What are you holding on to?
Deeper Faith • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 4 viewsWhat actually is faith? How do we see it or use it, or now if we have it?
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
There are many people today living in hopelessness. They believe that life is not worth it, I give up, I cant take it anymore, there is just too much craziness going on. They have a sense of sadness, despair and desperation. Before we start thinking about the homeless and the abandoned, let us remember that church folks, folks that have good jobs, folks that seemingly have great lives live in a state of sorrow and depression. (mo money, mo problems) This book, this sermon was written to a people that converted to Christianity but then life set in. The Jewish Christians were probably going thru some persecution, socially and physically from both Jews and from Romans! Imagine being in a place where you are not accepted and your own people disown you. To add to that, Christ had not returned so the people needed to be reassured about Christ and the Good News. The author of Hebrews starts this book by pointing out that Judaism and Christianity are both revealed by God. But also shows that Jesus is superior. It explains that Christianity surpasses Judaism because it has a better covenant, a better sanctuary, and a more sufficient sacrifice for sins. The readers are asked to hold on, tell the person next to you to hold on, encourage each other and look forward to Christs return. They are warned about the consequences of deliberately sinning after we hear the truth. You see they wanted to hold on to their traditions and their rituals because they were “comfortable” with them. Tell the person on the other side of you to hold on to the right thing! But also reminded the readers of the rewards for faithfulness...
Scripture:
Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.
For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:
“For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see.
Title, Prayer:
What are you holding on to?
Application:
Many people start a new year of with resolutions and commitments to put the previous year behind them in search of new things to happen in the new year. Here is the problem with resolutions. They are based on what we, in the flesh, have decided is the best course of action to try to not live thru the same things we lived thru the year before. We go into the new year being tethered to the things that happened the year before. We base our new decisions on old information. This is the newness of the text that we have heard over and over. The new question is, What are you holding on to? When we look at what people say faith is today, it looks like New decisions based on old information. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. (Today, I hope they fall off a bridge…today, I hope I hit the lottery…today, I still dont like this person or that person…)
There are people that live their lives based on something that happened to them 30 years ago. That man left you 30 years ago and today you still saying all men are dogs. That girl didnt treat you right 20 years ago and today you still dont trust women. Folks are still mad at people that have been dead for 10 years. You can SAY you moved past it, but your actions tell a different story. What you DO shows more of where you are hurt than your words do! What are you holding on to?
What am I trying to tell you? Faith is only as meaningful as the substance it is attached to. If your faith is attached to unsubstantial things, then your faith will be insufficient because of what it is attached to. The amount of your faith is not revealed by the size of your faith, it is proven by the substance it is attached to.
If your faith is attached to money, you will only go as far as your last paycheck. That’s why some folks and money hungry. They believe that money will get them everything they need and so they can never have enough.
If your faith is attached to your position or your popularity, you will only go as far as your followers carry you. But the moment you do something that the followers dont like…folks are getting cancelled left and right.
Exegesis:
Faith is not based on the natural
Faith is not how you feel about something. We all have strong feelings about things. Positive and negative feelings. Christ had feelings, anger, sadness. But feelings are based on circumstance. You wait til the wind blows...We cant say we have faith in God but we draw back (revert, shrink, fall back…) to the old way we deal with things. We then tell God he is a liar! Well, if we dont believe Him...
Faith is not based on what you see. The word tells us that we walk by faith and not by sight. The things we see are misleading because we see them from OUR lens. We see them from the vantage point of our experiences. The grass is greener on the other side of the fence. We look at stuff and think thats better than my stuff…But we dont know the story behind that greener grass. We see things and think “I can probably do that, based on what I see”. thats not faith, thats ability!
Faith is based on the supernatural
Faith is confident trust in Gods promises. Its the evidence of things not seen. When you live based on Gods promises, His strength is able to carry you when you feel weak, or when temptation comes, or when circumstance comes knocking on your door.
Faith is attached to hope in Christ. We can have a small amount of faith in the Almighty God and accomplish more than having great faith in anything else. We just need to walk in it. We need to act like it. We need to live by it. Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Benediction:
What are you holding on to?