If you had asked me twelve years ago, before our first Sunday, what could you see about the future of this church? I wouldn't have seen all of this. I'll tell you right now. I wouldn't have seen sprinkles in the coffee, Krispy Kreme donuts, big 12 in” balloons out in the lobby here. I wouldn't have seen all of that. I wouldn't have seen double the auditorium, double the church into Long Beach, but what I could have seen on the first day, what I knew for sure, is that if we opened up our mouth and told people the gospel of Jesus, that Jesus would save people's souls. I knew that the gospel is God's power to save everyone who believes in his Son Jesus, and we knew that Jesus would build his church on the rock, the revelation that he is the Christ who died for our sins and rose again. So, if you have been saved by Jesus over the last twelve years, will you please stand up right now, so we can give all the glory to the Lord Jesus Christ for building his church here in Huntington Beach? Praise the Lord! Thank you, thank you so much. Please go ahead and have your seat.

Jesus is an awesome Savior, and that's why we celebrate twelve years of what he has been doing. And I want to talk about faith with you, faith from Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1. So, if you've got a Bible, please open it up with me to the book of Hebrews. I want to give you a special sermon from Hebrews 111 as we celebrate twelve years of Jesus saving so many people. But for some of you, this is your first day. Can we give them a warm welcome right now? Thank you for joining us on a rainy Sunday in Huntington Beach. Thank you for making your way here. If you don't have a Bible, we printed out the verses. I'm going to read right now on this handout there in your bulletin. Hebrews 11:1 is a famous verse, often quoted by Christians. We want to read it in its context, so we're going to start in chapter 10, verse 36. We're going to go all the way to chapter 11, verse 7. And we want to really study what this verse is saying about faith. And so, out of respect for God's Word, I invite everyone to stand for the public reading of Scripture. And I encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention because this is the Word of God. Please follow along as I read, starting in Hebrews 10, verse 36.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. 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 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 the righteousness that comes by faith.

That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead and have your seat. So, oftentimes we pull out just verse 1. And on your handout there, I'd love for you to take notes as we go through this passage together. On your handout, we put verse one in bold, and so a lot of times people just quote that, but you can see it's a part of a much larger discussion about faith. It starts really when he quotes the book of Habakkuk about faith, when he says the “righteous one shall live by faith” in verse 38. And then you can tell I just read the first seven verses and how many times did it say “by faith”? If you had heard me read all of Hebrews, chapter 11, it would leave this impression upon everyone who hears it read or reads it themselves by faith. By faith, this is what God is looking for. God commends people who have faith, and so look at verse 2. It says, "For by it the people of old received their commendation.” This is not condemnation where you're getting judged. This is commendation where God is approving. God is pleased with these people, the people of old. Many of the people that we read about in what we call the Old Testament. Well, these people are listed here because of their faith. In fact, go all the way down to verse 39, all the way from verse 2 to verse 39. It goes through what many people call the Hall of not fame, the Hall of Faith. And then it says in all these down in verse 39, “though commended through their faith.”

And so, a lot of people know about the verse Hebrews 11:1 about faith. They know Hebrews 11 is a chapter on faith. What they kind of miss though is the whole context because it starts clearly at the end of chapter 10 when he quotes the Scripture that says, “the righteous one shall live by faith.” The person that God is commending or approving or pleased with, the righteous person. Well, how do you get righteous? You get there by faith, and then it goes all the way, not just to examples of people that could inspire our faith, but it goes all the way that you should be looking to in chapter 12, verse 2. You should be looking to Jesus, who is the author and the perfector of our faith. So don't let the chapter break down break down your understanding of what this is all saying about faith.

And it says two key things in verse 1 that we want to think about today. And we're going to look at these two things: the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Now, some people will say, here's a definition of faith in this verse. I don't think this is the definition of faith. I think it's a really good description of faith. But the definition of faith has already been given to us. I don't see how you could define faith without making it clear what you're putting your faith in. And so go back to chapter 6, verse 1, where the writer of Hebrews has already explained faith to us. In fact, he talks about our foundation in Hebrews, chapter 6, verse 1. He says, “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” So, we love talking about this idea here at Compass HB. We've been doing it all the way since the first service.

At the first service, the question we asked was, "What is the gospel?” How can you tell me you've been saved by the gospel if you can't even tell me what the gospel is? So, what is the gospel? Do you know what you believe? That's what we've been asking people in Huntington Beach from even before our first day, all the way to today. And so today we do it in the form of a Foundations class, and we go over Hebrew 6:1 with everybody in the class. And we just had, I think, the largest class in the history of our church. Over 80 people came to the Foundations class. And if we haven't followed up with all of you, bear with us. We're working on it day and night. So, we're going to get in touch with you if we haven't yet.
But we talked about this, and I would hope if you've come to this church over the last 12 years that you would know that we talk about the three most important words all the time. That Jesus said you should repent and believe in the gospel, and that's what we have here in this verse. We have the gospel, which is according to this verse the elementary doctrine of Christ? What is the fundamental teaching of Christ? That's what will cause you to repent of your sins. You should have faith toward God. It's because of who Jesus is and what Jesus did. Faith is only as good as what you put your faith in, and you need to put your faith in the teaching of Jesus.

We have some of our kids who are going back to school. They're going to elementary school, which means they're learning the building blocks of reading, writing, and arithmetic that they'll use for the rest of their lives. Well, you have to put your faith in the building blocks, the foundation, the rock of who Jesus is, that he is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Son of God. And what did he do? Well, he died on the cross to pay for all of your sins, and he rose on the third day. And he overcame sin and death and judgment. He overthrew all the work of Satan. And now all who puts their faith in Jesus, they won't experience the wages of their sin in death, but the free gift of God, which is eternal life.

So, let's start with the Definition, which we've already learned in Hebrews 6:1. You need to “Trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus.” That's the definition of faith. You have to know that Jesus is the Son of God, who humbled himself to be born as a man, who lived a perfect life, establishing a track record of righteousness, and then he laid his life down, offering himself as a sacrifice, taking the wrath of God for your sin, dying in your place, paying for all your debt before God, and then on the third day he rose up from the grave, and with a mighty triumph he defeated Satan and judgment and death, and now he offers you eternal life, a new life, an abundant life. You need to experience the power of the gospel, where you die to your sin and you walk in newness of life, and it's all because you've put your trust in Jesus. That's what we've been saying for 12 years, and that is a definition right there of faith. If you have this foundation, then you can go on to maturity, and that's what the writer of Hebrews is calling the people. He said you should be mature, you should be a teacher, and it starts on the foundation of faith toward God because of what he's done in his Son Jesus.

Now, now go to chapter 11, verse 1, because he's not introducing faith for the first time, he's not defining faith. We've already seen that now. I would call this a description of faith, and he wants to make sure that these people who are living based on the gospel of Jesus, who are going on to maturity, he wants to make sure that they have an accurate understanding of what faith really is, and he wants to inspire them through examples of people who have been commended for their faith throughout the history of the Scripture. And so, let's look now at the first one here: “The assurance of things hoped for.” There's a blank right above the bold verse there on your handout. Write above “assurance,” the word “substance” above the word “assurance”. If you start reading into Hebrews 11:1, you'll see that the Greek word that is translated “assurance” here. There's a debate about whether the best way to translate this is “assurance” or “substance”. And “assurance” kind of gets to your subjective feeling, like you know you have the things you hope for. But see, the “substance” of the things hoped for is less subjective and it's more objective. Like you have the reality of the things you hope for. Whether you feel like it or not, faith is you experiencing the reality of the things that you are hoping for in the future.

And so, there's a debate like how should this really be translated? And you could write down next to “substance,” Hebrews 1:3, where it says that Jesus is the exact image of God. He is the very substance of God. So that's why I would lean towards it being translated that way. Faith is you experiencing the substance, the reality of the things that you hope for. Which begs the question: As a Christian, what are you hoping for? Well, it's a good thing we just had this season known as the Summer of Hope here at the church, and at our high school camp, our junior high camp, our kids’ camp compass. We got to talk about 1 Peter 1:3. We even had a special service this summer. Maybe some of you are here. Go to 1 Peter, chapter 1. If you weren't a part of any of these summer events, I'd love to introduce you to 1 Peter 1:3, where it talks about our “living hope.” So, if you're a Christian, you now have hope in Christ, and he has certain promises he's made to you, he's offered you a reward if you follow him. And so here, it describes what are the things that we're hoping for. Because if faith is the substance of what we hope for, then what do you hope for? And it's amazing how many Christians today point to the past, like I'm hoping I got saved in the past, rather than their hope being things they're looking forward to in the future. And if you study hope in the Scripture, it's things you're looking forward to in the future. Look what it says here in 1 Peter 1:3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” Let's say good things about God today because he's the one who saved us. “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again,” as we heard testified by those who got baptized.

We don't do anything to save ourselves; he saves us. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? All the glory to Jesus Christ. Bless God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He caused you to be born again. It's by his great mercy. And then look at what it says, because you've been saved, you've “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” So, here's what you have now in this hope, “to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”

Did you wake up today thinking, I am rich? Is that how you woke up thinking that you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places? That there is an inheritance waiting for you in heaven? It's reserved there for you. That's something you can hope in. Jesus promised to his disciples in John 14 that he's going to go and prepare a place for us, and after he prepares a place for us, because in his Father's house there are many rooms, and one of those rooms has got your name on it, and he's getting it ready for you, and then he's going to come and get you and take you to be with him, and when the Father gives all things in all creation as an inheritance to his Son, you will share in that inheritance. It's reserved there. It's got your name on it. In fact, look at what it says in verse 5, "who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Like, God is going to keep you. Not only is your inheritance kept in heaven for you, God's going to keep you till you get there. He's going to guard you. He's going to deliver you from evil. He's going to hold you in his hand and never let you go. He's keeping an inheritance for you, and he's keeping you all the way till you get there. He gave you his Spirit as a guarantee that you are going to be with God. In fact, jump down to verse 13, where it says, "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of” who, everybody? See, revelation is not just crazy future events. It's not just a wind. It's not just the end of the world as we know it. No, the revelation is who? It's Jesus on the clouds, eyes like fire, face like the sun. You're going to see Him. That's what you're hoping for. You're hoping for Jesus.

If being a Christian is all about a long-distance relationship, that's not the whole point. The whole point isn't just well, I kind of know Jesus. No, the whole point is someday you're going to see him, you're going to be with him. And when you see him, you will be made like him. For you will see him as he really is, and just like Jesus rose from the dead, you're going to experience a full resurrection. You're going to get a new body. There will be no desire to sin within you. And when you're in his kingdom, when you're in the new heavens and the new earth and city of Jesus Christ, there will be no sin around you, and you will be 100% saved. That's your hope. And faith is knowing all that you have to hope in in the future, and you have the reality of that. You're trusting in the reality of what you're hoping for now. It's experiencing that future hope by faith now.

Let's get this down for point number one, here's what it's saying: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. “Faith is the present reality of future promise.” That's what faith is. Faith is knowing that all that I hope in, that's going to happen. I am going to receive an inheritance. God is going to get me there, and I will see Jesus revealed in all of his glory. And when I see Jesus, oh, it's going to be so awesome, so epic. And by faith, I trust that all that I'm hoping for is going to happen, and I live that way right now.

See, I think a good analogy is when you get paid. All of you who have a job, all of you who do work, and you do the work and then you get paid. Who has direct deposit? Does anybody else have direct deposit? Who's still getting old school checks and will survive the coming financial collapse? Any of you old schoolers out there? Right, man. So, let me ask you a question, just basic question about your work: Do you get paid after you do the work or before you do the work? If you get paid before you do the work, God bless you. That's amazing. Most of us, it's like you're getting paid for days you have already worked, but you go to work. Why do you go to work? Because you think you're going to get paid. You haven't experienced it yet. You think it's going to happen. Hey, I think that the payoff of being a Christian is going to be so worth it. When I see Jesus, when I receive that inheritance, that reward that he promised, when I see how God faithfully got me all the way there, and I'm there with this innumerable multitude of people, people from every nation, every language, and we're all shouting at the top of our lungs, worthy, worthy, man, that's going to be so worth it, and I believe that now, just like you believe, you're going to get paid, we should believe in this hope that we have. And faith is my present substance of that hope I'm experiencing now.

I have seen some brothers stressed when they own a company and they're not sure they can pay their employees. Have you ever had that kind of stress? Has there been a time you didn't get paid because the boss didn't have the money to pay you? See, I could question your faith in the whole system of going to work, right? Well, see that idea that I'm going to do the work because I know I'm getting paid; that's kind of fundamental to why we work. Well, fundamental to being a Christian is I believe in the hope that he has for me, and I believe it right now, even though I haven't experienced it yet. Presently, I'm moving towards the future. It's a forward-looking faith.

Now, go back to chapter 10 of Hebrews. Turn back to Hebrews, okay? And that's why we're coming off the Summer of Hope, and we're going into a new season. We're going into what I'm calling the Harvest of Faith. We want to make sure that we're all on the same page of faith. I was going to call it the fall of faith, but that sounded bad for some reason. Like faith wasn't going to make it. So, it's the autumn of faith. It's the harvest. Harvest sounds nice. Like things are growing. Things are producing, right? And let's talk about the harvest. They're out there farming. They're out there working with the what? The hope that there's going to be a great bounty, a great harvest. See, that's what we're doing. If the best days of you being a Christian are behind you, you don't understand faith. Faith is looking to the future, looking to what you hoped for.

Now let's take it back into context. He's saying this description of faith in verse 1, but he introduced it back in chapter 10. So go even back to verse 35 of chapter 10. If you're there with me in your Bible, he says, "Therefore, do not throw away your confidence.” He's talking about this boldness you have now to go into God's presence because of Jesus. He's like, don't throw away that boldness you have to know God, which has a great reward. So, if you could write that down, verse 35, Great reward is what you're being promised. Jesus said that even if you give someone a cup of water in his name, you will by no means lose your reward. Whatever you leave in this life, you're going to get hundred times that, both in this age and in the age to come. Jesus is out here promising rewards for everyone who serves him, for everyone who follows him, and he's saying, don't throw away your confidence. There's a great reward coming. Look at what he says in verse 36. You “have need of endurance,” perseverance. You’ve got to remain under the pressure, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised?

Do you see? He's pointing you towards the promise, towards the reward. You’ve got to keep going until you get there. And then he starts quoting Scripture. So, he actually quotes two different Scriptures here. “Yet a little while” is Isaiah 26:20, and he talks about this future day coming, this time of judgment, or this time of the kingdom of God. And then he quotes Habakkuk 2:3-4: "The coming one will come, will not delay, but my righteous one shall live by faith.” A famous line from Habakkuk 2 that is quoted, and he kind of rearranges the words here a little bit. He says, "The righteous one shall live by faith, but if he shrinks back, my soul takes no pleasure in him.” So, here's quoting Habakkuk. Here are your two options: you live by faith or you shrink back. Then he talks about it in verse 39. We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
So, coming into chapter 11, the famous hall of faith. Coming into the description. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Well, he's already set it up at the end of chapter 10 by quoting this Scripture. There are two ways you can go. You can go forward by faith with endurance till you get the reward, till you get the promise, or you can shrink back. And what does he say happens to those who shrink back? The ones who shrink back are what? They are destroyed, as in, they are judged. They are not commended like those who have faith. They are condemned.

So, see what he's saying is those who shrink back are those who fall away from the faith. It's called apostasy. It's where you claim that you believe, but then you don't stick with it. You don't endure. You don't persevere. See, there are a lot of people who are like, I'd like to believe in Jesus. I'd like to be a Christian, and then over the trials and over the temptations, they go back to their old ways. And he says, don't be one of those who shrink back. In fact, he says to the Hebrews here, "We're not like that.” I don't think you're like that. I don't think you're like the people who are going to shrink back to be destroyed. I think you're like the ones who will have faith, and you'll preserve your souls. Your faith will give you this endurance and perseverance. Because faith, the goal is to get the things you hope for. The goal is the reward. The goal is the promise. So, how could faith be something that stops when faith is something that continues all the way to the end?

So, let's get this from the Context here in Hebrews, chapter 10: “Faith does not stop at a point in the past.” This might be really hard for us to hear today, here in Southern California. You can't say, well, I had faith and then I stopped having faith. Well, here it's saying that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and there's a reward, and there's a promise, and you have the reality of those things now. So, you endure, and you keep going all the way.

But see, a lot of people, their story is different than what the Bible's describing. See, there's a real difference between the average Southern California Christian and then what the Bible says. And we're living in the fallout of the Jesus Movement. God did something awesome where we live, in the 1970s. In the 1970s, if you went to college, people probably came up to you and shared with you the gospel of Jesus. People you didn't even know, they would come and tell you the gospel personally. They would invite you to events for Campus Crusade where you would hear the gospel preached by somebody. The word was just spreading out, especially among the young people in the 1970s. I know some godly men to this day that got saved because people started talking to them at their college in the 70s. And so, this whole culture in Southern California of church developed and it really prospered and grew during that time, but then over time, it hasn't had that same fire. It's gone from hot to lukewarm, and so you’ve got a lot of people going to a lot of different churches in Southern California. And if you ask them, "What's your testimony?” they don't start telling you about Jesus and all he's done. A lot of people they just start telling you their life story, and their life story is, "I was following Jesus when I was a young person. I heard about Jesus. My grandma told me about Jesus, and then I stopped following Jesus, and I went back, they'll say. Or I was in the dark for a while, or I lost my way. They'll use language that describes someone who's not saved, but they'll say because I believed at some point in the past, but in their testimony, their faith at some point stops. It doesn't endure. It doesn't keep going. It doesn't get to what I hoped for. No, I had faith and then I lost faith. A lot of people in Southern California, if you ask them about what it means to be a Christian, they act like it's a light switch that you can keep turning on and off over and over again, but Jesus, when he saves you, he calls you out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And once you walk in the light, Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me cannot walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

So, you're going to have to decide what you believe. What so many people in Southern California are saying is a testimony, or what the Bible says faith is, because they're not often the same thing. And they're like, well, I was in it for a while, and then I kind of went out of it. Even I'll meet people who tell me about their kids, and at one point my kid believed, but now my kid doesn't believe. Well, let me just ask you very clearly here today: If your kid is not believing right now, then do they have faith? According to this description right here, if you shrink back, that's not faith. Faith is going all the way to the things hoped for. That's what it's saying to us. Faith endures and perseveres. And so, this is hard for people to hear. This is hard for us because that's not how people are talking about it. That's not kind of what has been accepted in our Christian culture. But the writer of Hebrews, he's trying to make it very clear, and the examples he gives are people who are faithful unto death. In fact, Enoch doesn't even die. God just takes him. He's so pleased with him. Like they didn't stop in their faith. They didn't shrink back in their faith. Oh, they could have gone back. They could have blended in. They could have been like everybody else, but they endured all the way till they got to what they were hoping for, and he's saying that's what faith is. Faith is the reality of the things hoped for now. And you keep trusting, you keep going, because you can trust in the hope that you have in Christ. Don't shrink back.

So, we need to hear this. We need to have a real study of what faith is, and we need to make sure that we're hearing what the Scripture says, not just what everybody else is saying, not just what is commonly accepted. If your faith has a stopping point, I would encourage you to rethink that because real faith is going to go all the way until it becomes sight. Real faith is going to go all the way till you see Jesus. In fact, I would even go so far as to say, if I bring up faith to you, and your immediate response is, oh yeah, I have faith. I have faith in the past. I have faith about what Jesus did in the past, and I had faith when I believed it at this point in the past. The description of faith we're looking at is not about the past. It's about your ongoing mental approach to life. Like how I'm thinking about life is I'm trusting Christ. I'm now believing in the things that I hope for.

So, it's a forward-looking faith. I hear too many people say, oh yeah, I have faith, and everything they say from that point on is the past tense. Well, yes, there may be a point where you started to put your faith in Jesus, but you should keep on trusting all the way till you see Jesus, till you get to the revelation, till you get the things you hope for, heaven, glory. See, that's what it's talking about here. Now look at the second part of verse one. Now with that context, hopefully we can really understand. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things what, everybody? Let's try to understand this. The conviction of things what? Not seen. Can you see things to have faith. The answer to that is, no, but that's what we think. And I don't know how many times I've said this, but I'm going to try it one more time here in Huntington Beach. Okay, that the people who were alive when God did the plagues on Egypt, the people that Moses led out of Egypt, and they walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, and then when the Egyptians chased them, the water came, and the horse and the rider of the Egyptian army was thrown there into the sea. They saw God as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. These people witnessed some of the great wonders that have ever happened in the history of the world, the very miracles of God. Did those people who saw God's miracles believe in God? What is the answer? No, no, they did not. That generation wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until every one of them died off because they would not have faith to go into the promised land.

There is no correlation between seeing things and having faith. What about all the people who saw the miracles of Jesus? What about the crowds who gathered for the miraculous feedings of thousands? They witnessed demons cast out. They saw the sick get healed. People who witnessed things that oh that's got to be the power of God working, the people in all those fishing villages in Bethsaida and Corazin and Capernaum, people who were the eyewitnesses to the ministry of Jesus when he was here on earth, did they all believe in Jesus because they saw his miracles? No, Jesus pronounces judgment on them because they would not repent and they would not believe. In fact, the generation that witnessed Jesus is the generation that rejected him and had him killed. So just because they saw the miracles did not mean they responded by faith.

You have to learn that faith does not come by seeing. Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. You don't get faith by what you see in the world around you. You get faith by what you see in God's Word. This is where faith comes from, and I'm trying to help you see this. I'm trying to say, look in the book. That's where you're going to find Jesus. Look in the book. Hear his words. That's how people believe. But still, this is what happens every single week. People are going to go home and they're going to be like, God, just give me a sign so I can believe in you. So, this is what people in this room are going to be praying. God, if you could just show me something. We’ve got a whole human history of God showing you something right here, and we're over here thinking, I need the details of my life to work out today to know that you're real, to know that you're there, to know that you care.

Some of you came in here today, and you're riding a roller coaster. Something bad happens, your faith goes down. Something good happens, your faith goes up. That proves that you think faith is by sight. See, faith is the conviction of things that you can't see. It doesn't come from seeing. That's why he's called “Doubting Thomas,” because he's like, I'm not going to believe it unless I see it. And what does Jesus say to him? “Blessed are those who don't see and yet believe.” He's held up as a negative example. Don't demand to see. Hear the word of Christ. See him in the Scripture. That's where you're going to believe. Faith comes from hearing who Jesus is, and so you’ve got to reprogram your thought about this because naturally we all go to God. Show me something when God has already told you exactly who he is, exactly what he wants you to do. He's already revealed it, and you can believe his promise. You can believe his great reward. It's all right here because you need to have a conviction of things not seen.

Okay, look at how it says it in verse 3. If you're in Hebrews 11, look at verse 3. It gives an example right away of how this faith works by faith. We understand that the universe was created by the word of God. Were any of us eyewitnesses to creation? Did we see God create the world? And God, how did He create the world? Well, we haven't seen the behind-the-scenes documentary or anything. We don't know. We just know that he spoke. We just read it in the Bible. That's how we know. “And he said, ‘Let there be light.’” And you can read about how he created the world in Genesis. There are so many passages that attribute the masterful work of creation to God. And how do you receive that? Because you saw him create it, because you saw God and saw what he did? No, it says that you believe God created the world by faith. And look at how it explains it. So that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. You think the invisible designed what can be seen?

Go with me to Romans, chapter 1, verse 20, which says this same idea. It uses this same word to understand this. This is a fundamental characteristic of people who have faith for all my brothers and sisters in Christ. When you see a beautiful sunset or a beautiful sunrise, and the glory of God fills the colors of the skies. Do you praise God when you see the birds flying in the air? And it's like, who feeds those birds? When you see the plants growing and having life, who grows those plants? When you see the animals and all the parts of creation that we get to enjoy at the beach and the mountains. When you behold the world, you think, what a beautiful world my Father has made. See, if you have faith, you haven't seen God create it, but what you can see, you know, was made by someone you cannot see. That's what it says in Romans, chapter 1, verse 20. It says, "For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived” or have been clearly understood “ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse.”
We come to the conclusion that everything I can see must have come from someone that I can't see. Now, many people are in denial about that. They don't want to acknowledge God or give him glory or give him thanks. They want to turn into their sin rather than turn to God. But for those of us who have faith, one thing we understand is God created the world, even though we cannot see it. We have that strong conviction. We know it. Like there's no way you could try to get me to think about this world any other way than that God made it.
Go back to Hebrews, chapter 11 and look at another example of faith being not what you can see. So, creation, that's something that's already there, something that has previously happened. What about the coming judgment? That's what God says to Noah here in verse 7 of Hebrews 11. “By faith, Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen.” Here's God telling Noah, there's going to be rain. There's going to be a flood. The world is going to be deluged and drowned. You had better build an ark for your family, for the animals. You better get ready, because here comes a judgment upon the world. Noah hasn't seen this. Noah's going to build a boat, and he and he doesn't even know for sure that the storm is coming. All he has is the word of God, and he responds by faith. He can't see it, but he trusts what God says, and he builds that ark. And now everybody knows the story of Noah having an ark when the whole world needed a boat. Well, here was one man who was already building it by faith, because he heard from God. He believed in something he couldn't see. Do you believe there's a judgment coming upon the world? Do you believe that everyone will stand before their maker and be judged according to what they have done. Either Jesus was judged for your sin, or you will be judged for your sin. And someday there's a day coming, a day of wrath, a day of judgment. God even put his name on this day. It's called the Day of the Lord, and all that God's anger and his righteous indignation towards sin is being stored up for a day of Wrath. Do you believe that's coming? Praise God! We haven't seen his judgment, but it's coming. Do you know that? See, I can't live without thinking about the judgment that's coming. I can't live without thinking about how Jesus is going to come and establish a kingdom, and I want to be a part of his kingdom. I want to enter his kingdom. But I'm so concerned for everybody who doesn't know Jesus, and they're going to be judged. And so, this fact of judgment is coming it gives my whole life a sense of urgency. Like, what's going to happen to everybody who's not ready? Like they’ve got to get ready before it's too late. I've never seen it, but I am convinced. I have a conviction of things not seen.

Now, here's what's interesting. As you keep going through Hebrews 11, and it describes faith in what you can't see, it starts to act like you can see what you can't see. So, even though faith doesn't come from sight, it describes faith like sight. Look at verse 13, and here it's summarizing now, Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Sarah. All these examples of faith, and it says these all died in faith. Verse 13, “not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.” So, I can't see the promises. I haven't seen the great reward yet, but it's like I can see it from afar. It's like I've already received it from afar. I know it. I can see it by my faith. I have a conviction of things I've never seen, and then it goes on to describe what that's like. It says, "Having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” Verse 14, “For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city., a city they've never seen.” And yet, they could be going back to where they're from. They could be blending in with everybody else. They could be doing what everybody else is doing in life, but by faith, it's like they see from afar a better country, a heavenly homeland. They want to live, not here on this planet as it is right now, they want to live in the city of God. Can anybody else here see the city of God? Have you ever pictured yourself walking the streets of gold. Have you ever imagined seeing a friend in heaven, and the joy that you would experience, knowing that you both made it there together? Have you ever imagined going to the place where he is, the one who sits on the throne, where the cherubim and the seraphim cover themselves with their wings, and the elders cast down their crowns, and everybody is shouting, "Holy, holy, holy!”

Have you ever imagined going there and seeing the one who sits on the throne with thunder and lightning and rainbows all around where he is? Have you ever imagined the one who comes and he takes and he opens the scroll, the one who was found worthy, and everyone shouts, "Worthy is the Lamb, the Lamb who was slain.” See, some of us, we can't see the New Jerusalem, but we have greeted it from far off. It's like we can see it. There's no way you could convince many of us who are here today. We have a conviction of things not seen, and we know that someday the best day, the day I'm looking forward to more than any other day, is he's going to come riding on the clouds, eyes like fire, face like the sun, and I'm going to see him, and I've never seen him, but I have seen him.

See, that's faith. It doesn't come by sight, but it can see the unseen. This is how it describes Moses. If you go down to verse 23, it has a lot to say about Moses here in Hebrews 11. In fact, how his parents even had faith to keep him alive when they were supposed to kill the Hebrew children. And it says in verse 24, “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was notice this looking to the reward. Have you ever seen one of the movies about Moses? Maybe the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, or maybe you prefer the animated version known as the Prince of Egypt. How he grew up in Pharaoh's house, because his parents had faith not to kill him. He actually ended up growing up one of the princes of Egypt, and he had all the delights, all the pleasures, all the power, all the money, everything he wanted as his connection with Pharaoh, the ruler. So, here's Moses as he's growing up. He could have all the pleasures of Egypt, or he could be one of the people of God. And Moses, it says, by faith, decides not to go for the pleasures he can see, but to look to be one of God's people instead. In fact, it says it here in verse 27, “By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.” Like Moses knows Pharaoh personally and would be betraying Pharaoh, who can offer him everything this world has, and he decides I would rather serve my boss, YHWH rather than Pharaoh, because Moses can see the one who is invisible. All the might, all the riches, all the splendor of Pharaoh, that was all right there, to see the army, the palace, everything in Egypt. But he couldn't see YHWH. But he trusted in him, and he left this world, so to speak, behind for the surpassing value of knowing God. And he did it by faith.
Let's get this down for point number two: “Faith does not come from sight but acts like it can see.” Faith does not come from sight but acts like it can see. That's the conviction of things not seen, and that's what we see here with Noah and Moses. This is so important for us to study these examples. And so, here's what I want to do. I want to invite every single man here to the Men of Faith conference that we're having in two weekends, and we're going to dive deep into this decision that Moses made. We're going to have so many breakout sessions of all these different men of faith that are described here in Hebrews 11. Because you need to have this forward-looking kind of faith where you can see the things you can't see. You can't be a man who's just living paycheck to paycheck. You can't be a man who's just living for what kind of worldly inheritance are you going to leave your family or those behind you? You need to leave a legacy of faith. We need men who lead their homes, men who lead in their businesses, men who lead this church because they can see Jesus, who they've never seen, because they are men of faith.

So, I'm asking, if you're a man, could you open up your bulletin right now? In fact, everybody, let's open up the bulletin because in celebration of twelve years, we've got some exciting events coming up, and this men's conference we're going to go through. This is basically the first session of the men's conference. Everybody else was invited to this one. All right? And so, men, we want to dive deeper into this idea of what is it going to look like for you to live by faith, and we want to dive deeper into this in two weekends, September 18th and 19th. Move heaven and earth if you need to to get here to this conference. If you're able to, we want you to be here. We think we need to talk more about this. Not only are we going to talk about it in the conference, but we're going to set you up with your fellowship group to have more conversations about looking at these examples of faith throughout the fall season. Ladies, you'll notice that there's a breakfast for you this Saturday where you can really be encouraged and that'll set up a conversation among the ladies here at the church through the fall season.

In fact, those of you who are single, you'll notice there's an event for you on Friday night. And those of you who are, shall we say, advanced more than the rest of us, the Older Men and Women, we've got a dinner to honor you here on Wednesday night. So, a lot of things going on, but the thing that's most important in my mind is faith. Can you honestly say that you hope for things in the future and you have the present reality of those things? Can you say that you're living not based on what you can see, but you have a conviction of things not seen and you believe in the things that you can't see so strongly, it's like you can see them. It's like you know him already, even though you've never laid eyes on him yet.

Turn with me to 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. See, the goal of faith is that you keep going until faith is no longer necessary because it becomes sight. And so, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 describes this experience. And when we started this church, there was just a small group of us. I mean, we didn't have an idea of how large the church would become. That wasn't our goal. Our goal was simply sharing the gospel with people, telling people the gospel, and we believe that if we told people the gospel, Jesus would save people. Jesus would build up his church. And so, our goal we had faith that Jesus would save souls and Jesus would build his church in Huntington Beach. Okay, but that was twelve years ago. We've seen Jesus do that. Now our goal is getting a little bigger as we're understanding even better what faith is. It's not surprising to me that Jesus would save people, and it's not surprising to me that he would build his church because that's what he's promised to do. That's what he said he would do in his Word. As the word goes out, the church will be built up. He will sanctify his people, and how does he set them apart from the world and set them apart for his purpose? Sanctify them by your truth, and truth is knowing that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

And so, as we tell more people the gospel, more people have been built up to be the church. But see, the goal isn't just to see people saved here. The goal of faith is to see Jesus who saved you. It's not how many people we can see get saved to be the church now. It's who's going to be there in the presence of Jesus. Then that's where our faith takes us. Look at how it says it in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. It talks first of all about our body being a tent, and eventually our tent is going to break down. And not that we're going to be naked. No, we're actually going to be swallowed up by life. That's how it refers to death for the believer in Christ. You're not going to die. You're going to be swallowed up by life. And then it says this in verse 6. So, we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by what, everybody? Sight. In this body, I'm away from Jesus. I haven't seen him yet, but I'm living by faith, not by sight. But then it says this, “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. See, as long as I'm in this body, I'm going to keep living by faith in Christ. But the moment that I'm absent from the body, I'm going to be present with the Lord, and I'm going to see him. Maybe it's because I will die, and my soul will go to be with him in paradise. Or maybe some of us will be some of the blessed who are left. And there he is on the clouds, eyes like fire, face like the sun. Once you see him, you'll know it's him right away. And once you see him, you'll know that every single day you lived by faith, it was worth it to be with him forevermore.

See, you’ve got to keep going in your faith until you see him. That is the goal of faith. Faith is the substance of all the things you hope for. It's the conviction of what you can't see, and when you see Christ, that's when faith will be done. And so that's our goal for you. That's our goal for this church. That we're not those who shrink back. We're those who endure by faith, just like so many who have gone before us. Just like Jesus, he went all the way to the end, and he endured the cross. He despised the shame. Why? For the joy that was set before him at the right hand of the Father. Jesus endured all of his trials and temptations. He went through them all by faith, and he is the author and perfector of our faith. Everybody who follows Christ, as you follow him, he's the one who began a good work in you. He'll get you all the way there to see him. I want you to be there on that day. I'm glad you're here at church today. That's not our goal. Our goal is for you to make it to Christ, to see him in all of his glory and splendor. And what a day of rejoicing that will be when you and I look at each other and we'll be like, can you believe where we are right now? Look at this place; it's even more awesome than we thought it was going to be. And we will shout at the top of our lungs, “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb.” That's the goal of faith. Faith is hoping for that and knowing you're going to get there now. It's being convicted that you can't see it, but you can see it. So, I want to encourage you, brothers or sisters. I don't know how many years we have as a church, but we should keep going until we see Christ.

And if you flip your handout over on the back, we're going to celebrate our birthday. September 7 is the actual day. It's tomorrow. It's Labor Day, and on the very first Labor Day, before we even had the first service of our church, we went out into Huntington Beach as laborers. You can see the verse Matthew 9:38. “Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest, the harvest of faith.” When you go out, you don't know what's going to happen, but here's what you do know, I'm going to tell people about Jesus, and Jesus is going to save people's souls. Can I get an amen from anybody on that?

Do you see how many people stood up here in this service? This is our third service with that many people standing up, and it's not the same people all three services. You know how those people are all standing up, saying they've been saved by Jesus because somebody told them about Jesus. Like when we bring this up, it's like, hey, let's. Well, here's what we'll do on our day off. Do you have a day off? I've got a day off. Great. Let's go out and let's tell people about Jesus on our day off. We do this like every year on this day. Let's go out. People are like, why? Why would I want to go tell strangers about Jesus? Hey, let me just ask you, why don't you want to go tell strangers about Jesus. If you've been a part of this church for a long time, and you don't want to tell people about Jesus, can you not see what's happening? People are getting saved because someone's telling them about Jesus. That's how it works. The gospel, when it is heard, the Word of Christ when it is heard, that's where faith comes from. People hearing someone tell them about Jesus, and how will they hear without someone preaching? And how will they preach without being sent? And so, I'm saying to you, tomorrow, let's do a special day. Let's celebrate our birthday. We'll be right here at 9 o'clock, and then we'll go out. And you know what we'll do? We'll tell people about Jesus. And you know what? We live in Southern California, where you have freedom to go tell people about Jesus. You know, probably the worst thing that's going to happen is we'll all end up in and out after we tell people about Jesus. Sounds like suffering to me, right? And you know what happens? This is what I can testify that I've seen this now for twelve years. If you go out there and tell people about Jesus, they go from strangers to family, they go from lost to found, they go from sinners to saints, they go from the darkness into the light.

I could tell you stories of people who didn't know anybody here at this church, and somebody knocked on their door. Somebody drove an ice cream truck down their street. Somebody walked up to them and said, hey, I'd like to invite you to come and see Jesus at my church. And they are not the same people they used to be. They're now a part of this assembly of believers. They're now a part of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you don't want to know how it happened because some stranger said to them, can I tell you about Jesus? Do you know what the gospel is?

And so, we, as a church, see this is what I'm concerned about. Twelve years in, when we started, it was a small group of us. But every single one of us believed that if we told people about Jesus, we would see people get saved. Are we still united on that? Does everybody here really believe in the power of the gospel? And do you believe what Hebrews 11:1 is saying that faith it endures. It keeps going. Why? Because it has the substance of the things hoped for. It has the conviction of the things not seen. We believe here in a forward-looking faith. We're not done till Jesus has come or till we go to be with him. And see, if we have a church that's divided, if we've got people here saying, well, I don't want to go tell people about Jesus. Well, but that's the whole thing that united us from the beginning was Jesus saved me, and he saved you because somebody told us about him. And if we have people who are just pointing to a salvation in the past and not looking to the future, how could we move forward together as a church if we're divided between past-looking and forward-looking faith.

And so, as a church, we need to hear that faith, it's the assurance of things hoped for; it's the conviction of things not seen. Faith keeps enduring; it doesn't shrink back to destruction; it keeps going till the preservation of our souls, till we're with Christ, and the number one thing we have to do here until Christ comes or until we go to be with him is to spread the good news about him to other people, that they could be just as saved as we are because they could know the same Jesus we do. And so you're saying, well, I want to be a part of the church, but I don't want to tell anybody about Jesus, and I don't want to have a forward-looking faith. How is that going to work?

That is what the church is. We're a group of people set apart from the world because we're saying, I think it's better to live for what I can't see than what I can see, and I believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. One way. Do you believe that? Do you have that forward-looking faith? Are you ready to tell people? Even if you can't go out with us tomorrow, I'd love for you to come. But are you ready to go tell people the name of Christ? See, that's what it takes to be the church is to be people of faith. Let me pray for us right now.

Father, I just thank you for all that Jesus has done over twelve years, but we come to you now looking to the future. And God, I just am concerned that some of us might think faith is something that already happened in our lives in the past, but this verse is describing a faith for us that is the assurance of things that we hope for in the future and is the conviction of things that we haven't seen with our eyes yet, but we know to be true. And so, God, I pray that we wouldn't try to find something that lines up with what we think, but that we would line up our thinking with what you think, what you say in your Word. I pray that you would unite us all about this definition of faith, this description. First of all, that we would have the definition that we believe that Jesus is the Christ who died and rose again, and then we would have this. And I have things that I hope for, but I believe them now, and I have things that I can't see, but it's like I can see them. Unite us together as people who have one faith, one baptism, one Lord, and use us as the Church of Jesus. God, I pray that nobody would leave here talking about twelve years of Compass. I pray that nobody would leave here talking about me or anybody else who's been here for twelve years, or all the faithful servants that have joined us along the way. I pray that everybody would leave here with one name on their heart, one name coming out of their lips, that Jesus is on the move again in Southern California, and he's calling people out of their sins, and he's building up his church, and he's bringing us back to real faith, not faith that feels self-satisfied based on a past action, but faith that feels compelled by the hope of the future, faith that will not settle for what it can see, because it wants to see Jesus. God, please let us be a people who have faith that you're causing all things, whether they seem good or whether they seem bad in the moment. You're causing all things to work together for good for those who love you and are called according to your purpose. That we will see someday that all things are working towards the glory of your Son Jesus, that his name would be preeminent above every name, and that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Lord, the Master, the Boss, the Author, the Perfector of our faith. And so, let our names be forgotten, but let the name of Jesus be made known. Let people not think this is just another church but let them think that Jesus is here among us. We pray this in his name. Amen.