The Substance of Things Hoped For (Hebrews 11:1-2)

I don't know what I would do with What about that awesome reminder pen? Here we go. All right. So, today we're gonna go to uh the book of Hebrews. Uh theologians have not decided. There's no exact evidence in who wrote it. Some think it was Paul. Some think it was others. But didn't matter who wrote it. It's all great stuff. And today we're going to be in chapter 11 and we're going to be in verses 1 and two. And uh normally I read out of the NIV, but today I'm going to read out of the King James version. Uh NIV is a thought forthought translation.

The KJV is a word one of the word for word translations and it's the one that that uh I I knew from I don't know small my mom. And so let me read it. says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report." And so, let's let's kind of break this out. The um the the Jews at the time that are that are following Christ, today we would call those Messianic Jews. They're they're at like most people following Christ or are converting to this new this new Christian walk. They're running into a lot of uh oppression.

They're losing their property. And so this is kind of in in an answer to that. And so they're asking, you know, well, h how do we do this? Oh my gosh, this is this is not easy. This is tough. And so the writer tells them how. And he says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." And that word substance in the Greek, and I looked this up, is hypoasis. And it literally means a deed or a contract, a tangible thing. It's real. And so, what's this? Faith is this substance. Is this a real thing that we hope for? And I and I try to I'm trying to put this in a context that makes sense for everybody.

And so we have a roofing company, right? And when uh and one of my salespeople goes out and they they they give a presentation and the the that particular homeowner homeowners make a decision to go with us. They fill out a an agreement, a contract and they sign it, right? So they're not at this point, they're not wishing that somewhere down the road a roof is a roof is going to show up. They have confidence. They they now have faith in the substance that this is coming. This is real. And this is the this is the wording that that the writer uses here.

So what happens? We we we order materials. We pull a permit. We schedule it. All those things are very real. Those are things that are happening. And you can and you can count on those things. No one No one says, "Well, I'm wishing for a new roof. I'm going to wish for this to happen. I'm going to wish for these things to take place. No, they they've signed a contract. They they know that that that's real and that and that it's coming. Um it's it's holding a it's it's trying to do this the right way. So So the the faith is not you giving yourself this feeling.

It's holding a document knowing that the that that person's credit is better than yours. That's God. So when you when you put your faith and your trust in him, that's where this is coming from. Faith is not this uh uh um unobtainable thing. It's not this thing that we don't know about. Faith is not is not faith is carrying God's testimony in spite of what our eyes see. It's certainty about who he is, not how this is getting done. If if if we if we if we task ourselves with trying to figure out how something is going to get done, that's where we lose faith.

So our faith is not based on the how. Our faith is based on the who. And that who is the perfector and author of our of our faith. That's Christ. That's where this comes from. And so the second part of this verse says, "For by the elders obtained a good report." And so what the writer here is saying is he's looking backward and he's saying look at what their faith was. They most of them didn't even get to see the the fruit of their faith. And and were these were these fantastic people? No. They were murderers. They were liars. They were cheats.

Go back into history. Go look at Abraham. Go look at Moses. Go look at Noah. None of there's look if this is this this then comes into apologetics in our Bible. If if we were writing something that that we wanted that was not real and we wanted people to believe, we wouldn't write in bad things. We would write nothing but good things, right? Every single one of those people failed miserably. What did they have in common? What they had in common was they had faith. They took the step before they saw the reality of it. Noah built an ark before there was ever rain.

That's faith. He was he Abram left a land of his own to go to a land that he was promised that he would never even see. That was faith. And so the writer says, "Look at what they did. For the for by the elders obtained a good report not because of what they of what they got but because of how they took the action and the steps to do that. What they trusted in was not the how. They trusted in the who. And so that's what faith is. Faith is real. It's not wishing. It's real. It's a substance. It's knowing that I'm I am I don't care what my eyes see.

What I care about is who I serve. So that is now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. All right. Thoughts, comments, suggestions. I guess that verse well known. We walk by faith, not by sight. So that's puts us to walk right into that. It does. That's And that's a great one that goes hand in hand with this. Yep. We're supposed to walk by faith and not by sight because this can fool us. He doesn't. Right? And then also building on on faith in almost in reward. You know, sometimes uh keeping faith, we might not get our reward here like the promised land, like the you know, the the the after the after effect of of you know, whatever it is that we're working towards in Christ.

We might get that after we cross that finish line. And Paul talks about that. Talks about one plants, one waters, God gives the increase. And so you may never see that. You may you may never see what you just did in your lifetime. That that have a blessed day to the person that you just bought your package of screws from at Home Depot. But that may be the one thing that they needed to hear. to know that God is alive. That may be the one thing that they heard that that sent them to church Sunday where they ended up getting saved and changing the course of their life.

And you'll never know that. Right. Right. That's that's what William's talking about. You may never see the fruit of what that is. But we don't walk that way. We're not supposed to walk knowing this is what we're going to see. We trust in the who, not in the how. Anyone else? Okay. Yes. Uh, one thing that helped me early on was to keep a prayer journal. And you keep a a a list of your prayer requests, but then you also keep a list of your answered prayers, and you can see the pattern, and it helps build your faith because you have something tangible to look at.

I I'll give you a quick story. Uh, and I and and Patty, I'm going to tell you, I am so uh I'm not supposed to be jealous, but but I but I'm so jealous of people like you that that do that that that write that down, that take the time to do that. I have never done it. My mom did. She journaled everything. But I want to give you I'll give you guys a quick story about exactly this. And it's and I get choked up even talking about it. So, I started at Grace Family Church in 2016, and they had these prayer cards in the back of of the the seat pocket in front of you, and I would fill out a prayer for my brother every time I went to church.

Like, every time I would write, I'm praying for my brother. I'm praying for my brother. And I and I and I would put it in the offering. And I thought, "These go nowhere." Like, no, no one's doing anything with these things, right? this is this is just for my benefit to memorialize it and write it out and put it in a bucket and and yay for God. And then I became a bigger part of the church and now I have access to their databases and their backend which they call the rock. It's a software program that they use and I happened to be in there one day.

You got it, man. Praise God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Every single one of those prayers was typed out in my file and I was blown away. And what ends up happening, my brother comes back to Christ, gets saved. He's now serving at the church and walking in a completely different life than he was before. And so, Patty, I got to see that. I got to I got to go back and go, here are all these prayers and look what God did. Amen. Praise the Lord. Thankfully, I got to see that in my lifetime, but that was just an awesome thing. So, yeah. So, Patty, I'm jealous about that.

I I I wish I had done that through my entire life as well, too, like you do clearly and and like my mother did. But I used to do it. But it built it really did build my faith. It But it builds your faith, right? And so, if that's what we need and that's and that's on your heart, then that's absolutely a great thing to do. So, there you go. All right. Anybody else? We got 30 seconds and then I get to have It kind of reminds me yesterday also what you said about uh yesterday's scripture that God is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or think.

And it's amazing because like we were just saying you know God can take our faith into a place that you know no man can go but we may not see the result of it on this side but God sees it on the other side and he makes it come forth you know so it's an amazing thing. I always say when it comes up to God, he's not limited. You know, he's able to do it in his timing. It's an amazing thing. You just stay in awe. Amen. Amen. Someone else had something. Yeah. Uh I was just uh I'm I'm new to this walk right now, but the thing that I use to witness to everybody else on my change is I've got these things written on my dry eraser board.

I don't know if you call that a journal or what, but I know ever since I started going back to church, these things have happened. And my thing to witness to other people is, and it's really it comes every day, is they say, you know, a simple statement on, hey, how's it going? My answer is, you wouldn't believe. [clears throat] You wouldn't believe. And I've got this list memorized and I get into a story and they like I, you know, some of them want to run. Yeah. I mean, and and quick, some of them some of them stay right there and talk to me. Amen.

That's awesome. Well, good. Well, and we can definitely hear the excitement in your voice. That's fantastic. Testify. Testify. Testify. Yeah. Yeah. And to to piggyback on that whole thing, um I love the phrase that imagine how valuable your soul must be that God and the enemy are both fighting over it so hard. Yeah. I know, right? Yeah. And they are. Yeah, that's so true. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, it's that time. Let's let's uh let's close in prayer. Bow bow our heads. Father, thank you so much for today and thank you uh to let us know that faith is just not vapor.

That it is as real as a as a a deed to the house or the contract that we sign. That that's that's who you are. That that we don't we don't walk our lives by how this gets done, but by who does it. And so, Father, I just pray that we would continue to learn this, that we would continue to have the excitement in our hearts that Clyde has right now for what you've done for him and what you can do for others. And so, Father, I just pray that uh today that you guide us, you direct us, that we have that opportunity to just tell someone to have a blessed day, that that somewhere down the road, Lord, we know that that seed's going to get watered and and that Father, that you're going to give it an increase.

And how do we know that? Because we know who you are. Uh we love you, we praise you, and as always in your son Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. See you guys tomorrow tonight at Bible study. Yes, tonight I'll be there. Thanks, Wayne. Bye, guys. Bye y'all. Bye y'all.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.