After Columbus discovered America, the Spanish Nobles gave him a hard time, because they were jealous of the honors King Ferdinand was heaping on him. On one occasion, they began to complain about all the accolades Columbus received. They told him it was “mere animal resolution” that pushed his voyage a few leagues beyond what anyone had dared to do before.
Columbus patiently listened. Then he took an egg from a dish and challenged them to show their ingenuity by making it stand on end. It went all around the table, but no one succeeded. Then Columbus said, “Give it to me, gentlemen.” He took the egg, cracked it on one end, and immediately he stood it up on the table.
The noblemen complained even more: “We could have done that!” they said.
To which Columbus simply replied, “Yes, if the thought had struck you; and if the thought had struck you, you might have discovered America.” (Percy; Bible Illustrator #503-506)
It’s amazing what happens when we have a little faith “if the thought strikes you.”
Through Christ, we have a fantastic faith. By faith, we can be certain of what others cannot be certain – confidence in God’s promises for the future. By faith, we can understand what others cannot understand – a conviction of God’s principles in life. And by faith, know what others cannot – a confirmation of God’s approval.
That’s what we learned from Hebrews 11:1-2, so turn with me to Hebrews 11again this week. Hebrews 11:3-6, where we’ll find a description of what faith in Christ looks like.
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were set in order at God’s command, so that the visible has its origin in the invisible.
Faith starts with our trust in the power of God! In the book of Genesis, we find the creation of the universe, where It declares several times, “God said … and it was so.” God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Genesis 1:3). God said, “Let there be sky” … and it was so (Genesis 1:6-7). God said, “Let the dry land appear” … and it was so (Genesis 1:9). God said, “Let the earth sprout plants” … and it was so (Genesis 1:11). God said, “Let there be lights in the sky” … and it was so (Genesis 1:14-15). God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures” … and it was so (Genesis 1:24). God said… and it was so! God is powerful and through faith we understand that power. So…
BY FAITH, WE TRUST WHAT OTHERS WILL NOT TRUST, GOD’S WORD.
God’s Word, which is invisible was used to create everything we see. It’s the kind of trust that doesn’t make sense to an unbeliever.
In an article in “The New York Times” Dana and her husband John rejected their childhood faith, yet gave birth to a son.
When John went to Iraq as an imbedded reporter, Dana was understandably fearful. But she was surprised at how calm four-year-old Luke was. She assumed that it was just youthful naiveté. Then one day they were watching a TV interview with a U.S. soldier who was sharing his fears about returning to Iraq. For just an instant, Dana saw Luke form his hands to pray. When she asked him about it, Luke at first denied it, but after he did it a second time, he confessed that he had been praying.
Dana was stunned, partly by Luke’s faith, and partly by how his faith allowed him to be calm and her lack of faith caused her to be fearful. She was also embarrassed that her four-year old son instinctively knew that praying for his dad was not acceptable to her.
When Dana asked Luke when he first began to believe in God, he said, “I don’t know. I’ve always known He exists.” In the article, Dana admits that she feels like she missed something. She writes, “[My religious friends] have an expansiveness of spirit. When they walk along a stream, they don’t just see water falling over rocks; the sight fills them with ecstasy. They see a realm of hope beyond this world. I just see a babbling brook.” (David Hart Bradstreet, Star Struck, Zondervan, 2016, pp. 108-110; www.PreachingToday.com)
God’s Word declares “The heavens declare the glory of God” -Psalm 19:1, words that an unbeliever doesn’t understand and a four-year-old believer understands more than 40-year-old atheists. They do not see the obvious. As Dana admits, believers see “a realm of hope beyond this world.”
Now, just to be clear, true faith in God is not unreasonable. The point is that true faith is beyond what a person can reason or our senses can access. In fact, science and reason can only answer certain questions. They can answer the type of material something is made of. They can answer the immediate causes of certain reactions. Or can answer questions of shape and form. But science and reason cannot answer questions of origin and purpose. They cannot answer how it all got started and why something was made. Those questions are beyond the realm of scientific observation, but they are not beyond the realm of faith.
However, faith in God is not contrary to science. Faith in God’s Word allows us to go beyond science to answer questions science cannot otherwise answer. In fact, a lack of faith in God actually leads people to unreasonable and unscientific conclusions.
One popular theory of origin today is called “The Big Bang Theory,” which, along with the theory of evolution, says that our universe is the result of a spontaneous generation that took place several billion years ago. After which, by chance, atoms and molecules came together to form inanimate and animate objects. Then over time those objects evolved into the various forms of life we see today.
Though many science teachers often teach this as “fact,” it is true that many of those scientists know this to be at best an unproven hypothesis. Such as Gerald A. Kerkut, who was an evolutionary biologist at Cambridge University. He wrote a book called “The Implications of Evolution.” In it, he says “the evidence that supports the General Theory of Evolution is not sufficiently strong enough to allow us to consider it anything more than a working hypothesis.” (p. 157)
As for other scientific assumptions, there is absolutely no evidence in the fossil record that one kind of animal gave rise to another kind of animal. Dr. Colin Patterson, who was at one time the senior paleontologist (fossil expert) at the British Museum of Natural History, had written a book for the British Museum called “Evolution.” After the book was published, Luther Sunderland wrote to Dr. Patterson asking why he had not shown one single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book. Patterson wrote back with the following amazing confession which was reproduced, in its entirety, in Sunderland’s book “Darwin’s Enigma:”
Patterson said, “I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them…” Then Patterson goes on to say, “I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.” (Gary Bates, That quote! – about the missing transitional fossils, Creation.com, February 18, 2008, https://creation.com/that-quote-about-the-missing-transitional-fossils)
Many evolutionists, at least the honest ones, admit that there is no evidence to support their assumptions. However, we can simply say that they want to believe in man’s word and not in God and His Word!
The people who do embrace these assumptions, certainly do express faith but its in man’s word above the simple declaration in the first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
After all, it takes an incredible amount of faith to believe that some spontaneous generation, followed by a series of chance mutations, created the order and design we see in the universe today.
Through faith we trust what others will not trust – God’s Word. And …
BY FAITH, WE CAN DO WHAT OTHERS CANNOT DO, PLEASE GOD.
Through faith in Christ, we gain the capacity to please God. When we depend on the Lord and delight in Him in our worship and in our walk with Him. See this in verse 4.
Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith he was commended as righteous, because God commended him for his offerings. And through his faith he still speaks, though he is dead.
Notice that verse 4 states that Abel’s faith still speaks to us today even though Cain, his brother, killed him. His brother, Cain became jealous, because God was pleased with Abel’s offering. What is that all about?
Genesis 4:3-4 says, “Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground”, and “Abel brought of the first-born of his flock and of their fat portions.”
In other words…Abel brought one of his sheep, because He had faith in God and offered an offering that honored God’s Word. Yet, Cain offered a grain offering. The important stipulation is that God made known His requirement that for a person to come to Him was through a blood offering. This was a pattern that was told to Adam and Eve after they sinned.
But Cain chose to do things his own way by offering the fruit of His labors. His attitude might be a reflection of trying to come to God on our own terms, offering things God did not ask for such as good works or man-made worship no matter how sincere. The result was Abel’s faith was pleasing and Cain’s faith was disapproved of. But the fact is that Abel offered a sacrifice that was according to faith in what God said.
The point is that faith is taking God at His Word. This type of faith involves not just trusting God but also responding with actions of that belief in God. True faith means we trust in God and we are obedient to His Word. It means doing what He says even when we don’t understand why.
One fact of life is that people who don’t really believe, will not follow God’s Word. However, people who truly have faith will obey His word.
People of faith will worship God like Abel. They will worship God in spirit and in truth.
When we truly worship the Lord, we convey that He means everything to us. Our faith and worship are gifts. They are gifts given back to God.
It is through faith that we know how to worship God. When we worship Him, we are giving Him our gratitude for His salvation. It is those kinds of worshippers that please God. We must worship God from a heart full of faith in Him, like Abel.
And through faith we can walk with God like Enoch. Through faith we live our lives with the Lord and spend every day enjoying God.
Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death, and he was not to be found because God took him up. For before his removal he had been commended as having pleased God.
Literally, Enoch well-pleased God. Maybe we could translate it this way, God enjoyed Enoch’s company!
Genesis 5:24 says, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took Him.” According to Genesis 5, they walked together for 300 years.
They enjoyed one another’s company, and that’s the kind of relationship we need to have with God, through faith in what His Son accomplished for us, that we are made desirable to God. Doesn’t that just blow you away – through faith…God enjoys us!?
Through faith, we can worship God like Abel. And by faith, walk with God like Enoch.
To sum it all up, by faith, we have God’s favor. By depending on Christ’s sacrifice for our sin, we can live a life well-pleasing to the Lord.
Hebrews 11:6 Now without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who approaches God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.
Faith, more than anything else, pleases the Lord. It starts by believing that He exists, obeying His Word, and believing that He rewards those who seek Him.
When Harry Truman became president, he worried about losing touch with common, everyday Americans, so he would often go out to be among them. Back when times were simpler, when the president could take a walk like everyone else.
One evening, Truman decided to take a walk down to the Memorial Bridge on the Potomac River. When he grew curious about the mechanism that raised and lowered the bridge, he made his way across the catwalks and came upon the bridge operator, who was eating his evening supper out of a tin bucket.
The man showed absolutely no surprise when he looked up and saw the best-known and most powerful man in the world. He just swallowed his food, wiped his mouth, smiled, and said, “You know, Mr. President, I was just thinking of you.” According to Truman’s biographer, David McCullough, it was a greeting that Truman adored and never forgot. (Robert Morgan, Moments of Reflection: Reclaiming the Lost Art of Biblical Meditation, Thomas Nelson, 2017, page 33; www.PreachingToday.com)
The Lord is pleased when we know Him, believe in Him, and trust Him and His Word… that is faith.
Through faith, we can be certain of what others cannot be certain – confidence in God’s promises for the future. By faith, we can understand what others cannot understand – a conviction of God’s principles in life. And by faith, know what others cannot – a confirmation of God’s approval. And by faith, do what others cannot do – a capacity to please God.