Refuse To Draw Back

You're very welcome to today's Triumph Church podcast.

We pray that you enjoy the message we're.

Going to begin this morning's message in Hebrews chapter 10

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

and verse 38. If you want to turn with me

there in your Bibles, Hebrews 1038 says now the just shall

live by faith. But if anyone draws back, my

soul has no pleasure in him. I've been praying for a while

now about 2026, and what I'm sharing with you this morning is

what the Lord has placed upon my heart for Triumph Church.

And for each of you. This morning's teaching is about

refusing to draw back. Each year many of us make New

Year's resolutions, and that's good.

Many of those are noble. But nothing compares with our

pursuit of drawing ever closer to God.

This needs to be our first priority.

There's nothing in your life more important than this.

Your husband isn't as important. Your wife isn't as important.

Your boyfriend or your girlfriend isn't as important to

your friends, even your job, your aunties, your uncles, your

grandparents. Nothing in your life is more

important than your pursuit of drawing closer to God.

And this is something that begins from the the moment that

you become born again, the moment you you ask Jesus to be

the the Lord and Savior of your life.

That's the beginning point, but it's a pursuit that happens in

your life until you leave this natural life and go on to

eternity with with God in in heaven.

But there's nothing more important than your pursuit of

God and listen that the devil will try to keep you from this.

His motives, we read in John 1010, are to steal, to kill, and

to cause destruction, right. And what is the purpose of

these? What is the purpose of his

coming in to try to steal, to try to to kill your hopes and

your your dreams and to cause destruction and chaos in your

life? What is the purpose of these?

His hope is that you'll continue in the same pattern of Adam and

Eve, which was to draw back from God.

Their natural tendency once they, they fell into the enemy's

trap was to draw back from God. And the devil's hope is that

when he comes into our life and tries to steal, to kill and, and

cause destruction in our lives, that will fall back and will

will fall into that same tendency.

And all of us are human, right? All of us have that tendency

from Adam and Eve to draw back from God.

But this is the polar opposite of what we really need.

And the enemy is counting on that tendency to draw back.

But if we want to see God move in our lives, then we really

need to do then. Then what we really need to do

is to deny that tendency and instead draw nearer to God.

Let's look at what what James chapter 4 and verse 7 and 8 says

James 4 · chapter mention

for a moment because this gives us some great keys in how we can

overcome that tendency to draw back.

James chapter 4 and verses 7 and 8 says in verse 7, therefore

James 4 · chapter mention

submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

And then verse 8 draw near to God and he will draw near to

you. There are a few great takeaways

here. The first is submitting to God.

This requires our humbling ourselves and listen our our

greatest enemy isn't actually the devil.

We'd like to blame everything on him, of course, but our greatest

enemy isn't the devil. Our greatest enemy is our pride.

Our pride is what keeps us from drawing close to God.

Our pride is what causes us to draw away from him.

And the second is resisting the devil.

But listen, you cannot do this on your own.

You do not have the strength, you do not have the power, you

do not have the capacity on your own to resist the devil.

Listen to what Paul says in Philippians chapter 4 and verse

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

13. He says that I can do all things

through Christ who strengthens me.

Who is it that strengthens you? It's God.

It's through Christ. Through Christ you are

strengthened. And listen, the 3rd, and this

ties directly into the second, is that strength only comes when

you do what James says in chapter 4 and verse 8 that we

just read, that you must draw close to God.

Our strength is through Christ. So when we draw close to God, he

draws near to us. That place of drawing close to

Him is where we're able to resist the devil.

That is where we're strengthened.

That is where we're empowered. close to God is our place of

strength. It's our fortress.

Read Psalm 91 from this perspective.

And This is why in in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 38, we're

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

encouraged not to draw back, because when we draw back, we're

actually stepping away from God, away from that position of of

refuge and strength and towards the enemy.

And I shouldn't have to state how serious that is.

You draw away from God, you're taking a step toward the enemy.

Hebrews 1038 speaks just as loudly to us today and is truly

just as relevant as it ever has been.

The book of Hebrews was written to Jewish believers who had

placed their faith in Jesus, but we're now under intense pressure

to draw back. Following Christ had cost them

socially. Following Christ had cost them

economically and relationally, right.

Some of us may may be able to relate to this and they were

being tempted to draw back because following him had become

difficult and had become inconvenient.

It had become unpopular. That's not so much different

than it is from today, is it? But the immediate danger they

faced was not the difficulties on the outside, but it was the

the quiet withdrawal. They were still believers, but

they were drawing back from gathering.

They were drawing back from their commitment and public

identification with Christ. And listen, this isn't so far

away from Jesus actually walking this earth, Jesus actually

performing miracles and signs and wonders.

This wasn't so far from the apostles still working after

Jesus had ascended to heaven, after their going around doing

the works of Jesus, right? And This is why in Hebrews

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

chapter 10, it directly addresses the necessity of

assembling together and perseverance and endurance,

because even at that point you had people that were were

drawing away from Christ, drawing away from from their

faith in him. So I want to examine a few

points this this morning and it's all going to center around

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 38. That's going to be our our key

Hebrews 10:38

Scripture here and we'll refer back to it several times.

But the the first point we're going to look at is faith is

meant as a way of life, not an occasional choice.

The second is drawing back, begins with distance.

And the third is God takes pleasure and forward moving

faith. So let's begin with our first

point. Faith is a way of life, not an

occasional choice. Let's look again at Hebrews 1038

and at the beginning it says now the just shall live by faith.

That word live here matters. Faith is not something the the

righteous visit, it's how they function.

It's not a convenient or occasional choice, but a fixed

and immovable conviction. Our faith shouldn't be reserved

for crisis moments or spiritual highs, but it's the daily rhythm

of trusting God and ordering our lives centered around him.

Our faith, our life. We're supposed to live by faith.

In that faith, everything centers around Christ.

The apostle Paul says this in Acts chapter 17 and verse 28.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

He said, for in him we move and have our being.

Paul reinforces this again and again in his writings.

In Two Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7 he says, for we walk by

faith and not by sight. And in Colossians chapter 2 and

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

verse 6 he says, as you therefore have received Christ

Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. A continual theme of the Apostle

Paul's is living for Christ, living in faith.

And this can only be done by faith, surrender and obedience

on our part. So let's talk about these three

things. Let's talk about faith first.

Living for Christ begins with faith, not just believing in

him, but trusting him to saturate our lives in every

part, in every area. The Apostle Paul declares in

Galatians chapter 2 in verse 20 he says the life that I now live

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and

gave himself for me. Paul reminds us that to live for

Christ is to let faith govern our decisions, our responses and

and priorities, That our lives should be anchored in Jesus.

Our faith in Christ should govern everything in our lives,

the decisions that we make. And then we have surrender.

Living for Christ requires full surrender.

And what is that? It's a daily yielding of our

personal rights, our ambitions and controls to Jesus.

Listen, when we make Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior,

making Him our our Lord means that we put Him over everything

in our lives, everything, absolutely everything.

We surrender our life completely to Him.

And wherever it is that He directs us, whatever it is that

He wants us to do, whatever we give that all to Him, we

surrender our lives to Him. And listen, surrender is not a

bad thing. We know that God's will for us,

Scripture says, is always good and pleasing and perfect.

We know that Scripture says that He turns all things to the good

of those who love Him, right? So when you surrender everything

to him, what are you surrendering yourself to?

You're surrendering yourself to God's perfect will that's always

good and pleasing and perfect in that when you surrender

everything to him, your life, your decisions, your family,

your job, everything to Him, he's going to cause all things

to work for your good, right? Because you love him right and

everyone here loves the Lord, right?

So that means that that God is going to turn all things to your

good. Paul urges us to this in Romans

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12 and verse one. He says in in, in.

So, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your

bodies to God because of all He has done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind He will find

acceptable. This is truly the way to worship

Him. Surrender is not passive

resignation, but active submission, where Christ becomes

Lord in every area of our life. As I said, we give Him every

part of us, every corner, every area, every part, complete and

total surrender. And when we do that, we're

tapping into something that is absolutely, truly amazing.

God will never let us down. He's faithful.

Faithful to His Word, faithful to His promises.

And when we surrender our lives to Him, he will cause those

promises, those things in His Word, if we'll believe them,

He'll cause those things to come to pass in our lives, and then

we have obedience. Faith and surrender naturally

lead to obedience. For Paul, obedience was the

outward expression of an inward devotion to Christ.

Because he was was submitted to Christ.

Because he had faith in Christ, it was natural for him to obey

Christ. Because he trusted him, he had

faith in him. He had faith knowing that that

God's will for him was always good and pleasing and perfect.

The same is true for us. The apostle Paul testified to

this in in Acts chapter 26 and verse 19.

Acts 26 · chapter mention

He says that I was not disobedient to the heavenly

vision, showing that living for Christ means obedience to

Christ. And listen, obedience is not

legalism. It's love in action.

It's our response to our faith in God's goodness, right?

And obedience is, is something that when we believe God, when

we have faith in him and we surrender our lives to him, it's

important that we obey his word, that we act that out in our

lives, that we do what it is that it says our faith and our

surrender will naturally lead to our obedience to God's word.

When we obey God's word, then he's able to provide for for all

of our need and and perform his his will in our lives.

Well, let's look at our second point this morning, which is

drawing back begins with distance.

Hebrews 1038 says, but if anyone draws back, drawing back is

rarely something that's sudden. Most people don't just make the

decision instantaneously in a moment that they're going to

draw back from from God. It's it's usually something

that's progressive. It it begins quietly.

It begins with distance, then disengagement and then neglect.

And where this is usually first evident is in our attitude

towards the things of God, but also our attitude towards

towards church. When believers begin to

disconnect from the local church, spiritual drift begins

to follow. And that drifting leads

oftentimes to compromise. Compromise of our beliefs,

compromise of, of God's word, compromise of our relationship

with Him, compromise of our, our faith.

And it leads to lukewarmness. It leads to a, a casual attitude

towards God and the things of God.

You know, God designed the church as a place of growing, of

accountability, of encouragement, of protection,

right? We need church.

But listen, we don't just come to church for ourselves.

We need to come to church for ourselves, right?

But we also come to to church for the the person next to us,

the person behind us, the person in front of us.

We all need each other. We're a family, right?

We're a church family. We're a spiritual community and

we need one another and listen, there's times where where one of

us is down and and and the other others of us are are up and and

when we're down, we need those people that can encourage us,

who can give us a hug and say that I love you.

Who can say, listen, God is for you and I'm for you and I'm with

you. Let's believe him together in

this right. We need one another.

A growing tend trend in in Christian circles is that.

Faithfully attending a church has become less and less of our

priority. Christians are increasingly

isolating themselves. This trend was catapulted really

in 2020, though it's something that had been have has been

happening for some time. But in 2020, government shut

shut everything down around the globe and forced people into

isolation. And a massive fallout of this is

that church has fallen as a priority to many believers.

You know, we have these massive fireplaces, these cast iron

stoves in each of our sitting rooms.

We have two sitting rooms and we have one in, in each room.

And a lot of times I, I use coal because it gets really hot and I

put some then, then some wood on that.

But I've noticed, and you can see this if you've ever made a

fire, that when you, when you make a fire with coal, you know,

if you take a, if you, if a piece of coal falls off of the

pile, right, and it's over to the side, it starts to begin to

cool down. You know, all the rest are like

blazing red. They're hot, they're intense,

right? But that piece that's falling

off begins to cool off and it's no longer red.

It's no longer hot. It's no longer putting off the

the same heat that it that it used to, right?

Because it's become isolated. And when we become isolated, we

become easy prey. We know what Peter warns of in

one Peter chapter 5 and verse 8. He said stay alert.

Watch out for your great enemy, the devil, because he prowls

around like a roaring lion looking for whom he may devour,

right? Well, listen, when we, when we

separate ourselves, when we draw back from God, when we draw back

from from his church, when we draw back from our from our

church family, our community, we begin to cool off.

We start to become isolated and that's where we would become

easy pickings for the devil because there's strength in

community. We're looking after one another.

We have each other's back, right?

We're encouraging one another. Iron sharpens iron.

We're pushing each other forward.

But when we isolate ourselves, we become easy pickings for the

devil. I said when I was growing up,

everything was closed on Sundays.

The petrol stations were closed, the grocery stores were closed,

Nearly everything was closed. Sundays were for church and you

had to plan ahead of time. You had to buy groceries for

that. You needed for a Sunday for

lunch and for dinner. If you needed some, some fuel,

some some petrol, you needed to go to the the petrol station on

Saturday. So you because they were closed

on Sunday, right? Even still, when Pastor Amy and

I first moved to Ireland in 2000 in Limerick, it was near the

same then. Most businesses were closed.

If any were open, they closed early.

How many of you remember that? And it was such a lovely time.

But things have changed. Things have shifted in both

society and within the church. Many believers have begun begun

to draw back. There is no longer a a priority

to attend church together, which is a symptom of a much larger

problem. Some people are, are

prioritizing a good lion instead of coming to church and, and

hearing God's worship and, or hearing God's word and, and

worshipping him as a, as a, as a church family.

Some people are instead of coming to, to church to honor

Christ, to honor his church, to honor his word, to honor the

community and what that he's doing, they're choosing to, to

stay home. But Scripture never presents

church gathering as optional for believers in Hebrews chapter 10

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

and verse 25 is very clear. It says not forsaking the

assembly of ourselves together, as is the manner of some.

Now notice here it states the manner of some.

Even then in the days of the early church, as I said, people

were already drifting. They were already drawing back.

The Holy Spirit addresses this directly because our faith

weekends when our connection to God, when our connection to our

faith community, when our connection to our church fades.

Consistent gathering of believers was never something

that Jesus considered optional in his own life.

And by example, he was faithful to attend the synagogue on the

Sabbath. And Luke chapter 4 and verse 16

Luke 4 · chapter mention

it says. And when he came to the village

of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the

synagogue on the Sabbath. Right as usual means that Jesus

had a settled habitual practice of gathering at the synagogue.

It wasn't a, an occasional act. It was something that he did as

usual. He had a habit of that when he

was 12 years old and his parents misplaced him for an entire day.

They lost track of him. They were traveling and you

know, they traveled kind of in a caravan as a, as a small

community back then. So they didn't realize that

Jesus wasn't with them. But when they found Jesus, where

was Jesus at? He's 12 years old.

He's at the synagogue, right? Jesus had a consistent habit, a

priority, that when it was Sabbath, he was at the synagogue

hearing the teaching of Scripture.

The Sabbath was for the Lord for gathering and just as we do each

weekend we like to say Sundays are for church worship.

Scripture and community were non negotiables for Jesus and

honestly as your pastor I would encourage you that this

shouldn't be a negotiable in our lives either.

Jesus was setting an example with His life to faithfully

attend what He built His church. Listen, church attendance

doesn't make you righteous, but righteous people value and honor

the local church because Jesus established it.

Honoring His church honors Him. And listen, I don't want you to

feel bad because you know, you work some Sundays and you're not

able to come into to church because you're working a job.

I understand that. I had to do that at different

times in my life. I alternated Sundays, So every

other Sunday I was having to work on Sunday morning, right?

But the Sundays that I was off, I was at church with my family.

It was important. So I understand that sometimes

we're not able to come to church.

That's not what I'm talking about, OK?

I'm talking about us having a a conviction, us having a a

commitment and consistently gathering with our church family

to hear the word to worship the Lord together.

We need that and others need us. All right, honoring Christ,

Church honors him. Let's finish with my Third Point

this morning, which God takes pleasure in forward moving

faith. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 38

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

again says now the just shall live by faith.

But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

Listen, God's not neutral about retreat.

Scripture is clear that God delights in faith that presses

forward. Remember, faith defined is

simply believing that God is telling us the truth.

It's believing His word over every circumstance.

It's believing that God is able to defy natural circumstance.

His supernatural and supernatural just means that

that God is able to alter the natural.

It's His super in the natural. His supernatural is exceedingly

able to overcome any circumstance in your life if

you'll have faith in His Word and surrender to His will and

obey what His Word says. It's no wonder that in Hebrews

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11 in verse 6 it says this, that without faith it is

impossible to believe Him or in without faith it is impossible

to please Him. Faith is believing God over

everything you see, over everything you feel, over your

emotions, over everything that you experience.

God is greater than all of that. And listen, faith isn't a denial

of circumstances, OK? A lot of we all deal with

circumstances. We all deal.

Sometimes my body is, is speaking to me.

It's not feeling well, right? That's a circumstance, all

right. But faith is a belief in trust

that God can change that circumstance no matter what my

body is speaking to me. That circumstance, no matter

what any bill is speaking to me or that circumstance, right?

I have faith. I have a belief in trust that

God can change that. That is faith.

And the very next verse after Hebrews 1038 gives God's

expectation for believers. And it's this Hebrews 1039 says,

But we are not of those who draw back.

I am not one who's going to draw back.

You are not those who are going to draw back.

But we are going to push forward in 2026, and this is going to be

an amazing and miraculous year because we are pushing forward.

We're not going to draw back. Triumph Church isn't going to

draw back. This church, family and

community is not going to draw back.

You are not going to draw back. But we are going to see as we

draw close to God that He's going to draw close to us.

And we're going to see His word come to pass in our lives.

Those who move forward in faith, well, triumph.

They're going to overcome as they prioritize God and draw

close to Him and as they prioritize his church and be

part of that. So to close out this morning, I

want to encourage you what the Lord is telling us at Triumph

Church in 2026, and it's to continue to move forward what

God has done in your life in 2025.

Let that be the foundation and let God continue to build upon

that. And let's continue to move

forward and refuse to draw back. Don't even give the enemy a

centimeter, don't take a step back, even a centimeter, but

continue to push forward. Continue that all that, all that

into all that the Lord has been building and developing in your

life and allow Him to build upon that.

Living by faith means staying connected to God, connected to

God's people and God's purposes. Today is a call to forward

moving faith, to consistent faith, to committed faith.

And my hope for you in 2026 as your pastor is that you'll

choose to live by faith and let that faith be seen in your

devotion to the Lord and his church.

Amen. Listen, if if that's you this

morning, if you've come to church and you're sitting in

these seats here, if you have, AI would want to encourage you

to make a a commitment to be part of what God is doing and

allow him to continue to build in your life.

You're going to see amazing things if this is you, if you're

going to continue to move forward, if you're going to

continue to have forward moving faith and draw close to God.

I just want you to pray this with me.

Let's pray this all together. Just repeat after me.

Dear Heavenly Father, I commit my life to you.

I commit my 2026 to you. Help me walk in faith, help me

walk in surrender, help me walk in obedience to Your Word, and

help me live my life as a light and an example of a committed

Christian pressing forward in Christ's strength, in Jesus

name, Amen. Thank you for listening to the

Triumph Church Podcast this week.

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For more information on Triumph Church, you can visit us at W

dot Triumph Church dot IE.