Good morning.
I’d like to turn to a couple of Scriptures to begin with, beginning in 1 John—not the Gospel of John, the first epistle—chapter 5, starting with verse 19. John writes:
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the sway of the wicked one.
And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
Then, if we slip back in the chapter to 1 John 5:4:
For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith.
Then back to Hebrews, chapter 12, starting with verse 1:
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You this morning for giving us the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to thank You for all that He is. We thank You that He laid aside His deity and came and became a man, that we might see Him as Man and, Lord, might be saved by Him.
We thank You, Lord, that as a Man He suffered for us and died. As a Man, You raised Him from the dead, and He has ascended into heaven at Your right hand as a Man, Lord, that He might bring many sons to glory to be with Him.
Lord, we thank You for Him. This morning, we just want to be able to see Him. We do not want to have just a teaching; we want to see Jesus. We ask that You let us see Him. Open our eyes to see Him by Your Spirit, using Your Word to help us.
Lord, we want to see Him alone. We want to see how He has overcome, and we want to be in that train of Him, because He overcame, that we can overcome with Him. How we thank You again for our Savior, Jesus. We lift Him up to You and ask Your blessing on Your Word today. Help us with Your Holy Spirit, we ask in Christ’s name. Amen.
It is a beautiful day, isn’t it? And for all the Brazilians here, I am wearing green, okay, with a little bit of blue. The yellow I wore yesterday, okay? I was waiting for that, but it was yesterday.
You know, I have been really almost depressed over the state of things in our country and in the world. I do not know how you guys are, but I am really upset by it.
Someone said at prayer meeting—I think it was Mac, who was leading the prayer meeting—that those of us who have been alive since—well, I was born in the fifties, and some people were born before that, but that is all I am going to say, okay?—have never seen times like this.
As a teacher, I am teaching the Cold War right now and the fall of communism in Europe. I was telling the students, “There was never a day growing up that I thought there would not be a Soviet Union.” Who thought that would happen? The Soviet Union would split up—our arch-enemy—and communism would end in Europe. Who thought that? You do not even find USSR on the maps anymore.
But who would have thought we would see the days that we are seeing here in the United States today? I teach history, and you look at the decline of empires. You see what happens during the decline of empires. History has its cycles. Empires have their cycles. Even in eternity, God has His ages, but God’s ages are always going forward. Our cycles, we just repeat them.
All empires go through the same thing. To be in a place where we are seeing what we are seeing today—what I am seeing today—it is distressing. It has been distressing to my soul to see it, even to the point of not wanting to turn things on for fear of hearing more bad stuff.
But I read that verse out of 1 John: “The whole world is under the sway of the wicked one.” Now, you know something? This is nothing new. The world has been under the sway of the wicked one since Adam fell in the garden. This is nothing new. It seems new to us, but it has always been this way, except for the time before Adam fell.
Our days are no different, in this sense of being under the sway of the wicked one, than the days of Noah. Even the Lord said that His coming would be like the days of Noah: they were eating and drinking and doing all these things. Our days are no different than the days of Noah.
Neither are our days different from when Israel was in bondage in Egypt, from the days of the judges when everyone wanted to do what was right in his own eyes, from the days of Manasseh—the most evil of the kings of Judah—or from the days of Nero and Rome.
The whole thing is this: the world has always been, since the fall of man, under the sway of the wicked one. To get all flustered about it, in a way, is to think that we are experiencing something different. But that is not true.
If you read the New Testament, especially the letters, you see the suffering of the saints. They went through times when persecution was much greater than any persecution we have seen, for example, in Europe in this last century. Yet persecution in the Middle East and Africa today is much like what those saints went through.
The question is, how do we endure? But the Lord does not even say, “Endure.” He does not say, “Endure the time.” In 1 John 5:4, He says, “Overcome.”
This is what overcomes the world. By “the world,” I mean the whole governing system—economically, politically, socially, and morally—that governs the world’s thoughts and actions today.
It is like Absalom in 2 Samuel, David’s son. Absalom was a big, beautiful guy—thick hair, a good beard, probably athletic. He took into his own hands what happened to his sister. David threw him out, but afterward David wanted his son back and let him return.
Then Absalom began sitting by the gate of the city. People would come in to see David, and Absalom would ask, “What is your problem? Oh, if I were king, I would fix that problem.” He fed these thoughts to the people. Finally, under the counsel of Ahithophel, he was encouraged to take the throne, and he drove David out.
That is really what we have seen in the history of the world as far as the wicked one taking over. The wicked one weaseled his way in and usurped the throne. His counsel is now trying to rule. The sway of the wicked one has infiltrated everything in this world: government, economics, religion, even Christianity, the way we think, and the way we do things.
Psalm 2 says that the kings of the world are getting together to throw off the yoke of the Lord. But it says that the Lord laughs.
So, we want to find out: how do you overcome? It says, “Our faith.” That is really what we want to look at—faith.
We do not talk much about faith, except when we talk about Abraham, because he is the father of the faithful. We talk about faith when people get saved, and then we tend not to touch it because it is a touchy subject.
Some say you have to have so much faith, and you have to drum up your faith. That is a sticky wicket. Others talk about a “name it, claim it” kind of faith, and there are other sticky wickets. So we stay away from these things, and we wonder: when you talk about faith, what are you talking about?
You can read Hebrews 11. It tells you, “This is faith,” but you get a definition and you are still not seeing it. You know what I mean?
One of the wonderful things about science labs is that you get the book, and they tell you everything that is in the book. You are going, “I do not know about this.” Then they bring you into the lab, and you get to see it. Oh, now I know.
I took a geology class, where you study rocks. Oh, the book—all the “zoics” and everything about rocks—it was terrible. If you want to cure insomnia, get a geology textbook.
But the lab—Dr. Bender, I still remember his name, Dr. Bender from Kansas—he was about seventy years old, and I was about nineteen or twenty. Man, he had you in that lab, and you were enthralled. You found the cleavage points of rocks, found out how they split, and found out their hardness. Then he would take us on field trips. It was like, “Oh, I got to see it in class.”
You still had to read the book, but that was what made it so interesting. We have this weird tendency as people: we want to read something on faith, go to a conference, listen to a speaker on faith, and think that will be the way we get it. But still, that is not seeing it.
Even in Hebrews 11, we have this whole history of people of faith. Then in Hebrews 12, after speaking of this great cloud of witnesses, who does the writer tell us to look at? Jesus.
You would think he would tell us to look at Abraham, or Moses, or someone like that. But he says, “Jesus.”
The reason I am bringing this up is that I think a lot of us do not really consider Jesus as Man. We look at Him as God the Son, and rightfully so, because that is Who He is. But He is also the Son of Man. He laid aside His deity, became Man, and lived as Man.
I do not think a lot of us look at Jesus as having faith. We think, “Well, He is God. He does not need faith. He can just say this or that, and it happens.” But remember, He laid that aside and became like us, except for our sin nature.
G. Campbell Morgan, in his little book on Hebrews, mentioned that if you look at Jesus, the Man Jesus, His life principle was faith. His whole life was lived out of faith in the Father.
Everything He did was that way. In the Gospel of John, He says, in effect, “I do not do anything unless I see the Father. I do not say anything unless I hear the Father.” We do not really recognize Him as a Man who had faith because we do not generally look at Him as a Man. But He was a Man, and He was God.
As Man, He is our example. We have Abel, Enoch, Noah, and all the others, but the writer does not say, “Look at any of those.” He says, “You have this great cloud of witnesses,” but then he says, “Look at Jesus.” Why? Because He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Some translations say “our faith,” and some say “faith.” He is the author and finisher. Now, what does it mean that He is the author of faith? Did He write a book about it? “Here you go, read it, pass it out”—a Jerusalem bestseller? No. It was His life.
John 1:4 says:
In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.
Faith overcomes the world. In Him was life. He had life. I believe that when Adam was created, God breathed life into him. Jesus, in the sense of His humanity, had life given to Him from God. It was not the carnal life of Adam, nor Adam’s sin nature. It was a different life.
The life that Jesus lived before all men, as we see in the Gospels, was the light of men. It illuminated things about God and about man. Men hate the light because it shows who they are, but the light was there anyway, and it was not overcome.
So I want to look at a few things concerning the faith of Jesus and tie them into how they apply to us.
First of all, Jesus had a faith that laid hold of the high calling God has for mankind. Every aspect of His faith laid hold of Who God was, and it also showed what man was meant to be. Every action and every word of His was that way.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus speaks of God’s standard for man—what He created man for, what man was supposed to be.
Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
In the verses before that, He speaks of the disciples being the light of the world, a city set on a hill. Then you remember David in Psalm 8. Looking at the heavens, he asked, “What is man?” The answer is that man has been put over everything.
The Lord Jesus knew that. But it was not merely that He was put over things in the sense of, “I have to rule everything.” The purpose of man from the beginning was to be over all. But man had fallen.
God says in Leviticus, “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus grasped that as a Man. He laid hold of it as a Man, and in doing that, He drew from God the power for living.
Everything that man was meant to be, you find in Jesus Christ—in every way. He taught these things, and He did them. It was not, “Do as I say, not as I do.” That was not Jesus.
He who does them and teaches them will be great in the kingdom of God. Who is the greatest in the kingdom of God? Jesus. He is the greatest because He grasped this.
The Pharisees had a sheen. They were righteous on the outside. They had the phylacteries, the degrees, the synagogue attendance, and the public prayers. Everybody knew their routine. But Jesus said, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Psalm 51 was written after David committed adultery and murder. David had been trying to hide everything until Nathan came to him with the story of the sheep. David said, “Show me that man, and I will get him.” Nathan replied, “You are the man.”
In Psalm 51:6, David discovered something about God:
Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “You have heard, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ but I say that if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have done it. You say, ‘Do not murder,’ but if you are angry with your brother in your heart, you have committed murder.”
You can have all the phylacteries and all the sheen on the outside, but God looks into the heart. He looks at the core of man, and in the core of man He is looking for truth. Jesus’ faith knew what God desired, and knowing what God desired, He walked in it as a Man.
He did not walk in it just for Himself. First, He walked in it for His Father. Second, He walked in it for us, so that we could see what man was supposed to be like.
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
Secondly, Jesus had a faith that laid hold of the character of God. In other words, He saw God for Who He is.
Jesus saw God as a sinless Man. There was no wall between Him and God. Have you ever considered what sin has done to our view of God? We can view God as mean: “If you do not do this, I will kill you. If you do not do this, I will make you lame. If you do not do this, I will blind you.” Man thinks God is mean.
I thought it was wonderful in one of Watchman Nee’s books. He talked about a child who went to a temple with his mother. The god was so ugly that the child ran outside into the forest, looked up into the sky, and said, “That cannot be You.” Later, when he was converted, he said, “I knew that was not God.”
Then there is the idea that God changes with the times. Look at our clothes. Those of you who are my age, what were you wearing in 1969? I know what I was wearing in 1969. Fashions change, do they not? Even today, we try to look a little hip. I have got my desert boots on. My students say, “Mr. B, those are cool.” Yeah, I hit it with that, okay?
But God does not change. The idea that God changes His view of what sin is because cultures change is ridiculous. God is eternal. Truth is eternal. Truth is absolute. It is not relative. The idea that everything is relative today is a lie.
If everything changes, what hope do we have? If there is nothing we can grab onto as secure and real, what hope do we have? There is no hope if everything is going to change.
God is not merely some big grandfather who gives you whatever you want. God is not flawed like man. The Greeks thought their gods were like that. But the Lord Jesus saw the character of God, laid hold of that eternal character, and out of that He lived His life.
Jesus saw and embraced, as a Man, the goodness of God. How many of us grew up thinking God just wanted to judge us? “Judge, judge, judge.” He is waiting for you to slip up so He can say, “Got you.”
Jesus observed the goodness of God in nature. He said that God clothes the field. You might say, “So, He makes pretty flowers.” But why does He make flowers attractive? Flowers are attractive to the bugs. What bee does not find a bright color attractive?
You go out to a picnic wearing a bright color, and the bees come at you. Why? Because they think you are a pretty flower and want to explore. That is how pollination happens and how the race stays alive. The goodness of God.
He said that the birds do not work or toil. They do not have a bird job. I do not come out of my house and tell them, “Get the worms out, will you?” But God feeds them. These are just little birds.
How many of you have bird feeders? You have bird feeders at your house, and those little birds come in. You enjoy watching them, and you feed them. Do you not think God loves His creation? Just like you love those filthy little birds—ticks and all—God loves them. He feeds them and prolongs their lives.
Then there is this: He causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Is that not good? God says, in effect, “I know these people are sinners. They should not have any of My grace, but I am giving them grace because I love them. I want to provide for them and give them what they need.”
Why was Jesus eating with sinners and publicans? Because He saw that God was good. His statement was, “They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.” The sick need a doctor. Should I not be with them?
Jesus knew the goodness of God—that God would save people, heal people, and bring them to Himself. He laid hold of that goodness. That was His faith, and out of that faith came His actions. He acted like God.
“Be like your heavenly Father,” so that people will see your good works and glorify your heavenly Father. In Matthew 9, after He was with Matthew, Jesus told the Pharisees, “Go and learn what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” They knew things about God, but they did not know the mind and heart of God. They did not see that He is good.
The rich young ruler came to Him and said, “Good Teacher.” Jesus said, “Why callest thou Me good? None is good save one, even God.” If we are good, it is a reflection of God. Jesus laid hold of the character of God and acted on it.
Jesus’ faith revealed the nearness of God. Have you ever thought about that? The Lord Jesus never felt that He was away from His Father, except in one place: on the cross.
Everywhere else, He knew the nearness of God. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It is here. It is present. You may think you go to pray and God is not around, but God is there. He hears what you do in secret. He sees what you do in secret.
Why was Jesus always going off to pray? Because He knew the nearness of His Father. He acted on His faith: “I know God is near. I will approach My Father. What am I to do?”
God is never far from Him. Paul said in Athens that God is not far from each one of us. David said in Psalm 139, “If I go here, You are there. If I go there, You are there. Even if I go to the deepest part of Sheol, You are there.”
How many of us feel that God is not near? Before I was saved, a man took me to a Catholic church. The ceilings were huge and way up there. I just felt like, “God, where are You? You are so far away.” Then a man came and shared the gospel with me and said, “That does not have to be.” It is wonderful.
Jesus’ faith also laid hold of the father-nature of God. What did Jesus call God all the time? Father. What did He encourage His disciples to call Him? “When you pray, pray this way: Our Father.”
Why Father? Because a father provides and protects. Did Jesus not live under the provision and protection of His Father? He knew when it was not His time. He could be bold because He knew His protection was in the Father.
When Jesus said, “Seek ye first His kingdom, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,” what came before that? “Look at the lilies of the field. If God clothes them, look at the birds—God feeds them. Do you not think He thinks more of you?”
Why was He trying to get people to see that God would take care of them? Because when we know we are going to be taken care of, we are free to think higher thoughts and pursue higher goals.
How many of us have lived from one paycheck to the next? Does that not consume all your thought and all your strength? But the Lord says, “I will provide the things you need. I will give you a job. You will be taken care of.” He did not say, “I will provide what you want.” He said, “I will provide what you need.”
Then you can go higher. Now you can seek first the kingdom of God. You are freed to find God further—to know more of His ways, His thoughts, and His heart. He provides for you so you can pursue Him.
Tozer wrote that great book, The Pursuit of God. If you have not read it, read it. It is a wonderful and convicting book, because that is exactly what God wants you to do: pursue Him.
Jesus’ faith laid hold of the power of God. I am not talking about His deity or about parlor tricks: “Watch this, I can make the lamp come on,” or, “I will turn stones into bread.” I got that mixed up there, okay?
But when you look at His works, almost all of them had to do with restoring and recovering people. Look at the miracles of Jesus. There are two big things He does: He heals and He casts out demons. Why? He is restoring man.
Sin brought in disease. Sin brought in a usurper who has sway over people. Jesus healed and cast out demons because His works were redemptive. He used the power of God because the power of God is for redemption. It is redemptive in purpose.
Why did God split the Red Sea? Redemption. Why did He call Abraham and give him Isaac? Redemption. Out of Isaac came the Christ. Everything is redemptive. Everything is to recover man for God Himself.
Jesus saw how God valued man. Not one person is without value to God in the sense that God wants to redeem him. No one.
In Matthew 9, they lowered the paralytic down to Jesus. What was the first thing Jesus said? “Thy sins are forgiven.” Then, when they questioned Who could forgive sins but God, He said, in effect, “To show you,” and He told the man, “Arise, and walk.” Redemptive. Recovering.
In John 5, Jesus found the healed man in the temple and told him, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee.” Everything was redemptive.
Think of the demoniac who had the legion. Jesus cast out the demons, and afterward the man was clothed and in his right mind. In his right mind about what? About God. Redemptive. Restorative.
Jesus laid hold of the power of God personally when He faced death. This was very personal, because Jesus Himself, as Man, should not have had to die. At the Mount of Transfiguration, He could have walked right into glory. He had done the will of the Father, and the Father was pleased with Him. But His mission was to die.
He had to know and be sure that God would raise Him from the dead. His faith had to lay hold of that.
It was like Abraham going to slay his son. Abraham suffered all night, like we would if we had to slay one of our children. But then he went through with it because, as Hebrews 11 says, he believed that God would raise Isaac. All the promises were in Isaac.
It was like Gethsemane for Jesus. “I know I have to die.” He agonized with it. But how could He go through death—not only physical suffering, but separation from His Father, separation from God, which all unredeemed men will suffer?
Some of us knew that separation before we were Christians. It was dark. There was no hope for us. The Lord Jesus had to believe the Father would raise Him from the dead if He did this.
When He struggled, “If this cup can pass from Me,” there was the question: “Do I have to go through this? Will You raise Me?” He entrusted Himself into the Father’s hands.
On the cross He could say, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He was truly forsaken. Forsaken does not just mean left; it means, “I want nothing to do with you.”
But in the end, after spending that time on the cross, He said:
Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.
Then He bowed His head and died. He went into physical death, not merely the spiritual death of separation, but physical death, as every one of us will unless the Lord returns.
How many of us will face that day with great fear? Some of us are old now, our parents are old, and our parents are dying. What is the answer for them? To be able to commit yourself to the hands of God and say, “I trust You fully, and You will bring me through. You will raise me from the dead.”
Psalm 16 says:
For Thou wilt not leave My soul to Sheol;
Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption.
Jesus laid hold of a future hope—not pie in the sky by and by, and not merely an afterlife.
During His Passion Week, He told the Pharisees, “Ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” He looked to that future time of bringing many sons to glory.
His faith laid hold of the fact that this world is not all that there is. There is a new heaven and a new earth in which we will have a part. Revelation 11:15 says:
The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He shall reign for ever and ever.
Jesus looked to that day, and He let that day have an effect on Him. Do you not think that helped Him realize He would be raised from the dead? He saw the future God had.
He was looking forward to the time when He would present all things to His Father. Everything He recovers, He will hand back to His Father. Do you not think that was part of the joy set before Him, by which He could endure these things?
Finally, Jesus had faith that was drawn out by the Word of God, like every one of us as men. He had to find God in the Scriptures. It was not as though He said, “Oh yeah, I wrote the Book. I know everything that is in there.”
Do you not think the Lord memorized Scripture? We have these ideas of the Lord as though everything was easy for Him. No. He became Man to redeem us in every way like a man, except for sin.
What did He use when He was tempted in the wilderness? The Word of God. “Turn these stones into bread.” He answered:
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
That was not merely faith; it was also not presumption. “Jump down from the pinnacle. Let God catch You.” Jesus would not presume on God. That is not faith; that is presumption. He used the Word again.
He used the Word when speaking of His suffering: “I know I am going to suffer and die. These are the things the prophecies say about Me.” He used the Word to establish what He did and Who He was.
In John 5:39, He said:
Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of Me.
Do you not think He drew faith from the Scriptures concerning Who He was? Even as a boy of twelve, when He went to the temple, He said, “I must be about My Father’s business.” He knew the Messiah was the Messiah, and that He must be about His Father’s business. Where did that come from? It came from the Scriptures.
The Scriptures speak of His resurrection, as Psalm 16 does. They speak of the future and coming kingdom. The Word of God was precious to Him, and He drew His faith from it.
On the road to Emmaus, He spoke to the disciples: “Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?” He knew the Scriptures, and that is why He could do what He did.
Now, brothers and sisters, I am not saying that you need to believe like Jesus in some outward, self-generated way. But I am saying this: His faith is our faith.
His faith was in God. That is what our faith is to be in. Our faith is to be in God, not in ourselves.
We look at Jesus and say, “Oh, we have to be like Jesus. Who can do that?” I cannot. And that is the starting point of faith right there: “I cannot.”
Then you open the Sermon on the Mount. It does not say, “Blessed are those who are strong and mighty in faith.” It says:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of God is the rule, government, and power of God. You will never find it if you think you can get it yourself. You have to be brought to the ground and say, “I do not have it.”
Then He says, “I know you do not. But I have it, and I will give it to you as you share My faith.” His faith is in God.
In 1 Peter 1:20-21, speaking of Jesus, it says:
Who verily was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake,
who through Him are believers in God, that raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God.
The same faith as Jesus: faith in God. Faith in His Father. “I am about My Father’s business. I am trusting in Him all the way. I am trusting that He will give Me what I need. I am trusting that He will show Me Who He is, so that I can depend on Him and trust in Him fully.”
I want to give you a little object lesson. When I was in high school, I played basketball. My sophomore year, when I played, we were not very good.
The next year, our coach—Coach Porter—had been the captain of the 1953 UCLA team. For those of you who do not know, especially you guys over here who think the ACC is the end of the world, UCLA has won more NCAA championships than any other school.
At one time, I think they won seven in a row, from around 1967 to 1973. Boom, boom, boom, boom. You expected it. They won ten championships out of about twelve years. Their coach was John Wooden.
Coach Porter got the industrial arts teacher, because he had an RV, piled us into that RV, and we went to UCLA. We got to watch them practice.
When we got there, all the drills the UCLA team did were the drills that we did. The two presses they ran were the same presses that we ran. The offense they ran was the same offense that we ran.
Then we noticed all the banners. At that time—it was around the 1970s—there were about six banners up there. We were in awe.
Then John Wooden came over. He did not talk to us; he talked to our coach. He did not call him “Coach.” He called him by his first name: “Barry.” Our mouths dropped. He knew Coach personally. We were just flabbergasted.
You see, we are to look away to Jesus. We could have looked at our previous season and said, “We are a bad team,” and all that. Coach Porter brought us to that place so we could look away and look at the one who was the champion.
Another way of looking at Hebrews 12:2, where it says He is the author and finisher, is that He is also the captain and vindicator of our faith. We do not look at Jesus and say, “Oh, I have to be like Him in my own strength.” No. He says, “I am in front, boys. Follow Me.”
That is what He is saying as the author and finisher of our faith: “Follow Me. Get on My train, okay? If you have to get on My back, follow Me.”
You see the faith that is pleasing to God in Jesus Christ, in the Man Jesus. Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to please God. See Jesus Christ and His faith pleasing His Father. Then He says, “Follow Me. Just get on here and follow Me.”
Next time, we will look at the finisher. This is just the beginning. This is the beginning of our faith. The author starts the story. This is the preface. He tells you what it is all about: it is all about faith. Then He says, “Now I will show you the rest of it.”
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You that Your Redeemer is so great to us. To think that He laid aside His deity so that He could become a Man and lead the likes of us.
But not only that: to think that You consider us worthy of saving, that You would send Him to lead us to You. Oh Lord, how can we not worship You and thank You for being this kind of God to us?
Lord Jesus, how can we not thank You that You pleased the Father—not only for Him, but for us too—so that we could see what the Father was really like and believe Him as You believed in Him as a Man.
Lord, we want to follow You in this way of faith that sees God for Who He is and then latches on to trust in Him, so that we can be fully redeemed and have that hope in the future that we are not afraid of.
Lord, we want to embrace that future that is ours in Christ. We want to be done with the fear of not being good enough. We want to be those who are now just latching hold of You, telling You, “Lord, we are poor in spirit. We cannot do it,” and letting You say, “Yours is the kingdom of God. Trust Me. Follow Me.”
Lord, we want to see You in this way. As we open the Scriptures, Lord, we pray that You would speak words to us that lead us to believe Your Father, and that You will lead us out to Him, and that we will be saved completely.
Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your Son. We bless Him. He is above every name. He is everything to us, Lord. We bless You for Him. Amen.