Well, turn with me, if you will, to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11. The meaning of and therefore translation of Hebrews 11 verse 2 is widely disputed among the English translations of the scriptures. Not just a single part of verse 2, which verse 2 is a really small verse to begin with, but the whole verse 2. As a matter of fact, even the principle behind verse 2. The American Standard and the English Revised Version, not the New American Standard, but the American Standard, the Old American Standard maybe? And the English Revised Version are the only two versions that repeat each other. which I think this is rather odd. I mean, typically we have with all the different English translations that we have, typically speaking, you'll get about four or five, maybe six of them that will have even the same exact wording. We don't have this at all. We have two. And you might say, OK, well, isn't that kind of the point? We have all these different versions, so that way we can get a different spin. This is a little different take on it. And that's true. But again, having so few number of scholars, really, that would agree to word it the same way was kind of puzzling to me. As a matter of fact, that's where I began my study. I started, and I oftentimes start, whenever I begin to study for a sermon, I'll go and just read the verse in all these different languages. Not languages. I don't know that many languages. I mean versions. Yes, I read it in Farsi, and then I could, no. So I tracked all these different translations, 15, 16, as many as I can get my hands on. And a part of my study is, OK, well, this team of scholars and this team of scholars agreed on that word. That's interesting. Or everybody's disagreeing on this word, or the majority. You see how that works. And it's like, OK. It kind of clues me in to how much stress I should put on each word. And I would commend that to you for your study. That's an easy, easy tool that I can put in your hand. Just open up a bunch of different versions. The English Standard Version is not ordained by God to be the best, so that you know. Oftentimes, I'll like others. And the reality is that the best study tool of the Bible is the Bible, period. So that's where I begin my study oftentimes, and that's what I would commend to you. But what I found was interesting was not that there was some disunity, but that there was only disunity. Not just in the wording, which that happens sometimes. As you read something, you say, OK, that's a different word, but it's semantics. But also in the concept. of verse two as well. Now I say, as soon as I say there's no unity, I come back and say, well, there's kind of unity. There's a little bit of unity. There's two basic camps, if you would. You could almost put a dividing line, a very light line drawn in the sand between two different schools of thought, as it were, with verse two. Let me explain. Let me explain by just walking through it with us. Let's read verses one through three together in the English Standard Version. That's what I'm reading from. You can pay attention in whatever version you have in front of you. So let's get a running start. Begin at verse one. 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. So verse two, verse two is what we'll be dealing with this morning. For by it, the people of old received their commendation, that verse. So the two camps, the two ideas that I could find some unity in among these different English translations were basically two points, two worldviews almost. Some translations make it sound like faith is the subject, faith is the point. It's all about faith. The English Standard Version would fall into that camp. The other camp would kind of make you read it almost like it's about the people. It's their faith. It's what they did. So the pressure's on the people, not upon the faith. Let me read it to you. You just read the English Standard Version. Let me give you another example of what I'm talking about. The one that makes it about faith. Here, listen to this. The Darby Bible Translation. Who's ever heard of the Darby Bible Translation? Awesome. Two? Fantastic. You can go online and get these translations for free, so don't go out and buy like 47 books. All right, this is what the Darby Bible translation reads, for in the power of this The elders have obtained testimony. That's a really cool expression. You hear how they translate that? In the power of this, what is the this? It's the faith. In the power of this faith, the elders have obtained a testimony. There's a clear stress on faith there. Now, the American Standard and the English Revised Version, those are the two that marry each other, that say exactly the same thing, and this is what they say. Now, I know this is maybe a little dry, but listen very carefully. For therein, that's it, now we're done with faith. For therein, the elders had witness born to them. You can kind of feel the shift. It's kind of a little less about faith and kind of more about the elders, the people of old. Now witness and testimony, those are two different words that we've read in the different translations. Both are similar terminology, but there's a stress about that. There's a stress about the witness. There's a stress about the testimony or pressure that's placed upon the people above the faith. I believe the two camps are pretty easy to hear when you read them that way. I mean, the ESV says, for by it, The people of old received their commendation. They received it. They were recipients. Here they sat and God gave it to them. Why? Because of faith. Whereas the New Living Translation says, through their faith, the people in the days of old earned a good reputation. You hear that? Here, there's some differences that, I mean, it almost gives us two different worldviews here. In the same verse, there's all of this difference. Now, before you begin to say, okay, well, yay, wonderful, another place where Christians just don't agree on anything, right? It's like, oh, we're just always disagreeing with each other. Let me encourage you that Let me say before you begin to think in that way, somebody's wrong. Somebody's right and somebody's wrong. The Bible doesn't mean two different things. The Bible means one thing. There is one true interpretation to every verse, every word. There is one true interpretation. Sure, many, a plethora of application, but only one true, what the author meant interpretation. So somebody's wrong. The author of Hebrews said something. So what I want to do then is take the rest of our time this morning and look at two things. The first is I want to prove to you that God's favor bestowed upon his children is truly not about us. And secondly, I want us to take then that opportunity to showcase how this truth then affects our lives. If we come to submit to the fact that God is about himself, and we then are to be about him, that has a change on our life. That will affect us profoundly. So the two points moving forward, here they are again. So if you want to write it down. Number one, why we should believe, why we should side with the translations like the ESV, the NIV, the NET, Darby's, Young's literal translation, and so on. Why we should believe that, why we should believe that the pressure of verse two is about faith, God's faith that he gives to us, that's the subject as opposed to putting the pressure on the people. And then the second point of this verse is, or the second point is that what happens to our walk with God when we believe that. All right, so point number one. Point number one I've titled, it's about faith, not me. It's about faith, not me. And with all this talk about translations and scholars and theologians and things, the last thing that you should feel in reference to your Bible, the Bible that's sitting on your lap, the last thing you should feel right now is a lack of trust. You can trust the scriptures that you have in your language today. You can trust them. When we talk about things like this, we're talking about digging in deep to seeking to unlock mysteries hidden deep within. For your daily encouragement, there is nothing better you could do than to open up your Bible and read it. I take that back. I guess there's one other thing that you could do. You could learn Greek, you could learn Hebrew, and then you could read those, because that would be closer to what the actual author penned. Barring that, trust those theologians. I mean, here's what I want us to understand. Every single one of those translations, every single one of them, the translation, not the paraphrase, but the translations, every one of them is almost like you could look at that and say there is a team of linguistic experts that got together with a host of theological experts and sat down and said, all right, what did the author say? What did he intend to express here at this moment? I mean, think about that. Think about what your Bible is. These men, these women have come together and they've poured themselves into the language. What is God saying here? What exactly is he saying? What does he intend to say? And then they write it down, word by word. That's a great thing. At the best, a translation is a translation. But think about that. Now there is a stark difference and I need to give you a warning against the paraphrased Bibles. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't warn you about those. Think about what a paraphrased Bible is. For instance, the New Living Bible. Not the New Living Translation, because that's a translation. But the New Living Bible is a paraphrased Bible. Someone sat down, or even a couple of someone sat down, and they said, OK, let's take this little passage and let's put it in our own words. Eugene Peterson wrote The Message. Eugene Peterson was a pastor. He began to write what is now known as the message as a devotional tool for his congregation, just to refresh them as they read their Bibles. Hear what your pastor is putting this together. A publisher came to him and said, hey, let's put this together in written form. And then they published it like a Bible. Think about that. The Bible, the scriptures, are the very words of God, and they ought to be treated as such. The paraphrase books, they're man's opinion, they're commentary. So that you know, I have both in my library, the message and the living Bible. Now there's a danger because they're billed as Bibles. But they have value. I will look at the message. I will look at what Eugene Peterson thought when he, that's a commentary. Is that not the same thing as a commentary? So, all right. Soapbox? Off. All right. Now, about those two. and others like them. I have those in my arsenal, as it were. And don't be afraid to have them in your arsenal as well. But understand that they're not the Bible. All right, so why should we side with the English Standard Version, the NIV? Anybody have the NIV in here this morning? Okay, only one person is willing to admit it. Great, there's nothing wrong with the NIV. Very helpful. I've got all of these. I could jump into the text. I could begin to open up the original languages for you in order to prove to you that these different translations are right. That it's about faith and not about the people. I could do that. But I think there's a more clear and obvious reason why we should take the stand where I suggest we should. The context. Now the American Standard, and others like them, that would fall into the other camp, they would take the side of context as well. Because what would they say? They would say, look at the entire chapter. It's about Abel. It's about Enoch. It's about Noah. It's about Abraham. It's about Sarah. Look at all these stories they're telling. So look at the context, they would say. They would even go down to verse 39. Take a look at verse 39. And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised." And he goes on to explain. There you have it. People say that it's about the people. It's about the faith that they exhibited. Look at the hall of church heroes. Here's the heroes of the faith. Look at them. Follow their lead. No. Have you read some of these people's lives? Samson? Be like Samson, who his whole judgeship was a farce. It was a farce. He disobeyed God every time you turn around. He took the vow of an Azerite. Do not touch anything dead. All right, let me reach down here and grab a jawbone and kill a bunch of Philistines with it. And don't, don't mention, you know, Delilah. She asks him like 17 times, what's your strength? It's this. Then they tried to take it away from him. Moron. Right? It's like, why would you ever tell her the actual truth? Like the next morning, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Just a crazy, crazy story. Yes, be like Samson. No. It's not. It's not about their faith that they have and they got approval because of it. Now understand, it's their faith. It belongs to them. They own it. Because they have been given that faith. You have faith. If God has given you faith, it's yours. Perfectly. Beautifully. You own it. You have it. But you have it like you have the mind of Christ. You have faith. But you have it like you have the mind of Christ. First Corinthians 2.16 says, but we have the mind of Christ. We have it. It's mine. It belongs to me. But it has nothing to do with me. I didn't do anything about it to get it. And I can't retain it on my own. This faith belongs to us just as Christ belongs to us. And we belong to him like that beautiful hymn. For I am his and he is mine. This is the in Christ alone for I am his and he is mine bought with the precious blood of Christ. Paul teaches just that in first Corinthians six and in first Corinthians seven. So you were bought with a price to glorify God in your body. That's why I don't believe it's about us. I don't believe it's about us because even though the entire chapter talks about all these different people, notice something that it says about every single one of those people. Let's just walk through the, you've got Hebrews 11 open, right? Look at verse one. Now faith is, stop, verse two, for by it, okay? Verse three, by faith we, verse, Wait, four, four, right? That's the next one. By faith, Abel, verse five. By faith, Enoch, verse six. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. Verse seven, by faith, Noah. Verse eight, look at it. Verse nine, look at it. Verse 11, 13, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, Do we need to keep going? Do we really need to keep reading off all the different mentions of what? Faith. It is the strand that has been woven through the entire chapter. It is what this thing is all about. From the first children ever born to man, Abel, to the author's day, to his day, There has been one constant as it related to men and women having received a commendation or testimony from God. And that one thing that has been constant is faith. Faith, that faith that all these people exhibited and all so many more exhibited that are not mentioned. is the faith that you and I, we all have if we're in Christ. That's the same faith. It's not a different faith. And this faith has absolutely nothing to do with us and everything to do with God's grace. Verse 11 says, by faith, Sarah conceived, not my Sarah, Abraham's Sarah. I would say by faith we conceived as well. But Sarah's, Abraham's Sarah, her faith looked a little different than maybe somebody else's. Didn't she laugh when the travelers came and said, one year from now, you will be with child. You will have a baby. Faith. She laughed at their faces. She laughed at God. She laughed at God's promise. Moses rejected being called a son of Pharaoh and rather chose to be mistreated like his people. That's what Hebrews says. By faith he did that. The act of faith. What did he do when he put that in practice? What happened at that moment when he refused to be understood as a son of Pharaoh? What was that action? Murder! Okay, all right. I think maybe a theme could begin to unfurl here. Murder! There is your act of faith? No, there's something else underneath that. That was a physical action that this man did, but something else was brought in underneath that, beside that, behind that. God had granted him faith to see. He responded, wrong. Don't we respond wrong? Even when we know we're right, sometimes when we're right, that's when we're the most wrong with our actions. Verse 32 mentions the sorts of people that we are said to look up to. Again, look at their intrinsic faith. Look at these people. Gideon. Gideon was one that we ought to be looking up to because of his intrinsic faith, quote unquote. No. Gideon, the notorious fleece layer, right? The story of Gideon, if we aren't readily there with it, here God says, Gideon, you're one of my judges now, and I want you to go attack. And he says, nah, not me. You know what, if this is not like bad tacos and actually God talking to me, then I would like to put a fleece out on the ground and then tomorrow morning let there be dew on the whole ground but not the fleece. So wow, God graciously did exactly that. You think that's enough, right? Next. Well, maybe that's just a really funny fleece. So God put dew tomorrow morning on the fleece and not on the ground. God says, all right, fleece covered with dew, ground not. And what happens next? Every step of the way, Gideon is like, I don't know. I don't think we do this, God. I don't think we can do this. Aren't I got 10,000 men? God says, too much. He says, no. Whittles it down to 300. Come on now. Breaks pots and runs at the Philistines or whatever. And they run and kill each other. That's just a beautiful story. Read the Old Testament. It's beautiful. Barak, not the president. Barak, Old Testament. He was told by Deborah the judge to take 10,000 men into battle against Tabor. Into Tabor. Attack. Take 10,000 men. You know what Barak's statement was? I'll only go if you go. To the lady. Lady? Lady's first. That's the moment that happened. By faith, Barak. I'll go if you go, Debbie. We could keep going. We could. But I think, however, the point is sufficiently made. This faith is not some great work done by human beings, by man or by woman, that we look to and say, boy, I want to be like them. No, this faith is given by God regardless of who we are and regardless of what we've done. It's God's work through us. We get the great pleasure of being a part of it, but it is Him working through us. We do it, but He doesn't. I don't know how that works. All right. So we have, it's about faith, not me. Point number two. when it's about faith, not me. This is where we come to the second point. My previous point was it's about Him, it's about God, it's about the gracious gift that God has given to us, this faith. That's what verse two is about, receiving our commendation. When we get a commendation by God, it is not because we have pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. When we receive a testimony of God upon our lives, it's not about us, it's about the faith that God gave us that we exhibited. We have to exhibit it. So when it's about faith and not me, when we let this guide our Christian walk, things change. And from personal experience, everything seems to change. If Hebrews was written today and included your name, which it could, it would say of you or of me, by faith they trusted in the meritorious work of Christ. By faith, they believed that Jesus Christ was sufficient to pay the penalty for their debt. That work isn't about me. It's not about you. It's about Christ. It's about God. It's about His gift of faith. By faith they trusted in Christ and thereby received their reward. Was Sarah's faithlessness mentioned in Hebrews 11? No, it wasn't. Was Barak's faithlessness mentioned? Was Samson's? was Moses' murder of the Egyptian soldier. Was any of that stuff mentioned in Hebrews? In the hall? The faith of heroes, or the heroes of the faith? Delilah? Delilah, for crying out loud. No? Nowhere in there? Nobody saw that? Why? Because it's about the gracious gift of faith. And there is therefore, because of that, now no condemnation. The New Testament calls Lot a righteous man. I have a daughter now. What he did to his daughters, here guys groping at the door, wanting these two angels, take my unwed daughters, take my betrothed daughters, have your way with them. That doesn't sound faithful to me at all. It's because his righteousness didn't depend upon his works. It depended upon the sovereign love of God. And there was nothing that Lot, there's nothing that Samson, there's nothing that Barak or Sarah or Abel or Enoch or Noah, there's nothing that anyone, there's nothing that you could do, there's nothing that I could do that could strip away the effects of his gift of faith to us. It's yours. It belongs to you, you have it. If I exhibit faith and do X, Y, or Z, then I get a wonderful blessing from God. If I fail at X, Y, or Z, then I'm still counted, declared faithful. Regardless of what I do, regardless of what I neglect to do, or what I've ever done. This is what is said of me in the throne room of heaven. And there's nothing I could do to bring a rebuttal to that declaration. when we truly get the fact that God is the one who bestows this faith, when we begin to understand the sovereignty of God. I mean, really understand the powerful sovereignty of God over even my sin. That's when we'll begin to understand this faith. will begin to understand also our actual standing before God. Remember what Hebrews 2 said, or 11.2 said, by this faith, they received a commendation. Other translations use the word reward. Some use testimony, others use good report or approval, and so on. We could give all these different words because there's hardly any agreement. The reason the translators are all over the map on this word is because this word has such a broad meaning to it. It means so many different things. It's used in all these different ways to talk about a testimony or a good report. something that said good of you. It's the word, and forgive me for using the Greek, but you'll hear something in this Greek word. Martireo. Martireo. Martyr. It has the root martyr, which martyr is not somebody who gets killed, which it is, but the word martyr means a witness. Now, we've understood that a martyr is one who is a witness unto their death. but at root it is just a witness. So this is a witness, or a kind of witness, an expression of a witness, a testimony. So the point, as I look at this verse, as I see that word, and as we see all these translators going all over the map, I want to give something to us, I want to take something myself away from this, and I want to say, what is he saying here? I'll tell you what I believe honestly from my study of this text. This is what I believe is being said. Because of faith, God speaks well of us. Because of this faith, God is speaking well of us. He is giving us a testimony by this faith. That's huge. We speak well of God, don't we? I mean, that's the point. We are praising God. We are singing to God. But the psalmist says he sings over us a song of love. And here he says, those who have this faith that I have given them, I am speaking well of them in my courts. Wow. God knows your name. And you have received a commendation. Because of it. In conclusion. I got some junk mail this week. Anybody ever get junk mail? Yes. Now don't look a junk mail gift in the mouth, because I got this piece of junk mail this morning, not this morning, this week, and I got a really good sermon illustration out of it. So if you get a good piece of junk mail, pass it my way, maybe I can turn it into a point. Then I'll give you credit. I don't know why you'd want that, but there you go. You'd get a commendation from me. So I got this piece of junk mail. And on the cover, it struck me because it was a picture in our town of a woman encased in bronze. She wasn't encased in bronze. It looked like it. A statue had been erected. Anybody else got? I was thinking about this. Anybody else get that junk mail? Nobody? You may have. And you're like, junk mail. Throw it away. I look at it. I care. You send me something in the mail, I'm going to read it. Sorry. So here's this woman, and this is a statue in bronze. I'm thinking, who is this woman? This is not like Mary McLeod Bethune, I'm thinking. I mean, it's like, this is a big deal. And then I look at the caption, and I'm like, oh, oh, oh, OK. That's kind of literally how it went through my mind. It was the wife. of Bill France. If you've been around here at all, you know the history of Daytona. Bill France is a big name in this town. Bill France is the guy who essentially created NASCAR. So it's a big deal in Daytona Beach. His wife was encased in bronze, or her Oedipus was created in her image. This statue was erected. And it was placed in front of the France Tower at Halifax Hospital. So now you kind of understand that, oh, that's why they did it. The statue was erected for the purpose of standing as long as bronze is supposed to last, which is a long time. so that the France name, so that Betty Jane's name, that her support to the hospital, her money, would garner conversation and a good report for years to come. So that people, even after she's dead, long dead, long dead, bronze, that people might speak well of her. No matter how long bronze is built to last, it won't, because it melts. Your good works, all of your good works, if they're done purely by you, and not in faith will not last. Encase them in bronze if you want. They won't last. But those things, those things done by faith in love for God and men, those things, God says, I speak well of you. in my courts. Because you didn't do it on your own power. You didn't do it for your own name or your own fame. You did it for Christ. If you're a Christian and you're struggling with your position in Christ, understand you don't have, you don't have any problem There's nothing that is going to stop you from receiving the commendation of God. You cannot, you cannot stop Him from loving you, from speaking well of you. If this morning you're not a Christian, there is nothing you could do that could cause God to speak well of you. There is nothing possible that you could do to please God because you are outside of faith. So repent, turn from your sins. If you're outside of Christ, if you have not repented of your sins and trusted Christ alone, if God has not given you that faith, if you know, you're like, I don't trust God, He is not pleased with you, but He can be if you will turn, if you will repent, if you will believe, then He will be yours, and this faith will be yours, and nothing will be able to take it from you. And if this morning has felt somewhat of a reminder to a Christian about the great gift of faith, say, I know all this, I get this, I hear it, yep, amen, I get it, okay, what's next? Don't feel that way. I pray that this has been an opportunity for you to worship him because of the truth that you already know. Praise him as you have been reminded this beautiful morning of this beautiful gift. Let's take a moment now in silent prayer to respond in like manner whether we are a struggling Christian, whether we are not a Christian, or if we stand firm upon this truth, let us all respond in like manner. Let's pray together.