The Faith that Begets Righteousness.
When I was a far younger, and a far less wise man, I made many mistakes in my life. I am still an unwise man with a long road to go. Many of those mistakes I am to this day still ashamed of. When I sought the advice of my dad, and how I should go about staying away from this sin and others, he told me something that I will never forget. What he said to me revolutionized the way that I view my walk in my warfare with sin.
He said that that line of thinking is the exact problem. Naturally I gave my dad a quizzical look and said, um...what?
He said, yeah that’s the exact problem. You’re concentrating on avoiding sin.
But dad, I said, aren’t we supposed to flee from youthful lusts like it says in 2 Timothy?
He looked at me and said something that changed my perspective forever, it changed my perspective, but sadly it took many more years for me to truly practice it.
He said, “The Christian life is not about avoiding sin. It’s about pursuing righteousness.”
Let’s tackle this question.
What does Pursuing Righteousness mean, and entail?
So, I tucked away that quote and kept it in the recesses of my mind for a later date.
Turn in your Bibles with me please to Hebrews chapter 11. Many of you will recognize this of course as the Hall of faith chapter of the Bible.
I was reading through this one day, when I came across a section of the passage that got me thinking. Let’s read the text so that we may all gain a better understanding. (Read Hebrews 11:1-3)
As my dad would say, this is prescriptive writing, not descriptive. Prescriptive means it was written for all believers whereas descriptive means it was written for only that time period. Yes it was written to the Jews of that time period, but it’s truth is applicable to every day life. We know from reading in the New testament that the Jews, though they had become Monotheistic in their worship, had become very works-centric in their salvation. We can think that it is to attack this line of thinking that the author of Hebrews(whomever he may be) wrote this marvelous chapter. The overriding theme being of course that the new, is far better than the old.
By this stage of the game Judaism was no longer the system of worship that God had originally given, but had been corrupted with all manner of ritualistic measuring sticks that for lack of better term garnered “holy points” for it’s practitioners. It was cultic ethics at best. As with all works based religions, it was despised by God since it was a corrupt rendition of His plan. Turn to Habakkuk 2:4 with me. It is by faith...not works. Yes our faith is justified by our works, but it is our faith that is pleasing to God. Any type of theology that includes an ethical pre-requisite is not acceptable to God. The first point of this sermon then is True faith will bring about assurance.
Faith is the Assurance! The Conviction!
Now we have a bit of the background, let’s examine the text. Hebrews 11:1 (Read Hebrews 11:1 again.)
The writer begins this chapter after closing off chapter 10 with resounding statements. “The righteous shall live by faith!” and “We are not those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.”
He then goes on to describe exactly what this faith is in chapter 11. It was a principle of faith that these people kept to the end of their days! One of the most important goals you can have in your life as a Christian is to finish well!! All we have to do is look at the lives of just a few people in the Bible to see that finishing is not very common. It wasn’t common then and it surely isn’t common now. No one is exempt from this slippage. We must be faithful to examine the teachings of the men who come before us and preach God’s word and I place myself at the front of the line in that examination. It doesn’t matter if the speaker is some novice like me or John MacArthur, or even John Piper himself! In your notes then the second point of this sermon is True faith, means that we finish well.
We can see here that the writer of Hebrews uses, as old Hebrew poets sometimes did, in two similar phrases, poetry designed to illustrate a thought. This definition of faith in the chapter is moreso a description of what faith does.
Faith is the Assurance of things hoped for.
This faith is living. It is the belief that the promises made in the OT to people like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would come about. Promises that, as the writer states later in the chapter, that these men would never get to see fulfilled in their time on earth. Faith is not an uncertain wish that something may come about. It is steadfast, firm, and unwavering belief that what you believe in will come to pass. It’s a battle between our belief in God, and the World. It must also be known that this faith is not probability. It is a faith that Jesus Himself commends the believers of in John 20:29.
Faith is the Assurance of things hoped for.
This word Assurance derived from the Greek word hupostasis appears two other times in Hebrews. In 1:3 it speaks of an exact representation speaking of Christ’s likeness to God. The other is in 3:14 where it is also rendered as Assurance.
My friends this is concrete. This is absolute and it is sure. It is a blessed assurance! It is the belief in the reality that is to come. Christ’s return, the believer’s final glorification, his entrance into heavenly rest, and all the other benefit’s of salvation’s culmination, as well as the value of Christ’s high priestly ministry, the believer’s supplications to God in prayer, sin’s atonement, and the increasing growth of the new nature! It is the faith that exemplified all the lives of the men in this chapter. In your notes, True faith desires for the return of Christ.
The Conviction of Things Not Seen
This word for Conviction is the word “elenchos” which has given interpreters some trouble. The King James Version translates it to evidence while the ASV renders it as conviction. Lexicons present the basic idea that this is a proof or a way to prove through convincing or refuting. Some translators suggest that it is an inner conviction. Fredrich Buchsel states that this could only be a “divinely given conviction of things unseen.” Therefore, Faith is an assurance in a reality we cannot see. Faith without works is dead. Faith without action is dead. This conviction is speaking of a faith that is so strong in it’s resolve that the mind and spirit are convinced that it is true. Let’s take Noah for example. There is a real possibility that this man had no idea what rain was. And God was telling him that he had to build an ark, and get all the animals inside it because it was going to rain and everyone else was gonna die. Our actions reflect what we believe. Noah did this for years! He preached faithfully for 120 years that the end was coming! I liken it to the time if you’ll remember when we were once all children. I can speak for myself at least in saying that I had no fear of what to do for my next meal. I had absolute faith that my parents would do everything within their power to make sure that me and my siblings were cared for even if it meant sacrificing their own food for us. My friends it is absolutely no different than when we pray! Why do we pray? We know and believe that God will hear us and weigh our concerns and prayer is how we portray and act on that faith. This faith is what separates us from man in his flesh. It is not possible for the unsaved man to comprehend or ascertain how we believe and see the workings of He(God) who is invisible. The reality and concept of God exists on a far different plane and short of supernatural revelation man will continue along his path. How can one believe in light, when he has never seen it?
If one would just take time to stop and think about all the things we do in our daily lives, one could see that we are instilled from birth with some capacity of understanding faith. Every time you put your foot on the brake, you believe that car will stop. Every time you go into the cafeteria you expect to find food waiting for you there. Every time you take medicine you believe firmly that it will help you rather than kill you. What we must understand is that spiritual faith is a belief in things that we don’t necessarily understand. This faith though is exponentially different from our everyday faith in the material things I mentioned. What is this key difference?
This faith is not ours! It’s God’s! It’s a gift from Him! True faith requires action. Don’t be a spiritual bump on the pew.
For by it the men of old gained Approval!
The men mentioned in this chapter were immortalized in scripture. We must not understate this great truth! It was the faith of these men that made them pleasing to God! One thing I make a point to stress to my youth group is that when you study the Bible, we must pay special attention to the words of God Himself. In verse 2 God clearly makes known exactly what it takes to gain His approval! This isn’t a just A WAY, IT IS THE WAY! Are you faithful? I guarantee, you can’t please God without doing it! True faith begets obedience my friends(Read Verse 6). There we have it. Plain and simple for all to see. But we can’t have a salvation by faith doctrine floating around can we? That would mean that we don’t, you know, have a say in our salvation. So what have we done? John MacArthur states brilliantly, “Throughout virtually all of history, man had what philosophers call a unified field of knowledge. That is, man understood the supernatural, human history, science, ethics, economics-everything-within one frame of reference. These areas were all part of total reality. But then we had a great movement in philosophy known as rationalism, which denied the very existence of the supernatural, including-especially including-God. Men such as Graf, Wellhausen, Bauer, Strauss, Renan, and many others began systematically to undercut every supernatural doctrine or belief.” Bertrand Russell spent most of his 90 years as a philosopher. Throughout those years he came to one conviction on the faith of Christianity. He claimed that Christianity was the greatest enemy of mankind, because it taught of a tyrannical God who stifled man’s rightful freedom. By the end of his life he came to the conclusion that philosophy, and I quote, “was a washout,” that it held no answers for anything. He stated that we must conquer the world by intelligence. This man who claimed that there is no God came to a rude awakening.
These men have replaced the simple concept of faith in Elohim, the Sovereign God, with their self-imposed beliefs that contradict the very book that they are scholars of! The terror of knowing too much can drive men to madness. Satan has made his target clear from the very beginning. He has staged all-out war to mar and distort what makes up the very fabric and importance of our faith. God’s holiness and truth and righteousness are his direct goal. Because if any of those things no longer exist in the minds of the people here, then our faith is declared defunct and gets thrown onto the pile with all the other piles of religion. This is the difference between tangible, and a conviction in things not seen. This is what has always amazed me about the human race. We are far too simple a people to accept a faith based salvation. Many times people are anchored into a belief that demands that we have a part in our salvation. The industrious minds of our day have decided to make new roads to heaven. I pity them because one day they will find that those roads at exactly the same place they began. In their minds. They spend their lives delving into any medium that they can to escape the trials and travails of this life. They will find one day that even though they were “good people” that it wasn’t good enough. I don’t know what I’d do without Christ in my life. I am a so very far from righteous in my life, I fear that without Christ I would very nearly resemble the men in the days of Noah were it not for Christ. This has always been a sobering thought for me, and it’s why my heart breaks for the lost. It’s not because of my own reason or my own intelligence or any skill that I possess that makes me acceptable to God! This is the beauty of grace. True Faith seeks discernment.
BY FAITH WE UNDERSTAND!
What was the writer of Hebrews trying to get across to the Jews? He’s acknowledging that they both(the writer and his audience), already believed that the worlds came about out of nothing right? “WE UNDERSTAND.” This was a belief that was simply a beginning in the grand scheme of things. Their scriptures taught that God made the universe. They believed in what they couldn’t see. But they needed to realize that God didn’t just make the physical world as an entity. He made it’s processes and it’s order. By His word. The utterance of the divine. The explanation of what man has always sought to know exactly is right here. But secular science and philosophy are not satisfied with being told the answers. All it takes, is the faith of a child. I hope this faith has been adequately explained because now I want to bring two people to your attention and get to the point of this sermon since I assume this is what most of you are asking especially considering the story I began it with. Their names are Joseph, and Abel. Abel we know was the first man murdered in the Bible. But what can we learn about him? First, He was counted as righteous. The reputation of the righteous will never fade away. God has guaranteed that. What made Abel righteous? He acted in faith. He pursued Righteousness. We can see in Genesis that at some point in time, Cain and Abel were supposed to offer sacrifices to God. Cain was simply going through the motions and avoiding sin. Abel pursued righteousness. Joseph when tempted in Potiphar’s house fled. What was his focus though? He knew that he had been blessed in the position he held in his master’s house beyond his wildest dreams, and he knew that he would so very wrong in committing this great sin against GOD! Joseph pursued righteousness. Our focus must lie on doing what is right and the only way to do that is to focus on how each and every sin that we commit is no different than us walking up to the very God we serve, slapping Him in the face, and telling Him that we hate Him. Is that a graphic analogy? Our sin is exactly like that. True Faith is belief in what we know will happen, and acting upon it. Righteousness is the result of this faith. It’s a lifelong pursuit, and when all’s said and done you’ll know whether you made it or not.
I ask again, are you finishing well? Are you avoiding sin? Or pursuing righteousness? I don’t know about you, but I pray that I might end up like any of these men. If you don’t live every day with the desire to hear God say to you when all is said and done, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” then I say something in your life must be re-evaluated.
