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September 9, 2025 28 mins

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What if everything God allows in your life is designed to develop one thing: your trust in Him? In this exploration of Hebrews 11, we discover that faith isn't a blind leap into the dark—it's something with substance and evidence that radically changes how we live.

The "Hall of Faith" presents us with a museum of faithful believers, showcasing ordinary people who learned to trust an extraordinary God. Faith functions as our spiritual receptors, allowing us to perceive realities our physical senses can't detect. Just as our eyes see light and our ears hear sound, faith helps us grasp both the heaven we hope for and the spiritual world that surrounds us.

We journey back to creation itself, recognizing that faith begins with acknowledging there is a God who designed our intricate world with purpose. The complexity of life points to a Creator, and believing this fundamental truth is essential to pleasing Him. As the chapter states, "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."

The most encouraging aspect of these faith examples? They were all deeply flawed individuals. Abraham doubted, Moses hesitated, and others made significant mistakes. Yet God worked through their imperfect faith to accomplish His purposes. This reveals God's primary work in our lives—through every trial and difficulty, He's developing our trust, prying our lives from our own control so we can fully rest in His care.

Ready to join the great cloud of witnesses? Consider what God is revealing about Himself to you today, and how you might step out in faith with the practical realities of your life. Because true faith isn't just believing something—it's living like it's true.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hebrews, chapter 11, if you're not already there,
hebrews chapter 11.
I didn't get any input fromy'all as to what to go through
next, and so we're diving intothe middle of a book Not
standard but will be good, andit might take us all the way to
Christmas.
So you got time to pray aboutit and think about it.

(00:31):
What we go through next, butHebrews, chapter 11, famously
known as the Hall of Faith.
It's a sort of almost museum ofthe faithful, and since I like
museums, I come back to thisright.
I like history, I like just thelife and all the emotion in

(00:51):
these kinds of things, but it isknown as the Hall of Faith,
hebrews, chapter 11.
The word faith, or an idea offaith, is over 29 times in this
chapter, so there's a lot of it.
But again, as calling it theHall of Faith, you can picture
it.
I love me a good museum.

(01:12):
Art museums are cool, buthistory is like.
That's where I'm at and youknow, when I was in England, I
actually I don't know if any ofyour kids were on this, anybody
here was on the England trip,but I jumped off the bus.
The kids were all sleeping onthe bus the first day we got

(01:32):
there and I went to the BritishMuseum, asked some of the adults
if I could do that and theysaid, okay, go for it.
I went to the British Museumand I saw, like the Rosetta
Stone and the walls of Nineveh,because England's taking it all.
But anyways, you know, andthere it was and you get to look
through there.
I totally nerd out.
You know, when you go toWashington DC it's the

(01:53):
Smithsonian there and you seethe old Star Spangled Banner and
all those things.
But you get inspired in placeslike the Capitol Building, right
, you know Statuary Hall, therein the Capitol, all these
statues representing, you know,the greats from each state.
And you know I could justtotally nerd out and go from one

(02:14):
to the other and see the livesof these Americans who, you know
, did different things for thecountry and for their state.
And there they are, theirstatues cast in bronze or marble
, and I like to read throughtheir stories.
Well, this chapter is like that.
I put that in your head becausethis chapter is kind of like

(02:34):
that.
It's like a museum, it's anexhibit of those who have lived
by faith.
Now we're jumping in in chapter11.
Usually we start in chapter one, verse one, because that's
usually how you do it, but justa little bit of a background of
what's come before in the bookof Hebrews.
Check it out yourself.

(02:55):
But the author to the Hebrewsis pointing a group of Hebrew
believers to Jesus.
They were tempted to go backback to all the rituals and the
priests and the sacrifices andthe Mosaic law.
They were tempted to go backand the author to the Hebrews

(03:18):
says you can't go back, yougotta go forward.
You gotta look to Jesus, not toall those other things.
And so the book of Hebrews isreally encouragement to live by
faith.
And chapter 11 here after he'ssaid Jesus is better than the
priesthood, jesus is better thanthe temple.

(03:38):
You know Jesus is better thanthe Mosaic law.
He points them to this fact inchapter 11 that faith has been
the way that God's people havealways dealt with him.
This is not a new thing.
To live by faith.
This is the way it's alwaysbeen.
And notice we kind of see thatin verse 39 of chapter 10.

(04:01):
So back up one verse to chapter39, verse 10.
He says this kind of summing upthose first 10 chapters.
But we are not those who drawback to perdition but those who
believe to the saving of thesoul, those who believe.

(04:21):
Now, that word believe there isthat same word faith.
The translators have used theword believe, but it's faith.
Those who have had faith havealways went forward to the
saving of their soul.
11, and the proof is that thisis always the way that it's been

(04:46):
.
Now, why is faith important?
Let's read verses 1 through 3,and then I'm going to skip over
to verse 6, for today, noticethis.
Now, faith is a substance ofthings hoped for, the evidence

(05:06):
of things not seen, for by itthe elders obtained a good
testimony.
By faith, we understand thatthe worlds were framed by the
word of God, so that the thingswhich are seen were not made of
things which are visible.
Look at verse 6.
But without faith, it isimpossible to please him, to

(05:28):
please God.
Look at verse 6.
So we realize here that faithis the only way to please God,
those who please God.
It's impossible to please Godwithout faith, and that's why

(05:51):
we're looking at this idea offaith.
Now, if we glance back again tochapter 10, verse 38, he also
says this.
He references a verse fromIsaiah.
Verse 38, he also says this.
He references a verse fromIsaiah Now, the just shall live
by faith.
So faith is just part of thebeliever's life, it's essential

(06:17):
to being a believer.
And so we start then in verseone with this idea what is faith
?
If faith is so important, whatis it?
And you know, I always go backto Sunday school and really a
lot of confusion in my life.
It wasn't my teacher's fault,it was probably my fault.
But if you were to ask me thequestion back in Sunday school,

(06:38):
what is faith?
I would say it's believingsomething you know can't be true
.
Right, a leap of faith.
It's not a good idea, but it'sa leap of faith you know, a
faith in.
Well, you know Santa Claus,right, you know, I just have
faith, I believe in, you know,and that's kind of the way a lot

(06:58):
of believers I think look at,faith is believing something you
know, just probably isn't true.
But that's not what we're toldhere in verse 1.
We start with the question offaith, and here on the doorway
to the museum we could say is adefinition in verse 1.

(07:20):
Maybe not a definition, but adescription of faith.
Faith is the substance of thingshoped for, the evidence of
things not seen, and so whendescribing faith, the author
here uses some pretty solidwords, right, some pretty solid

(07:43):
words.
Substance and evidence right,some pretty solid words.
Substance and evidence, right?
Substance, hold onto your chair.
Substance, right, you see it,you feel it, it's got substance.
Evidence, right, it's somethingyou find in the game of Clue,
right?
You know some evidence to thecrime, something physical, you

(08:03):
pick up and you look at.
So faith has substance andevidence.
That's important because wehave again a kind of wishy-washy
view of faith.
Like you know, the Padres thatcome from San Diego, the Padres
keep the faith.

(08:23):
You know, I don't know ifthat's an easy thing to do or a
hard thing to do, depending onwhat their stats are, but here
we see that faith is somethingyou can hold on to.
It's got substance and evidence.
Um, there was an account of aScottish missionary I heard
about, john Patton.
He ministered in the SouthPacific and they were trying to

(08:46):
come up with an idea for thisword faith.
There wasn't any direct wordfaith in the language and so,
like they often do intranslations, they had to come
up with an idea, and the ideathat the native there of that
country came up with was sittingin a chair, but not just
sitting in a chair, sitting in achair with your feet up.

(09:08):
You could all try it right now.
Right, and there was this ideaof resting all of your weight on
something.
That's faith.
It's this real thing of restingall of your life in trusting
God.
And so here we're told faith issubstance and evidence.

(09:34):
It goes along with what Jamestells us in chapter 2, verse 17,
that faith without works isdead.
Without some kind of substanceand evidence, faith isn't really
faith.
Faith has to change the way welive.
It's not just empty words.

(09:56):
So notice, faith realizessubstance for things and
evidence for things that wecan't see.
Substance for things hoped forwe can put in heaven would be a
good one to put in for thatheaven.
And evidence for things unseen,perhaps a spiritual reality all

(10:18):
around us.
Now check it out.
The Bible talks about heaven,but not many have been there.
Right, we haven't been there,but we believe it.
Here's what Paul says in 1Corinthians 2.9.
As it is written, I has notseen nor ear, heard, nor have

(10:39):
entered into the heart of manthe things which God has
prepared for those who love him.
We could say this about heavenNobody has really seen it, maybe
a couple of people here andthere, but nobody has really
seen it.
It hasn't even entered into ourhearts.
How amazing it is.
But yet, by faith, we lookforward and we hope for it.
We don't just hope for it, likeI hope it's there, but we live

(11:02):
our lives in light of the truthof heaven.
Another thing, though there'sthis evidence of things not seen
.
We get this, and not to becreepy or a little freaky on
this, but the Bible points to areality beyond what you can see
with your eyes 2 Kings, chapter6.

(11:23):
You ought to check it out.
It's a great account here ofElisha the prophet, and Elisha
got himself into trouble forsome various reasons, and the
king of Syria was trying to getrid of him, trying to capture
him.
So he was in the city restingin an Airbnb I'm just going to
guess, you know and his servantgets up in the morning to make

(11:47):
coffee, of course, and theservant goes to the window,
looks out the window and, oh mygoodness, the whole Syrian army
is around our house.
That would be freaky, right, ifyou wake up and a whole army is
surrounding your house and heruns into Elisha and says master
, master, there's an armyoutside, you got to come and

(12:09):
Elisha, you know, wipes thesleep out of his eyes and he
just prays a very simple prayer.
I added to that story, by theway, but he has a very simple
prayer.
He says God open his eyes thathe could see.
And the servant looks aroundand surrounding the army that

(12:29):
was surrounding them was an armyof angels with spears and
swords, an army of chariots onfire.
Right, and it was surroundingthat army.
Now read the rest of that story.
It's amazing how God takes careof things there.
But what we see is there is aspiritual reality around us that

(12:53):
we can't see with our eyes.
This is what the Bible presentsa whole reality around us.
Now, it doesn't make any senseto us, but it's no less real
just because we can't understandthat.
It's what the Bible says.
Now check it out.
Faith is like spiritualreceptors to realize the things

(13:15):
hoped for and the spiritualthings unseen.
You can compare it to ourphysical senses.
Right, you have what?
Five senses?
Right?
Four of those specifically showus things that we couldn't take
in otherwise.
Right, there's light all aroundus.
We see it, but without eyes wewouldn't be able to take that in

(13:39):
.
Eyes are the receptor to takein light and color and all these
things.
They're there, but we need eyesto check it out.
They're, you know, sound wavesgoing all around us, all the way
out into space.
They're just sound waves anddifferent things, but without
ears we wouldn't be able to takeany of it in.

(14:02):
Come Christmas time not tobelabor the point here, but come
Christmas time, people will bemaking cookies, right, and the
scent of cookies through the air, ah, that's my kryptonite, you
know, but without a nose youwouldn't be able to take it in.
Remember those of you who gotCOVID, like I did, you know, but
without a nose you wouldn't beable to take it in.
Remember those of you who gotCOVID, like I did, you know, the

(14:25):
one thing we knew was that somepeople sometimes just stop
being able to smell.
You remember that how clean theworld smelled, you know,
because your nose just decidedit was going to go on vacation
for a while.
You know, you needed thatreceptor to catch it right.
And the same thing with taste.

(14:45):
We could talk about that aswell.
It was weird, it was freaky, andyet faith is kind of like that.
There are things that withoutfaith, we just can't take in.
But with faith and total trustin what God says and who God is.
It's a reality of our life,right, heaven is hoped for.

(15:08):
But there's this substance,right, it changes the way we
live and that's what we'll seethrough the chapter 11 of
Hebrews is that those who liveby faith live with this reality
of heaven.
Those who live by faith, theylive with this reality of the
spirit world all around us.
We don't wrestle against fleshand blood, but against

(15:29):
principalities and powers, andwe'll see that as we go through
chapter 11, that this faithreally changed the way these
people live.
Notice verse 2, as we step inthe door to this exhibit,
perhaps on the side, we readthis, for by it, by faith, the

(15:52):
elders obtained a good testimony.
The word testimony here iswitness.
It's marturos in the Greek.
It's where we get the idea of amartyr.
Right In the early church,believers were, were witness to
Jesus, and because theywitnessed of Jesus, they had a
testimony of Jesus.

(16:13):
A lot of times they werepersecuted and put to death.
So the word witness and andmartyr kind of mean the same
thing in our books, but here wesay that these elders, those who
have gone before, obtained agood testimony by faith.

(16:34):
Now, if you skip over tochapter 12, verse 1, kind of a
bookend to all of this, he looksback at the things in chapter
11 and says Therefore, we alsosince we're surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses sameword, right, testimony, witness

(16:58):
that those in chapter 11 who hadthis testimony and these
witnesses, they had a better onebecause they lived by faith.
Now, real faith gives us a goodtestimony, a good witness.
In verse 6 of chapter 11, weread a good witness.

(17:24):
In verse 6 of chapter 11, weread it pleases God.
It's impossible to please Godwithout this kind of faith.
It pleases God, that's good.
Chapter 12, we'll see in verse1, again, it gives us endurance.
Right.
In chapter 12, it switches frombeing a museum to a coliseum.
In chapter 12, it switches frombeing a museum to a coliseum we
could say A coliseum, andthere's a race going on and we

(17:45):
want to run this race of lifewith endurance.
How do we do it?
By faith, just like these folksin chapter 11 did.
So having faith in our lifewill please God.
It will give us a bettertestimony and it'll give us
endurance to get through life.
Life can be tiring and hard, butit gives us endurance, and this

(18:10):
is really what God wants to dothrough life.
I don't know if you've noticedthis, but I feel like the longer
I've gone through life, themore things I've been through.
I find that this is somethingthat God always wants to work in
my life.
He wants to give me Bibleknowledge and experiences and
stuff, but what God really wantsto do in life is get us to

(18:30):
trust him, to put all of ourweight on him.
I think it's a huge part ofsanctification, this work that
God does to change us is to getus to trust Him.
That's why we experience trialsand difficulties in life, all
just to kind of pry our livesout of our hands so that we just
trust God with it more and moreand more, so that our.

(18:52):
This is the purpose of faith tochange us.
Now verse 3, we have a coupleminutes here to explore a little
further Verse 3, we go back tothe beginning.
Faith goes back to thebeginning.

(19:14):
In verse 3, by faith weunderstand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God, sothat things which are seen are
not made of things which arevisible, and so the first place
the author takes us is back toGenesis 1.1, all the way back to
the beginning, where we readGenesis 1.1, where we read

(19:38):
Genesis 1.1, in the beginning,god.
Now God created the heavens andthe earth, and we'll talk about
that for a second.
But in the beginning, god.
The Bible doesn't explain whereGod came from.
It just starts off by sayingGod was In the beginning.
God was and there he was Now.

(20:01):
That's the beginning of it all.
But then we realized that Godcreated the heavens and the
earth.
It's possible, I think it'spossible, to be a believer and
believe things like evolution.
There are plenty of believerswho believe evolution was the
way that God created the heavensand the earth.
It's not six literal days, it'ssix ages and whatnot.

(20:24):
That's fine.
I believe you can be a believer, and I don't know why, but you
could.
But no matter what, and hearthis, no matter what, you have
to ask the question where did itall come from?
Where did it all start?
Because matter isn't eternal.

(20:44):
We know that Things are windingdown.
Matter isn't eternal, so therehad to be a beginning to it.
I listened to a lot of littlestories this time around for
this one and the story is toldof an atheist who came to God
ironic right and said you knowwhat, god, with evolution, I can

(21:07):
make man out of the dust of theground.
And God said hey, get your owndust right, because there has to
be a place where all the basicscame from.
It had to start somewhere Oneway or another.
You have to answer that and notin a mocking term.

(21:28):
But when asked, most modernscientists would almost really
say that life came from maybeanother planet, maybe another
part of the universe.
It flew in on a comet or aliensor something like that brought
the essence of life here andstarted it all.
But you can change it to theother side of the universe.

(21:49):
You still have to say but wheredid it come from?
And there's no answer becauseit takes faith, it takes trust
to believe evolution way morethan just to believe that in the
beginning God created theheavens and the earth.
When you look at the complexityof life I'm not a scientist, I

(22:13):
don't even.
I didn't even do good well atscience, you know.
But when you look at thecomplexity of life, how if the
earth was a little bit closer tothe sun, we'd burn up, right.
If it was a little bit furtherfrom the sun, everything would
freeze, right, when you see theapparent design in some of the

(22:36):
simplest things, in some of thesimplest things, this perfect
homeostasis that has to happenin order for life to exist, you
see how marvelously we'recreated.
I mean, just think about it.
I mean, this is so simple, butI was thinking about it this
morning.
You know, we breathe oxygen, Iknow that much.

(22:59):
We breathe oxygen.
Plants take in carbon dioxide,right, and we're in this kind of
back and forth thing.
Right, we breathe out, you know, carbon dioxide, the plants
take it in and they respirate.
I guess they respirate oxygenback to us.

(23:19):
We're dependent upon each other, right, be kind to your plants,
right?
No, but you know, if it wasn'tthat way, we wouldn't have the
things we need to live.
And so you see design ineverything, the smallest and
simplest things, and the moreyou see it, the more I think you

(23:40):
can conclude that we and all oflife is fearfully and
wonderfully made.
That's where it starts.
Now notice oh, I lost Hebrews.
Notice there in verse 6, thatthis is essential to real faith.

(24:01):
Without faith, it's impossibleto please God, for he who comes
to God must believe that he is,that he's a rewarder for those
who diligently seek him.
That's what faith.
Does we, by faith, look at theworld around us and we go.
I believe there's a God.

(24:21):
There's no other way this couldhappen than a designer designed
it.
I believe there's a God and Ibelieve it matters what we do
with that information right.
He's a rewarder of those whodiligently seek him.
If you live your life for him,it's worth it right Now.
This is the essence of faith.
There is a God.
This is what he's like.

(24:42):
The Bible tells us, and this iswhat he likes.
This is the way life was meantto be.
That's the way you ought tolive.
Now.
The wonderful thing that we'llfind in this.
My wife always asks me whatkind of application I got when I
taught the Bible study, andsometimes I'm like I don't think
I got any application.
I don't know what I toldeverybody, but as we go through

(25:04):
this and these accounts ofpeople who just trusted God,
we're going to see every singlething is practical application
for our life, because these arejust normal people.
You know, you go into thosemuseums with those statues of
all the heroes, of you know,american heroes, and you go.
Man, george Washington, he'sjust larger than life.

(25:25):
You know Abraham Lincoln justlarger than life.
You know, this is something youknow.
He was just incredible.
And yet, as we look at all thesepeople, the great thing in the
Bible is we find out that theywere all flawed, just like we
are.
You find out that Abraham, thefather of the faithful.
He struggled with doubt a hugepart of his life.

(25:47):
He did crazy things that Godnever told him to do because he
had doubt and he was afraid.
But yet God looks at him inthis and says but he was
faithful, by faith, he did thesethings.
You look at all the people onthis list and they were all just
human beings like us.
They were all flawed and we'llcover that.

(26:09):
They're flaws too, but God, byfaith, god caused him to walk in
these amazing ways andexperience the life that God had
created for them and trust God.
You know, you get to the end ofeach of their lives and you
find out wow, they reallylearned to trust God.

(26:30):
And here's the thing God wantsto do the same thing in us.
We're just normal human beingsin our time period, in our neck
of the world, and yet God wantsto work trust in each one of us.
God wants us to not justbelieve something but live it,
and that opportunity is eventhis week.

(26:52):
What is God like?
What does he like?
What does he have for you?
In what ways might you step outand just trust him with the
things that are in front of you?
And God works the same thingsthat he worked in these people
into our lives as well.
So I'm excited as we move on inthis study, god.
It certainly isn't about usjust psyching ourself out and

(27:18):
having a little pep rally andbeing excited about life, but
it's you that we need to notjust trust you in our words, but
with our life.
To not just trust us withspiritual things, seemingly
spiritual things but, god, totrust you with the practical
things of our life, the thingsthat are in our heart.

(27:40):
God, I just pray that you wouldcontinue to work faith in each
one of us.
I just thank you that that'sexactly what you want to do, god
, and it wouldn't be to ourglory, but it would be to your
glory in the end.
God, we love you and thank youfor this time.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
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