Even Our Faith: Part 5-Those Who Do Not Shrink Back
June 11, 2023
This is episode 5 of our series “EVEN OUR FAITH” working to discover exactly what it means to live an LIFE of OVERCOMING VICTORY…
We’ve studied that this FAITH comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of [GOD].… so let’s all read together and HEAR together…and let faith grow…
:: 1 John 5:1-4 (NIV) :: 1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. PPT 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. ::
Now tonight, instead of doing a ton of RECAP, let’s just hit a couple of highlights by filling in some blanks… and get to some NEW MATERIAL:
First: FAITH is something you HAVE and BELIEVING is what you DO .
Jesus said in Mark 11:22-24 “Have faith in God. (faith is what you HAVE) …Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe (believing is what you DO) that you have received them, and they will be granted you ::
Here we had an amazing question & discussion that tied in BRILLIANTLY with the rest of the message: What does this passage mean in terms of the ‘name-it-claim-it’ gospel that seems so prevalent? Here is the gist of the discussion: The FIRST words Jesus said were “Have FAITH in God…” As we’ve learned, faith is God’s supernatural power, it comes from HIM…so “whatsoever we desire when we pray” should be things that COME FROM HIM…not from our imagination or simple earthly pleasures. If the DESIRE doesn’t come from faith (God’s Word bringing supernatural hope for it…), it’s not likely to be part of God’s will and it’s not likely to be granted. Our ‘desire’ should be for HIM first…and in prayer ASKING HIM for what we should ‘desire’… then as we BELIEVE (our response to the FAITH that comes from His word), we will have His will, that has now become our desire, granted. Wow.
Therefore: You DO what you {have FAITH to} BELIEVE .
Believing has an implied ACTION step that means if you’re DOING things you don’t really want to be doing,
you may not BELIEVE what you say you believe…You say, “I hear you but I keep falling for the same set of temptations because of the trauma from my past… same jealousy & distrust from my parents divorce or affair… same alcoholism that my uncle faced… same weaknesses in sexual purity from when I was a teenager…” Right…But ask yourself honestly: do you believe in the family BONDAGE to your or someone else’s addiction more than you believe in the FREEDOM that the blood of Christ has given you?…
Romans 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
So if we’re DOING the wrong DOING, maybe we’re not COMPLETELY BELIEVING what God has said in His Word…that we HAVE by FAITH.
We’ve already spent a good deal of time on our FAITH/BELIEF comparison chart…
Then last week we talked about how to ADD to our faith…
… 2 Peter 1:5-9 :: add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
SO THAT we wont be “ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now tonight we’re going to find out the RESULT of living in this kind of faith (John said, This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.) and read a lot about people that OVERCAME the world by their faith…
New passage:
Hebrews 10:36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For,
“In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay.”
38 And,
“But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
We mentioned this passage a couple of weeks ago in passing because of vs 38, But my righteous one will live by faith.… because we were talking about how that’s a CROSS REFERENCE to a passage in :: Habakkuk 2:4 (NASB)
But tonight I want to focus on the last portion that says, ”we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”
When we talk about the fact that 1 John 5 teaches us that FAITH is our VICTORY… This is what we’re talking about… the writer of Hebrews is giving us a direct EFFECT of this victory over the world by saying that FAITH causes us to NOT SHRINK BACK… vs 38 said, …
And so, if God IS NOT PLEASED with the one who shrinks back, then BY OUR FAITH, we can belong to the crowd of people that DO NOT shrink back!
Again, as we’ve discussed before, it’s NOT OUR EFFORT that allows us to ‘not shrink back’ like, “I’m trying so hard not to shrink back…” no, it’s NOT YOUR EFFORT (your effort is just “believing”...but GOD’s SUPERNATURAL ability…that’s FAITH… you want to not shrink back, BUILD YOUR FAITH… and FAITH will SUPERNATURALLY give you a backbone that allows you to not shrink back.
What about these two groups of “those” (”we do not belong to THOSE who shrink back… but to THOSE who have faith….”)
... that’s where Hebrews 11 comes in.
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Hebrews 11 “The HALL OF FAITH” as it’s known… is EXACTLY this list of “THOSE” described in Hebrews 10:30…who HAVE FAITH, do NOT SHRINK BACK…and are ultimately SAVED from the world and all it’s issues. Chapter 10 doesn’t say they’re rescued OUT OF the world and taken away to live on clouds with a never ending mug of CUP RUNNETH OVER COFFEE
* cough, cough, ahem, ahem*
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But it says they’re part of THOSE who HAVE FAITH… DO NOT SHRINK BACK and are “SAVED”...meaning Saved / victorious / overcome the world… WHILE STILL LIVING IN IT…
The list the author is about to give says specifically that they faced “jeers and persecution… chains and imprisonment…They were put to death” but these these persecutions that they faced had NOTHING TO DO with the ultimate VICTORY and OVERCOMING POWER they had because of their FAITH…
Hebrews 11: start at vs… 1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the men of old gained approval.
So FIRST we have a definition of FAITH… the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.... and as a result, v2, “the men of old gained approval.”
V2 in the New Living Translation says, “Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.”
Now let’s first look at that definition: … and we see that “FAITH IS…” first it is ASSURANCE… then it is CONVICTION… old school KJV says “SUBSTANCE of things hoped for the EVIDENCE of things not seen”... these words in the original language are “hypostasis” and “elenchos”
ὑπόστασις hypostasis, n. confidence, trust, being sure; being, essence:– being, confidence, confident, conviction, self-confident
ἔλεγχος elenchos, n. certainty, proof:– assurance
No matter what words are used when they translated into English (or even SPANISH for my “Espanolitos”... in Spanish it’s “garantia” and ”certeza”) …no matter what… there is the idea of MENTAL ASSURANCE of what we hope for…then an ASSUMED REALITY (proof) of what we can’t see.
And through this “FAITH”...this MENTAL ASSURANCE of hope… and ASSUMED REALITY even though we can’t see…this next list of people…this cast of characters from scriptures… gained approval… “Approval” from whom? Man? People around them? No… Approval by GOD. remember from chapter 10 :: 10:38 And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”
But apparently He DOES take pleasure, give approval, give validation… to those who HAVE FAITH… the AMPLIFIED bible calls it a “divine testimony” meaning that because of their faith, the LORD testifies about them… saying that He validates their lives… even if they had to go through persecution here on Earth… GOD validates them and approves of them… i can’t think of a better definition of victory & overcoming the world than that!
Then starting with Creation… 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
Ok. so immediately the author proves that “assurance & assumed reality” thing by saying “God created the WORLD was by faith… just the ASSURANCE of hope & making into REALITY everything that we see…from stuff that we CAN’T see…” (...mind blown…)
And then a long list of people whose lives are DEFINED by FAITH…
Vs4 :: 4 By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain,
Able had the mental assurance & assumed reality of what he could not see & perhaps didn’t even understand, and offered a better sacrifice…
Vs5 :: 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him.
Enoch was a guy that God just took straight to heaven without him even dying…because he had FAITH IN GOD, even without the REALITY of seeing Him face to face…
And then vs 6 is a bit of TEACHING… 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
This goes back to what we were talking about in the recap, that we “Do what we have faith to believe.”... like if we BELIEVE (our mental agreement to what God has said) that He is real even though we can’t see Him… then we’re adding our BELIEF to that supernatural FAITH that comes by ‘hearing & hearing by the Word of God.” … and that gives us the ability to PLEASE GOD & like the men of old from this list, have a “divine testimony” that God approves of our lives…
Vs 7 :: 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
Vs 8 :: Abraham
Vs 11 :: his wife Sarah
Vs 17 :: Abraham
Vs 20 :: Isaac
Vs 21 :: Jacob
Vs 22 :: Joseph
Vs 23 :: Moses
Vs 30 :: by faith the walls of Jerico fell down
Vs 31 :: Rahab didnt’ DIE in the walls because of her faith
We may go into more detail on these individuals more later but what I want to focus on right now is vs 13-16… then vs 39-40
13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.
…
39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
Now… What the author is describing here is the fact that these people DIED still having a MENTAL ASSURANCE of hope in a PROMISE THAT THEY NEVER SAW THE REALITY OF… but they STILL HAD FAITH!...
They BELIEVED God was building a better country, a better kingdom, a better world than this one…
THAT was how they lived in VICTORY and OVERCAME THE WORLD…