We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, Hebrews 6:19
Hope – The Foundation of Faith.
Faith, what is it?
I don’t like some of the teaching I have heard about Christian faith. In fact some of the teaching, if followed, is detrimental to the daily life of God’s children. I’m not going to single out individual people or specific churches. But I do want to address what I consider is, in relation to Christian faith, false teaching.
One example is what I would call ‘positive thinking’. This teaching goes along the lines of an individual coming up with an idea in their head of what they want to get from God or something they want to do for God. So a person might say, “I want an Jet Plane to help me spread the Gospel”. They then decide to put faith in that goal. They start to believe they will get it. They may even get passionate about it. Oh course part of the course is to tell others and get them on-side to stand in faith with them. So it ends up with a whole bunch of people, often a whole congregation, believing in faith for something an individual, usually the Pastor, has thought up and started to pursue. That is not biblical faith.
But you ask. What was the outcome. I can tell you. The person got the plane. So you say, well Paul it worked. Maybe it was God’s will. Paul it must have been God’s will. They got the plane. They must have great faith. But what does scripture teach us about having faith?
Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
So faith is having confidence in what we hope for. Faith is having assurance in what we do not see. So you say, well Paul the Jet Plane was something hoped for! Wanting a Jet was putting faith in something that could not be seen! There’s the danger for us. Scripture can so easily be taken out of context.
To understand the type of faith that is required that gives confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. We need to examine faith based on the faith of the ancients because, ‘This is what the ancients were commended for.’
The faith that the ancients practiced was the type of faith that was commended. If we want to have a faith that is commendable to God we need to know what it meant for the ancients to exercise faith. They have set the example of faith that God was pleased with. They have set the example of faith that works. They have set the example of the type of faith that we can exercise too.
By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was
commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings.
And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead. Hebrews 11:4 NIV
Let’s have a look at the offerings of Cain and Abel why Abel’s was commended by God.
. . . . . .Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time
Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the
firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and
his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour.
So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Genesis 4:2-5 NIV
I used to find this confusing. I used to ponder that all Abel did was kill animals to get his offering and Cain probably worked quite hard to grow and put his offering together. To understand it I had to look at the fall of mankind in Genesis chapter 3. When Adam and Eve fell from grace they noticed they were naked. They tried to hide there nakedness with fig leaves. Nakedness had not been a problem before. But now, having sinned, it was. God provided different clothing for them in the form of garments made from animal skins. Thereby the important principles of approaching God in an acceptable and unacceptable manner were defined. Adam and Eve used the work of their own hands to hide their nakedness and sin. God provided garments for them from the death of an innocent animal. That was the difference between the offerings of Cain and Abel. Cain’s offering was the work of his own hands and Abel’s offering came from the the sacrifice of an innocent victim. One misleading pathway some use to seek God’s favour is the work of their own hands and putting trust in what they can do to be seen as righteous in God’s site. This way is misleading because it is not what God desires. The better pathway is seeking favour with God by an offering through a substitutional sacrifice and putting trust in being righteous before God by the grace of God. It’s an acknowledgement that there is nothing we can do of ourselves to be righteous before God. In effect, right back there is Genesis the seeds of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross were sown.
So the point is that Abel brought a offering based on faith because he did not rely on the works of his own hands to be righteous with God.
So that is a principle of Biblical faith. Faith is not based on the works of our own hands.
Now you may say the scripture says, Faith without works is dead. Yes true. When we have faith it will bring forth works. But works are not what we are to do to try and bring forth faith. Good works start because of faith. A great example of this is Noah.
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built
an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became
heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. Hebrews 11:7 NIV
Noah’s faith brought about works. He believed God and built the ark following the instructions God gave him. So faith without works is dead. You might say my example of the plane is an example of faith bringing forth works. But no! The faith that brings forth works is not based on deciding what I or we want to do and then putting faith in that. Faith that brings forth works is based on what God says and putting faith in the word of God to us. We are to have a faith that will brings forth good works. But that faith needs to be established on what God has said, not based on an idea we decided to pursue. Faith that God commends needs an object to focus on or to attache itself to. That object is provided by God.
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. Hebrews 11:8
For Abraham, God called him to a place.
And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. Hebrews 11:11
For Sarah, God gave a promise.
17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
21 By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
22 By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones.
I won’t go through every person in Hebrews 11 who lived by faith. I just want to make the point that the exercising faith that is commended by God was based on the promises of God. By offering Isaac, by blessing Jacob, by blessing Joseph’s sons etc etc etc These things were done in faith because of the belief they had in the promises of God and that God had a future for them.
What is it that God provides for us to put our faith in? Maybe a better question I should ask is, “How does God make us aware of the types of things we are to put our faith in?”
The answer is that God gives us HOPE.
Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for…..
To have the type of faith that God commends we need hope.
To have faith means having confidence in what we hope for. To have faith means having assurance of something even though at the present time we cannot see it. To have confidence and assurance in what we hope for is the type of faith that people in the past were commended for. When I say we need hope I’m not talking about the ‘wishful thinking’ type of hope. The type of hope where people say, “I hope I get that job”, or “I hope I have a good day at work”. That’s not the type of hope the Bible is wanting us to understand here. I never really hear or read anywhere of a clear definition of Biblical hope. Well I do read definitions but in trying to describe hope they seem to describe more of what faith is. One I read said, ‘Hope is a firm assurance regarding things that are unclear and unknown.’ But Hebrews 11:1 says faith is assurance of what we do not see. One definition of hope I partly liked said, ‘Biblical hope is a certainty not yet realised’. It does not really explain hope to me but that is something of what hope is. Hope is experienced when something is presented to us from God that points to a future reality that will be ours to receive and experienced.
Imagine if you will the old donkey and the carrot on a stick trick. You tie a carrot onto one end of piece of string, and then tie the other end of the string onto a stick. Then you put that on a donkey so that the carrot dangles infont of the donkey’s head just far enough away so the donkey cannot eat the carrot. So the donkey walks on trying to get the carrot. I don’t know if this works in real life but for my illustration purposes the donkey trying to get the carrot is a picture of hope. The donkey can see something beneficial in front of them which they believe they are going to get and it drives them onward.
Why do people become Christians when they hear the Gospel message? Because the Gopel message of forgiveness and eternal life gives a person hope. There is hope for them. All is not lost. And how do they respond to this hope? They put faith in it. They believe in something they cannot see knowing that one day it will be theres to experience. The hope they have brings forth faith. Without hope faith has nothing to hold on to. Hope becomes a foundation for faith to be exercised.
As with everything in the Christian life our prime example is Jesus. He set the example of how important hope is for our lives and how important it was for His life.
. . . fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the
joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and
sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
What a powerful illustration of hope.
For the joy set before him he endured the cross
Jesus endured the cross because of hope. He had the hope of what was beyond the cross. He had the hope of one day sitting down at the right hand of the Father.
He believed on that hope by faith. He did not have the substance yet. By faith Jesus knew one day he would have the substance of things hoped for.
Because Jesus had faith in the hope the Father had given him he. . .
‘endured the cross, scorning its shame,’
That is the power of hope and the power of exercising faith in the hope God gives.
I shared about the jet plane before. That’s a true story. The Pastor got his plane. I think it was his second one as the first one was a bit old and slow. The congregation gathered on his property, which had a private air field, and the pastor did a fly past for them. He got out of the plane and said, “That is power.”
That’s not the power of God wants for us. Real power is taking hold by faith of the hope God gives us to such a degree, that we can endure to the end and receive our full adoption and redemption as a child of God. No matter what ‘cross’ we have to face along the way.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains
of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves,
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for
our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope
we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what
they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait
for it patiently. Romans 8:22
Hope is the foundation of our faith. Hope gives us something to attache our faith to. Hope gives faith a goal. Hope gives a reason to hang in there. Hope
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:5
‘…….in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, Titus 1:2
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,….’ Hebrews 6:19
Would Jesus have gone to the cross if it was without hope
Would Abraham have left for a new coutry without hope
We are called to live by faith until we die . . . as the ancients did
Everyone has a portion of faith. It does not have to be a lot of faith. Even Faith as big as a tiny mustard seed is enough. Without faith in what Christ has done for us Jesus will one day say, “I never knew you”.
Faith in the belief in what we cannot see yet.
True Biblical faith requires action.
I’ll finish with the following verses from Hebrew 11.
Faith in Action
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she[b] considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12 And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.
13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.
29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.
31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.[d]
32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were put to death by stoning;[e] they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
(2024 © Paul Cummings)