Bible Basics Explained | FaithSample

Day 3 | Hebrews 11:4-7 | Righteous by Faith

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Hello friends and welcome again to Bible Basics Explained. This is Faith. We’re back in Hebrews 11, and today: the heroes. The Bible is filled with heroes - men and women of courage and humility. And their stories are amazing. They are a diverse bunch to say the least. But what do they have in common? What’s the source of their courage? And what drives their character? Here in Hebrews 11, we find one simple answer. Starting at verse 4:

“By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did” (Hebrews 11:4).

Remember Cain and Abel from Genesis? They both offered sacrifices to God. Why did God accept Abel’s? What was different? Simple. Abel had faith. See Cain was a man who went through the religious motions, and Cain even knew God existed, but he didn’t have faith.

But how is that possible? He talked with God. How can you do that without faith? Watch his actions right afterwards. He killed his brother. And he thought he could get away with it, thought God wouldn’t see. Today you can go through the motions at church, and still go out and sin up a storm. And anyone who thinks they can get away with that simply doesn’t believe that God is God. They lie to themselves, and often they convince themselves they’ll make it to Heaven on a technicality. “I went to church, dropped money in the plate, and said the prayer! Boom. Done.” But that is not faith. Faith changes how you give and changes how you live.

Look at Abel, the brother who had faith. Back in verse 4:

“By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead” (Hebrews 11:4).

Pay attention here. Abel’s faith set him apart as righteous - right in God’s sight. But hold on. Abel had faith and Abel was right with God, and yet God allowed him to be killed. Why? Here faith gets tricky. Do we trust that God is faithful when life gets hard? Even when life ends?

Then verse 5:

“By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away” (Hebrews 11:5).

Remember Enoch’s story? He walked with God, and God took him home. No death - just straight to God. That’s way back in Genesis 5, and it’s a big hint - from the beginning - at God’s plan for how you and I can escape death. And it’s all about faith. We are saved by grace through faith. Back here in verse 5:

“For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5).

This is huge. In every relationship, we’re always trying to figure out what it takes to please the other person. Parents, friends, spouse, boss. So what about God? Verse 6:

“And 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” (Hebrews 11:6).

You can’t please God if you don’t believe that God exists. Simple. The greatest transformation of the human soul begins with the simple conviction that God is. That’s it. Sink those two words deep into your being, at the core of your consciousness. God is. And second, believe and trust that God rewards those who genuinely seek Him.

Next hero, verse 7:

“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family” (Hebrews 11:7).

Noah gives us another dimension to this faith. He heard God’s warning about things he had never seen before. But he didn’t build his life on what he’d seen. He heard God’s Word and he believed what he heard. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing. And back here in Hebrews, Noah…

“…became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7).

There’s those two words together again - righteous and faith. That’s big. Righteous means right with God. And in the Bible, righteousness is the one and only way to enter God’s Kingdom, and ultimately go to heaven. Righteous is your only ticket. The problem is - on our own we are not righteous. Not one of us.

So God made a plan to restore our standing, heal our relationship, and make us right with Him. We are righteous by faith. Now, it is not simply our belief that God exists that makes us righteous. Jesus died for our sins to make us righteous. But we accept it by faith. Without faith it doesn’t happen.

And that reminds me of another story. A five year old boy was walking through a city park, and happened upon a man reading a book. The little boy inquired about the book, and then told the man quite bluntly, “You had better read the Bible, because if you don’t follow it you will go to hell.”

Christians raise funny kids, don’t we. And when the man questioned him, the kid pointed back at his parents and said, “They will tell you everything!” How would you like to be the parents in that story? Where do you start when your five year old just told a grown man that he’s going to hell?

The year was 1940. The place Bucharest, Romania. And as it turns out, the dad was Richard Wurmbrand - the same man who had wandered, as an atheist, irresistibly drawn to a village, to a house where an old man gave him a Bible. And when his son told a man that he had better read the Bible, well Richard gladly explained to the man the story of the Bible. And the man became a believer. The man’s name was Constantine Ioanid. He would become one of Romania’s most famous and most important poets - a Christian poet in fact - through an entire generation of atheistic communist oppression.

Not a bad story. I guess that’s what happens when you have the faith of a child.

Next: Read Hebrews 11:4-7

For Thought & Discussion:

1. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Why do you think that faith is so important to God?
2. Hebrews 11:4 and 11:7 both connect faith with righteousness. Why do you think there is such a close connection between believing in God and being right with God?

All verses are quoted from the NIV.

Romania stories retold from Jesus Freaks (1999 Albury Publishing), and Jesus Freaks Vol II (2002 Bethany House) by dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs, and from Extreme Devotions (2001, The Voice of the Martyrs).