#494 Pivot Series# 4, Faith Leads the Way

Pivot Series# 4, Faith Leads the Way
By: Zach Sloane

Intro:

All about Faith:

A context
An object
A Result (purpose, telos, or an end that it seeks to produce or bring about)

Recap & Intro:
Context: ours is our Pivot and what God is doing and saying to us as a people.
Pivot: a fixed point supporting something which turns or balances. The Unchangeable in relationship to the Changeable. (Changing times)

PIVOT means we change but we do so planted firmly in a good foundation. The change in relation to the unchangeable.

Malachi 3:6
“For I am the Lord, I do not change;”

Hebrews 13:8
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

His purpose stands too. Still the same!

Isaiah 46:9-10
“… I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’”

Unchanging purpose: fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory and display the manifold wisdom of God through the church to the whole kosmos.

Faith has a Context

That purpose does not change. But the details, the particulars are always changing.

Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Perceive:—become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand.

God is doing something new, something in keeping with his character and that aligns with his purpose, but it is worked out in unique ways in every life, personality, family, time, generation and culture. Our job is to perceive it… become conscious and aware of it, and embrace, all while moored to a solid foundation.

At Impact Church we have identified 7 foundational values, not that we aspire to live up to, but that we see as an expression of the life of Christ in us: connect, follow, discover invite, give, serve, enjoy.

Once the foundations are there and celebrated, we want to start moving that other foot with intentionality and focus.

Paul wrote two thirds of the New Testament while locked down in jail. Pastor Karl’s question:“what are you writing in your lockdown?”

What you are doing now, today is what is shaping your future. What you are saying now is framing your destiny. That’s not to get us all legalistic about our words and all introspective, but a call to realize that: The situation we are in right now we will not always be in. There is an after this.

Israelites were set free from their lockdown, but they failed to enter into what was promised them, not because God took back his promises, but because of their failure to embrace the future God had for them by faith.

Hebrews 3:19
“So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.”

Hebrews 4:2-3
“…but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest,…”

“How do I pivot, how do start moving in the right direction, how do we move on?”

Romans 1:17
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” – The just shall live by faith!

Faith has an object:

Faith is only qualified by who or what it is in.

2 Timothy 1:12
“…nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Faith is personal, relational, and IN SOMEONE!

By saying faith in God we mean something specific, we mean the God who has revealed himself to us in his Son to be full of grace and truth…Jesus Christ, the exact and express image of the Father… The one by whom and for whom all things were made… the one in whom all thing consist… the one in whom we move and live and have our being…the one who loved us…gave himself for us… died and rose again victorious over sin, sickness, death, and curse… the one who baptizes us in the Spirit and who has inseparably linked himself to us, made himself one of us and one with us…the anointed one…the perfect Human…the obedient one, the second person of the trinity who shares with us His glory and His relationship with the Father and the Spirit.

Faith has an end result it produces (a telos/purpose)

Hebrews 11: 6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

If our faith is only that something is true, like God exists and this is who he is, but it doesn’t produce anything, we haven’t seen him clearly yet. James 2:19 (the demons believe).

To see God is to see that his very existence screams blessings, and the giving of himself and all that he is and has toward us — In a word GRACE !

That’s biblical faith. And this is the faith that will see us pivot and move into something God has for us. What is that something? We have to see and hear

Habakuk 2:2-3
“…Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time…”

Write the vision down, make it plain. Get clear on what God is speaking to you and showing and let a vision for what he wants to do in you and through you start to create faith in you.

Some results of faith:

The works of God. (John 6:28)

He who believes in me out of his inner most being shall flow forth rivers of living water. (John 7:38)

He who believes in me the works that I do he shall do and greater. (John 14:12)

Say to the mountain be plucked and move and it will move. (Matthew 21:21)

Don’t doubt in your heart and believe and you will have whatever you say. (Mark 11:24-25)

How do I get faith?

Romans 10:17
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Romans 10:8
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach):

Jesus also gives us the gift of his faith. He speaks to us and his words awaken in us the faith of the Son of god.

Jesus is the true believer. He is the one who knows the father perfectly. He is the one who perfectly diligently sought God and he is the rewarded one. Now he shares his knowledge and faith in his Father with us.

Our part: it’s not try to conjure up faith. That’s faith in our faith and not in God. Faith is what happens to you and in you when you receive his communication to you and agree, you say yes and receive what he has shown you about himself.

Hebrews 12:1-2
“…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…”

That word author: ἀρχηγός archégos: a file-leader who pioneers the way…

Galatians 2:20
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

What faith did Jesus have?:

John 16:15
“Everything that the Father has is mine.”

Matthew 28:18
“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.”

John 3:35
The Father loves the Son and has given him everything or put all things into his hands.

John 5:20
The Father loves the Son and shows him all the things that he himself does.

Revelation 1:18
I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

Summary:

We are pivoting. We are moving. We are about to take some giant steps forward in life, as believers, as families, and a corporate body. It might get messy, sometimes you have to fight the good fight of faith, sometimes you have to be an imitator of those who through faith and patience inherited the promises, but no matter what we are moving forward in changing times, led by the voice of God.

Faith has a context, it has an object – Jesus, and it has a result is seeks to manifest, whether it be a behaviour change, a life transformation, a miracle, salvation itself…

We in our day and time (context) believe in Jesus (object) for x, y, z ( result.)

Get clear on what you’re believing for. As a body of believers we have a vision we are believing for. What are you believing for? What are you writing? Habakuk 2, write it down, make it plain, go over it. If you don’t know you can. We can help you Discover, but more to the point you can hear God’s voice for your life, and that’s where faith begins, with his rhema word.

Let’s resolve in this season, to live by faith and to FOCUS on Jesus. Let’s pivot into the next season and run the race marked out before us by doing this one thing with incredible focus and resolve,

Hebrews 12:1-2
“…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…”

494 Pivot Series# 4, Faith Leads the Way, Sermon notes to print, PDF