“Faith & Belief”
[Hebrews 11:6]
July 28, 2013 Second Reformed Church
Let
us again remember the two prongs of faith mentioned in the first verse of the
chapter: “Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, ESV). We will note this over and over in the hopes
that it begins to be a natural understanding for us:
We saw this verse talks about faith
being “the assurance of things hoped for” and “the conviction of things not
seen,” and we understood that to mean:
First,
faith receives the Word of God, the history and promises and witnesses
statements therein, and believes with absolute certainty that everything that
God has promised and said will come about, will come to pass, exactly as it has
been given to us and received by us in faith.
Second,
faith receives the Word of God, the history and promises and witnesses
statements therein, and believes with absolute conviction based on the evidence
we have received that things that are spoken of which are not seen by us,
either by difference of time, or because such are invisible to our eyes have
happened, will happen, and do exist, exactly as they have been given to us and
received by us in faith.
Last
week we saw that God said, “Now before [Enoch] was taken he was commended as
having pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5b, ESV).
We began to consider what that means last week, and we consider it more
fully this week, as the author of Hebrews wrote: “And without faith it is impossible to please
him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he
rewards those who seek him.”
Here
we find three doctrines about pleasing God:
First,
without faith it is impossible to please God.
Second,
to please God whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists.
And
third, to please God whoever would draw near to God must believe that he
rewards those who seek him.
First,
without faith it is impossible to please God.
God
has commanded all of humanity to obey His Moral Law. Believers and unbelievers are called to
worship the One God and not idols.
Believers and unbelievers are called not to murder, to steal, to lie, to
commit adultery, and to covet. Believers
and unbelievers are called to honor their parents and to set aside a day for
the worship of the One True God. All of
humanity is called to obey such laws because they are good.
And,
in fact, both believers and non-believers do keep the Moral Law – at least to
some degree. Both believers and
non-believers see the value of a pursuit after these moral standards. (Of course, none of us keep any of them
perfectly, but that discussion must be saved for another time.)
But
the author of Hebrews explains that if a believer keeps the Law, God is
pleased, but if a non-believer keeps the Law, God is not pleased. Is that fair?
Cain
certainly didn’t think it was fair, as we read:
“In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit
of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their
fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain
and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.
The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you
do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching
at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it’” (Genesis 4:3-7,
ESV).
And
the unbelieving Jews complained to God about it: “Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take
no knowledge of it?” (Isaiah 58:3a, ESV).
Cain
objected that he offered up a sacrifice according to the book, and God did not
accept it. The Jews fasted and humbled
themselves, and God did not tell them how good they were.
The
problem is that knowing what is right – and even doing what is right—going
through the motions – is not enough.
Without faith, these things are not pleasing to God. There is no repenting of sin, no desire to
see Christ exalted, no desire to be in communion with God. As James writes, “You believe that God is
one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19, ESV).
It’s
right to believe that God is one, but that is not enough to please God – the
demons believe God is one and God hates the demons. There must be more than knowledge – more than
naked actions – for God to be pleased.
Jesus
said, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into
the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and
you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger
and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison
and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did
we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and
did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to
you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to
me’” (Matthew 25:41-45, ESV).
On
the other hand, God is not pleased when we don’t believe what is true – or
don’t do those things that are right – or know what is true and have no change
of heart. If we memorize the Bible and
do good things, or if we memorize the Bible and don’t do anything it says, the
result is the same – God is not pleased.
And
that may confuse us: it makes sense if
we know everything that is right and don’t do it that God would not be pleased,
but if we know everything that is right and do do it, God still may not be pleased
– how can that be so?
Thomas
Manton gives this example: “When a man
is ready to perish and drown, it is not enough to see land, but he must reach
to it, and stand upon it, if he would be safe; so we must get an interest in
God. The apostle requires ‘coming and
seeking,’ a diligent use of the means that we may enjoy him” (By Faith, 243).
So,
you go swimming in the ocean and you find yourself out too far, but just then,
you see land. If you do nothing, what
will happen? You will drown! In order to be saved, you must get to the
land and stand on it.
Similarly,
if you know what is right or do things that are good, they are not enough to
please God. In order to please God, you
must be in communion with God, you must be one with God, you must be right with
God, and you must have faith.
Faith,
which is a gift from God – as we have seen – shows us the sinful state we are
in and how we are separated from God.
Then, by God’s Grace, we are humbled, and confess our sin, and receive
Jesus and His Gospel, and the Holy Spirit with Him. We are reconciled to God through Jesus the
Son and we are able, in faith, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, to understand
what God has said and believe it, and do the good works that God has put before
us.
The
best person that we know – without faith – is not pleasing to God. As Paul explains, “And you were dead in the
trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions
of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by
nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV).
A
person who has not received Jesus and His Salvation by faith is spiritually
dead and unable to do anything that is pleasing to God. Don’t misunderstand – there are many
wonderful, generous, loving, non-believers, who do wonderful things, but since
they are spiritually dead – sine they have not received Jesus and His Salvation
by faith, they do not please God.
And
so, we can understand, that though those believers before Jesus only had the
promises of a Savior to come, faith ultimately refers to receiving the
Savior. Though Abel only had the
slightest glimpse of the Savior given in the promise to his parents, “I will
put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15, ESV), it was through believing that
promise that Abel was able to receive salvation by faith and please God with
his offering.
In
order to please God, you must receive Jesus by faith, believing the Gospel –
that God came to earth in the person of Jesus, lived a perfect life under the
Law, died for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, physically rose from
the dead, and ascended back to His throne.
Second,
to please God whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists.
God
ridicules Israel in the book of Isaiah for committing idolatry: “The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works
it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong
arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is
faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes
it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a
man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he
chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the
forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a
man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes
bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down
before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he
roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, ‘Aha, I am warm, I
have seen the fire!’ And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and
falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you
are my god!’” (Isaiah 44:12-17, ESV).
God
says that a person who takes a piece of wood and uses part of it to cook his
dinner and part of it to make into an idol to worship is deluded. That’s nuts!
And while there is a rise in people worshipping statues of many kinds in
the United States, I would guess that most of us would not pray to a rock or a
piece of wood, or something along those lines.
Paul
tells us, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has
shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the
world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans
1:19-20, ESV). In other words, everybody
knows that God is – that God exists – simply by looking at the creation.
So,
we may wonder, “What is the big deal about believing that God exists, or
believing that God is?” Here we see, as
we have seen before, it is important to know what the meaning of “is” is. And we may quickly understand that if the author
of Hebrews simply meant that to please God, whoever would draw near to God must
believe that such a Being as God exists – that God is – there would be no
question, because everyone believes that God is – that God exists.
And
someone may ask, “What about atheists?”
R. C. Sproul has said that atheists believe two things quite
passionately: one, God does not exist,
and two, they hate God. The point being
that everyone believes that God is – that God exists – it is just that some
people don’t like the God Who exists.
So
the author of Hebrews must mean something other than the fact that God exists –
that God is. We can find the answer by
looking at a different word which comes from the same root as “exist” –
“being.” What the author of Hebrews is
saying is that in order to please God – in order to draw near to God – we must
understand the Being of God – we must understand the character and attributes
of God. And, it is only when and if a
person understands – to some extent – the character – the Being – the
attributes of God – that faith propels us to God – we are drawn near to Him.
The
primary characteristic of the Being of God is holiness. “And
one [seraphim] called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his
glory!’” (Isaiah 6:3, ESV). And we
understand, in Hebrew, one does not say “very, very, very holy” to show
emphasis, one says, “holy, holy, holy.”
Beginning
here, we understand that God cannot tolerate sin in His Presence. So, we understand, just from considering this
primary attribute of God that the only way we can approach God – draw near to
God – as we seek to know Him in His Being – by His Characteristics and Attributes,
is to be reconciled to God. The debt of
our sin to God must be paid.
And
we know the answer, don’t we? “But God,
being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even
when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by
grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in
the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show
the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For
by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it
is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians
2:4-9, ESV).
“All
this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to
himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the
message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making
his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to
God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21, ESV).
God
the Father, in love for those He chose to save, sent God the Son, in the Person
of Jesus Christ, to take on our sins and the penalty for our sins, while He
gave to us His Righteousness. So, once
again, the key is faith – and the reception of Salvation through Jesus Christ
Alone.
We
can only draw near to God – come before Him as true worshippers of Him, if we
have come to know Him in His Being – in His Character and Attributes – such
that we are made right with God – forgiven and made righteous – and that can
only be through Jesus Christ.
And
third, to please God whoever would draw near to God must believe that he
rewards those who seek him.
We must immediately dispel the
notion that any non-believer is seeking Jesus and His Salvation: “as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one
understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:10-11, ESV). We are all born “children of wrath,” as we
have already seen. We are by nature, due
to the fall, and our joyful continuing in sin, haters of God – not seekers of
Him. So, who seeks after God – and what
does that mean?
David said, “And you, Solomon my
son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a
willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.
If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast
you off forever” (1 Chronicles 28:9, ESV).
And God spoke to the believing
remnant, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear
you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will
be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather
you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares
the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into
exile” (Jeremiah 29:12-14, ESV).
Only believers seek God, and we seek
God through obeying God. We seek after
God and know God better as we obey Him more.
Thus, seeking after God is a progressive act – it is something we do
more and more as we grow in sanctification – as we grow in holiness. Seeking after God is something which the Holy
Spirit leads us in.
What, then, are the rewards promised
to believers who seek to know God and seek to obey God? They cannot be things we merit, as our
salvation, faith, grace, the Holy Spirit, and all that we have in Christ are
gifts. So, what does the author of
Hebrews mean when he says that we must believe in the rewards that God gives to
those who seek Him?
The rewards he is talking about are
all those things which could come under the doctrine of Providence: we see that God loves us, that He cares for
us, that our prayers are heard by Him and answered according to His Will, that
He is our Deliverer, our Salvation, and nothing can ever separate us from Him.
The rewards he is talk about are
primarily in looking forward to the next life – to our life in the
Kingdom. We often hear this promise at
funerals – but it is something we ought to have before us while we live in great
hope and joy: “Then I saw a new heaven
and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and
the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of
heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a
loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with
man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will
be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death
shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain
anymore, for the former things have passed away’” (Revelation 21:1-4, ESV).
The rewards we receive as believers
who seek Him are found in a new life in the Kingdom in the presence of
God. And the true end of looking towards
these promises is promoting the Glory of God – making Who God is and what the
Gospel is known -- in faith and belief
and with confidence – that is, through faith in Jesus Christ and all that
attends to that faith.
And so we see that without faith it
is impossible to please God, because only believers have been reconciled to God
through Jesus and His Salvation – only believers can love God and do those
things which God calls us to do as believers.
To
please God whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists. Believers must come to know God’s Attributes
and then we see that we are sinners and the only way we can draw near to God is
through the payment of our debt from sin to God – and that can only occur by
Jesus, the God-Man taking our place, taking on our sin and the punishment for
it, and giving us His Righteousness.
And
to please God whoever would draw near to God must believe that He rewards those
who seek him. We understand that only
believers truly seek God – that is, we strive to be obedient to God more and
more through the Holy Spirit Who empowers us and gives us understanding. And as we strive towards holiness, we look
forward to the fulfillment of all those promises God has made for those who
seek Him, and especially, the reception into the Kingdom, after the Judgment.
With
all this in mind, let us pray:
Almighty
God, we thank You for the gift of faith.
We thank You for sending the Son that we would be made right with You
that we would draw near to You. We thank
You that we can now please You and we beg You that the Holy Spirit would stir
us up to seek You and to pursue holiness to Your Glory. Help us to have the glorious rewards of the
Kingdom before us that, no matter what occurs in this life, we could look
forward in great joy for that day when the Creation is restored and we will be
in Your Presence for ever more. In
Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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