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Jesus - The Perfector of Our Faith - Hebrews 11

Today, we will be reconciling fear with faith.

Sermon Transcript

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good morning welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor if you're tuning in from somewhere else welcome to somewhere else what scares you does anything scare you what are you afraid of i think if we're all being honest this morning we're all afraid of something there's something out there that scares us maybe it's little like a spider you worried about them they say we swallow a lot of spiders in our sleep just to let you know i'll leave you with that one snakes maybe it's snakes if it is don't worry indiana jones was scared of him he's pretty manly and cool what about heights if you know me you know why i'm asking that question do heights scare you you used to bother me and people would come too close to the stage i can't be here too long the edge of the stage would you do this you're scared of some aren't you yup well we have an honest congregation here i think honesty can be our new thing right there once was a guy who did that but he looked down right they always say don't look down that's probably a foot right there literally a foot think about that he fell but on the way down he grabbed onto a branch all right so what do you do start looking for things to grab on to and climb back up but he couldn't so he did the next logical thing he called for help help is there anybody up there voice answered yes oh can you throw a rope down or something the voice answered no let go who is that voice answered the lord it's god let go okay i thought about it for a minute is there anybody else up there is that how we are last week we talked about different ways in which we sin and make excuses for it how we're not necessarily always obedient to the lord this week we're going to take a look at a way or ways in which many christians might be thinking they're sinning but they might not be sinning in reality today we'll see that jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith we are in chapter 11 of the book of hebrews in the new testament here we see that jesus is superior that's the main point we've learned that the author or preacher is writing to jewish christians most probably they really know the old testament well they're suffering persecution doesn't happen by way of the romans at first it's their own people christianity is at first seen as a jewish sect jesus is the jewish messiah and so in this new sect there are some jewish people who don't like it they don't like them they're not accepting jesus so they're persecuting them they're harming them they're suffering through this and so they might be tempted to go back just to say you know what forget it so the author is saying that jesus fulfills everything he is superior to everything everything the prophets the angels in fact he's god by the way he is the superior son he's superior to moses to aaron to joshua he gets us to that promise rest to melchizedek that mysterious priest never-ending priesthood he's better than that he is the mediator of a new and better covenant eight through 10 now we arrive in chapter 11. where the author is going to talk about faith he's going to talk about some heroes of the faith abel enoch noah abraham sarah isaac the israelites themselves rahab all people who are faithful to an extent he gives examples you probably know some of them right not because you read the bible though because you watched evan almighty and you know about noah right of course he has neighbors that make fun of him know was a congressman in the united states of america he built an ark it takes a lot of faith right to put in that much work abraham you probably know that story right i don't know if there's a movie about it but whatever so i'll tell you he's called to sacrifice his son and he goes and does it the author here expands and tells us that he believed that god could even raise him up from the dead a picture a foreshadowing of what jesus did for us he raised from the dead but if you've been paying attention you know that jesus is the only true hero of this story the author uses these examples ultimately because it points to jesus and how he is both superior and in whom we can put our trust and faith hebrews 11 39. we're going to go forward and then work our way back all these people earned a good reputation because their faith because of their faith yet none of them received all that god had promised for god had something better in mind for us so that they would not reach perfection without us it's all about the resurrection in jesus that is where we place our faith hebrews 11 defines faith for us hebrews 11 1 faith shows the reality of what we hope for it is the evidence of things we cannot see through their faith the people in days of old earned a good reputation by faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at god's command that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen now let me get real with you for a minute faith is hard isn't it it's really difficult my dad he once said something interesting to me and i thought it was really funny but after i reflected on it for a while i said you know i could see how he was struggling with that he was sick for a long time so he knew his time here was coming to an end he told me that he had a resentment against the apostle paul he said you know you got to experience jesus i didn't get knocked off a horse blind and then see jesusthere was no horse i didn't tell my dad that he's kind of argumentative i mean so i let that point go but i digested it i thought about it it is really hard faith is difficult if we're being honest we're flawed but you know what it was also hard for these heroes of the faith too they didn't always pass the tests they were flawed noah you know the story he got really drunk passed out naked in his tent not so great but then but then his youngest son ham finds him i don't like that so he curses ham's son kanan where we get the canaanites from that doesn't sound very nice the kanan's fault they passed out drunk in the tent abraham and isaac they're kind of funny like father like son really interesting yeah he was pretty faithful but he was also afraid at one or two points of the same thing he was worried that the people where he was going would think that his wife was beautiful and kill him so he tells pharaoh it's his sister that's partially true we'll get to that some other time maybe in bible study i know gross then he does it again later to abimelech then his son isaac also does the same thing to abimelech that's my sister that was a lie it was his cousin is that any better i don't know sarah she doubted god and laughed at him jacob and esau we'll get to that at bible study they're kind of nuts moses he had fears about his ability to lead if you read it a lot god proves it to him with miracles look at the staff boom it's a snake picked it up by the tail that's not a good idea by the way all kinds of crazy miracles is the staff again oh look you have leprosy on your hand now you don't you think he would believe no god i don't want to do this my tongue gets twisted up fine aaron can speak for you not you his brother we saw how that worked out aaron got a lot of people killed the israelites speaking of which are a total mess a complete mess and rahab was a prostitute done people of faith they were flawed and so are we so today we're going to be reconciling faith with fear we can see that even abraham i've told you in the past he was highly revered by the jewish people he was flawed he lacked faith at times he had fear now it is often taught that faith and fear are at odds with one another so we're going to clean that up a little bit we're going to look at another false teaching like we've been doing in this series you might have heard something like fear is faith in the enemy i've said that in the past that was wrong it's not entirely true that if we have fear we're sinning somehow but to say that faith and fear are in opposition with one another somehow it's not taking the full counsel and context of god's word into consideration we have to do that this is another catchy phrase that isn't complete or completely true it's another one of man's ideas not god's fear is a part of wisdom if you read the bible you know that one thing i want to do though is just take something off the table this is what a lot of people do and it it runs the gamut a lot of different people do it for different reasons and they play with words to get what they want and so they might say something like they can't believe that we should fear god right so it really means reverence it's not fear like terror the look synonyms that's what it's called see it works like this in the original languages too sometimes it's terror sometimes it's reverence sometimes it's both so i'll take this off the table you might hear people say that well it really means this no it really means with the translators of the bible who know the original language way better than you said it means fear terror that's what it means we're not smarter than that in greek the original language that the author of hebrews is writing or preaching in the people are reading in you probably kind of recognize the word the letters in greek are really funny so you wouldn't be able to read them unless you know greek phobia it's like that like a phobia what you are what you're afraid of phobia it's often that there's a word marima anxiety and sometimes they're translated interchangeably so sometimes if you look under that in the greek it'll say phobia sometimes marima a couple other words but those are the main ones so today we'll look at some biblical examples of people having fear and sometimes it's a good thing we'll look at that other side of the coin so to speak so we talked about exodus recently i've been taking you back to the exodus account right so we get more and more familiar with it were you paying attention sophie would you like to share the exodus story with a pk a terrible thing to be anyway exodus you remember the ten plagues the passover account we went over that we saw what happens after the passover they leave part to see you probably know that even if you're new the bitter water water purification first water purification system in the world piece of wood the water from the rock the manna from heaven the quail eventually you get to the ten commandments kind of interesting on mount sinai so moses can go up there and god starts giving him some instructions set a boundary no one should pass this boundary not even the animals or they're going to die all right don't don't do that so god appears in smoke thunder lightning it's crazy it's the presence of god the ten commandments are given it's all still going on the rams horn the sound like a ram's horn should be okay for him to go up now right exodus 2018 when the people heard the thunder in the loud blast of the ram's horn and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain they stood at a distance trembling with fear and they said to moses you speak to us and we'll listen right but don't let god speak directly to us or we will die it's crazy moses says this don't be afraid moses answered them for god has come in this way to test you and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning all right they're terrified they should be moses says don't be afraid but in what seems to be an immediate contradiction he says but be afraid so that you won't keep sinning two sides to a coin here be afraid so that you keep from sinning so think of it like this and this is really important to keep in mind because many especially christians have a hard time with both right it's got to be this or this and if it's this you're wrong i'm right right that's a lot of christianity all the denominations right so it's either grace or it's works can't have both all right so you see this a lot this is the same thing faith and fear coin so imagine this imagine i grabbed a coin from a country you don't know about if you don't understand it you've never seen the coin before i put it in my hand on heads i said okay look at that coin just try to remember what it looks like now close your eyes flip the coin over to tails open your eyes and look at the coin is that the same coin a lot of people might say no that's not but yes it is that's how this works we can reconcile two things two sides of one coin we always need to keep reading i've told you that it's very very important now you might say well i've heard this well that's the god of the old testament that mean grumpy god all right it kills lots of people and stuff it's not like that anymore wrong that's a false teacher's teaching hebrews 13 8 jesus christ is the same yesterday today and for ever god is the same in the old testament and the new testament he doesn't change we do he is always faithful if you don't believe me read revelation sometime all the way through and it should make you think of the old testament a lot if you've read it jesus does some things or is going to do some things that some would say are not so nice he's the same that's the last book of the bible not so nice jesus himself warns of what is to come in revelation all over the place in matthew for example we talked about it at bible study matthew 25. he doesn't sound so nice i told you read matthew 5-7 sermon on the mount talk about it a little today it doesn't sound so nice he gives warnings he himself predicts a great tragedy where the people will not heed moses's advice they won't have any fear of the lord to keep them from sinning let's go and do it jesus says there'll be a huge price to pay for that i don't know about you but that scares me fear of the lord it's the beginning of all wisdom proverbs 1 7 fear of the lord is the foundation of true knowledge but fools despise wisdom and discipline i would say that today we kind of don't have enough of that do we it's not just the lord the bible tells us to fear proverbs 24 21 my child fear the lord and the king don't associate with rebels who came out of the roman series recently we saw that romans 3 23 we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of god one of those chief sins that paul lists is this they have no fear of god at all this new testament quoting old testament psalms 36 1 having fear of the lord is actually a sign that we have faith now i mentioned that early christianity is not christianity yet until acts 11 do we see that used it's a jewish sect and so they don't understand really yet that the gentiles these are non anyone who's not a jew non-jewish people are supposed to be let in now they didn't get that really from jesus there's like a not yet thing you see the ethiopian eunuch in acts 8 probably a gentile conversion but more obviously in acts 10 that's where peter has these visions and god is going to use a gentile named cornelius to send a message in addition to the three visions to peter he's going to send a couple of his servants and a soldier go get him all right so an angel appears to cornelius and this is what is said acts 10 1. in caesarea there lived a roman army officer named cornelius who was a captain of the italian regiment he was a devout god-fearing man as was everyone in his household he gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to god one afternoon about three o'clock he had a vision in which he saw an angel of god coming toward him cornelius the angel said cornelius stared at him in terror what is it sir he asked the angel and the angel replied your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by god as an offering now send some men to japan summon a man named simon peter he is staying with another simon a tanner who lives near the seashore so then it cuts away to peter having the vision then the guys come to get peter but cornelius is god-fearing and that is a good thing he has faith what's interesting is peter goes to cornelius and he preaches the gospel to him he says this i see very clearly that god shows no favoritism in every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right it's a part of his message a whole bunch of people are then baptized gentiles now there's fear of other things other than god not having fear of things other than god is sometimes ideal but things aren't always ideal and when we lie about it we're not being real i'll give you some biblical new testament examples where things are not ideal and these people are real about it second corinthians that letter's written for two primary purposes to the church in corinth paul and timothy some of these like a co-author so to speak two reasons one the corinthians are dragging their feet on an offering they're supposed to give to jerusalem which is like the mother church back then also there are false teachers paul's got to deal with it he calls them sarcastically super apostles and so what he does is he qualifies himself by talking about all the things that the super apostles aren't going to do they're not going to go through all these sufferings and so he does the fools boasts very famous kind of thing but he goes through a lot of stuff this is what paul says about it second corinthians 7 5 when we arrived in macedonia there was no rest for us we faced conflict from every direction with battles on the outside and fear on the inside it's phobia there i bet you'd be surprised to find out that jesus experienced fear anxiety the agony in the garden he knows he's going to be crucified he's going to be flogged tortured and then crucified he knows it's going to be excruciating so horrible they had to make up a word for it excruciating means from the cross it's going to be bad so here's what it says mark 14 32 they went to the olive grove called gethsemane and jesus said sit here while i go and pray he took peter james and john with him and he became deeply troubled and distressed some versions say horrified they're right he told them my soul is crushed with grief to the point of death stay here and keep watch with me well they don't keep falling asleep luke's version notes something interesting luke 22 41 he walked away about a stone's throw and he knelt down and prayed father if you are willing please take this cup of suffering away from me yet i want your will to be done not mine that's common in all the gospels but here's the interesting part then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him he prayed more fervently and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood now this is a real medical condition and it's interesting luke probably a doctor that he points this out hematidrosis is what it's called i'm not going to read the whole medical description but it's sweating blood caused by extreme anxiety fear distress i've never seen anybody sweat blood must have been pretty upset but didn't jesus say don't be anxious about anything kind of but not really we'll take a look at it here uh matthew five through seven that's one sermon the sermon on the mount you're gonna find that ish in chapter six but it's one continuous flow and in it for example in chapter five jesus says things like well if you even look at a woman with lust you committed adultery you did it oh what are we going to do well here's what you're going to do you're going to take your eye you're going to kind of reach in there rip it out of your head and throw it into the fire solution now do you think jesus meant we should really do that no it's hyperbole hyper volley think of it like that it's an overthrow it's an exaggerated statement to get your attention wake up i'm serious about this that's why you do it it's a literary device he uses them a lot so it's probably a little bit of that but there's a context jesus says don't have these anxieties in the context of stuff money clothing that's the context go back one verse matthew 6 24 no one can serve two masters four you won't hate one and love the other you'll be devoted to one and despise the other you cannot serve god and be enslaved to money then keep reading that is why that is why verse 24 is why i tell you not to worry about everyday life whether you have enough food to drink or enough clothes to wear isn't life more than food or your body more than clothing well gene you went to the wrong spot you weren't supposed to go to matthew you were supposed to go to philippians 4 6. that was the verse of the day a week ago it says don't be anxious about anything don't you know the word gene kinda well you gotta look at the whole book did you read all of philippians there's only four chapters yes i'm shaming you it's a short read and in it that word marima kind of appears anxiety paul says he has it here's what happens the philippians are real nice to paul why he's in prison he's suffering oh yeah philippians 4 13 right he can do anything through christ who gives him strength like sit in a jail cell for a long time suffer and die like that not win a football game he wasn't doing that or thinking of that probably anyway he's kind of worried about epaphroditus they send this guy epaphroditus to give him the gift okay he gets so sick he almost dies but so that paul doesn't have one anxiety on top of another anxiety epaphroditus gets better praise the lord and he sends epaphroditus back presumably with the letter to the philippians that we get it's like a thank you note and if that's not enough before that in the same chapter chapter 2 paul writes this philippians 2 12. dear friends you always followed my instructions when i was with you and now that i'm away it is even more important work hard to show the results of your salvation obeying god with deep reverence and fear some versions say fear and trembling like the israelites that's fear phobia in greek and tromos in greek trembling it's like shaking think of it like tremors work out your salvation that way again in second corinthians him and timothy have some fears he continues chapter 11 right after the fool's boast both saying it is shipwrecks being whipped all kinds of horrible things he says he has anxiety about all the churches he worries about how they're doing he has some fears so we have to grow up beyond these incomplete teachings we saw this in hebrews five and six that's what the author says i was kind of joking at bible study but not really the author says something like it'd be like me getting up here and saying you guys are a bunch of babies you got to grow up he literally says that we need to complete the teachings with the full counsel and context of god's word very important that's how we get it right because we don't want fake faith we have to acknowledge the reality of fear in order to have real genuine faith like jesus did wisdom begins with fear of the lord without fear we cannot have genuine faith a person who claims to be without fear is without wisdom and without honesty we can't have genuine faith without honesty i can tell you this in the pastoral ministry i haven't met anyone without fear only people who lie about it i've done couples counseling where one person is jealous of the other it's very common or of other people they're experiencing jealousy so i don't take them to numbers five nobody's going to laugh at that anyway read it when you go home you'll get the joke anyway so they're going back and forth and just listening you let them do what they're going to do and you just let them tell the story about what's going on how they're jealous so sometimes i'll make the mistake of trying to explain why this is happening well listen to the person you know who's not jealous at all and you're cool he's doing that let's say that he is jealous he's doing that because he's afraid maybe there's some things that you can do to calm that down a little bit help him out here's what happens i'm not afraid i'm not talking about i'm afraid huh you know i'm the bad guy again really is that why you just told me that you call her at work 30 times a day because you're not worried about anything come on people deny it you see fear of rejection is the root of so many emotional symptoms that we experience it's okay to be honest about that in relationships so that if the other person really loves us they can help us with it it's very helpful also to take it to god like jesus did to the father we should do that too or do we think we're better than jesus people who say fear is sin sound like pharisees fears faith in the enemy sounds like an accusation doesn't it because it is pharisees acting like they're better than jesus the fake faith culture leads to guilt when the fear arrives we feel as if we've sinned so we lie about it then we feel guilty about lying and being afraid it's a terrible cycle coming to terms with our fears is actually freeing we can then give it to the lord and let others help us with it if we're being honest we're supposed to carry one another's burdens like we talked about last week galatians 6 but we need to be humble to do that the verse of the day often misses certain points i'll show you one first peter 5 6 so humble yourselves under the mighty power of god and at the right time he will lift you up in honor give all your worries and cares to god for he cares about you so that's the greek word marima again it's anxiety but look at those verses and think about a couple of things humble yourself humble yourself that honesty requires humility we need to humble our self so to say i'm not afraid when we are is not a very humble thing to say is it especially when it's not true don't exalt yourself look at the verse again and think about something else if you're being honest and humble with me give what to the lord your worries your anxiety ask yourself this how can you give something to someone that you don't have it can't you can't give something to the lord if you didn't have it in the first place so on this side of the coin i was thinking about this illustration in bible study kind of talked about a little it's worth bringing up i have a teenage daughter who is learning how to drive i have fear that should be obvious so when they leave the house i know she might be driving even when my wife leaves the house she's a good driver i say a couple of things i love you and drive safe or be careful something like that and i think that this is kind of what god is saying to us i love you drive safe there's some practicality to it watch out there's some stuff out there that could get you not having a little healthy fear can get us into trouble sometimes like the guy on the ledge now here's the other side of the coin the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom but his love is completion we have to overcome some of the unhealthy fears by letting go this means having obedience we need to let go of the branch when he tells us to doing that requires taking our focus off of what seems to be helping and putting our focus on jesus christ in christ alone so just as we can't let sin tempt us away from jesus we talked about that last week the repentance if you weren't here real simple kind of way to think about repentance turning from it's like this you were going toward that lusty woman or the pint of ice cream whatever it is and you decide to turn to jesus instead it's repentance and this is what it's like with our focus don't focus on the branch focus on jesus we can't let fear take our focus off of him when we call to him we must exercise the faith required to obey him in that moment as well not is there anyone else up there do we do that you see fruitful faith requires focus on jesus you may know this story as well jesus walking on water you probably heard about it at least well he walks on water intending to pass by them they notice him his disciples that is and they freak out it's a ghost no it's me jesus just walking on water what else would i be doing peter you call me out on that water jesus i'm gonna come and walk on it all right come on out and you know what he does it peter does it he starts walking on water until roe he takes his focus off of jesus he notices that the water is chopping and he sinks hebrews 12 1 therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith let us strip off every weight that slows us down especially the sin that so easily trips us up and let us run with endurance the race that god has set before us we do this by keeping our eyes on jesus the champion who initiates and perfects our faith because of the joy awaiting him he endured the cross disregarding its shame now he is seated in the place of honor beside god's throne now may the god of peace who brought up from the dead our lord jesus the great shepherd of the sheep and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood may he equip you with all you need for doing his will may he produce in you through the power of jesus christ every good thing that is pleasing to him all glory to him forever and ever amen