(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

We're kicking off a new teaching series today that I'm really excited about, that's gonna lead us into Palm Sunday in just a few weeks, and then eventually into Easter weekend, resurrection weekend.

We've titled the sermon series, Who is Jesus?

I wanna encourage you to come out and join us every week between now and Easter.

And of course, bring somebody with you any weekend, but especially on resurrection weekend, that would be an awesome time to bring somebody to church with you.

We'll have multiple services and God will speak into their life, hopefully, and through their life and do something amazing.

But today I'm kicking this series off and I want you to know from the very beginning, it's very difficult to do one sermon about who is Jesus and exhaust completely who he is.

Come on, somebody.

And that's why I invite you back for the entire series, though, through the entire series, we probably won't exhaust who Jesus is either, but our goal in this is to set some foundation in your life of faith so that you build your life on the solid rock of Jesus and accomplish what God created for you to accomplish with your life.

The Bible tells us that God created us on purpose and with a purpose.

And my friends, there's a lot of distractions in life, but if you'll let God speak into your life, I can promise you this, that God will raise you up in spite of the circumstances around your life and do great and mighty things through you.

And so today I wanna kick this series off by going to the book of Hebrews, who is Jesus by looking at a verse in Hebrews chapter 11, couple of verses there, and then we'll move to Hebrews chapter 12.

And we're expecting God to speak to your faith today.

So your faith will have an anchor of hope.

And no matter what circumstances come your way, no matter what valley you get in, no matter what mountaintop you get on, you can keep on keeping on and see God do something amazing in your life.

You have your Bibles, I'm gonna start with Hebrews 11 verse one.

I'm reading from the New Living Translation here.

And the Bible says this in Hebrews 11 one about faith.

It says, faith, everybody say faith.

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for.

It is the evidence of things we cannot see.

I'm gonna read that one more time.

The Bible says, faith, everybody has faith.

Everybody has a measure of faith.

There's not a person in this room that doesn't have faith.

But the Bible says your faith and my faith.

It says it shows the reality of what we hope for.

It is the evidence of things we cannot see.

Hebrews 11 verse six says this.

It is impossible to please God without faith.

So we have to have our faith activated in the right object in order to succeed in life.

And the Bible says it's impossible unless you activate your faith to really please God.

Anyone who wants to come to him, to God, must believe that God exists.

Let your faith believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

So if I could encourage you today about faith for just a minute before we dive into who Jesus is or who is Jesus.

The Bible says your faith and my faith is a lot like a tube.

In other words, just for a moment with me, for illustrative purposes, think of the faith that you have and you have it.

It took faith to sit down in the chair you sit down in if you were in this room.

You trusted something and you put your faith in that chair that you sit down in.

But what's remarkable is unless we get our faith, no matter whether it's a little bit of faith or a lot of faith, Jesus says you have a mustard seed of faith in the right object, you can move mountains with your faith.

Come on.

And he doesn't really literally mean you're gonna go out and start speaking the heels of dirt and they're gonna start getting legs and moving away.

But what he does mean is your faith is a very powerful, powerful tool that God has entrusted to every one of us and it can be destructive or it can be constructive.

It can build a great life for you or it can be directed towards the wrong things and destroy and snatch the carpet of life out from underneath you.

This is why so many of us struggle along life's journey is because we don't have our faith directed into the right object.

And it's not the size of my faith, it's the object my faith is in.

And I'm gonna go ahead and declare to you if your faith isn't in the person of Jesus Christ, come on.

It's in the wrong object.

And the reason so many of us have destruction going on in our life and through our life, and we're not running this race of life in spite of the circumstances with great joy in our heart is because our faith is destructive instead of constructive.

So again, faith is a tool.

Let me show you.

And it can destroy things.

That was my brother-in-law and his family.

But my faith ain't in my brother-in-law and his family.

Come on, somebody.

I love him.

I did that for a reason.

Some of your life in this race you're running, it's in the wrong object.

And you've lost hope.

And your faith is becoming destructive in your life instead of constructive and building a life that you can run this race in and do great and mighty things.

But our faith can also be constructive, even if it's a little bit of faith.

Kind of like this nail in this board, if my faith is hitting the right object, no matter how little it is, eventually this can be constructive and build something remarkable.

So who Jesus is, to start this foundational message.

He's the object of our faith, come on somebody.

And if he's not the object of your faith, my prayer is over the next few moments, he will become the object of your faith and you'll leave this place different than you came into this place.

You will leave this place with a hope and a future and great and amazing things out in front of you.

But let God, let the creator speak to your heart about who the Jesus of the Bible is.

Because I'm afraid that some of us have our, think we have our faith in Jesus, but it's a Hollywood version of Jesus, come on somebody.

And it's not the Jesus of the scripture and the Jesus of the scripture can do great and mighty things in your life if you will put your faith in him and it be the foundation of everything your life is built upon.

Hebrews chapter 12, if you'll go there with me, the last half of verse one and verse two is the scripture we'll take off from today.

I'm reading now from the new American standard Bible, the NASB and I do this on purpose.

A lot of people say, hey, what version of the Bible you use?

Sometimes I use the new King James version.

Sometimes I use the King James version.

Sometimes I use the new American standard Bible.

Sometimes I need to use the new living translation Bible and the reason I do that is because those English versions have the same message typically, but they don't always have the same wording and there's certain words I wanna pull out of the scripture and nuances of a word to impact your life with the word of God and so that can change your life and begin to redirect your faith.

And so again, people say, which version should I read?

I'm here to declare to you today, read the version that can get into your heart, change your life and build your faith in Jesus.

Come on somebody, so that you can be all God's designed you to be.

Hebrews 12, Bible says, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

That means this life that is set before us.

It says, let us run with endurance this race.

Don't give up, don't pull over to the side, don't quit, run, come on somebody.

Fixing, here's how, fixing our eyes on Jesus.

Everybody say Jesus.

Jesus.

The author and the perfecter of faith.

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

The Bible goes on to say who for the joy set before him, Jesus, he endured the cross, despising the shame and he is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

I wanna talk to you about succeeding in this race called life with faith in the right object and his name is Jesus.

And I want that to be the foundation of your life.

And here in this passage of scripture declares to us that Jesus is the author of our faith.

The writer.

You ever met an author before?

You ever been reading a book before you just picked it up off the shelf and you began to read the first chapter of the book and you're like, man, this is an interesting book.

And then you go back and you wanna discover who the author is because the book is going somewhere and it's resonating with you and you're wanting to read the next chapter and the next chapter and you wanna get to the end of the book, then the author wrote a good book and you wanna know what the author's name is.

We got some authors in our congregation.

Miss Jackie right over here, she just authored a book.

Come on.

Ray Smith just authored a book.

But what's so unique about an author whenever they're telling a story that's not fiction is those authors normally have lived that story.

They know how the story begins, they know how the story ends.

Come on, somebody.

And they know everything in between.

And I'm here to declare to you today, Jesus is the author of your life and my life and our life of faith because He is the beginning, He is the end, and He is everything in between.

Come on, somebody.

And so when you say, God, you don't know what I'm going through, He's going, no, I know exactly what you're going through.

Come on.

Because I've been there and I authored your faith to finish and do great and mighty things.

But you've got to trust the author.

You've got to let Him begin to direct your steps and pin your steps.

So here's the question.

Do you really believe the author of your life?

His name is Jesus.

And do you really believe the life He lived?

Do you really believe about the author that He was born of a virgin?

This is the Jesus of the Bible.

Do you really believe the Jesus of the Bible came to earth and lived a sinless life, a perfect life?

Do you really believe that the author, Jesus, submitted His life on a cross, gave His life on a cross, and died on a cross, and shed His blood for the forgiveness of humanity's sin?

Have you believed that?

This is the author.

Do you really believe that He resurrected from a grave, because this will encourage your faith if you know this author, and you know the story that He's writing.

Do you really believe that He ascended into the heavens, and He is the creator, and He sits at the right hand of God, the Father almighty, and He's there now?

Come on, somebody.

Do you really believe that King Jesus is returning, and He's gonna make every wrong right?

He's gonna put evil in the best, and you and I are gonna spend eternity with Him.

Because if that's not authoring your faith, this Jesus, your faith is in the wrong object.

And some of us in this room today are hurting in our life because we have placed our faith in the wrong object.

But today there's hope, and there's something amazing out in front of you.

The author knows the story.

From beginning to end, He's lived the story, and He is going to encourage you in the story if you'll trust the author.

Maybe God's telling you, you need to give the pen back to the author instead of writing your own story.

Come on, somebody.

Or letting something else write your story.

And again, this is the reason sometimes, you know what, you've got faith, but you've let the wrong author begin to tell you who you are.

You've let Facebook, Instagram, some other person, the media, your husband, your wife, your children, you let somebody else tell you who you are, and I'm declaring to you today, you may have even decided that you are gonna declare who you are.

I am telling you today, if you want to finish the race, finish it well, you wanna run the race, you need to give the author, Jesus, back the pen.

Come on, somebody.

That's good preaching right there.

Let us run the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

I want you to flip with me real quick to Hebrews chapter one as the writer of Hebrews begins writing this book of Hebrews, this letter of Hebrews, to describe who Jesus is, the Jesus of the Bible.

He says, in verse one, long ago, God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.

God used to speak through those prophets, he says.

And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his son, God in the flesh.

God promised everything to the son as an inheritance and through the son, he has created the universe.

Did you catch that?

He was there in the beginning.

He created everything through the son, Jesus.

Created the universe.

The son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God.

The Bible says in another place that Jesus is the invisible or the visible image of an invisible God.

And he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

This is Jesus.

When he had cleansed us from our sins, this is after the cross, after the resurrection, after the ascension, he goes on to say here, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.

That's where Jesus is right now, is your faith in this Jesus.

This shows, the Bible says, that the son is far greater than the angels.

Just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.

God gave him a name, Jesus, savior, rescuer.

He's the Messiah, he's the Christ.

He's the liberator, he's the Lord.

He's the beginning, he's the end, he's the first, the last.

He's the alpha, he's the omega.

It's what the scripture declares.

And this Jesus, he knows everything about our story.

And if we would just submit our life and heart to him and run this race and build our life on who the Bible says that Jesus is, him and him alone.

Can I tell you, you will begin to run this race no matter what difficulties, what circumstances, what challenges you face.

You will run this race with endurance and you will finish and you will finish well.

Come on somebody.

The Bible declares Jesus for who he is.

And I invite you again, you can't always get an exhaustive teaching on who Jesus is.

But the reason I'm sharing this message today is because some of us don't understand that he's the one that directs our steps.

He directs the steps of the righteous.

He is the one that tells us, you know what, who we are.

He is the one that we build our life on.

He's the savior of the world, man.

He can forgive you of all your misses, all your sin, missing the mark of God's glorious standard.

He can meet you where you are.

He can come into your life.

He can transform you.

He can change you.

He is a God who is for you and not against you.

And he is full of love and he is full of compassion.

What's right in your story?

Who's the author of your life?

Is it what you do?

Is it a religion?

If your foundation isn't Jesus, your faith is missing something.

And you need to take the little bit of faith you may have and begin to put it in the author.

But what's also amazing about this passage of scripture to me is it says Jesus is the perfecter of our faith.

I love that because it makes me ask questions.

How does he perfect my faith?

Okay, Jesus, my faith is in you, the right object.

I trust you for who you are.

But how do you perfect my faith?

And I'm gonna give you a couple of things that God does to perfect our faith, to help our faith begin to grow, mature, become strong, no matter how little it is, how big it is.

Again, it's not about the size of your faith.

It's about the object of your faith.

Some people are saying, man, I want some big faith.

But you can have big faith in the wrong object and miss so much.

It's sometimes hard to quantify faith.

But the reality of it is, is faith, the Bible declares, the word of God declares, has to be put in Jesus in order to enter right communion with the Father.

And you gotta put that little bit of faith in Jesus, but God is so good, he begins to perfect that faith.

So how does he do it?

By modeling through the life of Christ.

You ever thought about that?

If you wanna know how to have strong faith in God, in Christ Jesus, look at the life of Christ.

Amen.

He shows us clearly, you know what?

How to depend upon the Father.

He models dependency on the Father in heaven.

Not on his wife, Kim, you know, my wife is Kim.

His dependency ain't on her.

His dependency ain't on his job.

His dependency ain't on anything else.

Jesus models full dependency on the Father in heaven.

As he goes to pray with the Father, he is constantly, you watch the life of Christ.

He models over and over and over the communion, the prayer life with the Father, talking with the Father, praying with the Father is what directs his steps.

He is always doing it, even to the point of suffering on a cross.

He models how to depend on his heavenly Father.

Again, it's great to go to a prayer meeting, but I'm not asking you today to go to a prayer meeting.

I'm asking you, are you meeting with the Father in prayer?

Come on, somebody.

And begin to let him direct the life that you live.

I'm for the prayer meeting.

By the way, it's a really important thing.

But the real question you need to ask yourself is are you meeting with the Father, depending on the Father to direct your steps?

Jesus also models in his life how to interact with others.

You know, the Bible says, they asked Jesus what the two greatest commandments were.

He says, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

He says, love the others as yourself.

Jesus models that by showing love, by showing compassion, and by sharing truth over and over again.

Watch the life of Christ.

He was very compassionate.

He was very loving towards all people, no matter what tribe they come from, whether they're male, female.

It didn't matter to Christ Jesus.

He models what it truly means to love a people, spend time with people, but notice also that he always speaks the truth into their life.

Sometimes showing compassion is telling somebody the truth about how to redirect their faith.

Telling them, you know what?

You need to make Jesus the center of your faith.

And I think you've gotten it out of order, my friend.

I think you have put faith in yourself, what you do, somebody else, and I'm just inviting you today on behalf of God to simply receive the truth of Christ You put your faith in Him and run the race and run it well.

Truth helps redirect people.

Sometimes that's really showing the love of people to people.

Jesus models that over and over and over.

He's constantly, even through the cross, even through his resurrection, what is he doing?

He's telling truth.

He's telling truth.

He's showing compassion.

He's telling truth and he's pointing people back to God.

Jesus models dependency on God.

He models how to interact with others.

And I love this part.

He models how to deal with temptation and put the enemy in his place.

We need to follow Jesus as an example.

You know, the first man and the first woman, they sin.

They missed the mark of God's glorious standard.

And I may do a sermon on this a little bit later, but what Jesus models is how to be perfect in the face of temptation and still go through it and get to the other side.

And what some of us need today is to follow that model because we're always being tempted by the enemy, each and every one of us, Adam and Eve was tempted by them, by the enemy.

But I do believe with the power of the living God living in my life and in your life, we can begin to follow Jesus as an example, follow Jesus as model, and we can fight through temptation.

The whole story is in Matthew chapter four, Jesus is caught into the wilderness for 40 days.

He's hungry and the enemy comes to him and says, Jesus, turn these stones into bread.

You're hungry.

Oh, where's Jesus?

Gratify yourself again.

This is temptation that we all face.

The enemy comes to you and say, gratify yourself right now.

And again, Jesus fights through that and he tells the enemy, people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Jesus is tempted again, the same way the first man, the first woman is tempted in the garden and the enemy asked Jesus, does God really keep his promises?

And he says, the enemy says to Jesus, I don't think so.

Make him prove it.

Let God prove it.

So what the enemy told the first man and the first woman in the garden, did God really say you will die?

He says, well, I say you won't, let's put God to the test.

Jesus says in Matthew four, verse seven, the scripture says, you must not test the Lord your God.

You want to learn how to fight through temptation.

You tell the enemy that I'm not here to gratify the flesh.

I'm here to live by the power of the Holy Spirit in me.

You want to fight through temptation.

You begin to remind the enemy that I'm not here to test my Lord and my God.

He is my Lord and he is my God and he directs my steps.

And you know what?

I'm not putting him to the test.

The enemy comes to Jesus and says, bow down and worship me and I'll give you the kingdoms of the world.

And Jesus answers him.

Get out of here, Satan, for the scripture says you must worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

It's a beautiful picture of how to fight through temptation.

And my friends, some of us are tempted in our life to give up, to quit, and to pull over to the side.

But I'm here to declare you today, look at the model, begin to follow his lead, and watch God do something remarkable in your life.

But he doesn't only model that with his life, what's amazing about him perfecting our faith is he also empowers us with the Holy Spirit as a believer in Christ, those who have put our faith in Christ.

He empowers us with the Holy Spirit to begin to walk that out.

My friend, if you're in this ring and you have taken a little bit of faith and put it in the Jesus of the Bible, God says that he puts his Spirit in you.

And that Spirit will begin to coach you and teach you a long life's journey to live like Jesus if you will submit yourself to the authority of God and let your faith be in Jesus and you are not the authority.

Come on.

I love how Jesus tells those followers before he went to the cross, resurrected from a grave and ascended to heaven, how the Holy Spirit is to work in their life, how this Spirit of truth is going to come into their life.

It's found in John 16 and he starts off in John 16 verse 1 and he says, I have told you these things so that you won't abandon your faith.

Jesus just told them a lot of things so they won't abandon their faith, but they will keep their faith directed in him, the right object and begin to press through the challenges of life and become all he's designed them to be.

But he also says in John 16 verses 12 through 15, he says, there's so much more I want to tell you, but you can't bear it right now is what he says to them.

When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

He will not speak on his own, but he will tell you what he, the spirit has heard.

He will tell you about the future.

Come on somebody.

He will begin to not always continue to tell you to look back at your past, but he will tell you about the future, the future hope that you have in Christ Jesus.

He will bring me glory is what Jesus says him by telling you whatever he receives from me, all that belongs to the father is mine.

This is why I said the spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.

So Jesus is the model for our faith, but then he gives us the Holy Spirit in our life to guide us, to teach us and to guide us into all truth, to give us a hope and a future.

All we have to do as believers is build our life on Jesus, put our faith in Jesus and God will begin to take care of the rest.

And the reality of it is, is we have to begin to listen to the spirit of God in our life.

Jesus says he pours out the Holy Spirit on us in these last days so that we can run this race called life.

I want to show it to you.

It's found in Acts chapter 2, verses 17 and 18.

He says, in the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

In those days, I will pour out my spirit, even on my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy.

They will speak about truth.

They will speak about hope.

They will speak about the future that Jesus is beholding for each and every single one of us.

They'll begin to dream the dreams of an eternity with Jesus forever and ever and ever.

They'll begin to speak these things and hold on to these things, and they'll begin to speak them into our hearts and into our lives so that we can all run this race called life.

So here is the question for all of us today.

Is my faith that God has given me, and you've got faith.

Is it put in the right object, Christ Jesus himself?

And if it is in Christ Jesus, are you submitting your life and letting him model for you and you following after him being directed each and every day in this walk by the spirit that lives in you.

That's why the Bible says we don't walk by sight.

We walk by faith.

Come on somebody.

We walk by the spirit of the living God speaking to us and we keep going through the challenges.

We keep stepping up to the plate.

We never throw in the towel.

We run this race and we run it well.

We don't give up and we let God continue to speak and speak and speak and speak.

Come on somebody.

Speak to our heart over and over again.

Now close today with 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

Verses 24-27.

The writer here says, Paul writes the church at Corinth, parallels the same thing about letting Jesus be the author and perfecter of our faith.

He says don't you realize that in a race everyone runs but only one person gets the prize.

He says so run to win.

Come on somebody.

He says all athletes are disciplined in their training.

They do it to win a prize that will fade away.

It's an earthly prize.

But we do it for an eternal prize.

Come on.

He says so I run with purpose in every step.

He says I'm not just shadow boxing.

I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.

Otherwise I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

What is Paul saying?

He says I never want to lose sight of putting my faith in the right object, Jesus.

The one who was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, gave himself on a cross for the forgiveness of humanity's sin, died a cruel death.

Paul says I never want to lose sight of this Jesus.

The one who resurrected from the grave and defeated death.

He says I never want to lose sight of this Jesus.

The one who ascended into the heavens, come on somebody, and sits, sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty, who is the reigning king of the world, and he will return for his people.

Come on.

Paul says I don't want to put my faith in what I do, I want to put my faith in this Christ Jesus, because I don't want to disqualify my faith from being what my faith is designed to be for.

He says I want to run the race, and I want to run it well.

So, I'm going to ask today, over the next few moments, for everybody in this room to bow their heads and close their eyes.

I'm going to ask that over the next few moments nobody get up and leave, unless you have an emergency, because the God we've been talking about today, the Jesus of the Bible, is about to speak into somebody's heart.

And you could be a distraction for what God wants to say to those people's heart.

And if you were a distraction, that would be rude, and I don't think nobody in this room wants to be rude.

Where you sit today, are you running the race that God has set before you, with your faith in the right object, Jesus?

And if your faith is not in Jesus, the Jesus I described in the Bible, the Bible says in any moment that you could put your faith in Him and have eternal life.

And so maybe you've danced around with Jesus through religion, maybe you've watched stories about Jesus from Hollywood, maybe you've trusted Jesus for the wrong things that He never declared He'd give you.

But I'm asking you today, do you want to start a journey with Him by putting your faith in the Jesus I described today?

Because that is the Jesus of the Bible.

And if you want to do that today, I'm going to give you an opportunity to publicly declare that in just a moment.

The Bible says if we confess with our mouth and we believe in our heart that Jesus is who He says He is, then we will be saved.

And again, I don't do this today to embarrass anybody.

I do this today to give you an opportunity to step into that relationship by faith.

And so no matter where you are today, from the top of the room to the bottom of the room, or you're sitting online right now, if you're ready to make Jesus the author and the perfecter of your faith and become all He's designed you to be, I invite you to step into that relationship.

And I'm going to lead us in a prayer.

And if you want to pray that prayer, you can pray it quietly in your seat.

And at the end of that prayer, I'm simply going to ask you to put your hand in the air that today was a day of your salvation, and you trusted Christ to do this work in you and this work in your faith and through your faith.

So if you're ready to do that today, right where you sit, just say something like this, God, I submit my life to the authority of Jesus today.

I turn from my sin, I repent, and I let Jesus forgive me of my sin by that shedding of his blood on that cross, and I let the one who died and resurrected from a grave move into my heart and give me life.

God today, I put my faith in this Jesus, him and him alone.

My hope is in him, Christ Jesus.

He is my salvation.

He is the one that gives me eternal life.

He is the one that ascended to heaven, and he is the one that will return for me.

Tell God thank you for that gift, and today you want to begin to follow his model and be empowered by his spirit that he's deposited into your life right now.

You want to begin to walk in accordance with him.

Tell God thank you for that gift, and if you said that prayer today and you want to publicly declare it before God's people today, I'm simply going to ask you to right now stick your hand in the air, if today is the day of your salvation.

Anywhere in this room, all over this room.

Praise God

Hold it up.

Praise God

All over this room.

Praise God

God, you're doing great and marvelous things.

And in this moment today, God, salvation through Christ Jesus has come into these people's lives.

And Jesus, we thank you for this.

It's in your name we pray, amen and amen.