Amen. I want you to turn this evening to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 is a very well-known passage of scripture, and I want to read the first six verses. Hebrews chapter 11. And I want to just think tonight very simply of a faith that pleases God, a faith that pleases God. And hopefully this will set us up well as we come to pray in a moment or two's time. But let's read the first six verses of Hebrews chapter 11. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for by it the elders obtained a good report through faith. we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it, he being dead, yet speaketh. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and he was not, found because God had translated him, for before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." If you were to begin a study on the subject of faith and what it means to have real faith, this probably would be a very good starting point. It's a very natural starting point because Hebrews chapter 11 is that great chapter on faith. And yet, only verse 1 tells us what faith is, while the other 39 verses tell us what faith does. We've only one verse of explanation, and then we have 39 verses of exemplification. Faith put into practice. Examples of those who exercised faith and saw great things done for God. And if you want, or if you like, you know, a concordance or a contents page for the rest of the Bible on all the great men and women and acts of faith generally are recorded here in Hebrews chapter 11. You know one of the things that we have learned tonight from our reading is one of the things that faith does is please God. Throughout the rest of the chapter, we read of the mighty things that faith accomplishes, but right at the very beginning, we learn that faith pleases God. It delights God when He sees His children, you and I, walking by faith and not by sight. Of course, walking by faith is not natural to us. We're not naturally good with faith. We are tangible creatures. We rely on the things that we can see. And yet the Christian life is not a life of sight, but it's a life of faith. And that has called many to criticize us, to laugh at us, that everything we believe is not tangible. But we know that at the end of life, when we reach heaven's glory, faith will give way to sight, that we will enter into the joys of our salvation. But one major area where faith is employed, of course, is in our prayer lives. verse six provides for us not only a great pattern for an effective life but also a great pattern for an effective prayer life. Let's read verse six again and I want to share just a few thoughts from it. He says, but without faith it is impossible to please him or please God for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And here's a great pattern for us in our daily lives and particularly when we come to pray. And there's three different ways we can split this verse up and consider a faith that pleases God. First of all, I want us to think about a requirement for prayer. The writer here puts it like this, And so by use of the negative, we can conclude that faith is required not just for prayer, but also to please God. If we want to please God, we have got to live by faith. It's essential not only for our talking to God, but our walking with God. You know, and that's one way that we're closer drawn to Him, is when we live our lives by faith. As we look at this requirement for prayer, and we look at where this verse is situated, and all the verses around, if you look at verse number one, we have faith explained. And here we're told about exactly what faith is. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not something we can see. It's not a tangible thing. And so often we do, like when we're swimming particularly, we like to know where our feet are and we can touch the bottom. But when we launch out a little bit further, Really we're exercising faith where we don't have the assurance or the comfort of the ground beneath us. And here we're told that faith is something that we hope for. Now it's not a hope-so faith, but it's something that we set our confidence in. It's a confident expectation. It's arresting our all. And it's based not upon the things that we can see, but it's based upon the promises of God and the person of God and all that He is and all that we have in His Word. You know, if you want an example of faith, you know, if you send a letter. The simple sending of a letter is the exercise of faith. You know, when we want to write a letter or send something to someone or to a company that's distant to us, you know, we are exercising faith because it's impossible for us to deliver the letter ourselves. We need the help of the Royal Mail. But for them to do their part, you know, what have we got to do? We've got to take our letter and we've got to place it in the post box first. You're the exercise faith in the Royal Mail. We can't hold on to our letter. We've got to drop it off. We've got to let go of it. We've got to place it into the slot and let it go. Then we must trust the postal service to take over until our letter is delivered to its destination. And although we can't see what happens to our letter as it makes its way through the Royal Mail system, my faith in the postal service assures me that my letter is as good as there the moment I post it. And that's the same as what it means to have faith in God. When we pray, or when we exercise faith in him, it's a letting go of our hope in ourselves, a letting go of our confidence in ourselves, and placing that, putting the letter in the slot, placing our confidence completely in God. When we pray to him and request something or ask him about something, that we're leaving it with him, and it's as good as done. when we leave it before him. In verse 1, we have faith explained. In verses 3 to 5, we have faith employed. We have three different examples given to us of initially of what faith is and how faith can be employed. And you know, faith needs to be employed. And as it is employed, it allows us to perform certain things. You know, like a muscle, it needs exercise to grow. So faith to develop needs to be exercised. We can't claim to have faith if we never use it. And here we have three examples, and the writer here pulls out three different areas and two certain characters that exercise faith, but it's for a general principle for where we as Christians employ faith in our lives. For example, in verse number three, it's our faith and the employment of our faith that we use to accept the Word of God. You know, as we, and here the writer goes back to creation, and he says, you know, as we look at creation, scientists look for tangible things and explanations, but it's the faith that we employ to say, you know, I don't understand why the world came into being. I don't know how it all came together, but what I do understand is that God spoke it into existence, and by faith I believe that. I don't know how he done it, but my faith tells me that I accept that God's spoken had happened. And as we move on from Genesis 1 right through to Revelation, it's my faith, even though I didn't walk with Abraham or David or Elijah or Paul or whatever, it's my faith that gives me the ability to know they were real people and gives me the belief that this Word is true. And so, we employ our faith to accept the Word of God. Verse 4 tells us that we employ our faith to ascribe worship to God. In verse number 4, we are introduced to Abel. And we're told how that Abel employed faith when he offered a sacrifice more excellent than Cain's. That was, he offered it in worship to God. And you know, Abel offered that sacrifice in faith. And he knew that what he was doing was worshiping the Lord and he'd done it by faith. And similarly, you know, we need faith and we come to a scribe, worship the God. We can't see the God we worship. But we worship him with the eye of faith and we particularly think about that as we come around the Lord's table. Verse number five. We don't only employ our faith to accept the Word of God and ascribe worship to God. But you know we employ our faith to ardently walk with God. We're told here that by faith Enoch was translated. That he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. And here we're introduced to this mysterious character Enoch. He was the man that didn't die. He was walking with God and God took him. And what does it mean here that he was translated? By faith Enoch was translated. Was it, you know, he had so much faith that he literally exited out of this world? Well, I think that relationship between verse 5 and verse 6 makes it very clear that by faith he lived. The walk that he walked was pleasing to God because he walked by faith. and day by day as he walked with God, his life was pleasing to God. Maybe God had revealed that he shouldn't see death or whatever, we're not exactly told. But there came the point, somebody has put it like this, Enoch walked so far with God that God looked at him and said, you're a long way from home now Enoch, just come home with me. But with this whole idea that a walk that pleases God is a walk walk of faith where we walk hand in hand with the Lord where we rely daily upon him and and by putting verses five and six together, we we get this idea that Enoch's walk Verse 1 gives us faith explained, and verses 3 to 5 is faith employed. Verses 7 to 40, we have faith exemplified. All the different characters and people in the Bible who use faith. But then it brings us back to verse number 6, and we have faith excluded. Right in the middle, we have this but. But without faith, it is impossible to please Him. And you know, a requirement for prayer is faith. We cannot expect to know the blessing or experience intimacy with God when we don't exercise faith. We can't expect, like Enoch, for our walk to please God if we walk without faith. I want you to notice what it says here. It doesn't say without faith it's hard to please God. It says without faith it's impossible. to please God. When we come to pray, remember, faith and prayer and prayer and faith go hand in hand. And you know, whenever God looks down in our prayer times, when he looks down at our prayer meeting, he sees our hearts. You know, God is not pleased when his children pray without confidence in him. That's what it means to pray without faith. It means to just say the words to put her hand in the post box but not let go of the letter. Faith is putting complete confidence in God. Little acronym sums it up so well. Faith, F-A-I-T-H, forsaking all, I trust him. Forsaking all, I trust him. And so we have a requirement for prayer. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. Let's turn that round. We need faith to please Him. A requirement for prayer. But then I want you to see, secondly, a recognition in prayer. Not only a requirement for prayer, but a recognition in prayer. Because the verse goes on, it says, It's just so important that we realize and recognize the one we are coming to and coming before. You know, and maybe this is human nature, but so often we fear the people we're sitting beside more than the one we're praying to. I don't want to pray in case I say the wrong thing or somebody judges me or, you know, I could never speak in public. And, you know, the fear of man is the snare of the devil. It doesn't matter about who's sitting beside us. It's a matter of the one before whom we're sitting before. We should fear him far more. We've got to realize that we're not coming before a meager man or some foreign being, but we're coming before the one true living and almighty God. And you know, again, this is where faith and sight, you know, are at opposites. You know, we fear those beside us because we can see them. We know they're listening. But by faith, if we exercise faith, we'll realize we're actually sitting before one much greater. Coming before him, we're told to have a recognition of him. We're told here very simply that we must believe that he is. What does that mean? That's a bit of an open-ended statement. We must believe that he is. That he is what? That God is what? Well, you know, there's two thoughts here. First of all, we must believe he's the one who exists. You say to me, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe God exists. Well, Thomas was a disciple of Christ, but yet he failed to believe that Christ existed, having been dead. Remember? The news was Christ is alive. He said, except I touched the nail prints in his hands. He was a true believer. He was saved. He didn't believe that Christ existed. And of course, Jesus comes to him and John 20 and 29, Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. But he says, blessed are they that have not seen and yet believed. You know, folks, tonight when we come to pray, we've got to believe that he exists, that God is actually here. Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst. You know, it's very hard for us to get our mind around the invisibility of God, but He is here. And He wants to hear us pray. You know, we've got to believe that God exists, and God is close, and God is concerned, that God isn't sitting so far away that I've got to shout to Him. Sometimes I laugh at the boys who sort of shout in prayer. They almost preach to God, and it's like, you know, God is here. You know, we don't need to shout at Him. He's close. He's concerned. He's connected. Prayer is a conversation, albeit a reverent one, but it's between us and our Father. Joe MacArthur puts it like this, well he actually quotes somebody else, he says, in his book, your God is too small. J.B. Phillips describes some of the common gods that people manufacture. One is the grand old man god, the grandfatherly white haired indulgent god, who smiles down on men and winks at their adultery, stealing, cheating, and lying. Then there are the resident policemen, a policeman god. whose primary job is to make life difficult and unenjoyable. And the God in a box, the private and exclusive sectarian God, the managing director God, is the God of the dais, the God who deigned and created the universe, started it spinning, and now stands by far away, watching it run down. Phillips concludes this, God is not pleased with belief in any of these idolatrous substitutes. We've got to believe. that he is the God of who he says, the I am, that it's the Lord Jehovah that we pray to. Not only do we have to believe that he is the one who exists, but here's a massive one. We've got to believe he is the one who's efficient. Truly believe that God is capable and competent, that our God is the God of the Bible. The one who really is, as Paul puts in Ephesians 3 and 20, able to do exceeding, abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that worketh in us. And we come to pray tonight. We've got to truly believe that he is the God of the impossible. The God who parted the Red Sea. The God who lit Elijah's all offering, though it was soaked in water. You know, the God that, the Christ that walked across the waters. All of the, the one that fed the 5,000 so we could go on. We've got to believe that he not only exists, but he's efficient, that he's able. Not just to do, but to exceedingly abundantly do above all that we could ask or even think. We've got to, as we think about this, we've got a requirement for prayer. We've got a recognition in prayer But then there's the reward from prayer. Because the verse goes on, without faith it's impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. You know, this has a lot to do with our attitude toward the life of faith, particularly faith and prayer. If we see faith is futile, and are resigned to the fact that prayer doesn't change things, and there's no real point to prayer, then we're just going through the emotions. But yet when we walk with God and talk to God, we must believe in the reward that comes with that. When we deliberately and diligently seek God in this life of faith, he rewards us. This word reward carries the idea of to pay one's wages. In other words, we're told the life of faith is not futile. We're rewarded by God in this life with intimacy of His presence. God Himself being our reward, drawing near us and going with us. Of course, there's a reward in the next life. Not only do we have the intimacy of his presence, but the reality of his presence. This life of faith, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 and 12, that now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face, now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known what a day it's gonna be when faith gives way to sight and we receive the reward. When it comes to prayer, we must believe in rewards too. The praying time's not wasted time. The prayer is not pointless. For as we forego confidence in ourselves and place full confidence in God, he rewards us. You know, answered prayer is a reward. Whatever the answer, it might not be our answer, but it's a reward that God has heard us and answered. You know, folks, knowing there's a reward for those who diligently pray, we've gotta pray expectantly. It's like that story that's been told hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways. I've kind of got the shortened version, and I think I've even used it here, but there's a drought continued for what seemed an eternity. A small community of farmers were in a quandary as to what to do. It was important to keep their crops healthy and sustain the way of life to the town people. The problem became more acute. A local pastor called a prayer meeting to pray for rain. Many people arrived. The pastor greeted most of them as they filed in, as he walked to the front of the church to officially begin the meeting, he noticed most people were chatting across the aisles and socializing with friends. And when he reached the front, his thoughts were on quieting the attendees and starting the meeting. His eyes scanned the crowd as he asked for quiet. And then he noticed an 11 year old girl sitting quietly in the front row. Her face was beaming with excitement. Next to her, poised and ready for use, was a bright red umbrella. Little girl's beauty and innocence made the pastor smile as he realized how much faith she possessed. No one else in the congregation had brought an umbrella or came to pray for rain, but the little girl had come expecting God to answer prayer. Isn't that a lovely illustration that she was beaming, she was excited, she came, just knowing that she was coming to a God who would answer. Oh, I trust that we have come with that heart tonight. As we diligently seek the Lord, may we do so with a faith that pleases him, praying in expectancy. Oh, as we look at this verse this evening, We have a requirement for prayer. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. A recognition in prayer. He that cometh to God must believe that He is. And that reward from prayer, that He is a rewarder of them, that diligently. seek him. So, let's seek the lord in a moment or two's time and let's really lay hold of the throne of grace and ask for the blessing of the lord. But before we do that, we're going to sing just a couple of verses before we come to pray. My faith looks up to thee, thy lamb of Calvary, savior divine. Now, hear me while I pray. Take all my guilt away. Oh, let me from this day be holy thine. We're going to sing just the first and the And then we'll get the prayer.