Joshua Boyd: Well, I'm excited about today because we're continuing our discussion on the journey of faith.
Joshua Boyd: You know, we've talked about the fact that faith is not just a one-time event, it's a journey.
Joshua Boyd: And it's both in our, you know, in our Christian walk, it's something that all of us are, I should say all of us have the opportunity to do.
Joshua Boyd: And that's what we're going to talk about today, because just because we say we're a Christian doesn't mean we're on a journey of faith.
Joshua Boyd: So we need to make sure that we kickstart that, get it started, get it going.
Joshua Boyd: The first part of it, what we talked about last time, is salvation.
Joshua Boyd: We hear the good news, we believe it, we act on it, we call on God, say, God, come into my life, come in, you know, come into my heart right now.
Joshua Boyd: And that is our first act of what we do after believing the word of the good news, and then that yields to salvation.
Joshua Boyd: And salvation is our is the start of us on our journey, or the opportunity to start on our journey.
Joshua Boyd: And we we talked about last time that the rest of our journey works exactly the same way.
Joshua Boyd: We hear, we believe, and then we act.
Joshua Boyd: The first act of obedience is calling on the name of the Lord in response to hearing the good news.
Joshua Boyd: Now, in part two, we're going to focus on something that can actually hinder us on our journey, unbelief.
Joshua Boyd: How can a born-again Christian experience unbelief?
Joshua Boyd: And the answer is every day.
Joshua Boyd: It comes into play all the time.
Joshua Boyd: In the New Testament, there are two different words for the for um two different words in the Greek language for believe and faith.
Joshua Boyd: They're not, they're they're sometimes used interchangeably, but they really do have a difference.
Joshua Boyd: You know, and Hebrews talks about the fact that we need to rightly divide the word of God.
Joshua Boyd: We need to rightly look at it.
Joshua Boyd: And we're gonna that's kind of what we're gonna do.
Joshua Boyd: We're gonna kind of get into there with a sharper knife and start dividing in what are what are what are what is what is the scripture talking about when it says believe versus when it says we need to have faith.
Joshua Boyd: Um the word believe is you know, don't need to write this down, but it's pistuo, it's the Greek word pistuo, whereas the word faith is pistis.
Joshua Boyd: So again, very similar origin of words.
Joshua Boyd: Believe, though, has more the connotation of to think to be true, a mere acknowledgement of a fact or event.
Joshua Boyd: In other words, yeah, I believe today is Sunday.
Joshua Boyd: You know, I believe that tomorrow is gonna be, you know, sunny and 62, because that's what the weatherman said.
Joshua Boyd: Now, do I say I have faith in that?
Joshua Boyd: No.
Joshua Boyd: It's not, you know, because I'll all it's not, I'm not super con I'm not as 100% confident that the weatherman's gonna be 100% true, because they never are.
Joshua Boyd: They're doing their best guess, best effort, but I believe enough to maybe dress differently or act accordingly.
Joshua Boyd: Faith, though, is really more of a conviction of the truth.
Joshua Boyd: It is a, it is, there's the the ideas, the connotations are the word trust and confidence.
Joshua Boyd: You know, do I have confidence that I'll be going to work tomorrow?
Joshua Boyd: Yeah.
Joshua Boyd: Do I, you know, do I have confidence that tomorrow's Monday?
Joshua Boyd: Very much so.
Joshua Boyd: Um, but so there's belief is it there's a need for belief.
Joshua Boyd: There's a need for believing.
Joshua Boyd: But that's kind of like that initial first step.
Joshua Boyd: Faith is something that can actually grow.
Joshua Boyd: Um so, and here's some verses that kind of differentiate, or at least use both words at the same time.
Joshua Boyd: Uh Galatians 2, 16, it says, Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Christ Jesus, not by obeying the law.
Joshua Boyd: And we have believed in Jesus Christ, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law, for no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.
Joshua Boyd: The key part of their second sentence, and we have believed in Jesus Christ.
Joshua Boyd: We kind of, okay, we believe that what he's saying is true.
Joshua Boyd: Now, the next step, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith.
Joshua Boyd: So we, there's an initial kind of believing, and then as our the faith kind of gives us that more and more confidence.
Joshua Boyd: Also in Galatians 3.22, New King James says, but the scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given to those who believe.
Joshua Boyd: So there's a promise by faith, it's a promise that's going to come down, you know, keep coming as we continue to have that confidence and that trust, but it comes from starting from believing, that starting point of believing.
Joshua Boyd: So the way I thought I started thinking about it is belief starts the car, but faith is the accelerator.
Joshua Boyd: Faith is the gas pedal.
Joshua Boyd: Because I can start the car and leave it in the driveway, and I ain't on a journey.
Joshua Boyd: I'm sitting in my car, I'm in something that can get me places, but until I start putting it in drive and pressing the gas pedal, I'm not doing anything.
Joshua Boyd: But it starts with belief.
Joshua Boyd: Because I can press the gas pedal all I want, I can put it in drive all I want.
Joshua Boyd: But if the car isn't started, or I guess I should use a you know, these these days, we we don't we don't turn keys hardly anymore, it's a push button.
Joshua Boyd: Um or you know, remote.
Joshua Boyd: But you know, well, so then the car I can't go anywhere without the car being started.
Joshua Boyd: So I can't even start talking about faith until at least I've said I believe.
Joshua Boyd: Belief opens the door, faith explores the house.
Joshua Boyd: Belief puts I'll say these again.
Joshua Boyd: Belief puts your foot on the next step.
Joshua Boyd: Okay, I believe, I believe this step is here, but it's faith that's the muscle that actually propels me up and gets me higher.
Joshua Boyd: So belief says, okay, I believe I think there's something, some, I think there's a new place I can go.
Joshua Boyd: But faith is like, do I have the exercise, do I have the energy, do I have the the the will to actually propel myself up through that by by believing, by putting my full weight in there?
Joshua Boyd: Believing is a switch.
Joshua Boyd: Off and on.
Joshua Boyd: Chick-chick.
Joshua Boyd: Coding language, boolean, you know, it's it's either yes or no.
Joshua Boyd: It's it's it's it's only two choices.
Joshua Boyd: Binary, right.
Joshua Boyd: It's not, I, you know, your your belief doesn't grow.
Joshua Boyd: Your faith does.
Joshua Boyd: So belief is a switch.
Joshua Boyd: Faith is organic.
Joshua Boyd: Faith has to grow like a muscle.
Joshua Boyd: That's why I use that example of muscles all the time with it.
Joshua Boyd: Um and like a gas pedal.
Joshua Boyd: I can I can barely push my gas pedal and I can go 10 miles an hour, or I can go, hey, let's see what this thing can do, and push it down and go, now we're going.
Joshua Boyd: Now we're getting somewhere.
Joshua Boyd: Now, please hear me, I'm not diminishing belief.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, we're we're we're looking at both of these as very important because according to the Bible, even believing is super powerful.
Joshua Boyd: Jesus said in Mark 9, 23, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.
Joshua Boyd: And I in studying this, I never really started looking at the differences in this.
Joshua Boyd: It didn't say you need to have really great faith to have all things possible for you.
Joshua Boyd: He said, you just need to believe.
Joshua Boyd: Flip that switch on.
Joshua Boyd: You don't need to have big muscles, you don't need to have a fast car, you don't need to have, you don't need to have all that experience and time to get your faith built up.
Joshua Boyd: Just that belief will get you all things as possible all things are possible.
Joshua Boyd: And immediately, this is when that father, you know, immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, said, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
Joshua Boyd: He was flipping that switch off and on.
Joshua Boyd: He's like, I think I believe, I'm not sure if I believe.
Joshua Boyd: I think I believe, I'm not sure if I believe.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, that kind of he was at that point where he was just about to say, okay, I think I'm ready to keep this thing on.
Joshua Boyd: And of course, he got his result.
Joshua Boyd: So I'll go through going through those differences again.
Joshua Boyd: Belief starts the car, faith is the gas pedal, belief opens the door, faith explores the house.
Joshua Boyd: Belief puts your foot on the next step, faith is a muscle that propels you up.
Joshua Boyd: Believing is a switch, but faith is organic.
Joshua Boyd: If you look at the church worldwide, church global, I hear people refer to it as the Capital C church, the body of believers.
Joshua Boyd: Sadly, there's a lot of Christians out there who started the car and are just sitting in the driveway.
Joshua Boyd: They they have said, I'm saved.
Joshua Boyd: And if you ask them, can God do this for you?
Joshua Boyd: Well, yes, he's able.
Joshua Boyd: Well, knowing he's able is just like me saying, Yeah, there's a step there.
Joshua Boyd: But is that the step for me to go on?
Joshua Boyd: Or does God not want that step for me?
Joshua Boyd: I don't know yet.
Joshua Boyd: They've got that belief off for something for them.
Joshua Boyd: They believe fully that they're going to heaven.
Joshua Boyd: They believe fully that they're saved.
Joshua Boyd: They've got that first step, and yes, they are going to heaven.
Joshua Boyd: But the journey of faith, the Christian walk, is much more than just getting into the door, just much more than starting the car.
Joshua Boyd: When we hear a truth in the word, that God can save you, that God can heal you, that God can deliver, that God can protect, we do have a first, the first choice is do I flip that switch on?
Joshua Boyd: And I think of it as like a panel of switches.
Joshua Boyd: I've got the faith of salvation.
Joshua Boyd: I got I believe I believe in salvation.
Joshua Boyd: Do I really believe in the deliverance and the meeting my needs and the and the providing healing for me?
Joshua Boyd: I know God can.
Joshua Boyd: I know he's able to.
Joshua Boyd: But the believing that we're talking about, the believing that the Bible says, and the believing that Jesus referred to in this verse, that all things are all things are possible to him who believes, is the one who says, I believe that for me.
Joshua Boyd: A lot of people can say that.
Joshua Boyd: They know God, they've seen his power.
Joshua Boyd: But the devils aren't getting healed, the devils aren't getting saved.
Joshua Boyd: So the believing we're talking about, the flipping the switch on, is me saying, okay, there's a step here.
Joshua Boyd: God wants to provide for all of my needs according to his riches.
Joshua Boyd: Okay, I'm gonna start believing that.
Joshua Boyd: I'm gonna believe that for me.
Joshua Boyd: But the for until we actually start taking that step fully and put our weight on it, that's when we have the faith for it.
Joshua Boyd: And that's when we are saying, Lord, I'm putting my confidence in you, I'm putting my full trust in you that you're gonna do it.
Joshua Boyd: We've got to do that first step, but we also have to start putting our weight on the step, otherwise we don't get anywhere.
Joshua Boyd: So I want to talking about the journey of faith, I'm gonna talk, I'm gonna use a really good example in the Bible, and that's the the children of Israel.
Joshua Boyd: But we're gonna read kind of a condensed summary of their journey in Hebrews, because we we do have to read pretty much all of Exodus and Numbers to get through their entire journey.
Joshua Boyd: It's a lot of back and forth, as many of us know.
Joshua Boyd: So we're gonna read from Hebrews 3.
Joshua Boyd: I'll start with verse 5.
Joshua Boyd: This is New Living.
Joshua Boyd: Moses was certainly faithful in God's house as a servant.
Joshua Boyd: His work was an illustration of the truths that God would reveal later.
Joshua Boyd: But Christ as the Son is in charge of God's entire house, and we are God's house if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ.
Joshua Boyd: That is why the Holy Spirit says, Today, when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts, as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness.
Joshua Boyd: There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years.
Joshua Boyd: So I was angry with them, and I said, Their hearts always turn away from me.
Joshua Boyd: They refused to do what I tell them.
Joshua Boyd: In my anger I took an oath, they will never enter my place of rest.
Joshua Boyd: Be careful, then, dear brothers and sisters, make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.
Joshua Boyd: You must warn each other every day, while it is still called today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.
Joshua Boyd: For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.
Joshua Boyd: Remember what it says, today when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.
Joshua Boyd: Even when you read that passage, you see some, he repeats it, harden your heart.
Joshua Boyd: Israel rebelled.
Joshua Boyd: They had an opportunity.
Joshua Boyd: And that kind of summarizes the 40 years of the children of Israel in the wilderness.
Joshua Boyd: God prophesied to Abraham back in Genesis 15, I think it is, when God told Abraham he was going to have many kids, and Abraham would say, Well, how will I know this is true?
Joshua Boyd: Basically, you know, what's how will I know this will come to pass?
Joshua Boyd: You know the sign that God told him?
Joshua Boyd: He said, Your descendants will live in slavery for 400 years, and then they'll be redeemed.
Joshua Boyd: That was God's saying, This is how you'll know.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, so Abraham never got to see that sign.
Joshua Boyd: But that was what the Lord said in response to him, how will I know?
Joshua Boyd: He said, Your descendants are going to live in being taken, they'll be slaves for 400 years.
Joshua Boyd: That's exactly how many years they were slaves in Egypt.
Joshua Boyd: And then God delivered, you know, God brought Moses in, brought him out with a mighty hand, brought him out.
Joshua Boyd: The Bible says they spoiled the Egyptians, they took the wealth of Egypt with them.
Joshua Boyd: God gave them favor, they literally took their riches and their possessions with them into a desert where they couldn't spend it.
Joshua Boyd: You know, so they had all this stuff.
Joshua Boyd: And immediately within a few days, they're like, You brought us out here to kill us, Moses.
Joshua Boyd: Let's go back.
Joshua Boyd: Or they you know, they hit the they hit the Red Sea and they're like, You're all gonna die here.
Joshua Boyd: And they said that, and we talked about this in Bible study uh Wednesday night too.
Joshua Boyd: They said that so many times that we're gonna die out here in the wilderness, we're gonna die out here in the wilderness.
Joshua Boyd: Finally, the Lord said, Okay, what you have what you say, you're gonna die out here in the wilderness.
Joshua Boyd: Because he tried to work and work, and they were seeing literal miracles, a cloud of, I mean, daily, a cloud by day that protected them from the sun in the desert, a fire at night that kept them warm, water coming out of rocks, a sea parting and going across on dry ground.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, you would think the kind of things that you know people are always asking for signs, they saw signs daily, and yet still like, I don't know.
Joshua Boyd: I I don't know about this God.
Joshua Boyd: I'm not sure about, I don't know.
Joshua Boyd: Let's in fact, you know what?
Joshua Boyd: Let's go ahead and make a little golden calf, and let's that that's the God who brought us out of Egypt.
Joshua Boyd: This little thing we just made with our the gold we just brought out of Egypt.
Joshua Boyd: Let's make a little idol.
Joshua Boyd: It doesn't, you know, man is so ignorant when we turn away from God.
Joshua Boyd: It's so idiotic that it doesn't make sense.
Joshua Boyd: They had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to trust God, and they didn't do it.
Joshua Boyd: And God says, summarizing here in Hebrews, every time they did that, their heart was getting a little bit harder.
Joshua Boyd: It was starting to calcify and starting to really get to the point where God's like, okay, there's you're you're you can't you're not gonna change.
Joshua Boyd: And he knew their heart, not they're not at that point, they're not gonna change.
Joshua Boyd: He's like, okay, so anybody 20 years and up, you got what you said.
Joshua Boyd: My word's still gonna come true.
Joshua Boyd: I'm still gonna bring the children of Israel, the people of Israel, into the promised land, like I said I would.
Joshua Boyd: But this whole population won't be a part of it.
Joshua Boyd: So when he's saying it to us here in Hebrews, he's saying, make sure, remind each other daily, do it while it's called today.
Joshua Boyd: When is it called today?
Joshua Boyd: Today, every day.
Joshua Boyd: Do this regularly.
Joshua Boyd: Remind yourself, don't harden your heart.
Joshua Boyd: Don't ignore the word of the Lord.
Joshua Boyd: Don't just go, I'm seeing, I think there's a God who can deliver us, but I'm not sure if I believe that.
Joshua Boyd: That's where it connects to what we're talking about today.
Joshua Boyd: They were seeing literal signs of God doing things in their lives, and yet they still did not believe.
Joshua Boyd: How much more do we need to force, you know, really push ourselves and push each other, encourage each other when we don't have a fire warming us at night and a cloud, you know, an angel of God has a cloud by day and manna showing up every morning on our doorsteps.
Joshua Boyd: We still have to believe that God moves, God acts, and not just that he can, but that he will.
Joshua Boyd: And as we do that, then we start believing.
Joshua Boyd: And every time we say we believe, we're softening our heart.
Joshua Boyd: We're not hardening our heart.
Joshua Boyd: We're keeping our heart tender toward God, as the Bible says.
Joshua Boyd: We're keeping an honest heart, as the Bible says.
Joshua Boyd: The Bible talks a lot about a heart.
Joshua Boyd: This is the heart we don't want.
Joshua Boyd: We don't want a hardened heart.
Joshua Boyd: We want a heart that's that's always for God.
Joshua Boyd: You know, there's a number of examples, this is one of them, where there were people in the Bible who had an op who messed up and had an opportunity to repent and turn around, and they didn't, and they kept defending themselves.
Joshua Boyd: There's one of them, I didn't plan on talking about this too long, but Saul did that.
Joshua Boyd: Saul was the first king of Israel, appointed by God, but and prayed, you know, Samuel came and anointed him.
Joshua Boyd: But it came to a certain point where he was given something to do.
Joshua Boyd: He didn't do it all.
Joshua Boyd: Samuel came and confronted him.
Joshua Boyd: And he kept defending himself.
Joshua Boyd: He kept saying, blaming other people.
Joshua Boyd: He kept trying to excuse himself rather than repent.
Joshua Boyd: All he had to do was repent, and he would have been right back into favor with God.
Joshua Boyd: But he kept, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Joshua Boyd: I'm gonna get my I'm I'm right, I'm doing my way, I'm doing my way.
Joshua Boyd: And he kept getting further and further, hardening, hardening, hardening his heart.
Joshua Boyd: And finally God said, Man, I'm I'm I repent.
Joshua Boyd: The King James says that I made him king, because his heart's not after me.
Joshua Boyd: And he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna appoint, anoint somebody whose heart is after me.
Joshua Boyd: It's literally what he said.
Joshua Boyd: So he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna appoint the next king, it's gonna have a different heart.
Joshua Boyd: And it was David.
Joshua Boyd: God wants our heart, and our heart stays soft and tender because we continually go, Lord, I believe.
Joshua Boyd: I flipped that switch.
Joshua Boyd: I believe you can heal me, I believe you can you can protect my kids, I believe you can deliver me in this situation.
Joshua Boyd: I believe that you have salvation for my life and my family's life and my work life everywhere, every way.
Joshua Boyd: And we when we start keeping those keeping those steps, keeping that switch turned on of believing, the further we walk, the more our faith starts growing because we see God move, the more we see, and the more we can believe for.
Joshua Boyd: Okay, Lord, you met my need for a$10 need.
Joshua Boyd: You know, now it's a$100 need, now it's a$1,000 need, now it's a$10,000 need.
Joshua Boyd: Now, you know, and we so it's not just a believing that God can provide, it's that God can provide that next level, that next step.
Joshua Boyd: And that's where the that's why it's a journey.
Joshua Boyd: And that's why we can't just stay in the driveway because there's so much more that God wants to do for you.
Joshua Boyd: Just like the children of Israel.
Joshua Boyd: He's like, I've got all this prepared for you, I've got this land, but you gotta believe me.
Joshua Boyd: And they were and they, you know, twice they needed water.
Joshua Boyd: The first time God brought it from a rock through Moses, the second time they had the same complaint, not even going, oh whoa, yeah, okay, God did this last time, we know he'll do it again.
Joshua Boyd: They're like, no, we're gonna die again.
Joshua Boyd: And you know, Jesus had the same problem with the disciples because they he rebuked them many times for their unbelief.
Joshua Boyd: And if you think about the disciples, here are a group of people who are literally touching shoulders with the Son of God.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, if we said, we we always say, you know, I'd love to, Lord, I'd love to, you know, to see a vision of you, to meet you in person, and we think that would answer all of our unbelief problems.
Joshua Boyd: It doesn't.
Joshua Boyd: They were literally touching him, eating bread with him, walking the streets with him.
Joshua Boyd: And yet when things happened in their life, just like it does in ours, they're like, we're gonna die, you know, just in the boat.
Joshua Boyd: Like, don't you care that we're gonna perish, Lord?
Joshua Boyd: You know, people were, and he said, Where's your where's your faith?
Joshua Boyd: Where why can't you believe why aren't you believing?
Joshua Boyd: So for us to continue to keep our hearts softened, for us to keep taking that next step of believing, first of all, we have to just make that choice that I'm gonna believe that God can do this because he said he would.
Joshua Boyd: And then we do it for the small things, it starts getting better and better and bigger and bigger as we go.
Joshua Boyd: There's other examples.
Joshua Boyd: I I didn't want to get spend the time on these, but there's there's other examples even in the New Testament where they were following God and then somehow got their hard heart hardened to a point where even God Paul Paul has some examples.
Joshua Boyd: Um, actually, no, I do have this verse in here.
Joshua Boyd: Um look at 1 Timothy.
Joshua Boyd: This is 1 Timothy 1 19.
Joshua Boyd: Cling to your faith in Christ and keep your conscience clear.
Joshua Boyd: For some people have deliberately violated their consciences, as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.
Joshua Boyd: What does that mean?
Joshua Boyd: Okay, I've switched on my my switch of believing for salvation.
Joshua Boyd: And I hear in the word that God can God can provide for my needs.
Joshua Boyd: You know, my kids need daycare, my my my rent bill is due, my house payments due, I need a new car.
Joshua Boyd: But uh, you know what?
Joshua Boyd: I don't I just don't know if I can believe that for me right now.
Joshua Boyd: I'm just not at that place.
Joshua Boyd: So I'm gonna start, I'm just gonna go and do what I need to do.
Joshua Boyd: I'm gonna get that extra job, I'm gonna go start uh you know doing other things in the flesh to try to get that to happen, to try to get that to come to pass, because I'm not sure, I mean I I hear it, but I'm not sure I can believe that God can do that for me.
Joshua Boyd: That just seems too impossible.
Joshua Boyd: And we it's it's violating our conscience because our conscience is saying, this is this is right.
Joshua Boyd: What God is saying is true.
Joshua Boyd: Read the word, look, you know, I've seen this happen.
Joshua Boyd: Our conscience is saying, trust God, our conscience being our spirit within us.
Joshua Boyd: And we're going, I just can't right now.
Joshua Boyd: I'm not at that place.
Joshua Boyd: I'm gonna have to do this on my own.
Joshua Boyd: And we've we've all done it.
Joshua Boyd: We've all done the the Abraham and Ishmael.
Joshua Boyd: You know, let's go ahead and get, let's go ahead and, you know, God's giving me a word, it's not really happening as fast as I thought it would.
Joshua Boyd: I'm not really sure this is gonna happen.
Joshua Boyd: So I'm just gonna step out and start trying to produce this result myself.
Joshua Boyd: That's what Paul is saying here.
Joshua Boyd: Cling, keep that faith, keep that, keep your faith in Christ with a good grasp on it, but keep your conscience clear.
Joshua Boyd: And he says in verse 20 here, he named two people, Himanius and Alexander, are two examples.
Joshua Boyd: I threw them out, handed them over to Satan so they might learn not to blaspheme God.
Joshua Boyd: I'm not gonna get into all that, throw out the Satan part, but he's giving an example of two people who violated their conscience so much that he basically had to say, out of the church.
Joshua Boyd: You've hardened your heart to the point that we can't work with you, that either Satan's gonna have to take you, or there's gonna have to be a repentance.
Joshua Boyd: He did the same thing.
Joshua Boyd: Paul said the same words.
Joshua Boyd: I've given him over to Satan with the person in Corinthians who was in adultery.
Joshua Boyd: You know, he in 1 Corinthians he he's like, hey, you guys got somebody who's sleeping with his mother-in-law, uh uh stepmom, um, and you're not even doing anything about it.
Joshua Boyd: Throw him out, get rid of, you know, get him out of the church because it's affecting you.
Joshua Boyd: Don't, you know, don't put your arms around them, don't pray for him, kick him out, give them over to Satan is what he said, same words.
Joshua Boyd: 2 Corinthians, the guy repents, comes back, and now Paul's telling him, love him, embrace him as a brother, because he repented.
Joshua Boyd: He softened his heart.
Joshua Boyd: Now we don't know what happened to Hymeneus and Alexander here, but the point is, people can get to a point, Saul, these two examples, children of Israel, that their heart gets hardened over time, and God says, I can't do anything more with you.
Joshua Boyd: And either it's the shock of God saying, Okay, you're done, that hopefully repentance comes eventually, like the man in Corinthians.
Joshua Boyd: But more examples in the word are that never happens.
Joshua Boyd: Saul became so hardened against God that he started trying to kill David.
Joshua Boyd: He tried to come against the men of God.
Joshua Boyd: He never spoke to Samuel again after that moment.
Joshua Boyd: He never had a relationship with him anymore.
Joshua Boyd: He never had his priest, his prophet available to him anymore.
Joshua Boyd: And he started seeing witches, literally.
Joshua Boyd: And those kind of actions and activities happened because time after time he hardened his heart against God.
Joshua Boyd: He didn't believe the word.
Joshua Boyd: That's how important belief is.
Joshua Boyd: That's how important it is to keep unbelief out of our lives.
Joshua Boyd: Because we can say that we're a Christian and yes, we're going to heaven.
Joshua Boyd: But if we get to heaven and God said, I had all these other things planned for you.
Joshua Boyd: I could have helped you there, helped you there.
Joshua Boyd: Why didn't you let me?
Joshua Boyd: And we're like, that was me stopping that?
Joshua Boyd: Not you not wanting to do it.
Joshua Boyd: We don't want to be in that position.
Joshua Boyd: We don't want to be in the spot that we look back and go, oh, that was my fault.
Joshua Boyd: Um when we're talking about the journey of faith, we God has given us so much grace.
Joshua Boyd: He's done so much for us.
Joshua Boyd: And yes, he can do anything.
Joshua Boyd: He has he has he is a great big God.
Joshua Boyd: But any anything is possible to him who believes.
Joshua Boyd: Anything is possible to him who flips that switch and says, Thank you, Lord, that you can heal me.
Joshua Boyd: Thank you, Lord, that you can deliver me.
Joshua Boyd: Thank you, Lord, that in a situation that seems impossible at work, and I've had a few of them in the past year, that it felt like it was an impossible situation with a person who felt it seemed like it was just a person resisting something that was going on.
Joshua Boyd: And I finally stopped focusing on the person and went to God about it.
Joshua Boyd: And one, the situation cleared up back in the fall, and now that person's not even there at the company.
Joshua Boyd: And it's a C-suite level, meaning it was not it, it was only God that could do things.
Joshua Boyd: But I went to God about it.
Joshua Boyd: I said, God, I need deliverance.
Joshua Boyd: This, you know, this project that we're on needs deliverance.
Joshua Boyd: And God came through.
Joshua Boyd: And at first I had to turn that switch on because I was just so used to not, you know, going my own route and going the you know, the whatever route.
Joshua Boyd: You know, first of all, the worry route, which never really solves anything.
Joshua Boyd: The second of all is the flesh route of, okay, I'm gonna try to build relationships and communicate and do all the buzzwords that we have at work.
Joshua Boyd: That only goes so far.
Joshua Boyd: But then I flipped on the belief switch.
Joshua Boyd: Lord, I believe you can deliver me from deliver, it wasn't just me, it delivered this situation.
Joshua Boyd: I'm a part of it, but I believe you can deliver this situation.
Joshua Boyd: And as soon as I did, things started happening.
Joshua Boyd: Something that only God can do.
Joshua Boyd: And he can do that for us every day.
Joshua Boyd: So when we heard and you know, for the word for 2025, don't fear like they fear, don't put your trust in God, fear God.
Joshua Boyd: That's why, because there's so much that we couldn't do anyway.
Joshua Boyd: So why not believe God and keep our hearts soft toward Him and keep our conscience clear.
Joshua Boyd: Amen?
Joshua Boyd: Now, you know, I say this, and some people might go, well, am I getting close to being kicked out and handed over to Satan?
Joshua Boyd: No.
Joshua Boyd: Because I see the hearts of the people that are part of our church.
Joshua Boyd: We have hearts that are that are toward God.
Joshua Boyd: You can you can tell when there's a heart.
Joshua Boyd: I've seen it in the past, and not here in this state, but I've seen it happen with people and seen the result of somebody that I knew in the church whose heart got so hardened that they just they started doing whack-a-doodle things, out, you know, left the church or were kicked out, and then just like they were never a Christian in the first place.
Joshua Boyd: I've seen it happen, but none of us are close.
Joshua Boyd: But that doesn't mean we need to watch out for the line.
Joshua Boyd: You know, if the line's over there, don't even get close to it.
Joshua Boyd: You know, it's not it's like our kids getting close to the highway.
Joshua Boyd: It's like, yeah, the curb's right here, but I don't want you standing on the curb and you know, watching a car buzz by you at you know two feet away.
Joshua Boyd: Stay away from the line.
Joshua Boyd: In fact, get further from the line, soften your heart, soften your heart, soften your heart toward God.
Joshua Boyd: So, how do we prevent it from happening to us?
Joshua Boyd: One, we do what Hebrews says, watch out for unbelief.
Joshua Boyd: And when you when your mind and your flesh wants to say, I don't know if I can believe that yet, let that be the little warning bulb and say, No, I need to, I need to, I need to make effort to believe this.
Joshua Boyd: And then two, put action to your faith.
Joshua Boyd: Put action to your belief.
Joshua Boyd: Yeah, flip that switch on once you once you have decided, I'm going to believe that, God will tell you to do something.
Joshua Boyd: He'll give you a word, he'll give you an action.
Joshua Boyd: Faith, and this is this is really where faith comes into play.
Joshua Boyd: Faith always has an action.
Joshua Boyd: There's always an action.
Joshua Boyd: So faith isn't just a ethereal thing that we can say we have or not.
Joshua Boyd: Faith always has an action.
Joshua Boyd: The book of James puts it this way, and this is this is the amplified, which I don't have on the screen.
Joshua Boyd: So the amplified says, but someone will say to you then, You say you have faith, and I have good works.
Joshua Boyd: Now you show me your alleged faith apart from any good works, if you can, and I, by good works of obedience, will show you my faith.
Joshua Boyd: Love the way it kind of fleshes out that that fra that sentence, because King James is just faith without works is dead, or I'll show you my faith by my works.
Joshua Boyd: You show me your alleged faith apart from any good works, because how can you have faith if you're not doing anything about it?
Joshua Boyd: If you can, and I, by my good works of obedience, will show you my faith.
Joshua Boyd: Uh sorry, that's James 2.18.
Joshua Boyd: James 2.18.
Joshua Boyd: That's amplified.
Joshua Boyd: You know, Jesus commended the church in the book of Revelation.
Joshua Boyd: There's seven churches that Jesus is talking to and sends a letter and sends a letter to.
Joshua Boyd: Um, and the church at Thyatira, he says, um, I'll put it on screen, I know all the things you do, I have seen your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance, and I can see your constant improvement in all these things.
Joshua Boyd: He's commending them because he didn't just say, I see your faith.
Joshua Boyd: There's service involved in that, there's action involved in that, there's love, there's patient endurance.
Joshua Boyd: There's things that are along with that that are not just, yeah, it looks like you have faith.
Joshua Boyd: You know, no, there's there's action that followed with it.
Joshua Boyd: Our journey of faith begins with believing the good news of salvation.
Joshua Boyd: But step after step in our journey is only progressed by believing the word and acting on it in faith, keeping your conscience clear and your obedience on the ready.
Joshua Boyd: That takes work.
Joshua Boyd: That takes labor, it takes uh it takes a fight because the devil's trying to always constantly push that unbelief, push that, don't flip that switch.
Joshua Boyd: You don't know what's gonna happen if you do.
Joshua Boyd: God's gonna call you to Africa and make you be a missionary and leave everything you have, and you know, He, you know, He's trying to not get you to flip that switch.
Joshua Boyd: Don't turn that car on.
Joshua Boyd: But once we do, then we gotta still say, okay, Lord, I'm ready to go.
Joshua Boyd: Where are we going?
Joshua Boyd: What's my next, where am I, what do I need to do to be obedient to this?
Joshua Boyd: That's the fight.
Joshua Boyd: That's the good fight.
Joshua Boyd: That's why the Bible calls it a fight of faith, but more specifically, the good fight of faith.
Joshua Boyd: Because when we win that, we win that fight and we have all the goodness of God, God has given us all grace as abounding toward us that we having all sufficiency, having everything we need, may abound to every good work.
Joshua Boyd: So God's ready to say, Oh, you turn that switch on, here's everything you need to go on your journey.
Joshua Boyd: But he's waiting for us to go, I believe.
Joshua Boyd: He's waiting for us to go take that step and go, Lord, I believe not only that you can do it, but you're gonna do it for me.
Joshua Boyd: And then he's gonna go, here's my here's the end, here's the end, here's the here's everything you need for your journey.
Joshua Boyd: Hebrews concludes the summary of the children of Israel's wilderness journey by giving us a command.
Joshua Boyd: So that we aim for the same kind of rest.
Joshua Boyd: The Hebrews calls it, they entered into their rest, because that was the rest, was they're done.
Joshua Boyd: They're in their promised land.
Joshua Boyd: They have made the journey, they have fought the battles, they have overcome the cities and the and the enemies, and now they're finally eating crops they didn't sow, they're living in houses they didn't build.
Joshua Boyd: They did, they're doing the things that God promised them so many years before.
Joshua Boyd: That was their rest from the fight, from the journey.
Joshua Boyd: But Hebrews 4, 11 tells us to do the same thing.
Joshua Boyd: Let us labor, let us work out, let us fight to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
Joshua Boyd: In other words, the two choices are we either keep fighting to go forward and go into that rest, or we may end up falling into that, our heart keeps getting hardened because we're not flipping those switches on.
Joshua Boyd: We're saying, nope, I'm not sure I believe that.
Joshua Boyd: And there are, well, this is our challenge and encouragement for today, because this is something that takes, like Hebrews earlier said, encourage each other daily.
Joshua Boyd: Encourage each other every time to say, no, we can do this.
Joshua Boyd: Husbands and wives, you have the advantage of encouraging each other when one's not feeling like it's time to flip the switch yet, and you've already done yours, it's like, oh no, let's let's come to the Lord, let's look at what the word says, let's do this together, let's fight in this together.
Joshua Boyd: Call, you know, you have friends to call, you have people to call that you can encourage.
Joshua Boyd: And if you're as a couple experiencing something that you both are going, not quite sure yet.
Joshua Boyd: Are we ready to, as a couple, to believe this for our family, for our kids, then call somebody else, talk to somebody, get that encouraging word to say, yeah, got look at look at.
Joshua Boyd: God's done for us, He can do it.
Joshua Boyd: Catherine and I were just talking the other day.
Joshua Boyd: We were just being grateful for our house when we got it, you know, right before you know everything, interest rates and everything went up, and uh the timing of everything.
Joshua Boyd: Um because we were uh there's something we were doing with um paperwork and all, we're just being very thankful for it.
Joshua Boyd: And you know, I said, look back to 2020, at the beginning of beginning in like February of 2020, we had we had already bought this new house, and we still own two other houses.
Joshua Boyd: Um and we were gonna get ready to sell both of them, but you know, and we we knew the even back then the market was pretty hot.
Joshua Boyd: Okay, we're gonna sell these two other houses.
Joshua Boyd: We each had one both in our own name.
Joshua Boyd: Um, and then COVID hit, and then everything shut down, you know, and then showings weren't happening anymore, and then it's like, what are we what's gonna happen?
Joshua Boyd: And how it's like all of a sudden we've got three mortgage payments, and how are we gonna do all this?
Joshua Boyd: And you know, my I was not in the role that I'm in now, making a whole lot less than I was now.
Joshua Boyd: We're like, what uh what are we gonna do?
Joshua Boyd: And I just said, we've got to keep that, and I obviously didn't use the same terminology, but keep that switch up.
Joshua Boyd: No, um but I we we kept going back to okay, God's gonna God's gonna take care of this.
Joshua Boyd: Because there's nothing we can do.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, I can take on three other jobs and it still wouldn't really handle everything, then I wouldn't have time to fix the house that we need to sell.
Joshua Boyd: So, you know, you just get into those impossible situations of your reason and your logic can only go so far, and your time and your flesh can only handle so much anyway.
Joshua Boyd: But God took care of it.
Joshua Boyd: We look back and go, I don't even remember all the details of how it happened, but we didn't get into any more debt.
Joshua Boyd: We sold the two houses, we got everything done, and God took care of it.
Joshua Boyd: And I got a promotion that year.
Joshua Boyd: I mean, of all the what?
Joshua Boyd: God took care of all of that.
Joshua Boyd: And so we can use stories like that with each other to say, God will take care of it for you.
Joshua Boyd: Here's what he did for us.
Joshua Boyd: This isn't just a story, the stories in the Bible are good, but when it comes down to today, that's why he says, encourage each other while it's called today.
Joshua Boyd: Hey, God, this this is this is now, this is today, God can do this for you.
Joshua Boyd: Amen.
Joshua Boyd: I flipped that switch, I've seen it happen.
Joshua Boyd: Come with me on the journey.
Joshua Boyd: We'll walk together for a little bit.
Joshua Boyd: I'll encourage you, I'll get you, you know, and then next time I might need you.
Joshua Boyd: It's not a one person leading everybody, it's we're we're in this journey together, and sometimes our steps are different, our paths are different, and we're helping each other in different areas.
Joshua Boyd: Amen.