NEW YEAR - 2018: Our Battle To Improve

Why do New Year's resolutions rarely work? Mostly because they are things that we "want" to change or implement in our life but are not fully committed to before we begin. We are initially motivated by the "idea" of this new resolution without the full commitment of our will.

The battles for change are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God's presence, never in full view of the world.

Last week in our study of Hebrews we talked about running the race of faith. It is a race that requires endurance. To make a positive change in your life you must not only be fully resolved in your will, but must also endure. The journey to your goal will most likely be challenged by life's many landmines and roadblocks. There will no doubt be plenty of reasons to make excuses as to why you must forego your resolution and return to your old habits.

As the year is fresh and your desires are strong, get alone with God and explore your desires for improvement and change. Ask Him to direct you in the areas that are in most need of change. Let your driving motivation to change or improve be something that will bring glory to God. 

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

Where The Battle Is Won or Lost - My Utmost for His Highest

The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world. The Spirit of God apprehends me and I am obliged to get alone with God and fight the battle out before Him. Until this is done, I lose every time. The battle may take one minute or a year, that will depend on me, not on God; but it must be wrestled out alone before God, and I must resolutely go through the hell of a renunciation before Him. Nothing has any power over the man who has fought out the battle before God and won there. If I say, “I will wait till I get into the circumstances and then put God to the test,” I shall find I cannot. I must get the thing settled between my self and God in the secret places of my soul where no stranger intermeddles, and then I can go forth with the certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity and disaster and upset are as sure as God’s decree. The reason the battle is not won is because I try to win it in the external world first. Get alone with God, fight it out before Him, settle the matter there once and for all.

In dealing with other people, the line to take is to push them to an issue of will. That is the way abandonment begins. Every now and again, not often, but sometimes, God brings us to a point of climax. That is the Great Divide in the life; from that point we either go towards a more and more dilatory and useless type of Christian life, or we become more and more ablaze for the glory of God — “My Utmost for His Highest.”

HEBREWS: Lesson 23 - Run for your Life - 12:1-4

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!

Chapter 12:1-4

The Scriptures often visualize the Christian life by using many illustrations and figures of speech. As we read the Bible we must do as Paul said in 2 Timothy 2:7: "Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this."

The Christian life is pictured as - Warfare; a wrestling match; boxing match; slavery; a farming operation; a marriage; a father/son relationship. (2 Timothy 2:3, 6; Ephesians 6:12; 6:10-17; 1 Corinthians 9:26; Romans 6:18; 7:25)

A Race of Faith

In this lesson we looked at how the Christian life is a "race". Paul compared the Christian life to a race on several occasions:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize." (1 Corinthians 9:24)

"You were running a good race." (Galatians 5:7)

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:14)

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7)

After completing the great chapter on faith (Chapter 11), the author of Hebrews starts Chapter 12 by referring to the Christian life as a "Race of Faith": "...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us..." (v. 1)

In the Greek, the word for "race, struggle, or contest" is agon (with a long "o"). Sound familiar? It is the root of our word "agony". Meditate on that for a minute and it should help you better understand the difficulty of living the Christian life. It is not easy. That is why it requires your total commitment.

Run Forrest, Run!!!

In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest was required to wear leg braces after a doctor diagnosed him as having a crooked spine, although he had strong legs. In a clip from the movie, I showed Forrest being chased by bullies wanting to beat him to a pulp. As Forrest responds to Jennie's cries to "Run, Forrest!!", he awkwardly attempts to flee, hobbling down the dirt road. While straining to run, suddenly, the braces on his legs start to break off. Once they are off, he "runs like the wind", escaping the three thugs on bikes. From that point on, Forrest said, "If I was going somewhere, I was running!"

What better illustration is there for us to visualize the effort and urgency for us to RUN!!!

So what are we running from? We are running from "the sin which so easily entangles us..." (v. 1) You are running from the enemy (Satan). You are running "for your life".

What are you running to? Paul said, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead." (Philippians 3:12). We are running the race of faith to bring God glory. Our prize is to finish well and to finally be joined with Christ in our heavenly home.

The outline for Sunday's lesson:

1. Event – “…the race that is set before us.” (Marathon, not a sprint). It is a race of endurance. We are not to sit around, but to put forth every ounce of energy. "Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria." (Amos 6:1)

2. Encouragement – “…we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” (those mentioned in Chapter 11 who ran with faith and endurance). They are not watching us, cheering us on. They are our witnesses because they have finished the race.

3. Encumbrances – “…let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily entangle us…”

    - 1 Peter 2:1: Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. The smallest of sins holds us back. We all have particular weaknesses. Those are the sins which "so easily entangle us..."

    - The worst weight when running a “race of faith” is unbelief or doubt.

4. Example – “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

    - Baseball player (Batter and Fielder) keeps eye on ball

    - Football player (QB and Receiver) keeps eye on ball

    - Track runner keeps focused on finish line not those behind him.

Philippians 3:12: "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it [the prize]. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,"

5. Exhortation – When you get weary and faint… (v. 3) “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Who is in the race? If you are a believer, you are in the race!

HEBREWS: Lesson 22 Faith Part 4

We've seen in chapter 11 the author's immense attempt to show that salvation comes by faith and faith alone, and that those who belong to God walk by faith as well. It is both the faith of the sinner that initiates salvation and the faith of the saint that marks his ongoing sanctification.

After looking at What Faith Is, we turned to What Faith Does. The author used 16 people from the past to attempt to show that it has always been faith, not works, that is the basis of our salvation and sanctification. Through the lives of these people we've seen that true faith is "...the conviction of things not seen." True faith believes God without having to see proof.

An often quoted verse in Romans 8:28 says: "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose." Paul used two very defining words in this verse: "know" and "all". This is the kind of faith we must have; a faith that knows and believes all that God has said.

This past Sunday we looked at Abraham and Sarah - (vs. 8-19)

The Jews took all of their lineage back to Abraham. The author establishes that Abraham lived by faith and therefore all Jews must also live by faith.

Abraham has been used often as an illustration of faith: Acts 7 - Stephen uses Abraham as an illustration of faith; Romans 4 & Galatians 3 - Paul uses Abraham as an illustration of faith.

5 Standards (features) of Faith

1. The Pilgrimage of Faith - separation from the world.

(v. 8) “By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after received for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing where he went [where he was going].”

2. The Patience of Faith - waiting for God to work while focused on Heaven.

(v. 9) “By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise;” (v. 10) “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

3. The Power of Faith - doing the impossible.

(v. 11) “Through faith [not Sarah’s faith] also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him faithful who had promised.” (12) “Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.”

4. The Positivism of Faith - focusing on God's eternal promise and believing that it's guaranteed.

(v. 13) “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” (16) “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.”

5. The Proof of Faith - obedience and sacrifice

(vs. 17-19) By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. (see Genesis 22:1-18)

Test of Faithfulness

It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.

Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son. (December 18 - My Utmost for His Highest) 

Christmas Party - 2017

 

HEBREWS: Lesson 21 - Faith Part 3

FAITH in the face of DEATH - (vs. 20-22)

Who do you know, respect, and possibly admire whose life exemplified endurance and perseverance in their faith and walk with Christ up until the end? For me, it was a grandmother who walked with Christ up until her last day. When I reflect on my remembrance of her I see a woman who put Christ first.

Faith endures and perseveres in obedience to the end. This is how we mark the life of a true believer. Endurance and perseverance in obedience is the common thread that connects all of the examples the author is showing us in chapter 11. This chapter is sandwiched between several verses where we see the author emphasizing the need for endurance to continue strong to the end. Not giving up! Two examples below:

"For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise." (10:36)

"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us..." (12:1)

I mentioned three character traits that are enemies to endurance and perseverance (can be seen in any endeavor in life):

1. The Dabbler (gives up): Someone who begins with great zeal and desire but soon loses interest and quits, moving on to something new to "dabble" in.

2. The Obsessive (burns out): Someone who loses balance and pours every ounce of their lives into it for a period of time and soon burns out and quits.

3. The Hacker (gets by): Someone who reaches a certain level in their journey and stops learning and growing. Their decision to just "get by" and not keep pushing forward is a decision to fall away. We are either moving forward or falling back. In time, the hacker will lose what he has gained.

The people of faith that the author references in chapter 11 were not dabblers, obsessive, or hackers. They were persistent people who ran with endurance to the end of their lives. We see in these three verses (vs. 20-22) that their faith was strong, even in the face of death.

These three, short verses mention 3 of the 4 great patriarchs: Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Why did the author only allocate three verses for these men when the story of their lives consumed 38 chapters in Genesis (12-50)? The reason he only had to mention them briefly, beginning with "By faith...", is because his audience of Hebrews were intimately familiar with these men. The mere mention of their names was all that was needed to make the connection of their lives with the concept of faith.

In verse 13, the author connects the fact that even at the point of death, having not seen the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, they still had faith to believe. All these died in faith without receiving the promise.

Next week we will complete this great chapter on FAITH!

HEBREWS: Lesson 20 - Faith - Part 2

Last week we looked at "What FAITH is..." This week we started looking at "What FAITH does..."

Beginning in verse 4 of chapter 11, the author shows his Jewish audience/readers that "faith" is not something new. He goes all the way back to the time of Adam and uses sixteen people who demonstrated the kind of faith that exemplifies the definition found in verses 1: "Now faith is the substance/realization of things hoped for, the evidence/conviction of things not seen."

We began by looking at Moses. "By faith Moses..." (vs. 23-29)

Moses is a great example for the author to use because the Jews always associated Moses with the law--the great Mosaic Law. He was also the greatest of the Old Testament figures. Since the Jews lived by works not faith, seeing that Moses was a man of faith makes him a great standard. Looking at Moses we see the decisions that faith makes--what faith accepts and what it rejects.

NOTE: The record of the life of Moses covers the Old Testament from Exodus, chapter 2 to Deuteronomy, chapter 34. Almost four of the books of the Pentateuch are about Moses.

The Decisions of Faith

Faith REJECTS:

1. The world's prestige (v. 24) - "...refused to be called the son of the Pharaoh's daughter."

2. The world's pleasure (v. 25) - "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season."

3. The world's plenty (v. 26) "Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt..."

4. The world's pressure (v.27) "By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king..."

Faith ACCEPTS:

1. The Lord's plans (v. 23) - "By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child [fair unto God]..."

2. The Lord's provisions (v. 28) - "Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them."

3. The Lord's promises (v. 29) - "By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians attempting to do were drowned."

Faith is very decisive, and life is made up of decisions. From the time that you wake in the morning, you begin a process of making decisions. At every juncture of your life you are either fulfilling the will of the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit, or you are fulfilling your own will and quenching the Spirit. And so you go through life making the decision to be filled or to quench the Spirit. You go through your life deciding for the will of God or against it. When you're spiritually mature, there's no more decision because both of the wills always agree.That's real maturity.

So as we come to Moses, we are zeroing in on the decisions that faith makes. When somebody really believes God; when somebody really trusts in God and believes that God honestly and truly has his best interest at heart, then he will, on the basis of that trust, make certain decisions. And those decisions become the decisions that really govern his temporal existence and his eternal existence as well.

Now, the writer of the book of Hebrews has presented, for ten chapters, the new covenant. And he's presented it to people tied to the old covenant, namely the Hebrews. And he has tried to show them that they can leave Judaism, they can leave the old covenant and they can come all the way to Jesus Christ. And then he introduces the concept of faith at the end of the 10th chapter by saying, now the only way you'll ever apprehend the new covenant is by faith. He makes it clear that "faith" isn't anything new because your own prophet Habakkuk said "the just shall live"...what?..."by faith."

So the author says the only way they will ever be able to get a grip on the new covenant in Christ... which brings a man into God's presence and forgives his sin and give him eternal life... is by faith.

Next week, we will look at another example of faith.

HEBREWS: Lesson 19 - Faith - Part 1

Today we started a two-part lesson on Chapter 11, titled: FAITH.

Part 1 - What FAITH is...

Part 2 - What FAITH does...

Chapter 11 was motivated from the author's quote that we find in chapter 10:38 which says: "Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him."

This verse was a quote taken from Habakkuk 2:4. The same verse was quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11. The author was showing the Jews that "faith" has been the determining factor for justification long before Christ and the New Covenant. We will see next week how the author goes back to the time of Adam to show that God's plan for redemption has always been by faith, not by works.

HISTORY

In the Hebrew culture and in the Hebrew society, first century Judaism, the dominating religious thought was that of the Pharisees since they subscribed to the highest level of devotion to the Mosaic law and took the law to its very nth degree most seriously.

They were sort of the reigning religious authorities. According to the Pharisees, righteousness (being right with God) forgiveness from sin, and ultimate salvation could only be achieved through a rigorous system of meritorious works. In other words, you sort of saved yourself by your religious activities and by your moral duties.

The Pharisees believed that if you just kept God's law, and the 600+ additional traditional laws that had been added to the law of God, and you accomplished some level of confidence in keeping those laws, you gained enough meritorious works to have purchased your righteousness, your forgiveness, and your ultimate place in the eternal kingdom.

SPECULATIVE FAITH vs. SAVING FAITH

It is possible to have faith that is not saving faith. This is best illustrated by events in our everyday life. Here are a few examples:

1. You exercise faith every time you drink the water from the facet in your home or water fountains at work and school, although you have no idea what creatures might be "playing in the pipes." The water might look clear but who knows what lives in the water that you can't see.

2. You drive around town, up and down hills, speeding to and fro, always having faith that, when needed, your brakes will work.

3. You go to the drug store and get the medicine your doctor prescribed and do as instructed: Take 1 tablet, 3 times each day. You have faith that the chemical you drop into your body will make you feel better instead of making you sick, or even worse.

4. You have faith that the surgeon who tells you that you "must have surgery" knows what he is talking about and that he is competent to cut you open and play around inside your body--possibly removing valuable pieces. Oh you say, "the government has certified my doctor." Okay, then you have faith that "the government" has a certification process that you can trust.

5. You board a jet airplane, get comfortably seated and strapped in, and have faith that the pilots (who you can't see and have probably never met) are competent and physically able to takeoff, cruise, and land the jet. You say again, "the government has certified the pilots."

The kind of "faith" required to drink tap water, drive your car around town, take a pill, have surgery, or fly on a jet airplane is natural faith based on experience that tells us that generally we can trust these things to work as they should without causing us harm.

The kind of faith that is classed as saving faith is a faith in the supernatural--a supernatural conviction based on no experience. We have never seen Heaven and never received a postcard from someone we know who has gone there. Saving faith implicitly takes God at His word about the future. Saving faith translates the promises of God for the future into the present tense.

In John 2:23-24 and 66-71 we see that Jesus differentiated between someone who had saving faith and someone who had speculative faith.

23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. 24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,

66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. 67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” 68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” 71 He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.

SAVING FAITH is...

- a belief and a conviction that changes your life; changes the way you are; it affects your character, convictions,  and your will... and ultimately your behavior.

- believing in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to the degree that you are completely satisfied with Him so as to commit your life to Him in loyalty, faithfulness, allegiance, submission, duty, fidelity, obligation.

- a conviction practically operative on the character and will, and thus opposed to the mere intellectual ascent to religious truth.

BIBLICAL DEFINITION OF FAITH

Our text today gives us a Biblical definition of faith:

(11:1-3): "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 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."

THREE ELEMENTS OF FAITH (reference verses above)

1. KNOWLEDGE (v. 3): "By faith we understand..."

The mind understands the truth; the Gospel.

2. ASCENT (v. 1): "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for..."

The emotional element where your heart is drawn to what your head has learned.

3. TRUST (v. 1): "Faith is the conviction of things not seen."

The voluntary element where you make a commitment. I pledge to Him my commitment, my life, my loyalty, my trust. Without commitment there is no real faith.

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Saving faith has all three elements: knowledge, ascent and trust. As a result there will always be a change in character, behavior, and attitude toward sin for anyone who has a saving faith in the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Hebrew author is pulling out all the stops to show the Jews who have not yet turned fully to Christ and are wanting to return to Judaism that they must trust in the things that are not seen. That is the condition that will reserve them a place in God's eternal kingdom.

Next week, we will look at the 19+ people who the author uses to show the Jews WHAT FAITH DOES.