What then is faith? It is what gives assurance to our hopes; it is what gives us conviction about things we can't see. It is what the men and women of old were famous for. It is by faith that we understand that the worlds were formed by God's word; in other words, that the visible world was not made from visible things.
It was by faith that Abel offered a better sacrifice to God than Cain. That earned him the testimony that he was in the right, since God himself bore witness in relation to his gifts. Through faith, he still speaks, even though he's dead. It was by faith that Enoch was taken up so that he wouldn't see death; nobody could find him, because God took him up. Before he was taken up, you see, it had been said of him that 'he had pleased God.' And without faith it's impossible to please God; for those who come to worship God must believe that he really does exist, and that he rewards those who seek him.
Keep the faith! Ok, what is faith? Well we see here what it does it gives assurance to our hopes. Here the author launches into some deep theology, but then backs off and returns to the Hebrew scriptures to put the powerful narratives that his audience had understood since their youth the work. Between Cain and Enoch we have two men who truly believed that God existed. It wasn't just a cultural thing they did to express and cope with things they did not understand as with the idols and narratives found in other cultures. With everything they were they sought God and trusted in Him. That's faith. Faith heals, saves and rewards with God himself. It gives assurance of our hopes. What are our hopes if we already have God and trust God? If our lives are lined up with who God is then our hope is a future with the one true and living God revealed in Jesus. Our hope is in his judgment, that is to say that the good, creator God loves his creation and will act decisively time and again and finally to set things right. Our hope is in resurrection, that though all things must die they will rise again and be better than we can ask, think or imagine. Our hope is in a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells.
If we are to truly worship God with living sacrifices we must truly believe he's there, present and available to love us and be love in us. Then we can trust Him with full assurance of the future he has promised that is not disconnected from this world, but is being reconciled to this world all things on earth and in heaven. In it, but not of it. So we can live and act as though everything we do in this life matters, because we are promised that nothing we do in faith assured by the hope of the resurrection future, none of it will be lost (1 Corinthians 15v58)
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