why faith pleases god
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“Why Faith Pleases God”
(Hebrews 11:1-40)
I. Introduction.
A. Orientation.
The author has shown us
That Jesus is superior in every way
To the Old Covenant system –
As we saw last time,
He ministers in a better tabernacle –
In heaven itself –
And with better blood –
His own infinitely precious blood –
And on this basis,
The author urged us to press forward.
Jesus has opened the way to heaven –
And so you are to draw near to God
Through faith in Him;
You are to hold onto Him –
By trusting Him
And doing His will –
And you need to gather together
With your brothers and sisters in Christ
To encourage them to do the same.
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There is only one of two directions
You can go at any one time spiritually:
Either forward or backward –
If you’re not going forward,
You’re going backward.
If you want to see heaven,
You have to be moving forward.
Don’t forget the author’s warning:
If you go after the world,
You are, at the same time,
Turning away from the Lord;
And if you turn from Him,
You are no better than the Jews
Who rejected Jesus and turned Him over
To the Romans for crucifixion.
If you do,
You will face God’s wrath for your sins,
Not the least of which will be
Your rejection of His Son,
Which is the worst sin you can commit:
Jesus said to His disciples,
When He sent them out to preach,
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Regarding those who wouldn’t listen to them,
“Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house
or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for
that city” (Matt. 10:14-15).
B. Preview.
You need to press forward.
But to do that,
The author shows us this morning,
You need faith –
Faith to see what can’t be seen,
Faith to believe God’s promises
And embrace them –
The kind of faith that saves.
The author goes on now
To tell us more about this faith
And what it does in the lives of those
Who are blessed enough by God to possess it.
He tells us at least three things:
1. What faith is.
2. What the benefits are of faith.
3. What kind of difference it should make in your life.
II. Sermon.
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A. First, he explains what faith is: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen” (v. 1).
1. Faith takes God at His Word.
He promises to do something,
And you believe Him.
Even though it hasn’t happened yet,
Even though you don’t see it,
You are fully convinced it will happen,
And so you live expecting that it will happen.
2. But it’s more than this:
You’re not just convinced it’s going to take place,
You look forward to its taking place –
In other words,
You see what He promises is good
And you want it to happen.
Faith looks forward
To the fulfillment of God’s promises
With hopeful expectation.
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”
You can begin here
To examine the kind of faith you have:
Do you believe God will do what He says?
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And do you look forward to the time
When what God has promised
Actually takes place?
B. Let’s consider secondly,
What the benefits are of this kind of faith.
1. The first and most important benefit
Is that this is the kind of faith that saves.
When faith eyes the promise
Of eternal life in the Gospel –
When it sees that Jesus is the Savior
And that whoever embraces Him
Is forgiven and made acceptable to God,
It not only believes these things are true,
But warmly welcomes Him
And embraces Him and His ways from the heart.
Is this the kind of faith you have?
Do you believe Jesus is the only Savior?
Have you embraced Him from the heart?
Is He your only trust?
Do you love His ways
And are you following Him?
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If you don’t believe the Gospel,
Or if you only believe these things to be true
But don’t really want Him as your Savior
Or to follow Him as Lord,
Then you still need to repent and believe
If you’re going to see heaven.
Pray that God would give you His Spirit
So that you can!
2. The second benefit
Is that faith gives you
The means to please God.
If you love Him,
Then this should be
At the top of your list of priorities.
You can’t please Him without faith.
If you don’t have faith,
You might believe that He is –
As we see in Romans 1,
Everyone knows that He is –
But you won’t have
The clear and firm conviction
That the Triune God of the Bible exists –
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If you don’t believe that,
You certainly won’t believe
That He rewards those who seek Him (vv. 2, 6).
And if you don’t have a faith that works through love
You won’t care whether He rewards you or not.
On the other hand,
If you can see that God really is,
And that He has made many gracious promises
To those who will trust Him,
And you want what He has promised,
You will seek Him –
No matter what the cost –
And you will receive what He has promised.
C. That’s what the rest of the chapter is about –
The author gives us many examples
Of the difference this faith will make in your life.
It’s interesting that all of them
Are from the Old Testament,
Though there were certainly more recent examples;
He does this to show
That even the OT saints lived by faith,
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And gained God’s approval by faith.
So what will faith look like in your life?
First, it will help you see
Where you came from –
That God made you along with everything else:
“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that
what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (v. 3) –
And where you’re going,
At least if you’re a believer –
To “the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (v. 10).
This is something those outside of Christ
Know nothing about.
They believe they’re a cosmic accident
That comes into existence for a little while
And then go back into nothingness.
They have no real purpose –
No wonder so many take their lives.
But since you know the truth,
You also know, second,
What your purpose is –
Why you’re here:
To glorify God
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By leaving this world behind,
And seeking after heaven.
Let’s consider how faith
Had this effect in the lives of those
The author speaks of in this chapter.
It was faith that compelled Abel
To offer a better sacrifice than Cain –
He knew what God wanted
And out of love, he gave it to Him,
Even though it made his brother hate him (v. 4).
It was faith that made Enoch
Turn his back on the world
And walk with God.
God was so pleased with him,
He decided to bring him to heaven
Before his life had run its course (v. 5).
Faith is why Noah spent 100 years –
Over a fifth of his life –
Building an ark to save his life,
His family and the animals –
Because he believed God when He said
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He was going to destroy the world through a flood (v. 7).
He didn’t have to see it to believe it,
He simply took God’s Word for it.
It was because Abraham had faith
That he left his home,
And all his relatives,
To go and live in a foreign land –
Because He believed God
When He said He would give that land
To his children (vv. 8-10).
Sarah was able to conceive
When she was ninety years old
Because she believed God
When He said He would give her a child (v. 11).
NB: These didn’t just choose to believe
What they wanted to believe
And it happened because they had faith,
As the faith gurus would tell you.
The object of your faith
Has to be God’s promise –
When He says something
You need to believe it, desire it, and hope for it.
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Abraham also believed God
When He told him
He would have as many children as the stars in the sky
Or as the grains of sand on the seashore,
And that’s exactly what happened (vv. 11-12).
Abraham didn’t actually live long enough
To see God fulfill His promise
To give the land of Canaan
To the many children He also promised –
He didn’t live to see the bringing in
Of the New Heavens and Earth –
Nor did he live to see
The coming of that special child
Through whom the Lord
Would bless all the nations –
Neither did Isaac and Jacob for that matter –
Yet, they did see these things by faith
And by God’s grace
Inherited those promises.
They believed God
And because they did,
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God wasn’t ashamed to call Himself their God,
And to prepare a heavenly city for them –
And for all those who will also trust God –
Where they could live with Him (vv. 13-16).
Abraham was even willing
To offer his only son Isaac,
As a burnt offering,
When God commanded him
Even though God had said
That He would fulfill His promise through Isaac
To make Abraham the father of many nations.
Abraham knew that even if he killed Isaac,
God would raise him up again (vv. 17-19).
That’s how much Abraham trusted God!
The fact that God spared Isaac
On the third day after He had given Abraham this command,
Was a picture, a type of Jesus Christ:
Just as Isaac was dead in Abraham’s mind for those three days,
But was raised again when God spared him,
So the Lord would give His only son
As a sacrifice for our sins,
But would raise Him up again on the third day (v. 19; cf. Gen. 22:4).
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Isaac, before he died,
Blessed Jacob and Esau
And told them what would happen
To them in the future,
Because he believed God’s promise (v. 20).
Jacob blessed Joseph’s two sons
For the same reason (v. 21).
Joseph, just before he died,
Commanded the sons of Israel
To take his bones with them
When they left Egypt,
Because he knew God would fulfill His promise
To bring them into the land (v. 22).
Moses was willing to give up
What most in this world
Seek after their whole lives –
Fame and fortune –
To suffer with God’s people
As their leader,
Because he believed God
When He promised a better reward (vv. 23-27).
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He had the courage to stand before Pharaoh,
He kept the Passover,
And led Israel through the Red Sea –
Even though the Egyptians were drowned –
Because he believed what God said (vv. 27-29).
Joshua and the armies of Israel
Saw the seemingly impenetrable walls of Jericho fall down
After they marched around them for seven days,
Because they believed what God promised (v. 30).
Rahab and her household were spared
Because she alone believed God’s promise
And hid the spies (v. 31).
Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, and David
Were able to defeat their enemies;
Daniel survived an entire night in the lion’s den;
And Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
In the fiery furnace;
Because they believed God (vv. 32-35).
Many who trusted God
Were willing to be ridiculed, beaten,
Tortured, imprisoned, and put to death;
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To live in deserts, mountains,
In caves and holes in the ground,
Rather than in comfortable homes (vv. 35-38),
Because they also believed
That God would provide something better,
If only they left this world
To follow Him.
All of these did what they did
Because they believed God.
The author implies
That through faith
They were also able to see Jesus –
And they welcomed Him,
And trusted Him,
And were saved by Him.
They were even willing to lay down their lives
So that they could enter His kingdom (vv. 39-40).
That was true of those
Who lived before Jesus came –
But what about you who live after He came?
You’ve seen the fulfillment
Of all of God’s promises in Jesus Christ.
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Have you trusted Him?
Have you turned from your sins?
The faith they had
Made them turn their back on the world
And seek to enter His kingdom
No matter what the cost
Because it was precious to them.
Do you have this kind of faith?
Is the kingdom precious to you?
Have you turned your back on this world?
And are you willing to pay
Whatever price you must to enter it?
Are you seeking that city He has prepared for you,
As Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses?
Are you willing even to face the enemy
And not back down,
Whether it means victory or suffering –
As Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, David,
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?
Do you have the kind of faith that pleases God?
Is He pleased with what He sees in you?
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If you don’t, pray that God would grant you His mercy –
That He would open your eyes
To see that what He says is true,
And that what He promises
Is worth more than anything this world has to offer,
So that it will draw your heart
From this world to heaven.
May He grant this grace to each of us. Amen.
http://www.graceopcmodesto.org