Sermon Tone Analysis

Faith to Change the World

Faith to Change the World

video

Hmmm, what a sad reflection on the state of the body of Christ - the church.

I say this because it’s reflected in our politics, relationships, broken families, poor finances, failing churches, and constant mass casualty events in this country.

We’re fine in trusting God on the little things in our lives - so long as we have evidence of His faithfulness in replication...

It’s why we pray the same recycled prayers - “thank You for this food… now I lay me down to sleep...” - the same generic prayers - “God, bless me with health.. bless me, my mama, my daddy...” -, and the same little prayers - “Lord, help this car to start...”.

It’s tough to witness to people for the purposes of “winning the world for Jesus,” when all we can testify to is “I didn’t die when I ate my food, my car turned on, and I found $20 in my pants that I folded.”

And make no mistake about it, we - for those of us left here - are called to witness, to testify to who Jesus is, what He did for us, as to His love for us, and the gift offered to everyone.

We’ll explore this in our scriptural text, , and illustrate winning the world through faith via the book of Daniel.

Let’s pray.

prayer

Hebrews 12:1-2

Τοιγαροῦν

I love how this text begins with therefore - toigaroun.

This tells you there was something else stated before this that leads to the subsequent conclusion.

“… since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses...”

So, looking back to chapter 11, we’re able to see just who the author’s referring to .

So, looking back to chapter 11, we’re able to see just who the author’s referring to .

These individuals who are rooting us on, and to whom we can look at as inspiration, are members of the Faith Hall of Fame.

And as verse after verse lists what the OT heroes were able to accomplish by faith, it also highlights the significance of faith in our walk.

It begins telling us what faith is:

What faith helps us understand:

It tells us what our faith means to God:

Hebrews 11:

And in part what our faith can help us accomplish:

Hebrews 11:

The end of v33 and beginning of 34 reference Daniel and the three Hebrew boys.

Let’s explore their story to see how faith helped change the world!

Verse one is telling us that we believers are running this race of life, and it’s a race that should be run at a pace set for endurance.

Here’s our summaries:

I. King Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem and brought the Jewish creme de la creme to Babylon as captives with the hopes of assimilating them the Babylonian culture.

-4

Now, before these guys go to utilizing big faith that would lead them to defeating “burning fiery furnaces” and lions, the utilized faith in God’s faithfulness in what many would consider trivial things:

Daniel 1:8-

For their faith in and obedience to God, they were rewarded and elevated:

Daniel 1:17

But understand this, their promotion wasn’t just for their own good or comfort.

God had a plan.

Chapter 2 begins with the king having some dream issues.

Daniel is called upon, in faith gives God glory, and performs.

The king is impressed, rewards Daniel again, and recognized the God of Daniel as the greatest of all gods:

Daniel 2:

But not the only...

But God isn’t done yet.

Daniel uses his favor to promote the 3 Hebrew boys, and God continues to move.

We know of the faith displayed by the Hebrew boys, and God showing up in the fire.

Result: the king declares

Daniel 3:

The king has added to the fact that our God is the greatest of gods, the proclamation of consequences for those that speak against our God.

But God’s not through with him, yet.

So, cutting across the field, here’s the point.

God worked through His faithful servants to reach sphere’s of influence to effectively change the world as it stood.

Under the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar held a press conference on CNN.

Here’s what he said:

Daniel 4:34

Under Persian rule, God still working through His men, King Darius holds his own press conference on ABC’s 20/20:

Daniel 6:26-27

Now that we’re able to see how a life of faith (which begets obedience) can allow God to work through us in powerful and miraculous ways for the purposes of saving souls!!!

Back to our original text:

Verse one is telling us that we believers are running this race of life, and it’s a race that should be run at a pace set for endurance.

How do we do it?

First let’s get rid of the things that hold us back and slow us down.

See, it’s not just the sinful things that slow us down in the Christian walk/race.

The things that clings so closely:

Euperistatos

(ee-peree-statos) can also be translated to mean: easily ensnaring, obstructing, and constricting.

Some of us are holding on to relationships (while not sinful, necessarily) are holding us back.

So of us are placing way too much weight into government and legislation, and not focusing on our walk.

Some are too consumed in our “blackness” and not in our Christ-ness.

These are all things that slow us down in the race, this competion, this fight.

Yes, we are in competition with the world for the souls of the lost.

We’re here to walk/ run this race of endurance for the sake of winning these lost for Jesus.

And right now, we’re losing… but our race isn’t over.

If we’re still breathing, we can still do what we’ve been called to do.

So the way we win is to stay focused on Jesus.

Everytime you lose focus in your race, sure, you can look at our cloud of witnesses - our Faith hall of fame members - but our focus should be on Jesus.

Focus on what He did, what He gave up, and why He did it.

Put on the proper shoes, and get rid of the things weighing you down.

Fear, anger, depression.. these are lies from the devil.

Put on your belt of truth.

Stop lying, cheating and stealing, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Ephesians 6:

Put on the full armor of God, live a life of faith and obedience, and God will indeed work through us to win this world for their gain and His glory.

And while the eternal rewards are forever worth it.

There’s some other good news.

We don’t have to wait until then to experience what God has for us.

David tells us:

Psalms 27