Faith
Week 3 of 9 in Saved: Salvation Foundations
Some men came and told King Jehoshaphat, "A great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea; and, behold, they are in Hazazon-tamar" (2 Chronicles 20:2, ESV). Jehoshaphat was afraid. He proclaimed a fast, gathered Judah at the temple, and prayed:
✝️ 2 Chronicles 20:12 (ESV)
12 O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
The Spirit of the LORD came on a Levite named Jahaziel (2 Chronicles 20:14), and he answered: "the battle is not yours but God's" (2 Chronicles 20:15, ESV). Early the next morning the king stood before the army and said, "Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established" (2 Chronicles 20:20, ESV). He sent singers out in front of the soldiers: "Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever" (2 Chronicles 20:21, ESV). When they began to sing, the LORD routed the armies (2 Chronicles 20:22).
A king who was powerless, a God who was great, and eyes turned to Him. That is faith.
In one sentence: Faith is leaning your whole weight on God and on what He has finished in Jesus; Scripture surrounds you with people who did it, weak in themselves and made strong by the One they trusted, so imitate their faith and lean on Him every morning.
Key Takeaways
(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)
Lessons about Jesus
- Jesus finished the work. "It is finished" (John 19:30, ESV). "By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14, ESV). Faith rests on a work that is complete.
- Jesus heads the line of the faithful. After the witnesses of Hebrews 11 comes "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2, ESV).
- Jesus praises great faith in outsiders. To a Roman centurion: "with no one in Israel have I found such faith" (Matthew 8:10, ESV). To a Canaanite mother: "O woman, great is your faith!" (Matthew 15:28, ESV).
- Jesus reaches for the sinking. Peter cried "Lord, save me," and "Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him" (Matthew 14:30-31, ESV).
- Jesus stands at the door and knocks. He offers to come in and eat with anyone who opens (Revelation 3:20).
Memory verses
✝️ Romans 4:20-21 (ESV)
20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
✝️ Mark 9:24 (ESV)
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"
Be Transformed
- Think. The strength of faith is in the One you trust (Romans 4:20). Your salvation is finished: Jesus did the work, and God counts you righteous as a gift (Romans 4:4-5).
- Attitude. Rest. "Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his" (Hebrews 4:10, ESV). When you catch yourself trying to make it up to God, stop and thank Him instead.
- Do. Each morning this week, pray the father's prayer before anything else: "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV). Then read one life from Hebrews 11, and ask what that person knew about God that let them lean on Him.
Prayer
Father, you are the Rock, and your work is perfect. You are a God of faithfulness, and your mercies are new every morning. Thank you for your Son Jesus, who finished the work of our salvation on the cross and gives it to us as a gift, and who began our faith and will complete it. Thank you for Abraham and Sarah, for David and Jehoshaphat, for Daniel and his friends, and for those who taught us your word and showed us how to trust you. We are powerless, and our eyes are on you. Jesus, we hear you knocking; come in and eat with us. We believe; help our unbelief. Hold us steady until the going down of the sun, and teach us to live by faith in you, today and every day.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
Study outline
- What the words mean. Hebrew ʾaman, "to be firm," and the first places Scripture uses it: Abraham believing, and Moses' hands held steady.
- The righteous shall live by faith. Habakkuk 2:4, the verse the New Testament quotes for faith, given to a prophet told to wait.
- Imitate their faith. Hebrews' cloud of witnesses, and four pairs up close: Abraham and Sarah, David and Jehoshaphat, Daniel and his friends, and the centurion and the Canaanite woman, the two whose faith Jesus praised most highly. Each was weak, and each leaned on a great God.
- Small faith in a great God. The mustard seed, Peter on the water, and the father who asked for help to believe.
- Resting on a finished work. God's rest, wages and gifts, and the one work Jesus asks for.
- The door, every morning. Jesus knocking at Laodicea, and faith as a daily leaning.
- Discussion questions. Six, for a group or on your own.
What the words mean
Firm enough to lean on
The Hebrew verb is אָמַן (ʾaman, ah-MAHN, H539). Its root sense is to be firm, steady and reliable. In the form translated "believe" it means to treat something as firm, and so to lean on it. The word amen comes from the same root. To say "amen" is to say, "This is firm. I put my weight on it."
The first time the Bible says anyone believed, it is Abraham, on a night when he had no son and God told him to count the stars:
✝️ Genesis 15:6 (ESV)
6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
The Hebrew says he believed in the LORD (בַּיהוָה, ba-YHWH, "in the LORD"). Abraham's faith had a person as its object. He leaned on God, and God counted him righteous.
Hands held steady
The noun is אֱמוּנָה (ʾemunah, eh-moo-NAH, H530), firmness or faithfulness. It appears 49 times in the Hebrew Bible, and its first use is a picture. Israel was fighting Amalek, and as long as Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed. His arms grew tired.
✝️ Exodus 17:12 (ESV)
12 But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
"Steady" is ʾemunah. Moses' hands were firm because others held them up. The word begins with a picture of faith: firmness that comes from being held.
God's own character is the same word. "The Rock, his work is perfect... A God of faithfulness" (Deuteronomy 32:4, ESV). Isaiah made a pun on the root to a frightened king: "If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all" (Isaiah 7:9, ESV). Both halves are ʾaman. The same pair is on Jehoshaphat's lips at 2 Chronicles 20:20, "Believe (הַאֲמִינוּ) in the LORD your God, and you will be established (וְתֵאָמֵנוּ)," which the ESV Study Bible reads as drawing on Isaiah 7:9. Lean on God, and you stand on the one thing that is firm.
Faith in Scripture is putting your weight on God, because He is the one thing that will hold it. The Greek New Testament carries this into πίστις (pistis, G4102, "faith") and πιστεύω (pisteuō, G4100, "believe"), which appear 242 and 241 times.
The righteous shall live by faith
Habakkuk's question
Habakkuk prophesied as Babylon was rising. He complained that God was doing nothing about injustice in Judah, and God answered that He was raising up the Babylonians to judge it (Habakkuk 1:6). That made it worse: how could a holy God use a nation more wicked than the one it punished? God told the prophet to write the vision down and wait for it. "If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come" (Habakkuk 2:3, ESV). Then He gave the heart of His answer:
✝️ Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)
4 "Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
In context, the swollen soul is Babylon and its king, whose pride the rest of the chapter judges in five woes (Habakkuk 2:6-20); the Pride study follows its Hebrew word to Kadesh. The righteous person takes God at His word about a vision that "will surely come" and lives by leaning on the God who gave it. The ESV Study Bible sums him up as one who relies on God.
The New Testament quotes this verse three times as its text for faith (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38). Paul quotes only the second half. Hebrews quotes it and then spends a whole chapter showing what living by faith looks like.
What is contested here
The first half of the verse is hard Hebrew. The CSB's translators footnote it "Hb obscure," and translations differ over how to read it. The Greek Old Testament reads it differently again, and Hebrews quotes that form: "if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him" (Hebrews 10:38, ESV).
The second half is also read two ways. ʾEmunah can mean "faith" or "faithfulness," and the CSB and LSB footnote "Or faithfulness." The Greek Old Testament has "by my faithfulness," which would make it God's. Both readings are true to the root. The righteous live by leaning on God, and what they lean on is His faithfulness. Paul quotes it as "The righteous shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17, ESV) and builds on the believer's trust, the same trust Abraham showed in Genesis 15:6.
Imitate their faith
A cloud of witnesses
Straight after Habakkuk 2:4, Hebrews 11 opens, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, ESV). Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses and Rahab follow, introduced one after another with πίστει (pistei, G4102), "by faith." Then the letter turns to you: "since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1, ESV). At the head of the line is "Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2, ESV), who ran that race Himself to the cross. The Greek has "the faith," and the ESV supplies "our"; either way, Jesus begins faith and brings it to its end.
Hebrews tells you twice to copy them. Be "imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Hebrews 6:12, ESV), μιμηταί (mimētai, G3402). And of the leaders who first taught them: "Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith" (Hebrews 13:7, ESV), μιμεῖσθε (mimeisthe, G3401).
What you copy is where they looked. Hebrews sums up a whole line of them as people who "were made strong out of weakness" (Hebrews 11:34, ESV). The verb, ἐδυναμώθησαν (edynamōthēsan, G1412), is passive: they were given strength. The ESV Study Bible suggests the phrase was written with the readers' own weaknesses in mind (Hebrews 4:15). Four pairs show the pattern up close, some from Hebrews 11 and some from beyond it.
Abraham and Sarah: God was able
Abraham was about a hundred years old, and the promised son had not come. Paul tells you what he looked at:
✝️ Romans 4:19-21 (ESV)
19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Abraham looked squarely at his own body and at Sarah's womb, and both were as good as dead. Then he looked at "the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Romans 4:17, ESV). "Grew strong" is ἐνεδυναμώθη (enedynamōthē, G1743), passive again: he was strengthened, and it happened "as he gave glory to God." Faith gives God the credit for being able. Abraham's faith was also uneven. He had laughed at the promise (Genesis 17:17), and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible reads Paul as describing the main course of his life. God kept the promise.
Hebrews says the same of Sarah. She "received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised" (Hebrews 11:11, ESV). "Faithful" is πιστός (pistos, G4103), from the same family as pistis. Her faith was a judgement about God: He was trustworthy.
Years later God told Abraham to offer Isaac, and Abraham went. "He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead" (Hebrews 11:19, ESV).
David and Jehoshaphat: the battle is the LORD's
David went out to Goliath with a sling and five stones, and he said what he was trusting:
✝️ 1 Samuel 17:45, 47 (ESV)
45 Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. ... 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hand."
Hebrews names David among those who "through faith conquered kingdoms" (Hebrews 11:32-33, ESV). David's confidence was the name of the LORD of hosts.
Jehoshaphat, generations later, heard the same truth from Jahaziel (2 Chronicles 20:15), as this study opened. The ESV Study Bible notes that in that battle God alone acts, and Judah's part is to pray, trust His word, worship Him and watch.
Daniel and his friends: able, and good
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood before Nebuchadnezzar with the furnace already heated:
✝️ Daniel 3:17-18 (ESV)
17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."
They were sure of God's power. What God would do with it was in His hands, and they trusted Him with that too. The ESV Study Bible reads "But if not" the same way: God's power is sometimes shown in deliverance and sometimes withheld while His people suffer. Hebrews remembers them as those who "quenched the power of fire" (Hebrews 11:34, ESV), an identification the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible both make.
Daniel came up out of the lions' den unharmed, "because he had trusted in his God" (Daniel 6:23, ESV). The Aramaic is הֵימִן (heymin, H540), the Aramaic form of the same root as ʾaman. Daniel leaned on his God, and Hebrews remembers those who "stopped the mouths of lions" (Hebrews 11:33, ESV).
Others in the chapter saw no rescue. "Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life" (Hebrews 11:35, ESV); others were stoned and killed with the sword (Hebrews 11:37). "And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised" (Hebrews 11:39, ESV). Their faith rested on the God who promised, and He keeps His promises past death.
Two outsiders Jesus praised
Matthew records Jesus praising faith in the strongest terms twice (Matthew 8:10; 15:28). Both times the person is a Gentile asking for someone else, and both times Jesus heals from a distance. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible notes how closely the second story recalls the first.
The centurion: only say the word
A Roman officer in Capernaum came about his servant, "lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly" (Matthew 8:6, ESV). Luke adds that the servant "was highly valued by him" (Luke 7:2, ESV). Jesus offered to come, and the centurion answered, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed" (Matthew 8:8, ESV). He too was a man under authority: he gave an order and it was done (Matthew 8:9). He measured Jesus' word by Jesus' authority. In Luke the Jewish elders plead, "He is worthy to have you do this for him" (Luke 7:4, ESV), and the centurion sends word, "I am not worthy" (Luke 7:6, ESV).
✝️ Matthew 8:10 (ESV)
10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.
"Go; let it be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed "at that very moment" (Matthew 8:13, ESV).
The Canaanite woman: crumbs from the table
In the district of Tyre and Sidon a woman came crying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon" (Matthew 15:22, ESV). Jesus "did not answer her a word" (Matthew 15:23, ESV). The disciples asked Him to send her away, and He said He was "sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24, ESV). She knelt, προσεκύνει (prosekynei, G4352), the word for bowing in worship, and said, "Lord, help me" (Matthew 15:25, ESV).
✝️ Matthew 15:26-28 (ESV)
26 And he answered, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 27 She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 28 Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.
Little dogs under the table
The usual New Testament word for "dog" is κύων (kyōn, G2965), and its five uses are street dogs, or the word used as an insult: the dogs that licked Lazarus's sores (Luke 16:21), "Do not give dogs what is holy" (Matthew 7:6, ESV), "Look out for the dogs" (Philippians 3:2, ESV), the dog that "returns to its own vomit" (2 Peter 2:22, ESV), and the dogs outside the city (Revelation 22:15). Here Jesus says κυνάριον (kynarion, G2952), a diminutive, "little dog." It appears four times in the New Testament, every one of them in this conversation (Matthew 15:26-27; Mark 7:27-28). The ESV Study Bible says the form "suggests" a household pet, and reads the exchange as Jesus testing her faith.
The woman's answer shows that she heard it that way. She kept His word, κυνάρια, and put the dogs in the house: they eat "the crumbs that fall from their masters' table" (Matthew 15:27, ESV), "the dogs under the table" (Mark 7:28, ESV). "Masters" is κυρίων (kyriōn, G2962), the same word as the "Lord" (Κύριε) she has just called Jesus. A household dog belongs to the house and is fed from its table. So she took the place His words gave her, "Yes, Lord," and argued from the abundance of the Master's table: a crumb from it was enough to free her daughter. Jesus accepted her reading: "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter" (Mark 7:29, ESV).
The household-dog reading is probable, and it is contested. The NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible says that among Jews dogs "were not household pets but wild scavengers," and the ESV Study Bible grants the same of Palestine's dogs before turning to the diminutive. On that reading the saying keeps its sting and her answer turns it. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes how harsh "dog" was as an insult, while observing that it is not used as a direct label here. The case for the household dog is the word Jesus chose, the table she placed the dogs under, and the answer He gave her.
What Jesus praised
These two show you what great faith looks like:
- They saw who Jesus is. The centurion saw an authority in Jesus' word that needed no journey. The woman called Him "Lord, Son of David," Israel's King, from outside Israel.
- They came on His mercy alone. "I am not worthy." "Have mercy on me." "Yes, Lord." The ESV Study Bible calls hers an "attitude of humble faith."
- They kept asking. The woman met silence, a refusal and a hard saying, and she knelt and asked again.
- They trusted His word. One asked only for a word, and the other answered His word with one of her own. Each received "as you have believed," "as you desire."
- They asked for someone else. A servant and a daughter. Both brought another person's need to Jesus.
Their faith was great because they saw how great He is. They made a small claim on Him and held a large view of Him, and Jesus called that great faith.
What they share
Each of them was weak at the point where they trusted: an old body and a barren womb, a boy facing a giant, a king with too small an army, three men before a furnace and one in a den of lions, two Gentiles with no claim on Israel's Messiah. Each looked at God: the God who gives life to the dead, the LORD of hosts, the faithful one who promised, the God who is able to deliver, the Lord whose word is enough and whose crumbs are enough.
And each then went where God sent: Abraham to Moriah (Genesis 22:2), David running toward the battle line (1 Samuel 17:48), Jehoshaphat out to the wilderness of Tekoa (2 Chronicles 20:20). James says of Abraham at Moriah that his "faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works" (James 2:22, ESV). Leaning on God shows itself in going where He sends.
Small faith in a great God
The mustard seed
The disciples had just failed to heal a boy, and asked why. Jesus answered, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move" (Matthew 17:20, ESV). Some manuscripts read "your unbelief" (CSB footnote); in the text the ESV follows, He rebukes little faith and praises seed-sized faith in one breath, so the likeliest reading is that He is measuring where their faith rested. A mustard seed is tiny. What moves the mountain is God, and a tiny faith in a great God is enough, because the weight is on Him.
If you worry that your faith is too weak, look at what Jesus measured: the seed, and the God it is planted in. He asks you to lean on Him, and He does the lifting.
"Why did you doubt?"
Jesus called His disciples ὀλιγόπιστοι (oligopistoi, G3640), "you of little faith," five times in the Gospels, on four occasions, once to Peter alone. Each time they were afraid or anxious: about food and clothing (Matthew 6:30; Luke 12:28), in a storm (Matthew 8:26), sinking (Matthew 14:31), and over forgotten bread soon after He had fed five thousand and then four thousand (Matthew 16:8-10). The ESV Study Bible reads the word as faith in short supply, still present. Each time Jesus names it and then provides: He promises to clothe them, calms the sea, catches Peter, and reminds them of the baskets left over. Little faith is faith whose eyes have moved from God to the need. The best-known is Peter on the water. Peter asked to come, Jesus said "Come," and Peter walked on the water toward Jesus.
✝️ Matthew 14:30-31 (ESV)
30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"
Peter's faith got him out of the boat. What went wrong was where he looked: "when he saw the wind." The word for "doubt," διστάζω (distazō, G1365), is used twice in the New Testament, here and at Matthew 28:17. It means to waver or hesitate. Peter's weight shifted from Jesus to the storm. And even then, Jesus caught him "immediately." His faithfulness held when Peter's faith failed. "If we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13, ESV).
Peter seems to have learned it. Years later he wrote of "casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7, ESV), the passage the humility study treats in full. The answer to little faith is to look at Him.
"Help my unbelief"
A father brought his son, tormented by a spirit since childhood, and said to Jesus, "if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us" (Mark 9:22, ESV). Jesus threw the "if" back at him: "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes" (Mark 9:23, ESV).
✝️ Mark 9:24 (ESV)
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"
This is faith at its most honest. The father believes, and he knows his belief is not enough, so he asks Jesus for that too. Jesus healed the boy on the faith the father had.
Your faith is held up by Christ, too. Grace, faith and all are "the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8, ESV), as the Assurance of Salvation study shows from the grammar.
Resting on a finished work
Rest from your works
The letter to the Hebrews reads the wilderness generation as a warning to Christians, and its text is Psalm 95: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts" (Psalm 95:7-8, ESV, quoted at Hebrews 3:7-8). The psalm ends with God's oath, "They shall not enter my rest" (Psalm 95:11, ESV). Hebrews gives the reason (the Pride study tells that day at Kadesh): "So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19, ESV). Then it tells you what believing looks like:
✝️ Hebrews 4:9-10 (ESV)
9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
God rested on the seventh day because His work was finished (Genesis 2:2). You enter His rest the same way: by trusting that the work is finished and stopping your own. Jesus said "It is finished" (John 19:30). Faith takes Him at His word.
Wages and gifts
Paul explains how faith receives:
✝️ Romans 4:4-5 (ESV)
4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
Work earns wages, and wages are owed. Faith receives a gift. God "justifies the ungodly," so the people He declares righteous had nothing to bring. "That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace" (Romans 4:16, ESV). And grace stays grace: "if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace" (Romans 11:6, ESV).
Paul learned this in the worst season of his ministry. In Asia he "despaired of life itself" (2 Corinthians 1:8, ESV). "But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:9, ESV). God let Paul come to the end of himself so that he would put his weight on God. The tax collector in Jesus' parable stood far off and said, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13, ESV), and he "went down to his house justified" (Luke 18:14, ESV). He brought nothing.
This is where humility and faith meet. Humility is living before God as someone who depends on Him for everything. Faith is that dependence at the point of salvation. Both say, "I have nothing in my hand."
The one work
A crowd once asked Jesus, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" (John 6:28, ESV). They asked about works, plural. Jesus answered with one: "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (John 6:29, ESV). The one work God asks for is to trust His Son.
The door, every morning
He is knocking
The last of the seven letters in Revelation goes to Laodicea. It opens with Jesus' name for Himself: "The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness" (Revelation 3:14, ESV). The Greek is ὁ Ἀμήν (ho Amēn, G281), the Hebrew word carried straight over. When you believe, you say amen to Him. The church had stopped leaning on Him and was saying, "I need nothing" (Revelation 3:17, ESV; the Pride study looks at the city behind those words). Jesus counsels them to "buy from me" (Revelation 3:18, ESV), and they have nothing to buy with. The ESV Study Bible hears Isaiah behind it: "he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price" (Isaiah 55:1, ESV). It is grace offered to people who have to admit they are poor to receive it.
✝️ Revelation 3:20 (ESV)
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
"I stand" is ἕστηκα (hestēka, G2476), a perfect form: Jesus has taken His stand at the door and is still there. "Knock" is present tense, and He is knocking as He speaks. He is patient. He waits to be let in. And what He wants is fellowship: to "eat with him, and he with me." In that world a shared meal meant a restored relationship.
Opening the door is hearing His voice, admitting your need, and letting Him in. Who the verse is for first, and what it says about the church at Laodicea, is for a fuller study on the backlog.
Every morning
You open the door more than once. A church can drift into self-sufficiency, and so can any believer. Faith is a daily leaning, as the Lord's Prayer asks for bread "this day" (Matthew 6:11). The writer of Lamentations, traditionally Jeremiah, sat in the ruins of Jerusalem and wrote:
✝️ Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)
22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
"Faithfulness" there is ʾemunah. God's firmness is new every morning, so your leaning can be too. Each day Jesus is at the door. Each day you can pray with the father, "I believe; help my unbelief," and with Jehoshaphat, "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you." Faith like that brings nothing, and it is enough because it rests on Him.
Discussion questions
- The language. The first use of ʾemunah is Moses' hands held steady by Aaron and Hur (Exodus 17:12). What does it say about faith that the word begins with someone being held up?
- The text in its context. Habakkuk was told to write the vision down and wait for it (Habakkuk 2:3-4), and Hebrews quotes Habakkuk 2:4 just before a chapter of people who waited. What does waiting have to do with faith?
- Christ. Jesus praised the faith of a centurion who said "only say the word" (Matthew 8:8) and of a woman who said "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs" (Matthew 15:27). What did each of them understand about Jesus?
- The examples. Abraham considered his body "as good as dead" and was "fully convinced that God was able" (Romans 4:19-21). Of the people in this study, whose faith do you most need to imitate now, and what did they know about God?
- The hard part. Daniel's friends said, "But if not" (Daniel 3:18), and Hebrews says others, "though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised" (Hebrews 11:39). How do you trust God when you do not know what He will do?
- Be transformed. Hebrews 13:7 tells you to consider the faith of those who taught you God's word. Whose faith will you imitate this week, and what would it look like to open the door to Jesus tomorrow morning and say, "I believe; help my unbelief"?
Group study sheet for a 40-minute group: two A4 sheets, or one with the guided path
The point, the passage, the questions and the response, from this study. Print on both sides of two A4 sheets, flipping on the long edge. While this block is open, printing the page prints the sheet; close it to print the study.
Faith
Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 11:1-40The point Faith is leaning your whole weight on God and on what He has finished in Jesus; Scripture surrounds you with people who did it, weak in themselves and made strong by the One they trusted, so imitate their faith and lean on Him every morning.
Ask: What is faith?
Hear a few answers before anyone reads.
Habakkuk 2:4 4Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright—but the righteous will live by faith—
Hebrews 11:1-40 1Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. 2This is why the ancients were commended. 3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous when God gave approval to his gifts. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. 5By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6And without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. 7By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in godly fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 8By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going. 9By faith he dwelt in the promised land as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith Sarah, even though she was barren and beyond the proper age, was enabled to conceive a child, because she considered Him faithful who had promised. 12And so from one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. 13All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14Now those who say such things show that they are seeking a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. 17By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac on the altar . He who had received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.” 19Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and in a sense, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Also read: Hebrews 11:1-40 from 11:20
Faith
- What the words mean. Hebrew ʾaman, "to be firm," and the first places Scripture uses it: Abraham believing, and Moses' hands held steady.
- The righteous shall live by faith. Habakkuk 2:4, the verse the New Testament quotes for faith, given to a prophet told to wait.
- Imitate their faith. Hebrews' cloud of witnesses, and four pairs up close: Abraham and Sarah, David and Jehoshaphat, Daniel and his friends, and the centurion and the Canaanite woman, the two whose faith Jesus praised most highly. Each was weak, and each leaned on a great God.
- Small faith in a great God. The mustard seed, Peter on the water, and the father who asked for help to believe.
- Resting on a finished work. God's rest, wages and gifts, and the one work Jesus asks for.
- The door, every morning. Jesus knocking at Laodicea, and faith as a daily leaning.
Faith
1The language. The first use of ʾemunah is Moses' hands held steady by Aaron and Hur (Exodus 17:12). What does it say about faith that the word begins with someone being held up?
2The text in its context. Habakkuk was told to write the vision down and wait for it (Habakkuk 2:3-4), and Hebrews quotes Habakkuk 2:4 just before a chapter of people who waited. What does waiting have to do with faith?
3Christ. Jesus praised the faith of a centurion who said "only say the word" (Matthew 8:8) and of a woman who said "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs" (Matthew 15:27). What did each of them understand about Jesus?
4The examples. Abraham considered his body "as good as dead" and was "fully convinced that God was able" (Romans 4:19-21). Of the people in this study, whose faith do you most need to imitate now, and what did they know about God?
5The hard part. Daniel's friends said, "But if not" (Daniel 3:18), and Hebrews says others, "though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised" (Hebrews 11:39). How do you trust God when you do not know what He will do?
Faith
6Be transformed. Hebrews 13:7 tells you to consider the faith of those who taught you God's word. Whose faith will you imitate this week, and what would it look like to open the door to Jesus tomorrow morning and say, "I believe; help my unbelief"?
- Think. The strength of faith is in the One you trust (Romans 4:20). Your salvation is finished: Jesus did the work, and God counts you righteous as a gift (Romans 4:4-5).
- Attitude. Rest. "Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his" (Hebrews 4:10, ESV). When you catch yourself trying to make it up to God, stop and thank Him instead.
- Do. Each morning this week, pray the father's prayer before anything else: "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV). Then read one life from Hebrews 11, and ask what that person knew about God that let them lean on Him.
No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Romans 4:20-21 (ESV)Father, you are the Rock, and your work is perfect. You are a God of faithfulness, and your mercies are new every morning. Thank you for your Son Jesus, who finished the work of our salvation on the cross and gives it to us as a gift, and who began our faith and will complete it. Thank you for Abraham and Sarah, for David and Jehoshaphat, for Daniel and his friends, and for those who taught us your word and showed us how to trust you. We are powerless, and our eyes are on you. Jesus, we hear you knocking; come in and eat with us. We believe; help our unbelief. Hold us steady until the going down of the sun, and teach us to live by faith in you, today and every day.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
Faith
Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 11:1-40Open Ask: What is faith?
Hear a few answers before anyone reads.
Read it aloud Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 11:1-40
1The language. The first use of ʾemunah is Moses' hands held steady by Aaron and Hur (Exodus 17:12). What does it say about faith that the word begins with someone being held up?
2The text in its context. Habakkuk was told to write the vision down and wait for it (Habakkuk 2:3-4), and Hebrews quotes Habakkuk 2:4 just before a chapter of people who waited. What does waiting have to do with faith?
3Christ. Jesus praised the faith of a centurion who said "only say the word" (Matthew 8:8) and of a woman who said "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs" (Matthew 15:27). What did each of them understand about Jesus?
4The examples. Abraham considered his body "as good as dead" and was "fully convinced that God was able" (Romans 4:19-21). Of the people in this study, whose faith do you most need to imitate now, and what did they know about God?
5The hard part. Daniel's friends said, "But if not" (Daniel 3:18), and Hebrews says others, "though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised" (Hebrews 11:39). How do you trust God when you do not know what He will do?
6Be transformed. Hebrews 13:7 tells you to consider the faith of those who taught you God's word. Whose faith will you imitate this week, and what would it look like to open the door to Jesus tomorrow morning and say, "I believe; help my unbelief"?
- Think. The strength of faith is in the One you trust (Romans 4:20). Your salvation is finished: Jesus did the work, and God counts you righteous as a gift (Romans 4:4-5).
- Attitude. Rest. "Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his" (Hebrews 4:10, ESV). When you catch yourself trying to make it up to God, stop and thank Him instead.
- Do. Each morning this week, pray the father's prayer before anything else: "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24, ESV). Then read one life from Hebrews 11, and ask what that person knew about God that let them lean on Him.
Faith
The point Faith is leaning your whole weight on God and on what He has finished in Jesus; Scripture surrounds you with people who did it, weak in themselves and made strong by the One they trusted, so imitate their faith and lean on Him every morning.
References & Recommended Reading
- ESV Study Bible (Crossway) — notes on Habakkuk 2:4, 2 Chronicles 20:1-30 and 20:20-23 (the Isaiah 7:9 background), Matthew 6:30 (little faith as faith in short supply), Daniel 3:18, Matthew 8:10, Matthew 15:26-28, Hebrews 11:34 and Revelation 3:14-22, including the Isaiah 55:1 background to Revelation 3:18.
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Romans 4:20 (Abraham's laughter and the course of his life), Matthew 15:26-28 (dogs; the echo of Matthew 8), Hebrews 11:34 and Revelation 3:20 (the letter addressed to church members first).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Matthew 15:26 ("dog" as an insult) and Revelation 3:20 (the meal as covenant fellowship).
- Christian Standard Bible and Legacy Standard Bible — translator footnotes at Habakkuk 2:4 ("Hb obscure"; "Or faithfulness").
- Macula Hebrew (WLC) and Macula Greek (SBLGNT) — occurrence data for אָמַן, אֱמוּנָה, πίστις, πιστεύω, ὀλιγόπιστος, διστάζω, δυναμόω and κυνάριον, and the forms at Romans 4:20, Hebrews 6:12, 11:11, 11:34, 13:7 and Revelation 3:20; the Aramaic of Daniel 6:23.
- Septuagint lemmas (Open Scriptures Septuagint Project) — the Greek of Habakkuk 2:4.
On this site
- In Humility — living before God as someone who depends on Him for everything.
- Pride — self-sufficiency, and the pride that tries to earn what God gives.
- Assurance of Salvation — the grammar of Ephesians 2:8-9, and how you can know you have eternal life.
- The Woman Who Touched the Fringe — a woman twelve years unclean who reached out and touched Jesus.
- The Lord's Prayer — "Give us this day our daily bread."