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Pastor Neil Silverberg opens the Faith, Hope, Love series by returning to one of the most familiar words in the Christian vocabulary and showing why it still needs to be carefully defined. Faith is a word believers use often, but familiarity can hide confusion. Hebrews 10 and 11 bring clarity by placing faith in the context of warning, endurance, promise, and worship. The writer of Hebrews does not treat faith as a vague religious feeling or a private optimism about life. He describes faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” and he does so immediately after urging weary believers not to shrink back.

Neil begins with the weight of Hebrews 10, where the warning is serious and sobering. The issue is not ordinary struggle, weakness, or the daily battle with sin that drives believers back to repentance and dependence on Christ. The warning is against apostasy, against trampling underfoot the Son of God and treating the blood of the covenant as common. These Hebrew believers had already suffered for their allegiance to Jesus. They had endured public reproach, imprisonment, compassion for those in prison, and even the plundering of their property. Yet they were being tempted to draw back. Into that moment, Hebrews says, “Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward,” and then adds, “You have need of endurance.”

That context matters because faith in Hebrews is not merely a beginning point. It is not only the moment someone first believes. Real faith continues. It endures when life gets hard, when promises feel delayed, when obedience is costly, and when the visible world seems to contradict the unseen word of God. Neil emphasizes that Hebrews 11 does not simply appear as a collection of inspiring stories. It flows out of the call to persevere. The saints of old are presented as men and women who lived by faith to the preserving of their souls. They trusted God’s promises enough to keep going.

Before defining biblical faith positively, Neil confronts two common distortions. The first is “blind faith,” which assumes faith means believing without evidence, reason, or regard for truth. That is not biblical faith. Scripture never calls God’s people to shut their eyes to reality or believe something irrational simply because belief itself is considered virtuous. Biblical faith is rooted in the character of God, the promises of God, and the acts of God in history. It is not faith in faith. It is trust in the living God who has spoken.

The second distortion treats faith as a spiritual force that believers can use to guarantee desired outcomes. In this view, words become containers of power, and if someone speaks with enough certainty, health, wealth, or success must appear. Neil distinguishes sharply between faith and presumption. Faith responds to what God has promised; presumption demands what God has not said. He illustrates this with a memorable story of a pastor friend who tried to “speak” a new Cadillac into existence, went to the dealership, chose the vehicle, and told the salesman that his father would come pay for it. But the father never came. The problem was not simply a lack of sincerity. It was presumption. God had not promised that car.

Neil contrasts that with a personal story from years ago when he needed a laptop for writing. His first instinct was to borrow the money, but his wife wisely asked whether they had prayed. They joined hands, asked God, and told no one else. A few weeks later, an envelope arrived with twenty one-hundred-dollar bills, exactly enough for the computer. Neil describes that as a prayer of faith, not because he had manipulated God, but because God had put faith in their hearts and provided according to his will. Faith is not a technique for controlling outcomes. It is a living dependence on the Father who knows what his children need.

From there, Neil offers four characteristics of biblical faith: faith is fully persuaded, faith trusts, faith works, and faith endures. Faith is fully persuaded that what God has promised will come to pass. Abraham becomes the central example. In Genesis 15, God told Abram that his own son would be his heir and that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars. Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness. Paul later quotes this in Romans 4 to explain justification by faith. Abraham’s faith was not confidence in favorable circumstances. His body was as good as dead, and Sarah’s womb was barren. Yet he grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

This is the heart of faith. It is not pretending circumstances are easy. It is not denying weakness, barrenness, delay, or human impossibility. It is being persuaded that God is able and faithful. Neil presses the question personally: are we fully persuaded that God will do what he has promised in Scripture? Are we fully persuaded regarding our eternal future, our salvation, our inheritance, and the promises secured in Christ? Biblical faith rests on God’s promise, not on visible probability.

Faith also trusts. Neil turns to Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Trusting God with all the heart means relying on him with the whole self, not only in good seasons but also in confusion and pain. Not leaning on our own understanding does not mean abandoning reason. Neil calls it a “reasoned trust.” God has given his people understanding, and they must use it. But human understanding is limited. There are seasons when believers do not know why something is happening, and faith means continuing to trust the sovereign God whose wisdom exceeds ours.

Psalm 32 deepens this picture. God promises, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” Neil explains that this image comes from the world of kings and servants, where a servant watched the king’s face closely and understood his will by the movement of his eyes. God does guide his people, but not as one guides a horse or mule with bit and bridle. He gives understanding, wisdom, and counsel. Faith, then, is active trust. It seeks God, acknowledges him in all things, and walks forward even when everything is not fully understood.

Faith works. Neil spends time reconciling what can appear to be a tension between Paul and James. Paul clearly teaches that sinners are justified by faith apart from works. Ephesians 2 says salvation is by grace through faith, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. This doctrine of justification by faith is foundational. God declares sinners righteous not because they have prayed enough, fasted enough, obeyed enough, or performed well enough, but because they have trusted in Jesus Christ, who was delivered up for their trespasses and raised for their justification.

At the same time, James says faith without works is dead. Neil explains that Paul and James are addressing different errors. Paul confronts those trying to be justified by their works. James confronts those claiming to have faith while showing no fruit. The reconciliation is simple and vital: we are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. Ephesians 2:10 says believers are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand. Neil notes that the word “workmanship” carries the idea of something God has made, even a masterpiece. The Christian does not work in order to become accepted by God; the Christian works because grace has made him new.

Finally, faith endures. Neil lingers here because endurance is central to Hebrews. The Greek word often translated “patience” is hupomone, meaning endurance or perseverance. It includes both submission under trial and the refusal to turn back. Faith stays under what God has permitted and keeps moving forward without shrinking back. Hebrews 10 quotes Habakkuk: “My righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But then comes the confidence: “We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

This endurance is not human grit detached from grace. Neil points to the promise that the one who began a good work will bring it to completion. True saints persevere because God perseveres in grace. Charles Spurgeon’s words capture it well: “The saints will persevere in holiness, because God will persevere in grace.” Faith endures because it is anchored in God’s sustaining power. Hebrews will show this through men and women who trusted God, some receiving miraculous deliverance and others suffering terribly without receiving the promise in this life. Both groups lived by faith. Faith does not always mean immediate rescue. Sometimes it means suffering faithfully, convinced that God’s promise is more real than present pain.

Hebrews 11:3 then lifts the eyes all the way back to creation: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.” Before the chapter gives examples of faithful people, it begins with the faithful Creator. God made all things ex nihilo, out of nothing. What is seen was not made out of visible things. The world rests on the word of God, and believers live by that same word. The God who spoke creation into existence is able to fulfill every promise he has made.

Neil closes with Hebrews 11:6: without faith it is impossible to please God, because whoever draws near must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Biblical faith believes that the God of Scripture is real, and it believes that seeking him is worth everything. The reward is not merely provision, though God does provide. The ultimate reward is God himself. Like the priests in Ezekiel who received no inheritance because the Lord was their inheritance, believers discover that the greatest gift God gives is deeper knowledge of himself.

In this opening movement of Faith, Hope, Love, faith is not shallow optimism, blind belief, or spiritual self-assertion. It is assurance rooted in God’s promises, conviction concerning what is unseen, trust in the sovereign Lord, confidence in justification by grace, obedience that bears fruit, and endurance that refuses to shrink back. The fitting prayer is the one the apostles prayed: “Increase our faith.”