Salvation by Faith
Notes
Transcript
1 | How have I experienced the tension?
On a family camping trip in Northern California, we witnessed the remarkable Salmon Run. Each year, salmon fight upstream, leaping waterfalls and enduring hardships to reach their birthplace, only to give their lives so the next generation can live.
The journey of faith often feels like swimming against the current, against the desires within our hearts, against the thoughts within our mind, against the culture of the world around us.
So you and I are like fish.
But here’s one key difference between their journey and ours… salmon are wired to go upstream. They don’t hesitate, question, or resist—they simply go. We, on the other hand, are wired by our sin natures in the opposite direction. My instincts don’t push me toward God’s way; they pull me toward my way—toward what makes sense to me, what I desire, whether it’s wealth, power, respect, or comfort.
2 | How have you experienced this tension?
I don’t think in those terms most days, and I assume you don’t either, but the natural desires of my heart, and the actions I default to often tell that story. I imagine since I am not the only human being in this room, then that is your story as well…
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
We’ve all been there—knowing the right thing to do but still choosing what’s easier, safer, or more comfortable. That’s the downstream pull of our sinful nature. And it’s why faith isn’t just a belief—it’s a decision we make every day to move against the current.
In Salmon terms, I know the path upstream is where life is found, but it is difficult to swim up it in my everyday life.
I imagine you can relate… whether it is with your words, your thoughts, your choices of entertainment, your difficulty to sacrificially love your families, and much much more…
So then how do we live by faith when the waters seem to be flowing so strongly in the opposite direction, and when our sinful nature is telling us to give into the path of least resistance?
This is where our journey into Hebrews takes us this evening.
3 | What do the Scriptures say about this tension?
Last week we left off with our author telling us the ancient stories of faith in the life of Moses, who God used to rescue the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
Except as you might have heard, their escape was not uneventful…
Read Hebrews 11:29
By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.
Imagine you are at the waters edge of this massive expanse of water, and you look behind you and there is an entire army chasing after you, chariots being pulled by horses, this is the ancient equivalent of tanks rolling up on you and your family. You look in front of you and your leader is standing in the water with his staff and the waters begin to part, clearing a way where there was previously no way.
This is incredible!!! Your God has saved you!!! But still you must take a step of faith crossing through the parted waters toward safety.
So what exactly is their faith action in this story? They listened and obeyed the words of God spoken through Moses to push on and move forward into the miraculous.
Counter that with the faith actions of the Egyptians, they attempted to do the same thing right? Cross the sea through the path God made, so what is the difference? They also had faith. But their faith was not in God’s salvation, their faith was in their strength and might, their plan, and their desires.
and so instead of experiencing life, the waters folded back on themselves and their strength, their plans and their desires were all destroyed in an instant.
The Israelites weren’t perfect, they struggled with gratitude and trust even though God had delivered them to safety time and time again. Their complaints and doubts kept them wandering for 40 years.
But here’s what’s remarkable: despite their struggles, their story is still one of faith. In the eyes of the Spirit—and in the perspective of our author—they still had moments when they swam upstream.
They listened and obeyed God’s voice at the Sea and participating the preserving their family.
In Hebrew there is not a word for obey. It is simply repeating the word for listen twice. Shema Shema.
When Ali tells the kids to get in the car, they hear her—but they don’t really listen until they actually get buckled up. That’s what faith looks like: not just hearing God’s voice, but acting on it.
Swimming upstream in the journey of faith is difficult because it is a path of listening and obeying the voice of God and trusting his desires, rather than listening and obeying the voice of Danny or fill in the blank if your name is not Danny.
Refuting what makes the most sense to yourself with what makes sense to God BY FAITH.
As my friend Lauren said this week, “by faith… we make sense of that which makes no sense.”
Which brings us to story of the Israelite army finally entering into the land of promise after forty years of wandering when they arrive outside of a heavily fortified city named Jericho.
By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.
This city was well supplied to last out a siege where no food or supplies could come in, and their walls were the envy of the ancient world. The greatest armies couldn’t have penetrated it, so you have a ragtag army who have little battle experience coming in from 40 years of desert wandering and they approach this Great Wall…
and God gives them a command… but it makes less sense then walking through parted waters.
They are instructed for six days to march around the city. Which is a vulnerable position. But they march each day.
On the seventh day they were called to get even more steps in my marches around the city seven times, and then the priests carrying shofar (ancient trumpets) would blow them as loudly as possible, and then the walls would fall, and then they would go and capture the city.
I have never attended a military academy, but this doesn’t appear to be a sound military strategy.
And yet, they listened and obeyed God’s voice and the walls crashed down.
The Israelites’ march around Jericho made no sense—but they trusted and obeyed. And yet, long before the walls fell, another act of faith was already at work.
Before the army ever set foot inside Jericho, a woman named Rahab had already chosen to trust in the God of Israel. And her faith would change everything.
Who would you expect to be the next great example of faith? A warrior? A prophet? Instead, Hebrews 11 points us to Rahab—a prostitute in Jericho. An outsider, but one who trusted in a God she had only heard about in whispers.
By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
Before the armies listened and obeyed God’s voice, the commanders sent in two spies into Jericho to scope it. There they meet this woman Rahab, who the author of Hebrews reminds us is a prostitute. This isn’t used as a point of judgment but as a marker that there is not a single type of person that God cannot call to himself, that God will not choose to use for his purposes.
The two spies stay at her home, and Rahab willingly hides them and covers for them when the King’s men heard that she had seen them…
And then she begins to plan to help them escape.
But why would she do all of this? Why would she possibly put her life on the line to cover for these people who are enemies to her people?
She explains it this way…
“I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt… And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father’s house, and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” And the men said to her, “Our life for yours even to death! If you do not tell this business of ours, then when the Lord gives us the land we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”
Her she stood in a heavily fortified city. There was no earthly reason to believe that those walls could ever be taken down. And yet here she is speaking… by faith.
Trusting in a God that she doesn’t yet personally know, why? Because she has seen his faithfulness through the whispers and rumors that had made its way to Jericho.
That Yahweh had already made the impossible possible to preserve and protect his people. And she knows by faith that this land is the inheritance set aside for the Israelites by God.
And so she could do what the rest of her people were doing, living in fear but trusting what made sense to them… that their strength was secure behind these walls, that their plan would hold fast.
Or she could swim against the current. Trusting Yahweh, and moving forward by faith.
She responded with an action of faith when she offered a friendly welcome to the spies, and so she didn’t perish with the rest of her people group. And this action of faith would not only change the trajectory of her life but perhaps yours as well….
and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
You see by faith she would become a part of the Israelite family herself when she married a man named Salmon (truly no pun intended) and she would give birth to a son named Boaz who would be the great grandfather of King David.
and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
and it would be through the family line of David that one day would produce a son named Joseph, who would adopt as his son a child named Jesus.
Jesus, the Messiah, the long awaited one for all those who lived by faith.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
His life, death, and resurrection made no sense… and yet God makes sense of that which makes no sense.
For this ancient audience enduring suffering and persecution this is what they needed. Not that the walls of Rome would come crumbling down, not that the waters would collide crushing the Emperors army. But knowing that as they day by day they listened and obeyed God’s desire for their community then they would operate in the space of his calling for them.
And no matter what tomorrow would bring it couldn’t overthrow the story he was telling in the background.
4 | How can the Gospel bring resolution to this tension in your life?
It is so wild to think of how a salmon follows its instincts to swim all that great distance just to lose their life at the end of the journey.
Thankfully, faith isn’t a journey that ends in exhaustion or emptiness—it ends in life. We swim upstream, but we do so in the strength of the One who has already gone before us. Jesus didn’t just call us to a life of faith—He lived it perfectly, swimming against the current of sin and death to bring us into new life. That’s why we listen and obey: not out of duty, but out of love for the One who first loved us.
The Journey of Faith is one of both spiritual formation, and as we are formed into the character and nature of Jesus, we get to participate in impacting the lives of others. Just like Rahab, we may not always see the ripple effect of our obedience, but God is always working through it.
What opportunities are in front of you this week where God is calling you to listen and obey BY FAITH?
In a world focused on what is in it for me, consider a rhythm of serving within your local church
In a world focused on scarcity, consider a rhythm of generosity both toward your local church and to other incredible Gospel infused ministries locally and globally
In a world focused on defining truth for yourself, consider a rhythm of participating in sharing the Gospel with those around you.
5 | What would the world see if the church embraced this resolution?
Swimming against the current of our sinful desires and against the culture around us isn’t easy, and yet it is absolutely worth it, and gives to the world around us a vision of what it means to follow in the way of Jesus.
Let’s pray.
