Living by Faith, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Today is the first message in a sub-series called Living by Faith. The word faith is thrown around in both religious and secular circles.

You might hear it on a Disney movie, at a football game, or at a healing service. The word faith can be ambiguous and confusing today. What does the Bible mean when it calls us to live by faith? In today's message, Pastor Rich teaches from Hebrews 11, 1-6, explaining the difference between biblical faith and hoping blindly on a whim. He also explains that the objective of faith is not to feel better and shares the real reason for walking by faith.

Let's listen in. I want you to imagine for a moment that you have just found out that you have a rare and terminal illness, and you sit down with your doctor. Is there any hope, you ask? Well, says the doctor, there is one thing. Without this one thing, it's over. But with this one thing, you will be completely healed.

But let me be absolutely clear, it's impossible for you to live without this one thing. How would you respond to that? Would you say something like, listen, doc, you're boring me.

My favorite TV show is coming on in five minutes, and I don't want to miss it for anything. So if you don't mind, maybe we can talk about this later. I'll see you another time. Or would you be one that says something like, well, that's interesting, doc, but that's your opinion. You're completely entitled to your opinion, but I really don't appreciate you cramming it down my throat. I just don't want to hear any more of it.

Would you respond that way? Or would your response look something like, what is it, doc? Tell me now.

I have to know what this is. Please tell me, and I won't leave until you do. Of course, the only sane response is the last one, right? If we are saved by faith, and if we live by faith, it is impossible to please God without faith. Therefore, the only reasonable response, those are the truths that the Bible reveals to us. Therefore, the only reasonable response to that is, what is faith? I have to know what faith is.

I'm not leaving until I find out what it is. The just shall live by faith, the Bible says. The just shall live by faith. We have to know what that faith is. There's a lot of things running around today called faith. There's a lot of things running around even in the Christian church called faith, and they're not faith. We have to know what faith is.

Let's get to the bottom line from the text today. Consider what it says in verse 26. If we sin willfully. Now what you have here is the next warning in the letter to the Hebrews. Remember a while ago we considered several warnings.

This is the next one. This is a warning. If we sin willfully. Now, a lot of people take that and just make it a general concept that if the Christian does any sin willfully, then they're headed for fiery indignation. And some people use this to argue what I believe to be an errant theology, that you can lose your salvation. That's not what the writer of Hebrews is saying here. We have to understand this in its context. What is the context of what he's been saying so far? The writer of Hebrews is writing to a people, generally speaking to a church of the Hebrews, but within that church there have been people who have been teetering on the fence and they're thinking, you know, this Christianity, this following God thing, this trusting Christ is a hard thing. I don't think I'm just going to go back to Judaism. Just tell me what to do. All I have to do is follow the law.

You know what? There's no persecution for the Jews, but the Christians, they're really having a hard time. So I'm just going to go back there and just forget Christ.

I don't need him. I'm going to go back to the sacrifices. I'm just going to do what I've been told to do and I'll be happy with that. That is what the writer of Hebrews means by sinning willfully. Meaning, if you make the conscious choice to trust something else, in other words, to not trust Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but you trust something else, then you have chosen something that cannot make you right with God.

You have chosen to trust something that cannot reconcile you to God. The sacrifices of the Old Testament were insufficient. They were not God's ultimate plan. They were not God's ultimate remedy.

They were simply a foreshadowing of the reality that was to come in Jesus Christ. And if you abandon that reality, then you are abandoning all hope. And that's exactly what the writer of Hebrews is saying.

Because look what he says. If you sin willfully, what lays ahead for you? A fiery indignation and a judgment. Meaning, you are still under the wrath of God if you reject Jesus Christ. And you are due for the final wrath of God. And the only thing that rescues you from that is to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. What is the bottom line then to what the writer of Hebrews is saying? The bottom line is this.

It is a question. Have you been reconciled to God? Many of you in here this morning, if not almost all of you, grew up in Christian homes. Not all of you did.

I understand that. But many of you have been in the church for a long time. Some of you probably feel like you oozed into the kingdom of God.

This warning is for you. Each one of you, I'm speaking to you individually this morning, you have to ask yourself the question, have I been reconciled to God? I did not ask you, have you been faithful at church? Have you been doing all the right things that a Christian is supposed to do? I did not ask those questions.

The question I am asking is plain and simple. Have you been reconciled to God? This is what the writer of Hebrews is presenting. What is the purpose of such a warning as this?

The purpose of the warning is personal assessment. I need to ask myself this question, have I been reconciled to God? It goes like this. Remember the analogy we had before? Do you have both feet in the boat? That dock represents what leads up to the boat. That represents man's obedience to the law. That represents man doing the things he's supposed to do. Listen, man doing the things he's supposed to do does not reconcile you to God.

If you have been counting on all your life doing the things that a Christian does, that's not what reconciles you to God. You're walking on the dock and expecting to get to the other side of the lake. There is a storm brewing and the Lord Jesus is the boat and you have to have both feet in the boat if you are to be rescued off of that island. Do I have both feet in the boat? Because what the whole book of Hebrews, the letter to the Hebrews is about is people who have a foot in the boat, they're associated with Christianity but they still have a foot on the dock.

And that's why the writer wrote this letter to the Hebrews. It's specifically to those people who have a foot on the dock and they're saying, you know, I'm just not sure I'm ready to commit to Jesus Christ all the way. I'm keeping a foot on the dock because you know what, if things get hard, I'm just going to go back to the way things were because it's a little more comfortable there.

Do I have both feet in the boat? You ask yourself that question this morning. Have you wholly entrusted yourself to your rescuer Jesus Christ?

This is the warning of the writer of Hebrews. Here's the simple truth, okay? Let's not complicate things. Either you trust or you don't. Either you trust or you don't.

There are only two stages to biblical faith. There's the yes and there's the no. Either you trust or you don't. If I trust this chair, what am I going to do? I'm going to sit in it. When I sit in the chair, I enjoy its comfort. This is as far as I'm going to go with this chair.

I'm not resting in this chair, am I? I'm really not trusting it. It's a very simple illustration of what faith is. You see, the test of faith is this. It's not how much you believe. And this is where the whole idea and the whole notion of faith has gone awry, particularly in the West and particularly in the last five or six decades. It's not about how much you believe.

The question is, what is the object of your faith? Are you trusting the dock, which represents all the good things you do? Or are you trusting, are you completely trusting the rescuer, the boat, who will get you off of the island of doom?

Because there is a fiery storm brewing. It's not about how much you trust, but it's about what the object of that trust is. You see, faith is not quantifiable. The Bible does not present faith as something that's quantifiable.

In other words, the more I believe something, the more I have faith, the more it becomes true. I was watching the third game of the World Series last night. It's in Detroit. You talk about the fans being taken right out of the game. By the way, San Francisco is up three games to nothing. They beat the Detroit Tigers last night, okay? And in the stands, you've got all these people holding up these signs, we believe, we believe. And I'm sitting here asking myself, okay, what is it you believe? And if you were to ask them that question, they would say, well, we believe that the Tigers will still win. Really? Has anybody told you that?

Do you have any reasonable information that will lead you to place your confidence in that, that the Tigers will win the World Series, now that they're down three games to none? You see, that's the whole notion that if I believe more, the more I believe, the more something becomes true. There are whole churches built on that kind of theology today. It is errant. Faith is not a quantifiable thing.

It is either you trust or you don't. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.