00:00:00 If we are living in San Francisco Bay Area like many of us do, earthquakes are not new to us. Now, I remember two vivid earthquake experiences. There are different types of earthquakes. One is called rolling, another is shearing, and there are many more. But there were two I remember because the shearing one is where literally the floor vibrates super strong and it sends the vibration through your body. I was sleeping, I woke up scared, dazed, confused. 00:00:35 And the rolling earthquakes, I think it was between a 4 to a 5.5, something like that, is where it just rolls. There\'s a rumbling. And I remember we had a fish tank, you could see the water rolling on top of it. It\'s scary, too. Earthquakes terrify us because when the foundation or the floor on which we stand shakes, it can shake our whole life. You know what? Japan is known for earthquakes, too, and Japanese engineers developed a technology structurally called base isolation. 00:01:11 So to prevent people from experiencing earthquakes, what they do is they have layers of a special bearing system that sandwiches the building and the foundation, and this base isolation bearing is made of layers of rubber and steel and designed in such a way that even if there is an earthquake and the foundation shakes, it doesn\'t get transmitted to the entire structure. 00:01:40 So there are some of these huge Japanese buildings you can see on YouTubes when there are these earthquakes or even high winds sometimes. They can even bend and not crack. And in here in our own Silicon Valley Bay Area, if you have an old house, structural engineers suggest ways that it can also be helped to not crumble in an earthquake by attaching it more strongly to the foundation. 00:02:12 It\'s one thing when the foundation of the physical place we live shakes, but if some of the foundations of our life is shaken, what do we do? We are beginning a new series called \"Endurance.\" It\'s focused on how our faith can equip us in those times. Endurance, faith that finishes. And today we are going to look at faith that sees the unseen. And we are looking into this chapter, Hebrew chapter 11. 00:02:53 When I was very new in my faith, I was gifted a book by Bullinger called \"Great Cloud of Witnesses.\" I stumbled upon it this past week. It has almost 400, 500 pages, just an exegesis on this chapter alone. I remember reading it in 1997 when I was 10 years old, and it was amazing. That was a test to see if you\'re awake. So this chapter is so rich, and nothing can encourage us as Christians more than what we can see. 00:03:36 This is a chapter filled with real-life stories of people who went through everything life can throw at them and yet finished strong and finished well. So before we go into it, a little bit of a background. We want to see who was this written to and why did the author of Hebrews write this? Because it addresses the same questions that many of us ask: How can I believe God when my life starts unraveling around me? 00:04:10 How can I trust Him when I cannot see my own future of how my life is going to look 1 year from now, 10 years from now? How can I believe when obedience seems costly or when what I hoped for has still not happened? These are the questions the book of Hebrews addresses. The book of Hebrews was written to Christians who had already come through a crisis, and they are just tired. They\'re fatigued. Listen to how the author describes them just a chapter before Hebrews. 00:04:47 Turn your Bibles to Hebrews 10:32-36. He says, \"But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better position and an abiding one. 00:05:20 Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.\" See what it talks about them. He says when they first came to Christ, the former days, right after they were enlightened, they paid a price. They endured a hard struggle with sufferings. They were publicly exposed to reproach and affliction. They had compassion on those who were sent to prison. 00:05:55 They visited them, stood with them at real risk to themselves. They joyfully accepted the plundering of their property because they knew they had a better position. But that was then. But by the time this letter is written, they\'re no longer new believers. The author says in Hebrews 5:12, \"By this time you ought to be teachers.\" Some have started neglecting even to meet together, and he has to remind them in Hebrews 10:25. 00:06:24 And that can happen when you are living your Christian life and slowly you start experiencing fatigue and you go down a drift of your faith. But he reminds them in Hebrews 12:4 that they have not resisted to the point of shedding blood. It applies to all of us. We are not being persecuted. No one\'s plundering our property. Nobody\'s trying to kill us because of our faith, which is still true and real in many parts of the world. So the danger is now not the first shock of persecution. 00:07:01 It is the long, slow fatigue of following Jesus year after year. And that\'s why he says you have need of endurance. Once we become followers of Jesus, life is not going to be all that great and rosy. Jesus himself teached that in his Sermon on the Mount, that blessedness includes persecution. Says Matthew 5:10-12. Says, \"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness\' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 00:07:38 Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.\" So the reality is that even when you become a Christian, we will experience suffering and trials from two sources. 00:08:03 First, from the outside, the kind of pressure these believers faced, reproach, loss, prison, mockery for believing what you believe can happen in your schoolyards, to your office cubes, to any space. Secondly, from inside, our own sinfulness. Because right after this chapter, the author calls it in Hebrews 12:1, to be careful of the sin which clings so closely. It wraps around our legs while we are trying to run. And there is also a danger worse than struggling with sin. 00:08:41 It\'s completely walking away from Christ altogether. That is what the warning just before our chapter is about. Hebrews 10:26-27. He says, \"For if we go on sinning deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.\" Now notice what sinning deliberately means. 00:09:15 Three verses later, he describes this person as one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and verse 29, \"And profaned the blood of the covenant.\" This is not talking about the believer who struggles or fails and falls and comes back in repentance. No, no, no. It is talking about the one who turns his back on the only sacrifice there is for ourselves. If you\'re fighting your sin, this warning is not a verdict on you. It is a fence to keep you off from the cliff. 00:09:50 Don\'t keep pushing the boundaries till the point comes where you feel it becomes unredeemable. So the big question is: how do we hold on to God? How do we trust him? How do we believe him? How do we exercise faith in him? What is faith even? And again, the question of how can I believe in God, especially in moments when my life starts unraveling around me? This chapter answers that question. It surveys a great cloud of witnesses. 00:10:25 And in parallel, as it gives us the survey of what\'s happened in the lives of all these people, it gives us a God\'s-eye view of while their lives may seem to be unraveling, it shows us what they couldn\'t see but we could see, God\'s redemptive plans and purposes steadily progressing along human history and unfolding covenant by covenant all the way to Christ. 00:10:55 So reading through this should enable us to hold on in faith, believing in this God through whatever life circumstances we may be going through. So the author begins with the definition of faith in the very first verse, and then gives us their life stories of faith at work. So we\'re going to look at two major parts. This is just a two-point sermon today, not the three. But I\'m cheating a little bit because the second point has five sub-points. 00:11:31 So we\'re going to look at faith defined, seeing the unseen God, and faith applied, seeing the unseen God. But before we start, I want to address some common misconceptions about faith. The author is not talking or telling people that your faith is going to save you. That\'s a very popular trend and huge following today, in what is called as the faith and works movement. 00:12:07 It tells them, \"Hey, it\'s your faith in faith that\'s either going to get you this miracle or either going to get you to push through this.\" This is a movement that treats our faith as the object and as the force to get what we want in and through life. Believe hard enough, and you can make it happen. That\'s false faith, that\'s fake faith. That can even be called as a faith that is heretical. The Hebrews 11 is not that. This faith is only as strong as its object, which we are going to look at. 00:12:53 It\'s bigger than that. So let\'s look at the first part, seeing the unseen, faith defined. Verse one, \"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.\" There are two phrases the author is using to define faith. He says, \"The assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.\" Let\'s look at the first part, the assurance of things hoped for. The Greek word for assurance here is hypostasis. 00:13:33 It literally means standing under or standing on a foundation that is unshakable. That you\'re standing on something underneath, and it\'s able to hold you no matter what happens. When the Bible was translated into Latin, this word became substantia, from which we get substantial from two Latin roots, sub and standing or stands. Faith is defined as something that stands on something that\'s solid and immovable. Hebrews uses this word three times. In Hebrews 1:3, it\'s used to describe Jesus Christ. 00:14:16 He says, \"The Son is the exact imprint of God\'s nature.\" His hypostasis, his very being. In Hebrews 3:14, he talks, \"It\'s our original confidence, which we must hold firm till the end.\" And in here, it is the hypostasis or substance of things hoped for. The word holds both a reality that is unshakable and solid, and a confidence in that that rests on it. And we have to go a little more deeper on this, what faith is not. As I said earlier, faith is not a wishful thinking or a feeling. 00:14:59 The strength of faith does not depend on our ability to believe. Some of us can believe certain things more strongly and easily, and some of us can\'t. It rests on the solidity of the one on whom we believe it. Because if it depended on the strength of their faith, none of the people listed here would qualify. Some of them, sometimes they\'re called heroes of faith. 00:15:30 I don\'t know if that\'s the best way to define, because we see Abraham falters, Noah ends up drunk in his tent, Jacob manipulates his way through life, Sarah laughs at God\'s promise. These are not heroes. They are witnesses, though, to a faithful God who does something way beyond their brokenness or weakness. And so on the one hand, faith is not this wishful thinking or feeling you have, but on the other hand, faith is also not what we might call scientific faith. And I want to be careful here. 00:16:08 I love science. I\'ve been a scientist my life. We all are. Some of us pursue science. Science is a study of God\'s world, created world. But the problem is what is called scientism, and scientism is the belief that the only things that are true are things that are measurable, observable, and repeatable. That\'s a reductionistic faith. Not all truth is that kind of truth. You all heard from Satwi. We had this conversation several times. Imagine this. 00:16:46 What experiment can you design to prove to a 100-year-old couple who have not been able to have a child their entire life that they\'re going to have a child, and that it can be repeated in every 100-year-old couple that have ever lived who have never had a child? Can\'t do that, isn\'t it? How many people have you observed that? So if the substance of our faith is not wishful thinking or not something that can be proven in a lab, what is the solid thing our faith stands on? 00:17:25 The substance of our faith is Christ, the rock on whom we can stand. Hebrews tells that to us. Again, the previous chapter, just before the beginning of chapter 11. Read with me Hebrews 10:19-23. 00:17:45 \"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.\" 00:18:13 \"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.\" Now look at the words. He says we have confidence to enter the holy places by what? The blood of Jesus. He says, \"Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.\" Why? Because we have a great high priest over the house of God. He says, \"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.\" And the reason is the last phrase, \"He who promised is faithful.\" 00:18:46 And he\'s reminding these Hebrew Christians, you can endure, you can stay strong no matter what you go through because your faith is resting on the finished work of Christ that nothing can eradicate. Nothing can make that lose its significance or power. Every blessing that flows from the cross by the work of Christ cannot be tarnished, reduced, disrupted, because it is the power of the risen Christ that seals it. That\'s the object of our faith, and so you can endure everything. 00:19:27 And it was this Christ whom all these Old Testament saints were looking toward. Hebrews says Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. It was this view of Christ that helped Moses to let go of the treasures of Egypt and walk into the wilderness to set the people of God free to unleash a new nation in redemptive history. They all looked ahead to him, but we look back to the same Jesus Christ, our high priest, our loving Savior. 00:20:06 He has promised redemption and in the end, freedom from sin and suffering, and he is faithful. He is with us in our pain, our brokenness, our suffering, and he will see us through by taking us with him to this new heavenly city, even if on Earth, our pain and suffering is not taken away from us. Second definition of faith says the conviction of things not seen. The Greek word \"elenchos\" means evidence or proof, the kind of proof in a judicial case that settles the case. 00:20:45 And what is our evidence? It\'s again the same, Jesus Christ and his work. We hold on in faith by looking back at his finished work on the cross, something the Old Testament saints could only look forward to, and we hold on by looking forward too, as we saw last week in his second coming, and to the new heavens and the new Earth where he has promised there will be no more pain, sin, and suffering. He will wipe away all our tears. 00:21:16 And in this, we stand together with the cloud of witnesses, looking ahead to the same hope in Christ. So, my dear friends, remember, if you\'re going through pain, if you\'re going through suffering, Christ is with you in your pain and suffering. He is alive. Whether it comes from your own sin, or from someone else\'s sin, or from sickness because we live in a broken world, or from suffering for the sake of the gospel, you can hold on to this Christ. He experienced our pain and knows it. 00:21:53 He took our sins and paid for it. He overcame sin, Satan, and hell, and he is risen, and he\'s alive this morning, and he has promised to take us home to the heavenly city. So come to Jesus. Look to this Jesus daily. He alone can nourish your faith and carry you through every trial until you come out triumphant in the end. Let\'s move on to part two, seeing the unseen. Faith applied. See, I\'m already done with my first point. We\'re into second point. 00:22:30 He says in verse three, \"By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are able.\" Says what do we see by faith? How do we get this faith? How do we receive this faith? He says, \"By faith we understand through the Word of God.\" And here the word \"word\" is translated as rhema. 00:23:04 Again, this word is one of the grossly misused words in the faith and works movement, which actually say, \"Oh, you speak it, it will come into reality, and God will do these amazing miracles.\" Please don\'t fall for that. The word rhema refers to God\'s spoken word. And what it means is, it says God spoke, and what is seen came out of what is not seen. God alone has that power. He can speak things that are not existent and can make them into existence. 00:23:39 And this is what all these false teachers and false prophets abuse and say, \"You can also speak things into existence. Claim that dream house. Claim that miracle in your name. And you speak it, and it will happen.\" Don\'t play God. This is for God alone. And what happened there? What was he saying about how to receive this faith? He says, \"By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God.\" Because we read in Genesis 1, \"And God said, \'Let there be light.\' 00:24:14 And God said, \'Let there be a sun and let there be a moon.\'\" God said, God said, God said And that\'s how we have to believe. And who was there? Hebrews tells us who was there at that moment. In very first chapter, Hebrews 1:2-3, he says, \"In these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. 00:24:51 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.\" The Son through whom God made everything. It was Christ who was present in creation, and he\'s the one who holds it together today. You see how in this chapter, the movement is beautiful. It moves from the visible to the invisible. 00:25:17 It begins with creation, then it moves to the word of God, and then it concludes in verse 16 to the unseen heavenly city none of these saints ever saw with their eyes. There is a creator and there is a creation, and the line between them never blurs. We are creatures. We see what he shows us. If he does not show us, we cannot see it. And that\'s why it says, \"By faith we understand.\" The verb is a verb for the mind to perceive, to grasp. We cannot understand God unless He shows it to us. 00:25:54 Faith does not mean switch off our mind. Faith is what lets your mind see rightly, and that\'s why he says in Psalms, \"In your light, may we see light.\" And when that happens, it\'s beautiful, my dear friends. It\'s like a veil is lifted off your eyes. You see things you\'ve never seen before. And so how does this faith come to us? Paul reminds us in Romans 10:17, \"Faith comes from hearing.\" I\'m checking how many people are hearing this sermon. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the... 00:26:27 My personal testimony, the miracles I experienced, the blessings God has promised. Faith comes from the word of God. Doesn\'t have to be anything fancy. We don\'t have to try to be fancy to attract people to God. And this is what happened to every person in this chapter. God spoke and they believed. Not because they had great faith, because they were able to trust that this God is a big God who does what he says he would. How hard is it to believe? It sometimes does get hard, isn\'t it? 00:26:59 When we go through pain, our pain suddenly becomes bigger than this God. Our suffering suddenly becomes bigger than this God. Our brokenness suddenly becomes bigger than this God, and we lose hope and we think, \"No, I don\'t think God can get me through this.\" And so he throws this in verse six. He says, \"Without faith, it is impossible to please God.\" Verse six says, \"And without faith, it is impossible to please him. 00:27:24 For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.\" God reveals himself to faith, a faith that responds to his word with humility and not unbridled reason. That does not make reason the enemy. Paul does reason from the scriptures in Acts 17:2. The problem is a reason that refuses to bow, a reason that puffs up your pride on your own ability and sets itself as a judge of God. 00:28:03 The kind of reason that feeds our pride, and it will never see God as he is. But a mind that bows to God\'s word and is willing to submit itself under the word of God is a mind that finally begins to see. So if you\'re thinking, \"I\'m not able to receive anything from God\'s word, I\'m not able to hear anything from God in my prayer,\" the problem is not with the God. The problem is not that there is lack of revelation. 00:28:32 The problem is the pride in your own heart because God stands opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble. So step down, get off your horse, and come down and bow before God, and in his light, he will shine the light and you will see light. Now let us look at five people, the five real points of the sermon that I told you about. 00:28:58 And let\'s look at five kinds of faith, or rather, five expressions of faith, I don\'t want to make these as some absolute thing to go after, that tell us what did they see that enabled them to pursue this God. The five aspects of faith. First is worshiping faith, the faith of Abel, verse four. A living faith, the faith expressed by Enoch in verses five to six. A witnessing faith, a faith expressed in the life of Noah, verse seven. 00:29:33 An obedient faith of faith of Abraham, verses eight to 10, and a reckoning faith. It\'s a faith, a demonstrative faith, a faith of Sarah, verses 11 and 12. First, worshiping faith, verse four. Says, \"By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous. God commending him by accepting his gifts, and through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.\" You know what is interesting? The first expression of faith we get to see is worship. 00:30:12 The Bible opens with God making a covenant of works with Abel\'s parents, Adam and Eve. One command. Says, \"Just obey one command and you will live.\" They disobey and die because he said, \"The day you eat of it, you will die.\" They chose death But yet God graciously stepped in with a covenant of grace. 00:30:35 Immediately, he clothed them with garments of animal skin, which meant the shedding of blood, foreshadowing the ultimate sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, which Adam and Eve would have shared with their children, especially with Abel, the firstborn, and he seems to have gotten it. 00:30:58 Though it had not been fully mapped out how the sacrifice is going to be a burgeoning theme and growing, and God is going to legislate and give ordinances and ceremonial law, and eventually the ultimate sacrifice of Christ is going to come. Just that little revelation was enough for Abel to offer from the firstborn of his flock a sacrifice, expressing his faith as an act of worship. That\'s what happens when you newly discover Christ. 00:31:32 I remember my early days, and every one of you did, you\'re just bursting, you\'re bubbling with joy. You\'re just singing songs all the time. I\'m not a singer. I\'m not into worship. I would just keep listening to gospel music, and it would just reverberate within me. Abel brought his best to a God he could not see, trusting that God would receive it, and God did. And you would think God is going to bless his life because he gave his best to Him, right? What happens to him? His brother killed him. 00:32:12 Cain, angry that God accepted Abel\'s sacrifice and offering, and not his own, rose up and murdered him. Some commentators say it\'s debated, including Bullinger, who wrote that 500-page book, that it\'s because Cain brought the fruit of the labor of his hands from the crops that he had to work and till, and that sort of reflected that he wants to bring something that he could get by his own efforts to God, and God did not receive it. 00:32:42 Not sure if the text says that, but there is a little bit of truth in the meaning of it, that God is not expecting us to bring and fix our life and clean up ourself and bring our goodness to Him and ask Him to accept us and do the rest. But here, what happens is that Abel became the first martyr in human history. Was a foretaste of all who would and still do suffer the same fate. But listen, though he died, he still speaks. What does he speak? 00:33:19 God told Cain, in Genesis chapter 4, verse 10, \"The voice of your brother\'s blood is crying to me from the ground.\" Abel\'s blood cries out for justice, and that cry has never stopped. In Revelation, we read, \"The souls of those slain for the word of God cry out to the Sovereign Lord, \'How long before you will judge and avenge our blood?\'\" Revelation 6:10. Their lives mattered. We still speak of the martyrs, isn\'t it? 00:33:49 From the apostles to famous missionaries like Jim Elliot, to those burned at the stake for the sake of translating the Bible, to even our own missionary, Graham Staines, who was burned to death with his two young sons, Philip and Timothy, in Orissa in 1999. Their lives mattered. But Hebrews 12:24 says, \"We have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.\" Abel\'s blood cries, \"Judge them.\" 00:34:25 Jesus\' blood cries, \"Father, forgive them.\" And in that sense, therefore, Jesus is the true and better Abel, isn\'t it? The innocent one slain by his own brothers, including you and me, whose blood does not condemn us, blood actually cleanses us. What a very wonderful, encouraging thought that is. Isn\'t that enough for you and me to worship Him? Second expression of faith is living faith. 00:34:52 So verses five to six, it says, \"By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.\" Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. A life that starts in worship, of faith, doesn\'t just stay in worship more. It begins to live out your faith in a way that pleases God. Genesis tells us twice that Enoch walked with God. Walked is a imagery of living out your faith. Read in Genesis 5:22 and 24. 00:35:33 Within three verses, it says twice, \"Enoch walked with God.\" Day after day, not for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. You know how many years? People lived long those days, remember? For 300 years, Enoch walked with God. For us, it\'s hard to read our Bibles consecutively five days a week, isn\'t it? It\'s hard to even read a 30-second devotion you get on your WhatsApp five days a week. But Enoch walked with God for 300 years. He walked with a companion no one else could see. 00:36:13 And before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. Hebrews draws a truth for everyone from this life. Says, \"Without faith, it is impossible to please God.\" Which means there are two convictions that mark the life of a person who wants to walk the talk, who wants to live his faith out. First, he says, it\'s a faith that believes in who God says He is. That God exists. 00:36:40 He is truly the living God, even though we cannot see him, and that he believes that God rewards those who seek him. And the reward is not a guarantee of worldly blessings. It\'s a share in the very life of God himself and the inheritance that God promises, which is being with him forever. And you and I can experience the life of Christ right now through our union with the resurrected Christ. 00:37:09 What Enoch had is an experience available to every single one of us because that same risen Christ lives in us, and through this abiding in him, through this rich union life in him, we can get the same experience Enoch had every day in our lives. Enoch was taken without seeing death. An exception. And it\'s a very small preview early on, even in the book of Genesis, a hint of what is yet to come of resurrection. 00:37:44 A preview of the victory over death that Christ is going to win and has won for all who trust him. Enoch walked with God beside him. We get to walk with God within us. Christ now lives in us by his Spirit, so we can experience his presence and walk with him every day, anywhere, at home, at work, at play. Third faith is a witnessing faith. In verse seven: \"By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household. 00:38:24 By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.\" Here\'s a word again. Noah was warned concerning events as yet unseen. He was called to believe an unseen reality. There was no cloud in the sky, yet he believed God\'s word about what was coming, that if this God says he\'s going to do it. God spoke of a future judgment. Noah receives it in reverent fear. He obeyed and built the ark. And his obedience did two things. 00:39:01 It saved his household, and it condemned the world. Every board that Noah was preparing and nailing to the ark was a visible sermon proclaimed to the world around, a witness. Peter calls him in 2 Peter 2:5, a herald of righteousness. Similar word as ambassador, as someone who witnesses the good news. Noah\'s witness was warning about a coming judgment, the same warning the author gives before this chapter, and an invitation into the ark. 00:39:35 Through Noah, God carried a family through judgment and then makes a covenant once again with all creation that he would never again destroy the earth. The ark is God\'s provision of salvation in the middle of judgment, and that provision is finally Christ himself. In him, we are carried safely through judgment. God did not preserve Noah from the flood. He carried him through it. 00:40:08 In the same way, God does not always preserve us from our suffering or even from death, but he carries us through them all the way to the city he has prepared. That\'s why we can witness boldly, not because nothing can touch us, but because nothing can take us out of his hands, and we don\'t have to fear anything this world may throw at us. Fourthly, obedient faith. It says, I read verses eight to 10, Abraham saw a city he could not find on any map and did three things. 00:40:44 He said he responded when God called. He lived in tents in the land of promise like we saw, and he says that he looked forward to a city without foundations. His obedience rested not on a complete understanding of where he was going, but on God\'s promise and his encounter with God in Genesis 12, 15, 17, where God reveals to him progressively and establishes the covenant again. You see the tension in verse nine. It says Abraham lived as a foreigner in the very land God had promised him. 00:41:25 The only piece of it he ever owned in that land was a burial cave for his wife, Sarah. Tents are temporary. They go up and down. They change ownerships. But the city has foundations, and its designer and builder, he says, is God. And this city Abraham looked for is the city Jesus is promising to take you and me. Says, \"I go to prepare a place for you.\" And so this Christ can be trusted. And lastly, reckoning faith or a demonstrative faith. It talks about the faith of Sarah. 00:42:03 Sarah saw the faithfulness of the one who promised. Here\'s the heart of verse 11. Sarah considered him faithful who had promised. To consider is to sort of weigh it up. She looked at her own body, long past the age. She looked at God\'s promise, and she judged that the promise that God makes is more reliable than the strength and ability of her own body. 00:42:28 This is very striking because it seems like it\'s painting a not accurate picture of Sarah, because if you read in Genesis 18, it tells us Sarah laughed when she first heard the promise. Listening behind the tent door, she laughed to herself \"Am I worn out and my lord is old? Shall I have pleasure?\" Genesis 18:12. Yet here she is, counted as one of the great clouds of witnesses. Her laughter of doubt became the laughter of joy. She names her son Isaac. 00:43:04 He laughs and said, \"God has made laughter for me.\" Biblical faith, this goes to demonstrate, does not depend on the bulletproofness of our faith. It does not require a flawless history of believing God\'s promise prevailed over human weakness. Do you remember the phrase I mentioned earlier on, \"He who promised is faithful?\" One of the closing lines of chapter 10. Here it is again, chapter 11. It comes in verse 11. \"Sarah considered him faithful who had promised.\" 00:43:41 Same words, and our author is saying, \"Sarah did exactly what I\'m asking you to do. She held fast because he who promised is faithful.\" It looked like an ordinary set of events. An old aged couple with no kids suddenly getting a child, but God was something bigger and more beautiful. Isaac\'s birth carried the promise God established through Abrahamic covenant, the line through which the ultimate offspring, Christ, would come. We read in Galatians 3:16. 00:44:15 So Sarah\'s faith was not only about an extraordinary birth, it was a trust in God\'s unfolding plan of redemption. And all of these five expressions of faith, my dear friends, rest on the covenant faithfulness of God, not on the faithlessness of people or in the fallible faith of you and I when we go through pain and suffering. And verse 13 to 16 ends it beautifully. It says they saw something unseen, the homeland from afar. 00:44:43 Verse 13 says, \"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth.\" He says, \"They all died, not having received the things promised.\" Was it a switch and bait that God did on them? Abel died young. Abraham never owned the land. Sarah held one son, didn\'t live to see a nation. They all died with the promises still unfulfilled. But they were not empty-handed. 00:45:25 He says, \"They saw them and greeted them from afar.\" Picture standing behind the barrier in San Francisco Airport at the arrivals hall. You\'re trying to wave to someone you love even before you can reach them, isn\'t it? Because you see them there. It\'s one of my favorite things I love to do when I go to the airport, is to see how loved ones come to see those whom they have missed and are coming back. They all so acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles in the world. 00:45:59 The confession tells they were looking for a homeland. They were not looking to go back to the one behind them. If they wanted to go back, they would have. Abraham could have returned to Ur. Mesopotamian region was a very fertile place. He could have thought, \"Let me go back to where I came from. I know it\'s very familiar. The world\'s largest rivers are there. Crops are there. My life\'s going to be secure. I\'ll have a lot of money. 00:46:28 I can go back to my big palatial home and live happily ever after.\" But they didn\'t, isn\'t it? He never did. You know why? They wanted a better country, that is, a heavenly one. And then comes the most beautiful line in this passage. \"Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city.\" They were flawed people, and God puts His own name next to theirs. 00:47:04 And He does this not just because of how each of them fell, but His covenants kept coming one after the other until they found its fulfillment in the new covenant in Christ. And Hebrews is a great book that describes the continuity of the Bible, the Old and New Testament. This is the answer to our big question: How can I believe when I can\'t see my future? These saints couldn\'t see theirs either. 00:47:31 They died not having received anything, but they saw far enough, all the way to the city, and that was just enough to hold on. And Hebrews uses the same language. He says, \"He is not ashamed to call them brothers.\" God is not ashamed to be called our God because His Son was not ashamed to become our brother, and the city they longed for is the one we still seek. In Hebrews 13:14, it reminds us, \"For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.\" 00:48:04 So as I conclude this, my call for each one of you, my dear friends, is come to Christ, cry to Christ, but hold on to Christ. He who promised is faithful. He will accomplish true and good and great things in and through you, and use you to further His redemptive plans and purposes for this world. Don\'t give up. Don\'t give in. 00:48:35 If your faith is weak or dwindling or dying or doubting, you too can come to Jesus Christ through the hearing of His Word you heard today, through the lives of all these people. So let\'s respond in faith. Let\'s worship God like Abel. Worship him for his covenant faithfulness. He drew us to himself by sacrificing his only son, Jesus. If you\'ve not done this, perhaps in your family worship, add a song to your family worship this week. 00:49:03 Or if you\'re living alone, add a song to your daily devotion, or invite a friend to pray and worship with you over a meal. Maybe you can sit in the parking lot of your car and have a small worship and prayer time. Let us learn to walk with God like Enoch did. Experience God\'s presence through His Spirit who lives in you through the ordinary means of grace. And that\'s why we ask you, there is no silver bullet to live this Christian life. It\'s ordinary means of grace. 00:49:35 Come to church, attend your small group, read your Bible, pray. Nothing happens outside of this. They all will help because it will help us in our daily routine to reflect Christ. And let us learn to witness like Noah did, to speak boldly about Christ. Not because God promises nothing will happen to you, but because He will carry you through whatever He does all the way home. And that\'s why we have opportunities for you to do. 00:50:07 Go and boldly talk to your manager, especially for all the men, to give you a time where you\'re going to go and serve these children in these schools. And tell them why. You can tell them because you love Jesus and you\'re a Christian. And let us learn to obey God like Abraham. Obey faithfully even when you cannot see the destination. And let us demonstrate our faith like Sarah, even if our faith is imperfect. Weigh God\'s faithfulness over your feelings. Believe even when you don\'t feel like it. 00:50:44 If you need to go and ask forgiveness to someone, do it even if you don\'t feel like it. If you have to receive forgiveness from someone, pray and ask God to move them, even if you don\'t feel like it. Don\'t look at them and walk the other way around. Be part of a community even when you don\'t feel like it. And above all, let us live as pilgrims like all of them. Let\'s not hold on to our house, our jobs, our bank accounts, our future retirement plans, our children, or our spouses. 00:51:17 Let\'s hold on to God and God alone. Hold the things of this world loosely and the promises of God tightly. And so here\'s my challenge for everyone. Name one thing you keep looking back to, maybe an old life, an old comfort, an old sin, and turn your face toward the heavenly city. If you think your past disqualifies you, remember, God is not ashamed to be called the God of a liar, a drunkard, and a doubter. In Christ, He\'s not ashamed of you at all. 00:51:52 And parents and families, this is an application for you. When you talk with your children about the future, when you plan their daily, weekly, yearly curriculum, whether it\'s about their schools or careers or a bigger house, talk about the big God. Let them hear you thank God from your home and say, \"This is a gift, but it\'s just a tent.\" 00:52:18 And for those who are still single, when career moves, housing, or relationships make your life feel unsettled or temporary, don\'t wait for things to settle down before you live for God. Faith can be settled when life is not. Invest now in what lasts. Invest in the people God has placed around you, in your church, in your work, in your neighborhoods, and in your city. But let\'s take this admonition seriously, the word that we have as it closes in Hebrews 3:12-15. 00:52:56 \"Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called \"today,\" that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, \"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.\" 00:53:26 Notice the word in verse 14, our original confidence is hypostasis, the same word as the assurance of faith in verse one, which is in Christ. Hold firmly to the end. Stand on Christ. Christ is the solid rock on whom I stand. So come to Jesus.