NewCity Orlando Sermons

Hebrews: Unshakeable | Hebrews 11:1-6

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In this sermon from NewCity Orlando’s Hebrews: Unshakeable series, Associate Pastor Benjamin Kandt explores Hebrews 11:1–6, focusing on the nature of true faith. He unpacks how faith is not merely wishful thinking but a confident trust in the unseen promises of God, grounded in His character. Drawing on examples from the early chapters of Genesis, Pastor Benjamin highlights that a life pleasing to God is rooted in faith — a trust that shapes how we live, worship, and relate to God daily.

This message challenges listeners to examine the foundation of their faith, encouraging them to move beyond cultural assumptions about belief toward a biblically anchored, enduring trust in God's Word. Pastor Benjamin calls the church to live by faith, holding fast to the unseen realities promised by God, and to draw near to Him with full assurance.

Speaker 2:

Please stand for the prayer of illumination Eternal God, the grass withers and the flower fades, but your word will stand forever. Holy Spirit, help us to love and trust your word. Through Jesus Christ, we pray Amen. Today's scripture comes from Hebrews 11. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, for by it the people of old received their commendation. 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 visible by faith.

Speaker 2:

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 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, 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 by faith. Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness that comes by faith. This is God's word.

Speaker 1:

For most of human history, and even around the globe, it was difficult not to believe in God. One historian actually put it like this, in kind of the grand arc of human history. It's actually surprising that we do not begin the evening news with prayer. So, in the context of humanity, we live in this interesting blip here in the secular modern West. Another way to say that is is that in the modern West we went from hard not to believe to easy not to believe to hard to believe. That's the world we live in today. Hard to believe. It's actually challenging to hold faith in our world, and it's not because secularism has erased or eliminated belief, but it changed the conditions for belief. God is no longer the framework that holds everything together. It's almost like stars that are hidden by light pollution. The unseen reality is still there, but we just don't perceive it as clearly as we used to. And so we look at the modern West and actually what we see is that a hunger for faith still persists.

Speaker 1:

On April 18th 2025, that was Good Friday, a couple of weeks ago the New York Times published an article with this title quote Americans haven't found a satisfying alternative to religion. Go read it, it's phenomenal, it's a great read and this is a quote from the article. Quote people are unhappier than they've ever been and the country is in an epidemic of loneliness. Those without religious affiliation in particular country is in an epidemic of loneliness. Those without religious affiliation, in particular, rank lower on key metrics of well-being. They feel less connected to others, less spiritually at peace and they experience less awe and gratitude regularly. It's no surprise, then, that the subtitle of this article is this quote is it any wonder the country is revisiting faith? That's what I wanna do this morning. I want us to revisit faith by looking at Hebrews 11, verses one through seven. So if you have a Bible or a device or you can get the worship guide out in front of you, we're gonna look at this text together under four questions what is faith, what is its opposite, what is faith's counterfeit and what is faith's outcome? What is faith, what is its opposite, its counterfeit and its outcome? Those are the four questions.

Speaker 1:

Look at Hebrews 11, verse one, that first verse, together with me. What is faith Now? Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. I spent way too much time this week trying to come up with a definition of faith and then I just conceded that the Holy Spirit would be better at it than me. So that's the definition right there Hebrews 11, 1. I don't have like a cool, edgier way to say it than me. So that's the definition right there Hebrews 11, one. I don't have like a cool, edgier way to say it than that. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And this definition one of the reasons why I really like it is because it works for non-religious things too. Don't just think it's a religious definition. This works for sitting in a chair or jumping out of an airplane, right, see, if you're sitting in a chair, you have to have things hoped for, like that the chair is going to hold you up or the parachute's going to open up. If you are jumping out of an airplane, there's lots of things not seen, like you don't see the quality of the workmanship of the chair and you don't see the hopefully thousands of jump hours that your flight instructor has. But you still sit and for some of us we still jump. Why? Because we have an assurance, we have a conviction about the things that are hoped for like we're gonna land safely on the ground or the things that are not seen. And so this definition of faith, it's actually applicable to all of life, because all of us live by faith, whether you're religious or not. Now, this definition also has kind of two aspects to it. It's got an objective aspect and a subjective aspect. The objective part of it is is that these things that we hope for, or these things that are unseen, that's the objective, which is the future and the present in a real way. But then there's this subjective sense, this felt assurance, this conviction. Both aspects of faith are really important. But here's the thing when we talk about faith, we can often talk about strength of faith or quality of faith, and that matters. It just doesn't matter nearly as much as the object of your faith. Let me make that plain doesn't matter nearly as much as the object of your faith. Let me make that plain: Two people sitting on the same airplane, going the same place I mean you'd hope so if they're on the same airplane and one of them is an anxious mess and the other one is napping peacefully. Now they land in the same destination and they get off the plane, and the question is was it the strength of their faith that got them there? No, it was the object of their faith, it was the competence of the pilot and the legitimacy of the plane and all of those things. But listen, the strength of their faith made a difference. One really enjoyed the flight, the other one not so much. And so, in a similar way, it's important to note that Christians are not those who have a world-conquering strength of faith. We're those who have a world-conquering object of faith. Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one, the one because of his death and his resurrection, is both trustworthy and true that he is an object of faith that can bear the weight of a human soul. He can be the thing hoped for, he can be the thing unseen and he can hold up under the weight of our conviction and our assurance. This is the way that D. L. Moody said it a little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul. That's the issue. Objective of your faith matters more than anything else. The strength of your faith matters. It's gonna shape your experience in this life maybe bring a little heaven into your soul, but it takes a. Our catechism says it like this a simple receiving and resting upon Jesus alone, as he's offered to us in the gospel. That's the faith that's required of us. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. But what is faith's opposite? What is faith's opposite? Look with me at Hebrews 11, verse 3. Hebrews 11, 3 says this 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 visible. This is important. I almost wanted to preach a whole sermon just on this point, but it became a sub point because the story of scripture faith is not opposed to reason, it's opposed to sight. This is the way the apostle Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5. He says we walk by faith, not by sight. In fact, not only is the opposite of faith is not thinking, it's seeing. That's really important to get here, because even in verse three of our text, faith involves understanding. It says by faith, we understand. And the reason why this matters is because in our cultural moment, people think you have to bypass your understanding in order to be a believing person. That's not the way the Bible portrays faith. In fact, faith and reason work together, but faith goes beyond what reason could ever possibly confirm. Let me illustrate this. When you hire somebody to work with you or for you, you are exercising faith and reason. You see reasonably what you're going to do. Is you or for you? You are exercising faith and reason. You see reasonably what you're gonna do is you're gonna review resumes, you're gonna check references, you're gonna ask interview questions, but at some point you will never know if you should hire that person until three months after they've taken the job. You're exercising faith. Reason matters, it can get you so far, but faith fills the gap between what is probable and what is actual. And so some of you this morning, the thing that you actually need. You maybe have an intellectual awareness of Jesus Christ, of the good news, of the gospel, of the Christian doctrines, but you've never actually stepped to commit yourself to it. And so you're using your reason. That's good, but faith isn't opposed to reason. It just goes beyond reason and it finally commits to the thing that you're putting your faith in. And so verse three says like this by faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God. Why does the author of Hebrews, at this point, go back to the beginning, to Genesis one one? In the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. Why go back there? I think, simply put, because if you believe Genesis 1.1, then the rest of the Bible is reasonable. If you don't believe Genesis 1.1, then you'll pick and choose based on your personal preference or your particular perspective. And so why does that matter? Well, because if you're only believing what you want in the Bible, it's not God that you have faith in, it's yourself. And so the invitation here is to believe in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth, then everything else is possible, because that begins everything. So then, why is faith opposed to sight? Why are these seemingly at odds with each other? Well, because walking by what our eyes can see rather than by what God has said is at the root of the problem of the human condition. After Genesis 1, 1, you get Genesis 2, and then Genesis 3, where everything goes real bad, real quick. And this is what Genesis 3 says in the garden, in chapter three, verse five, it says this the serpent is speaking to Eve and he says God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. You see, sin always results when we prefer what we sense over what God says. So my question is where right now in your life are you preferring what you sense over what God says? Where you're trusting your seeing over your believing? And this is we kind of come by it, honestly, both because we inherited it from Adam and Eve, but also because our cultural moment says seeing is believing. Right, I'm never really going to believe something really exists until I've seen it. But you take most of life based on the credible witnesses of other people. Just let me give you two examples from science and history. From history, you believe Julius Caesar existed and that the Black Plague actually happened, yet none of you witnessed it personally. Right? From science, you probably trust that quarks and black holes and Antarctica and the cells of your body, that those things actually exist. But you take that on expert testimony, not by sight. Right, you see, this is, this is how we live life. It's impossible to live by anything but faith in the testimony of other people. This is human, not Christian Christians. Just take the testimony of other people. This is human, not Christian Christians. Just take the testimony of God seriously in this equation. And so, while the world says seeing is believing, some of you are out there you're like, yeah, but I've seen videos of cells. Have you seen what ChatGPT can do? Like, don't believe your eyes anymore. That's what I'm saying. Our world says seeing is believing, but God says believing is seeing. In Psalm 27, verse 13, it says this I believe that I shall look, you see that I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of God in the land of the living. Faith precedes sight. Now, that's important because faith and sight are not necessarily opposed to each other. It's just faith has to precede sight. One day we will see fully, we will know fully, even as we are now fully known, and we won't walk by faith anymore because we will walk by sight. But in the meantime, we trust what God has said and we live according to his words. And so this is my invitation I wanna invite you to refuse to live in the small world of the invisible I'm sorry of the visible. I want you to get out of that. In other words, living without faith. It confines us within the narrow prison of the present and the seen. Living by sight is not spacious enough for the human spirit, and so another way to say that is that living without faith is like living in a windowless house. Faith is like a window it lets light in, but it also lets you see out properly. So when we walk by faith, not by sight, we're actually living with the grain of the universe, because verse three says what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. So what does this look like in practice? Well, in this text this morning and in our text next week, which will be more of Hebrews 11, we actually have three case studies. The first one's from Noah that I want to look at. Look at verse seven. It says this by faith, noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. Pause for a moment. Where does that faith come from? Romans 10 says faith comes from hearing what God says. So God comes to Noah and warns Noah, and then Noah responds with faith, because you can have the word of God Right now you're being preached to. We read the word of God, but if it's not mixed with faith, it won't be profitable to you. The way that Paul puts it in Galatians 3 is he calls it hearing by faith. That's what we need hearing by faith. Did Noah do this? Well, look at verse 7. It says by faith, noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear. You see, he trusted what God said and it actually created a meaningful emotional response. God warned. He trusted what God said and it actually created a meaningful emotional response. God warned him about an impending flood and it created a reverent fear in Noah. And so he constructed an ark for saving, for the saving of his household. Noah trusted God's words over his own sense of sight. Like imagine being Noah for a moment. He's looking around it's the desert. Imagine being Noah for a moment. He's looking around it's the desert, no clouds, no rain, no Home Depot. And he spends decades building a floating zoo in his backyard. And he does all of this, not waiting for evidence. He does this because he received God's word and responded with faith and obedience. That's why Noah here is commended for his faith. Verse seven it says by this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. This is so important. Noah was not saved by his actions. Noah was saved by the ark. And Noah built the ark, of course, and he entered it by faith, but in Genesis 7, 16, it says that God himself closed the door. That's important. It's important because God sealed Noah's family in their safety from this coming judgment. In the same way, this is the pattern of the gospel. Jesus is our ark. He's our shelter from judgment. Faith is how we enter. We trust in his provision and then God secures our salvation. Righteousness that comes by faith, but it will always be in conflict with the world. A righteousness that comes by faith. The reason why is because the world wants a righteousness that can be achieved, not one that has to be received. To say that differently, the world seeks a righteousness that's visible, performance and appearance. And I'm gonna do enough, be enough, build enough, I'm gonna be impressive enough. And so the world wants to achieve a righteousness rather than that comes by sight, rather than receive a righteousness that comes by faith. So Noah was put in conflict with his world. In his day, you will be put in conflict with your world in your day, if you're an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. And so, every day, we who look to Jesus as our hope, as our righteousness, as our rescue, as our salvation, in some ways we have to live by faith that there is something more true of us than our failures At any given moment. I mean because, listen, by sight, some of us are looking kind of janky. I'm just gonna be honest with you right now. That's my job. I tell the truth, okay, but by faith you stand before God in holiness and beauty and splendor and perfect righteousness because of Jesus Christ. Do you see that? So by faith, we actually receive a righteousness that's not our own and Noah is our great, great, great, great great grandfather of that this righteousness that comes by faith. But what is faith If faith opposite is sight? What is faith counterfeit? Look at verse two, for by it the people of old received their commendation. What I want you to hear me say is, throughout this whole chapter of Hebrews 11, which I'd encourage you to read at some point this week, all of Hebrews 11, what happens is that they, it says, by faith. Then they do something pretty wild and then God commends them for it. And another way to say that is in scripture. Counterfeit faith does not act. Counterfeit faith has intellectual assent. Counterfeit faith might even have feelings, but counterfeit faith does not act. You see, because according to the biblical imagination, there are two aspects of reality. There's the seen and the unseen. Francis Schaeffer, who is a great apologist and evangelist in the last century, he said that it's like two chairs. You've got chair number one and people who sit in chair number one, they see the total reality of the universe. With the seen and the unseen combined, they live in light of both of those realities. But chair number two it interprets life based on only what you can see. Now, here's the key thing. Here you can be a Christian faith in Jesus, saved by Jesus, and live most of your life in chair two. In other words, you can live as if in the second chair, even while claiming faith in Jesus Christ. He made this distinction Schaeffer did between unbelief and unfaith. I like this. Unbelief is when people who say they don't believe act as if they don't believe. That's just consistency, right. Unfaith is when people who say they don't believe act as if they don't believe. That's just consistency, right. Unfaith is when people who say they believe, act as if they don't believe. That's hypocrisy. And so the invitation here is to step out of chair two into chair one and live as if the whole universe exists the way that it is, because these Christians are usually the most anxious and exhausted and competitive. They're not often very kind or generous and that's because they feel alone in a really hard world. I get it. Living by faith it's not just a mental assent that certain doctrines are true, it's trusting that God is really with you, moment by moment, through every bit of your day. That's what living by faith in chair one actually looks like. And so we can say we believe in an unseen world. But if we live as if God is irrelevant to the realities of life, we actually are probably living in chair two. I went for a walk this week with a friend and I asked him what his schedule looks like these days and he said well, you know, I actually started a business a few years ago and so for the last few years I've been working 80 hour weeks. And this man had some good friends and some good community around him who challenged him lovingly on that. Like this isn't sustainable, man, you can't keep doing this. And he said, yeah, I know, and you know he was understanding of it, but it wasn't until he heard a sermon about how God cares, clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds of the air Matthew 6. He heard this sermon and when he heard that sermon it was the first time that he got the freedom to go. I don't have to live like this. He actually cut his work hours in half, from 80 to about 40, spent more time with his wife and his kids, and the business became more productive and profitable somehow, and he lives with a level of increased personal health and relational health and spiritual health and family health, like all those things. What happened in that moment was he moved from chair two to chair one. He began to live like there really is a father in heaven who knows what we need before we ask. Like there really is a father in heaven who knows what we need before we ask. Like there really is a father in heaven who is so generous and abundance towards us that we can live carefree in the care of God. He began to live as if that was true and I want you to hear me. Right now I'm commending him for his faith, just like Hebrews 11, commends because of faith that acts, and so a counterfeit faith is a kind of faith that doesn't act, because if you don't act as if it's true, you don't actually believe it's true. It's the simplest way to put it. So let me look at a case study with Abel. Look at Hebrews 11, verse four. It 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. There's a conundrum in Genesis four, this story. It's not entirely clear what's going on, but there's different interpretations. But Cain and Abel both brought offerings to the Lord. But Genesis 4 doesn't really tell us why Abel's was accepted but Cain's was not Genesis, or, I'm sorry. Hebrews 11 tells us, though it's, that faith made the difference. Abel made the offering by faith. Let me just kind of let you in on the inside. Here In ministry, every Sunday I have the joy and the duty of standing up in front of you and saying isn't God good? And here's an occupational hazard. What if I don't believe that? I know some of you come in here not believing that, so why wouldn't I? I'm human, like you, and it's a real occupational hazard to stand up here and go. Hey, I'm just gonna offer up a sacrifice of praise in the spirit of Cain, not the spirit of Abel, not by faith that God really is who he says he is and that he really is good. And so Abel's faith actually echoes through time. It says In the text. It says and through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. So, if you'll permit me for a moment, damien, though you're stepping out of the senior pastor role, through your faith you still speak. Brother, recently I found a letter that I wrote Damien in gosh this is going to be hard in October 24th 2017. And I told him this story that I wrote Damien in gosh this is gonna be hard In October 24th 2017, and I told him this story that I'm about to tell you. Years ago, while I was training to be a counselor and a pastor, I led a therapy group with four pastors in it and I entered the room really intimidated, because these were four people who'd been in ministry at least 10 years. They were in every way my superior and after five days of bearing their stories stories of elders at odds with each other one spouse caught in secret addiction. Another spouse, like putting her husband's feet to the fire to ask the church for more money. Another pastor who's just crushed under the unrealistic expectations of his congregation. I came, so I entered the room intimidated. I exited the room disillusioned. I came, so I entered the room, intimidated, I exited the room disillusioned. I came home to my wife, alana, in tears and I said is this what ministry does to people? Because if this is it, then I think I've chosen the wrong calling, as if you could choose your calling. And so I stood at a real brink. There was, I mean, this was a crossroads of sorts, and fear was whispering that I should pursue a different path, one that helped me engage with the church, but at a safe distance. So I came home and I poured out my heart to Alana, and she asked me a simple yet poignant question. She said do you know of any pastors who give you hope for ministry? And immediately one name came to mind a pastor who loves Jesus and refuses to let cynicism infect his soul. A pastor who leads well and lays down his life for his wife and kids. A pastor who, despite immense pressure, never spoke to me, or anyone that I know with a sharp tongue, a pastor who sacrificially served the church even when it was hard, a pastor who learned ministry in the school of Christ. That pastor was you, damien. You became an able to me in that moment. I needed a model of a pastoral life by faith. That's what I was looking for, and I got one in Damien. We all got one in Damien. What a gift. And so your life has spoken to us. It still speaks to us and today, even as you transition out of this role, I want you to know that, through your faith, you still speak and, brother, you will always speak, and we love you and we're so thankful for you. I've got to land this plane. What is faith's outcome? The last question look at verse five with me. By faith, enoch was taken up so that he would 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, 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. Impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Simply put, faith's outcome is intimacy with God. It's intimacy with God. Enoch is our last case study today. In Genesis 3, 8, it says this and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. It says this and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. That's life as God intended it. But things went bad in Genesis 3. And so ever since then, this intimate, walking, conversational relationship with God has been broken and forsaken and rejected because we chose to live by sight and not by faith. But only a chapter or two later, in Genesis 5, we hear this Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. And in a moment we get a little bit of hope that conversational, intimate fellowship with their creator is an option again. And not only is it possible, maybe it could be normal for us. And so Enoch gives us this hope. Because he walked with God, there's maybe a hope for restoration between God and humanity. Now the KJV says it like this Enoch was not found because God had translated him. Studying for this text gave me a new life goal. This is my new life goal. Like I don't know what level you have to get at in Jesus to be able to say beam me up, scotty, and you're just out, and you're just out. And so my hope is that some of you at some point are like, hey, where's Ben? And some of you respond you say he was not found because God had taken him. New life goal. I'm just putting it out there, you can hold me accountable to it. I'm after that, I'm after the Enoch ministry right here, this Enoch anointing. He had. Look at verse five with me. It says this now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. Now, without faith, it is impossible to please him. I don't know how you hear that language of pleasing God. Some of you it feels burdensome and overwhelming because you had a father that was impossible to please. Some of you it feels like this invitation, like if I could live a life that was pleasing to God, that would be the most important thing I could do. Listen, this is the way I think about this. I think that every father is pleased at its baby's first attempt to walk, but no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, joyful run as a grownup adult. And so, in the same way, I believe that God is easy to please but he's hard to satisfy, that God is easy to please but he's hard to satisfy. He is easy to please If you have the simplest childlike confidence in your father. He is so pleased with you, he is so he delights in you, and he wants more for you, not more from you, more for you. He wants you to learn not just to walk but to run. He wants you to feel the freedom and walk but to run. He wants you to feel the freedom and the joy of what it looks like to have an intimate conversational relationship with your creator. You see, this is the outcome of faith. It says this, for whoever would draw near to God must believe one, that God exists, and two, that he restores, that he rewards those who seek him. Jesus came to restore the Eden. Walk with God again. That's the invitation Jesus gives to all of us. He's inviting us to walk freely in the presence of our creator once again. And so we draw near, we draw near to waste time with God in friendship, and those of you who know what I'm talking about know that that's a reward in and of itself. You see, god himself is the reward for those who seek him. And for those who seek him, they would be satisfied with nothing less. Let's pray, father. We pause before you and we hear the words of Hebrews and we want to live by faith because you're trustworthy, your voice is good, jesus. You tell us in John 10 that your sheep hear your voice. We know your voice. You call us by name. We don't listen to the voice of another. As you speak to your people this morning, would you bring faith? Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. We have confidence in you, jesus. It's in your name we pray, amen.