Faith That Endures

Hebrews 11 Faith that Endures

• Most things that matter in life take time to develop. Next to nothing happens instantaneously. 
• Yes, we believe in Miracles here. We know and we see miracles, but everything isn’t that way
• Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
• Faith is believing God’s promises before God’s promises become visible. 
• Family. Relationships. Finances. Health. Breakthrough. Anything you’re waiting on.
• God is always faithful to His promises, even when we have to wait longer than we’d like.
• That’s believing before seeing. 

1. Faith Believes What God Said

• God speaks. Its what he does. If you’re in a relationship with the creator, he’s going to speak
• He’ll speak directly to you if you walk with him. You’ll sense him and hear him 
• John 10:27 – My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me
• Its always been that way. God wanted relationship with his people, so he speaks to them
• Isaiah 30:21 – Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it”
• And its hard. Sometimes he’ll speak things to you that seem like they are impossible. 
• But bless God, he’s the God of the impossible. Sometimes what he says seems outlandish
• He says that he’ll save you. That he’ll redeem you. That he’ll set you free and bless you greatly
• Most often, he speaks to us by his word. You read it, you ingest it, and you know that God is speaking directly to your situation and desires. And his word says to you “I will do it” 
• Heb 1:1-2 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past… has in these last days spoken to us by His Son
• We’re nearing the end of the book. And its challenged them to not go back and now it says how
• It recounts some great people of faith that heard God speak and had faith for what they heard. 
• Abel. We don’t know everything God told Abel, but we know this: Abel believed what God said about approaching Him, and Cain did not. That was believing what God said. 
• Noah. God told Noah to build a boat to save humanity. Noah built it when he saw no rain. 
• Abraham. God told Abraham to go to receive an inheritance. Abraham went without seeing
• Sarah. God told Sarah that she would have a child late in life, She had strength to walk it out. 
• They didn’t have proof and visual confirmation that they should trust and believe, but they did
• That’s what Faith does- it begins when God speaks. God says it and they believe it was him
• It’s a conversion. You didn’t believe, but you heard God and now you have faith. 
• We are converted into ‘the faith’ but there must be a ‘conversion’ so to speak to have faith
• Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
• As Jesus said- Mark 11:22 – Have faith in God.
• Just have faith in God. Be person that believes that God said what he said and will do it. 
• There was a father in Luke 9 that came to Jesus with a problem with his son-  he said to Jesus -18 And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid.
• That’s a real world problem right there. There’s something wrong in my family, I need it to be fixed and I have no idea how it can be fixed, but I heard this Jesus fellow is in the fixing business
• So we go to Jesus, but we have difficulty believing. We’ve never believed before. 
• And Jesus says to this father and to us- Mark 9:23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
• And its hard. The circumstances say its impossible, but we must come from unbelief to belief
• The answer is Mark 9:24 – Lord, I believe; help my unbelief
• And he does. He helps your unbelief and you go from unbelief to FAITH and believe his words
• If you’re not believing God today, start believing him. Put your trust in him and his word

2. Faith Obeys Before It Sees

• Faith is believing after hearing, but faith is almost always connected to obedience.

• • God rarely speaks just so you would know something. He speaks because He wants you to do something.///
  • What good is the word of God and your faith in it if its not producing something spiritual or material in your life? As James 2:17 – Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

• It’s the “I believe” faith that never moves. I heard the word, but I never acted on the word.

• • And yes, there are times when you cant do anything and you must wait on God, but there’s other times when God hands you a spiritual shovel and says start digging I’ll send the rain
  • Noah built before rain. He didn’t wait to see the moisture, he trusted what he didn’t see
  • Abraham left before arrival. He didn’t demand all the details. His word was enough. I’m going
  • Israel marched before walls fell. Jericho didn’t fall on the first round. The 7th one. 
  • Rahab hid spies before victory. And her story may be the clearest picture of obedient faith in this chapter.
  • Rahab was a prostitute inside the walls of Jericho. Spies came to spy out and she lodged them
  • And she wasn’t Israel. She had only heard about God. She heard about the Red Sea. She heard about the victories. She heard what God had done. She hadn’t seen, just heard.
  • She said this- Joshua 2:11 And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath
  • So she hid the spies because she believed what she had heard and wanted to be saved.
  • in our Holy Bible it records a woman of the night as an example of obedient faith-  31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.

• If a prostitute who is not a part of Israel can step out in obedient faith, shouldn’t you? 

• You haven’t just heard one story. You’ve heard many stories. You haven’t just seen God move one time you’ve seen him move many times, isn’t it enough for you to obey and move?

• • Jesus said this Luke 11:28 – Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!
  • Faith is not just believing for the impossible. Faith is obeying God in the ordinary.
  • The Christian life isn’t just from miracle to miracle its from sunup to sundown
  • You keep the commandments and the traditions through the circumstances and the trials

• You obey when you don’t see. You keep walking the path before the outcome is visible.

• Matthew 7:24 – Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them…
• At Jesus’ first miracle, His mother gave one of the greatest faith statements in the Bible.
• 5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
• her words can and would resonate today in the same way- do whatever he says. 
• 2 Corinthians 5:7 – For we walk by faith, not by sight. 
• That’s the mark of a disciple of Christ. We do what he says without visible evidence. 
• That’s believing God’s promises before God’s promises become visible.
• What have you heard God say to you that you’re not walking in obedience to? 
• What area of your life are you not walking in faith when you know he’s spoken to do it
• You’re not experiencing the victory that you could in your life bc disobedience is faithless

3. Faith Endures What hurts

• • When you walk by faith not by sight you’re going to have to go through some stuff
  • It’s going to cost you relationships. Comfort. Reputation. Status. Sometimes even opportunity.
  • When you stand with God in faith and obedience, not everybody is going to celebrate it.
  • Faithfulness often makes unfaithfulness uncomfortable.
  • Moses chose reproach Hebrews 11:24-26 – refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God… esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt 
  • Reproach is the shame, ridicule, rejection, and loss that comes from identifying with God.
  • Moses could have had Egypt. Instead he chose God.
  • The outcome of living for faith isn’t always beautiful in the short term. Sometimes it’s a knock down drag out living minute by minute exercise in faithful obedience through pain and hurt
  • Hebrews doesn’t hide that reality. Some of its greatest heroes are people who suffered.
  • Hebrews 11:35 – Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Hebrews 11:36 – Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. Hebrews 11:37 – They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword…Hebrews 11:37-38 – They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy.
  • You notice how they are remembered in the scriptures? “of whom the world was not worthy”
  • We’re going through this MVP hall of fame list of faithful people of faith we all know
  • The writer says, “I don’t have time to tell all their stories.”—Then the chapter shifts.
  • Others. These nameless faceless heroes of our faith that didn’t get their name mentioned
  • Just faithful followers of God who endured enough torture, mocking, sawings and torment to be mentioned in this hall of fame and labeled “of whom the world was not worthy”

• Most of what you’re suffering through will never make a history book. But God sees it.

• • But here’s an encouragement as you walk through your faithful affliction- “others”

• Join that rank. Join those who didn’t let the pain of being a person of faith stop them. 

• You’ve seen it. The people who are easily dissuaded by easy affliction. Don’t be like them. 
• When the only visible thing is torture, scourging, afflicted destitute as you walk in faith
• You don’t receive the deliverance of man because you’re waiting for the deliverance of God
• Yes, you or someone who know may be literally or figuratively ‘sawn in two’ and they may be discouraged in the moment but you endure through the hurt. You keep believing in spite of. 
• This is the path of faith! Romans 8:18 – For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
• Whats happening to you now will not break your faith. It cant and it wont. 
• 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 – For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…
• Faith is not merely believing God when life works. Faith is believing God when life doesn’t.

4. Faith Holds Onto The Promise

• • This is where the whole chapter lands. They didn’t receive the promise. Yet they kept believing.
  • Most of God’s promises don’t arrive the moment they’re spoken. There’s usually a waiting season.
  • One of the hardest things to walk through- waiting. 
  • And when you’re waiting it seems like no one else is. Everyone is blessed but you. 

• You’re not Abraham. You’re not Moses. But your life matters to God too.

• You know you were supposed to marry and it gets difficult. You take a job that has challenges. You are waiting on a healing that isn’t coming to pass. A relationship that is yet to be restored
• But God spoke. You have faith and you hold onto his word. You have and you keep faith. 
• You believe God’s promises before God’s promises become visible. And sometimes they aren’t visible for a very long time.
• We’ve talked about it before, but like Shadrach, Meschach and Abendego who were put in the fire- Even if he doesn’t. I’m not changing. I’m not relenting. I may die believing God.
• Church, faith isn’t proven when the promise arrives. Faith is proven while you’re still waiting. ///
• I want the faith of Abraham Ro 4:20-21 he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith… being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform
• A faith that doesn’t let circumstance or discouragement pull them away from his word
• Psalm 27:13 – I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
• And then Hebrews gives its conclusion—39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.
• You obtain a good testimony when you have faith, obey in faith, endure in faith.  
• What a testimony: they didn’t receive the promise, but they kept the faith.
• Not all promises are visible inheritances that you receive on your own timeline. 
• Sometimes you just keep believing even though you never received it. 
• 40 God having provided something better for us– is what it says. We trust in Gods plan
• God’s delays are sometimes his blessings as is the reality of not receiving the promise
• Its okay if you don’t see the promise in your timeline. Keep the faith. 
• Because faith doesn’t quit when the promise delays.
• Faith holds onto the promise.