you because you're too far gone. Neither of those are true.

God doesn't need you. You're not adding to him at all. You are utterly dependent for your next breath on Him. And I want to just tell you this morning, that is really good news. It is really good news that God doesn't need you. Hallelujah. God doesn't need us. Hallelujah. We need him and he comes to us anyway.

And then when you get in trouble, you can say, oh yeah, of course I'm in trouble, it's me. But he isn't in trouble. He didn't change. He's solid as a Rock.

The promises that God made in the Old Testament with the Old Covenant are fulfilled in Jesus. And you have the evidence because it was told to you by God.

You say, well, you've heard people say this. Maybe you've said it. I won't believe in God unless I see a miracle. Nope. You all know that that's not true.

How did Israel do after they saw all their miracles? I mean, everybody that saw Jesus do miracles got saved, right? No, it's never evidence that's missing. It's faith in God telling the truth about the evidence. It's trusting God.

Now, the Last verse, verse 2, or the verse of the morning, I don't have a lot to say about it because it's what goes into the next part.

Faith is confidence, trust, belief. That's all it is. Faith is only as good as the object it's placed in. So if you put faith in bad things, your faith is going to lead you down the wrong path. If you trust the wrong things, love, romance, drugs, politics, whatever, social media, if you trust these things, you're going to be disappointed. If you trust the world at all, if you trust the world to deliver for you, it will disappoint you. Some of you have already experienced that.

But if you trust God and you believe his word and you say, because his word says I should have hope, that's enough evidence. That's all I need. I don't need to see it. I don't need to go back in time and see the Red Sea part. I don't need to go to the future and see Jesus come back and sit on the throat of David. I just believe it because God said it. That's enough.

The evidence of things not seen, I don't need to see. I have the word of God written down right in front of me. I have enough. Okay, God said it, I believe it.

Now you've all seen the bumper sticker that says God said it. I believe it, that settles it. That's fine. But personally, I take out the middle part. God said it, that settles it. My belief doesn't settle it. I mean, I wouldn't go around tagging people's bumper sticker. Don't do that. Don't go marking out the I believe it part. But if you have a bumper sticker, maybe you fold it. You know, do that thing where you fold it so that just says God said it. I believe it. I mean, that settles it. Take out the I believe it part, but you should believe it.

Verse 2. For by it, that is that thing. By Faith. By it, they. By faith they looked forward because God made promises to the elders. And I'll explain elders in a second. He made promises, they looked forward, they had hope, and then they had the stuff of faith. They looked forward by it, by faith, the elders.

Now, this isn't the office of elder. Our context in Hebrews is not a church context like Timothy or another place where elders are mentioned or church planting. This is in the context of what we just heard and what we're about to hear. What we just heard was in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament. In the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, right.

They were all looking forward. And now in chapter 11, he's going to say in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, these are the elders. So in this case, the elders are the ancestors, even including the women here. So I don't want you to think elders are pastors. Not in this context.

He's saying for, for by it. This thing called faith, this trusting God at his word, when God said it, they believed it. That gave them a good testimony. Now the word for testimony is really important because some of them, and we'll see it, and when we get into the hall of faith of chapter 11, they really testified.

When you stand before a courtroom and you raise your right hand and say that you're going to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth to help you God, you are about to give testimony, right? That's what that means. You are to testify and you're about to give a testament. That's essentially what you're giving, right? You're giving a testament, an account of what happened, the word for that in the New Testament, that word in this case for testimony is the word marturos.

Does that sound familiar to you? When I say martyros, what does it sound like? Martyr. You and I, because English is messed up, think that martyr only has to do with people who die for a thing. That is not the meaning of the word. The meaning of the word is people who testify of a thing, who say, this is what I believe. They say that out loud. And some people said that in blood. That's why it became the word. It is today that when people stood for the faith and were martyred, killed for their faith, the martyr part of it is actually the testimony that they stood.

Remember when Tyndale says that the plow boy will know more scripture than you or God, Please change the heart of the King of England. He, he was testifying. He was giving a testimony of the word of Christ before all of England and then he died for it. And we associate the dying with the martyr, but the testimony is the martyr part.

Okay, so will you give testimony this week? Will you be a martyr, meaning a witness? Will you be a witness for Christ this week? Because the word martyr means to be a witness.

And now will you suffer what all witnesses suffer to be associated with Christ and take everything that comes with it?

Our church right now is teaching a class on Islam. Do you understand? That makes us a target of all of Islam. You're a target. And you say, well, Walter, be quiet then. Don't be teaching that wrong. We stand for the gospel at all costs. We will witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will testify. We will give martyros testimony.

The elders, some of them. Do you know, if you want to look ahead, look toward the end of chapter 11 and look at what happened to some of those martyrs, those people who testified.

You want to go read a book? Go read the book. Fox's Book of Martyrs. It is mostly historical. There's some things in it that are questionable because the record isn't exactly accurate, but for the most part, it's historical. And you do hear about people being cut in two and people killed and impaled and every other thing thrown off buildings and all kinds of things.

So God gave the Old Testament saints, elders, ancestors, words. He told them, these are the things I'm going to do for you, Israel, starting with Jacob, well, starting with Adam, but now with the people of Israel.

That the Hebrew people, as they're hearing from the mouth of the pen of the author of Hebrews. You all know our history. God made all kinds of promises to our people throughout history. And those people did not get to see those promises come to fruition. Those people did not get to see the holy city. They did not get to see Jesus sit on a throne, a king sit on the throne. They did not to get get to see it.

So what is their option? Old Testament saints, what is their option? Well, I didn't see it, so it must not be true. Something's only true if I see it, right? Wrong. It's the evidence of things not seen. They didn't see it, but God said it and they trusted it. Just like you trust the chair.

And they had hope. Like you have hope that you're going to church today. Know that doesn't make sense in your brain, but that's hope. Hope is like it already happened. That's what hope is.

And God said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to send my son into the world. I'm going to give him a body. The second person of the Godhead is going to become a man. He is going to walk amongst you. He's going to obey me. He's going to display my heart to the people. He's going to tell people what I am like. He's going to show them to, to come to me. They have to go through him.

He's going to sacrifice himself for my people. My people are going to believe in him. I'm going to promise all of that in the Old Testament. Those people will look forward and see that that's coming in Jesus.

And now the people of the Book of Hebrews are saying, and should be saying, hey, he did it. He did it. This it happened. The Messiah came. He did. He did exactly everything they said. By his stripes we were healed. He did. He was born in Bethlehem just like they said.

And eventually all the people of Israel, if you believe what I do in Zechariah, that they will all look on the one that was pierced and they will worship.

We see that coming by faith. We have hope, or we should, and we should have the Bible kind of hope not to win the lottery kind of hope that one day we're going to see Jesus. And in the meantime, we're going to have a good testimony.

I'm going to stand for him. I'm going to tell people about him. I'm going to live for him. I want my life to reflect what he did because he kept his promises to me. I want to be faithful to him. Faithful means full of faith. That's what it means.

I have faith, confidence, trust. I trust God.

Why do you not come and party with us? Because God said that's not a good idea. He said to avoid revelries.

Hey, man, come on, let's go look at this pornographic material. I can't. I made a promise to my wife and God said to look at another thing with lust is the same as committing adultery. I can't do that to my wife.

Come on, man, just. Just lie on your taxes. It'll be so much better for you if you just don't tell the truth on your income. Don't you understand what false witness means? I can't bear false witness because I believe Jesus is coming back. And I believe he will reward me for every act of obedience.

I believe that everything I do one day will be a crown that I cast as his feet. How can I pollute the crowns with disobedience? I'm looking forward to the day of looking at him. And I want to be right when I get there. I can only be right if I walk by faith first in my salvation and trusting Christ wholeheartedly. Not me at all.

Trusting in Christ for my salvation. That's been a big part of the message, to trust him and him alone. Not your works, not your goodness, not your righteousness before or after you're saved.

And now that he's washed you in his blood and cleansed you and made you righteous in the gospel, now you say, I'm going to do what he says to do. I'm going to walk by faith. I'm going to live my faith. I am going to faith. Let's pray,

Father. Now, as we go into this communion time, what a fitting time to go to communion, to go and celebrate everything Jesus did and fulfilling all of your promises.

I would ask if there's anyone here who either struggles with hopefulness, maybe they didn't understand that faith was simply the act of trusting you and there might be other things keeping them from doing it. That today would be the day that the excuses and doubts all go away and they just trust you. They believe what you say about your son. They are saved if they're not.

And those of us who are, that we would just walk by faith, that we would trust you and have hope. We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen.

All right, deacons,