"can" Does Not Mean "will"

“Can” Does Not Mean “Will”

Scripture: Hebrews 6:18-19; Hebrews 11:1; Philippians 4:12-13

The title of my message this morning is “Can Does Not Mean Will.” Simply put, just because you can do something does not mean that you will actually do it. The core definition of the word “can” is “to have the ability, knowledge, or opportunity to do something.” However, one of the definitions of the word “will” is “to indicate the inevitability of something happening or being true.” Within this definition I want you to focus on the word “inevitability.” That word means “impossible to avoid or to prevent from happening.” The first thing I want you to remember this morning is this: just because you “can” and have the ability to do something does not mean that you have the “will” to do it or that you “will” do it. This will become much clearer as I get into the message.

Several years ago I was having a conversation with a friend about hope and faith. We were discussing what we thought was one of the most important things to instill in a congregation. He expressed his position that hope comes before faith while I expressed I believed that it was hard to have hope without having faith. At that time I was attending a church where everything was about faith. Contrary to what I believed at that time, I have learned through the years that what he said was more in line with Scripture than what I had believed. Faith is truly important, but people also need hope and sometimes it’s that hope for something different that leads to their faith bringing it into reality. The writer of Hebrews said this, “(17) In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, (18) so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. (19) This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil.” (Hebrews 6:17-19) Paul speaks of the hope that we have in Christ – that it guarantees our safety. Later in the 11th chapter, verse 1, he says: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What Paul says plainly is that we must first have hope and then our faith will bring what we hope for into reality. I will deal with this more at a later date. However, this morning I want you to think about how hope and faith impacts what we “can” do and what we “will” do.

But before we do that, I want to point out the definitions of the word “hope” in these two passages. They are different but communicate the same message. In Hebrews 6:18, hope is the “desire of some good with the expectation of obtaining it.” In Hebrews 6:19, hope is “something you have and hold, implying continued possession.” In Hebrews 11:1, hope means “to expect and desire.” I wanted to point this out because sometimes it seems that when we talk about hope, we talk about it in terms of “wishing for something.” But that’s not how the word is used in Scripture. In Scripture, when we truly have hope – when we can see the complete image in our minds of what we are hoping to receive – then we know that what we are hoping for we will receive. New Light, scripturally, there is no such thing as not receiving what you hope for when the image of it is truly developed and settled in your heart and mind. And that is exactly what we see in the first verse of Hebrews 11. It is our faith in Jesus that assures us, that gives us complete confidence, to know that what we are hoping for we will receive.

In our daily lives we make decisions, that no matter how small or meaningless, affects the rest of our lives. Every day we make decisions based on our understanding of what is going on around us, often without giving consideration to what God would have us to do. How we make decisions in any given situation is directly influenced by our core values – what we believe – and our attitudes about the situation at that moment. Whether we respond to a circumstance in faith or out of survival instinct – out of fear of being harmed in some way – is all dependent upon our attitude. Paul gave us insight into this with his statement in Philippians 4:12-13 which says, “(12) I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. (13) I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Paul tells us something New Light that we read in this verse and miss – that he had learned to trust Jesus. New Light, you don’t learn to trust Jesus when everything is good in your life. We truly learn to trust Jesus when our hope is ready to pack its bag and walk out the door. That’s when we find out whether or not we have grown in our understanding of what is available through Christ. Paul shows us that it is a process – we must grow in this.