BY FAITH: THE NATURE OF THE HEAVENLY WAY HEBREWS 11:1-2, 6 SOUL STRUCTURING HEBREWS 11 SERIES #1 DR. ROGER BARRIER S-1501

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1 BY FAITH: THE NATURE OF THE HEAVENLY WAY HEBREWS 11:1-2, 6 SOUL STRUCTURING HEBREWS 11 SERIES #1 DR. ROGER BARRIER S-1501 SLIDE #1: People magazine: America s 100 Most Eligible Bachelors. About every other month People has a special issue: 50 most beautiful people; 50 sexiest people in America. People buy those issues by the millions! Does God have magazines in Heaven? He has lots of people magazines. He specializes in people. His favorite? What impresses God? We don t have to wonder: The list of The 50 most Faithful in Hebrews 11. Turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 details he lifestyles of the spiritually rich and Biblically famous. Explain the people Hebrews 11. These people are the cloud of witnesses mentioned at the beginning of Hebrews 12 just before Jesus is subsequently demonstrated to be both the ultimate witness and the ultimate designer label for life. When I decided to get real with life, I got a life designer. SLIDE #2: My life designer and soul couturier is not Calvin Klein of Hollywood, or Donna Karan of New York, or Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren, or Guess BUILD SLIDE #3A: My soul carries the label, Designed by Jesus. Isn t that what you want? I want Him to mold my life into a life-sized model of Himself. Don t you? BUILD SLIDE #3B: I do the Savior no favor by calling Him, Friend. BUILD SLIDE #3C: Jesus is the Master, Mentor, and Maestro of my life. Friendship with Jesus is a lot less rigorous than discipleship with Jesus. To be a disciple of someone is to follow in the steps and spirit of the Master Artisan. BUILD SLIDE #4A: Jesus has way too many friends and believers. BUILD SLIDE #4B: What He doesn t have is enough disciples and behavers. In new series beginning today, on Soul Structuring, we will exegete Hebrews 11 and discuss the construction of our souls from the lifestyle arts found in the lives of these men and women. One common denominator stands out in the men and women of Hebrews 11. It rings like a clanging bell throughout the chapter. These people lived by faith. The lifestyle art of living by faith is available to all sorts of people. Anybody can do it. Look at the variety in Hebrews 11. Here are men and women, young and old, kings and commoners, high born and illegitimate, gifted and ordinary, holy and harlot but they all had one thing in common, they dared to trust in God. There is nothing here that says we have to be perfect. These people were far from perfect. In my attempt to live a life of faith, I have blown it more often than I have made it. 1

2 It is not just that I have character flaws, all character is flawed. All of my life I struggle with unworthy thoughts, unsanctified behavior, and a flawed self. I have yelled at my children more often than I should have; I have forgotten to let the dog in; I don t always pay my bills on time. No matter how hard I try I know what the 19 th century politician felt like when introduced like this: SLIDE #6: Soldier, statesman, patriot, but still a disappointment to his mother. It is not that we are perfect. It is that we make a decision before God to live by faith. SLIDE #7: LIVING BY FAITH IS THE ONE LIFESTYLE ART GUARANTEED TO PLEASE GOD. You can see this in Hebrews 11:6: Without faith it is impossible to please God. The only thing Jesus ever reprimanded His disciples for was lack of faith. He never criticized them for their failures or faults. But He was always disappointed for their lack of faith. Peter walks on water great moment returned to boat, What happened to your faith? SLIDE #8: Four times God says, The Righteous shall live by faith. Habakkuk 2:4 Romans 1:17 Galatians 3:11 Hebrews 10:38 Why does He say it four times? Do you think He has just run out of things to say? No. He is emphasizing something really important: The Righteous shall live by faith. SLIDE #9: HEBREWS 11 GIVES THE ONLY TECHNICAL DEFINITION OF FAITH IN THE BIBLE. Hebrews 11 gives story after story illustrating how faith works. It also gives in verse one the only technical definition of faith that I know of in the entire Bible. READ HEBREWS 11:1. That translation leaves me cold. This translation sounds like faith is believing in something we hope happens without any evidence to support it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. SLIDE #10: Like the boy who defined faith like this: Faith is believing something that is not so. SLIDE #11: Remember the scene from Alice in Wonderland, the Queen says to Alice: Now, I ll give you something to believe, I am 101, five months, and a day. I can t believe that, said Alice. SLIDE #12: Can t you? asked the Queen. Why when I was your age, I practiced for at least ½ hour every day. Why sometimes I believed in 6 impossible things before breakfast. The average person in America is convinced that that is the meaning of faith! Take a long breath, close your eyes to reality and to the truth and believe something that deep down inside you know can t possibly be true. That is not at all what faith is like. 2

3 Let s examine this more closely. Two descriptive phrases are enumerated here. SLIDE #13: 1. FAITH IS BEING SURE OF WHAT WE HOPE FOR. Faith is υποστασισ of what we hope for. Υπο means under and στασισ means standing. The compound word means to set or place something underneath. It refers to a foundation. The word came to mean the title deed of real property. The point is that our belief has real substance. SLIDE #14: What is the foundation? Faith rests on the Facts of the Word of God. Faith always begins with a word form God. If there is no word from God, then there can be no faith. BUILD SLIDE #15A: Faith does not rest on feelings. BUILD SLIDE #15B: Faith does not rest on traditions. BUILD SLIDE #15C: Faith does not rest on probabilities. It just doesn t see right to me that God would do this or that. I think probably BUILD SLIDE #15D: Faith does not rest on impressions. BUILD SLIDE #15E: Faith does not rest on positive thinking. STORY of Jessie and woman: If you just had more faith your baby would get well. Faith is not believing something so hard you make it come true. Tidy up story of Jessie. God had already told me otherwise. She was going to die. SLIDE #13: 1. FAITH IS BEING SURE OF WHAT WE HOPE FOR. The term hope for adds a special dimension. By faith, things we hope for become so real that we enjoy them in the present. SLIDE #16: Faith makes a present substance out of a future reality. We all have things we hope for in faith. SLIDE #17: Have you ever enjoyed your Vacation on January 5 when you really were not leaving until August 2. See yourself laying in the middle of the pool, or by the river in Colorado casting your fly rod and a twelve foot trout leaps out of the water and swallows your fly. You ever do that? That is faith. Making a present substance out of what you are hoping for in the future. SLIDE #18: When you are a kid, Christmas was always more fun in anticipation than it ever was in actuality. We have all done that. SLIDE #19: I went to Israel by faith long before I ever walked there in person. I used to walk those hills with Jesus all the time when I was studying the Bible long before I ever went there. SLIDE #20: Some of you are planning to buy a new house. You are not quite there yet, but by faith you have already got it arranged just like you want it. By faith you can see the people coming in and saying, Oh, what a lovely home you have say, where is the food. What a beautiful kitchen. You see, you are already enjoying in the present what has yet to take place in the future. SLIDE #21: Some of you are anticipating a new baby. By faith you are already enjoying that baby. You ve 3

4 rocked him, swung him, cuddled him. Him? Maybe she s a her. By faith. I have never been to Heaven but I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent walking the golden streets, learning from my guardian angel, talking to Jessie, worshipping at the feet of the Lord. Putting my crowns at His feet. I have checked out all the gates. I even sat on a cloud and played my harp. By faith. Remember Pavolov s dogs? When they rang the bell, they d salivate because for a long time they trained them that when they rang the bell they were about to be fed! Then all of a sudden they rang the bell without feeding them, and they were salivating drool all over the place by faith. The food is coming guys! Vacation is coming, guys Christmas new house new baby heaven. By faith. Faith is the ability to take something which has not yet occurred, but you believe it so strongly that it actually becomes a real substance you can enjoy right now! If you really have faith in the promises of God, then you wait patiently for them. You don t get upset, rattled or worried, you just wait for them while you enjoy them right now by faith. This is why faith always triumphs. Faith sings while it is still in prison. It fights while still in chains. You put men of faith like Paul and Silas in prison and at midnight they break out singing hymns. They have faith that they ll be free by morning. Sight sings in the morning after the earthquake and the escape from prison. Faith sings at midnight while it s still dark. People of faith know that in the long run they will prevail with Christ. Things may look bleak at the moment, but people of faith know that all will look different in the future. You see, at the time, it looked like Pilate had crushed Christ. But the verdict of the future crushed the verdict of the moment. Nero condemned Paul to death and to all involved it looked like Paul was obliterated. But Paul was a man of faith. Time tells the true victor. Today we name our sons, Paul. We name our dogs, Nero. Second dimension of faith: SLIDE #22: 2. FAITH IS BEING CERTAIN OF WHAT WE DO NOT SEE. Faith is ελεγχοσ of what we do not see. Faith is the evidence, test, or proof of the reality of what we do not see. This part of the definition of faith is a living, active thing. Faith is proved as it is lived out in behavior based on what we don t see. We hear what God says and faith is living accordingly. Every one of the Hebrews 11 witnesses demonstrated they believed in what God said by how they behaved. The world doesn t live like this. The world lives on the basis of what it can see, feel and touch. It has no faith. SLIDE #23: Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3 as they are confronted with the choice 4

5 of obeying Nebuchadnezzar or obeying God. Nebuchadnezzar is so alive, powerful and tangible. Or they can obey a God whom they have never seen. If they refuse Nebuchadnezzar, they will be thrown in to the fire they can see. The person of the world says, I ll believe what I can see. There is no contest here! I can t see God, so I will bow down before Nebuchadnezzar and miss that fire. SLIDE #24: But the person of God says, I will obey God even though I cannot see Him and take my chances in the fire. This combines both aspects of faith. SLIDE #25: Foxes Book of Martyrs SLIDE #26: Jesus Freaks, dc Talk, and the Voice of the Martyrs Help them experience some of the book. Captized ship in Indonesia We Die With Gratitude / Jiangxi, Mainland China, During the Red Guard Era, , Page 109. The two Christian girls waited in the Chinese prison yard for the announced execution. A fellow prisoner who watched the scene from his prison cell described their faces as pale but beautiful beyond description; infinitely sad but sweet. Humanly speaking, they were fearful. But Chiu-Chin-Hsiu and Ho- Hsiu-Tzu had decided to submit to death without renouncing their faith. Flanked by renegade guards, the executioner came with a revolver in his hand. It was their own pastor! He had been sentenced to die with the two girls. But, as on so many occasions in Church history, the persecutors worked on him, tempting him. They promised to release him if he would shoot the girls. He accepted. The girls whispered to each other, then bowed respectfully before their pastor. One of them said,, Before you shoot us, we wish to thank you heartily for what you have meant to us. You baptized us, you taught us the ways of eternal life, you gave us Holy Communion with the same hand in which you now hold the gun. You also taught us that Christians, are sometimes weak and commit terrible sins, but they can be forgiven again. When you regret what you are about to do to us, do not despair like Judas, but repent like Peter. God bless you, and remember that our last thought was not one of indignation against your failure. Everyone passes through hours of darkness. May God reward you for all the good you have done to us. We die with gratitude. They bowed again. The pastor s heart was hardened. He shot the girls. Afterwards, he was shot by the Red Guard. SLIDE #28: FAITH IS VICTORY AT ANY PRICE BECAUSE FAITH GUARANTEES THE REWARDS OF GOD. Why would anyone want to live this way? That is verse 6. READ Hebrews 11:6: Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who come to Him must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. We will discover that faith is something that grows it does not take much to get started. Story told by John Goth, the English Evangelist: 5

6 Once saw two boys in a London Hospital cots side by side. One boy had a fever and the other boy was struck by a truck. Fellow with fever was very weak and the one who d been struck by a truck said, Say, I was down to the mission s.s. and they told me about Jesus and I believe that if you ask Jesus He will help you. That said that if we believe in Him and pray to him that when we die, He will come and take us to be with Him. Little boy with fever said, But, what if I m asleep when He comes and I can t ask Him? Theother fellow said, Just hold up your hand. That s what we did in s.s. I guess that Jesus sees it. Fevered boy was too weak to hold up his hand so the other little friend leaned over and propped up his pillows and braced it under the fevered boy s arm. And so the little fellow fell asleep with his arm up. In the morning when the nurse cadem in, she found the little fellow dead but with his arm still propped up. Now you know that the Lord saw his arm. Well, you say, That is pretty simple faith. But Jesus said, Except a man become as a little child, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Have you placed your faith in Christ? 6