What I hope to show you from the book of Hebrews is this:
- If you have ever dreamed of having a faith that is so real you would be willing to have all of your possessions unjustly confiscated in the service of Christ and actually be able to rejoice in it,
- or if you have ever dreamed of having such an authentic faith that you would be able to choose against wealth and comfort and security in order to serve God’s people faithfully for forty years and do it joyfully,
- or if you’ve ever dreamed of having a faith so powerful that you would be able to give your life to save others, and do it with joy,
Then take heart: The pathway to your dreams is in this book and in what I am about to show you about the nature of saving faith.
I invite you to turn to chapter 11 of Hebrews. I am going to drill down into the meaning of the first verse, especially the first half of the verse. And then I will try to confirm that meaning by showing how it gets worked out in the book of Hebrews in three real-life experiences of faith as it produces joyful, sacrificial love. We’ll look at Jesus in Hebrews 12:2, Moses in 11:24–27, and the early church in 10:32–34. And we will see how each of them lives out the meaning of faith from Hebrews 11:1.
Now faith is the assurance [or substance, hypostasis] of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
The old King James Version translates verse 1 as “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.” Virtually all the modern translations translate it as “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”
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