- The difference between living with your focus on
- the visible world
- vs. the invisible world of God’s promises
- and how this will change your life.
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Video cover image by Bradley Hook www.pexels.com
- How can you please God?
- Please him the most? —a single word!
- Note that in English we have two words, faith and trust but in the Bible they are just one word
- Usually it is translated faith in our Bibles, but it has changed it’s meaning to “general spirituality”
- Trust: Someone whose trust is in Jesus Christ
- What is the most important thing we need to have to keep us following God in this World?
- Of course the most important thing is the Spirit
- But the second (linked to this) is an understanding that there’s a spiritual reality, that is more real than the physical reality we see around us.
- Another word for that is trust in God
- Because it’s trust in God that enables us to lay hold of the unseen world and treat is as if we can see it.
- This is one of the threads running though Hebrews
- We’re going to trace those threads today.
- Here is how today’s passage fits into the flow of the whole of Hebrews
Structure of Hebrews
✓✓ Jesus! his throne is forever and ever 1:5–14
Pay attention to what you hear, don’t drift away 2:1–4
Brothers & sisters of Jesus, living in his victory 2:5–18
Therefore: fix your thoughts on Jesus 3:1 O.T. warning—don’t follow negative examples 3:2–4:13
Approach God’s throne with confidence—find grace 4:14–16
New High Priest after order of Melchizedek 5–7:28 The point of what we’re saying: New Covenant 8 A New way to God and a New sacrifice 9:1-10-18 Draw near to God with sincere heart, full assurance 10:19–25 O.T. —be inspired by positive examples 10:26–39,11 Therefore: Let us fix our eyes on Jesus 12:1–2 God’s sons and daughters! live in New Covenant 12:3–24 Don’t refuse him who’s speaking and turn away 12:25✓✓ Jesus! The same yesterday, today and forever 13:1–20
- He has given us these amazing truths, but if we don’t believe them, it counts for nothing!
- A recap on the social culture of the time
1. The True Reality
- We measure ourselves in these visible categories
2: Reasons
- lived 4000 years ago in a prosperous city called Ur, (near modern-day Kuwait)
- God told him one day to leave his home and to set off on a journey
- He was to spend his whole life, travelling around, living in tents
- He would have no home, because God had promised him a future home
- There were two realities for Abraham:
- Earthly reality
- No home, living in a tent
- no children
- destined to die wandering around Palestine
- Were those three things true? —yes!
- Spiritual reality
- God was preparing an eternal home for him
- He was going to have children as numerous as the sand on the seashore
- He had a destiny as one of the great figures of history
- Earthly reality
- Both realities were true
- Now which reality do you think was most real for Abraham?
- It depends on what kind of a day he was having!
- He wavered between. There was a tension. But he persevered!
- Now which reality do you think was most real for Abraham?
Israel in the Wilderness
- Hebrews 3 gives an contrasting example of the Israelites crossing the wilderness
- Earthly reality
- They had left all their comforts in Egypt and were living in tents
- The same food every day, and they were getting fed up with it
- They often ran out of water
- The land they were supposed to be going to was populated by large, well-armed forces
- All true
- Spiritual reality
- They were promised great comfort and wealth in the future
- They didn’t have to worry about food, drink or clothing
- They would easily be able to defeat their enemies
- Earthly reality
- Both realities were true
- Now which reality do you think was most real for almost all the Israelites?
- What Hebrews 3 says they lacked was faith.
- Faith lets you grasp the invisible true reality
- Earthly: very poor, this money is all she has for food
- Spiritual?: God has say he will honour those who honour him
- 1805-1898 Bristol, England
- After weeks in prayer, he became convinced that God was asking him to start an orphanage, specifically to demonstrate how he would supply all their needs
- This sort of event happened 100’s of times and was very well documented
- Amazing Story from From Chapter 14: God will supply [pp. 166–168]
- His spiritual reality was that God had commissioned him to start an orphanage which would demonstrate answers to prayer.
- The spiritual reality became the physical reality through prayer and trust.
- The world is coming to an end, and what God has promised will become visible
- The point of the message is not this chart, but your own challenge
- Where do you need to take your eyes off the visible and have them firmly fixed on the promises of God!
3. Results
- Results of having a firm faith
- Confidence (my translation to capture the idea in the original)
4. Route
- So what is the route to having more faith
- Jesus enables us
- Eyes fixed on him
- Jesus the pioneer
- rest in him [4:1–11] (another sermon)
- he is the compassionate High Priest [5:2–3]
- He is able to deal compassionately with those who are ignorant and erring, since he also is subject to weakness,
- and for this reason he is obligated to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.
- He understands our weakness!
- What evidence do you have?
- Mark Twain defined faith as “believing what you know ain’t true.
- “Evidence based community”
- There is so much evidence for Christianity—what is called apologetics (another sermon series)
- What evidence do we have already as a reason to believe God ?
- see lives changed – Evident in the lives of other Christians
- He is changing us
- Video series on archeology (not made by Christians)
- Isaiah in DSS —99.9% identical
- supernatural events
- answers to prayer
- inner “knowing” that it is true
- The Spirit
- see lives changed – Evident in the lives of other Christians
- Mark Twain defined faith as “believing what you know ain’t true.
- Humans are social beings
- One thing that makes it harder for us to have faith in the unseen is being surrounded by people who would laugh at that viewpoint
- We cannot help but be influenced by those around us, or in the media, no matter how much we think we are like a rock
- Hebrews has a remedy for that: meeting regularly with other believers
- Meeting together regularly [10:25]
- example of coal from a fire
- another plug for homegroup
- Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy (Atheist)
- The biggest problems we are facing are so small in the eternal scheme of things
- “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun” (help in ages past)
So what is your reality?
- Is life hard at the moment? —don’t give up!
- Are you having trouble with relationships? —put it in perspective!
- Need more money to make ends meet? (The God who “owns the cattle on 1000 hills knows your needs)
- anxious —what is the very worst that could happen? (die and go to heaven)
- We measure ourselves and make performance goals for ourselves that God has not made for us —other people
- Allow God to define what it means for you to be successful
- It is all about getting the right perspective
- How can I make my faith stronger?
- “Enable us to live our lives in this reality, understanding what you have for us.”