Sermon: “Faith, Faith and…”
We
have been journeying through a series on faith this month…explaining faith,
exploring faith, this week examining faith, and then immersing ourselves in
faith.
So far, we have explained that Faith is in
general the persuasion of the mind that a certain statement is true.
Its primary idea is trust and since it is true, it is therefore worthy of trust.
Faith means acknowledging that God can tell us truths beyond our human power of
reasoning. Faith means accepting truth on God's authority. Faith is the
irreducible request Christ makes of us. As He puts it, “Whoever acknowledges Me
before man, I will acknowledge before My Father in heaven.”
Our Christian faith is
centered in a Person: Jesus Christ, who is Truth Itself, who is the Word of God
made flesh and that there is no escape from the reality that the riddle of life
cannot be solved from within ourselves.
In our exploring we found
that there are two types of people in the world: those that “get it” as in
“understand” – faith, that is, and those that “don’t get it.” We left each
other with this concern last time, “Do you get it?” It is not enough to just
make a decision. Mark 9:24, ends with the phrase, "Lord, I believe; help my
unbelief!"
Our faith is the most
important single thing we can be talking about here because it is the most
important thing in our life. Nothing in life should be allowed to distract you
from the need to respond to God in faith. Look deep within yourself. Where are
you in your personal journey? Where are you in terms of your own faith
response?
It surfaces that there is
a deep hunger within all of us for a mountaintop experience. We want to discover
real meaning and purpose for our lives. We want to know that our earthly
pilgrimage is taking us somewhere. When the journey becomes difficult, we want
to know that it is all worthwhile. We want to transcend those feelings of
helplessness and powerlessness that signal defeat in our quest for fulfillment.
Emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, we want to get bigger than we
are. We want the definitive answer to the question of our true identity as human
persons. Nevertheless, whatever it is we want, of any or all of these, what we
desperately need is to get hold of a basic truth, which is the heart of the
matter. It is so easy to be distracted by side issues, important as they may be,
so easy to lose sight of the central thrust of what God has done and is doing
through Jesus Christ.
A reformer given to lecturing on the evils of
liquor finished off a performance by exhibiting two bottles to his audience, one
filled with water, the other with liquor. He put some worms in the water bottle,
and they swam about; he put some worms in the liquor bottle, where they wiggled
briefly and then shriveled up in death. “Do you see what that proves?” the
reformer asked his audience. “Sure,” responded a drunk in the front row, “people
who drink don't get worms.” What especially complicates the matter of beliefs
is that standards of acceptance vary sharply from person to person. What are
persuasive arguments to one are inadequate to another; what proves one thing to
one person proves something else to another.
Jesus invites us to perfect our faith by touching
His wounds, which lay open on the persons of His people. Despite the din and
clamor of this present time, we may still hear the calm, confident, reassuring,
loving voice of the Lord inviting us into the Mystery of Faith, as He says again
and again: “Blest are they who have not seen and have believed.”
When they speak of the angel's appearance to Mary
to announce the conception of our Lord, or when they speak of the mysterious
star that attracts the Magi, or of the cures and miracles Christ performs-all in
their way most extraordinary occurrences-they speak without fanfare. In
recounting these matters, their intention is to communicate a faith, which they
have embraced freely. A “coerced faith” would be a contradiction in terms. The
scriptures do not seek to coerce us. They invite us-as Jesus invited them.
We cannot hope for Jesus to work miracles in our
lives unless we believe. We need to believe in Him enough to be obedient to His
command: take up your cross and follow Me
In the spirit of absolute trust, take up your
cross and follow after Jesus through the narrow gate of obedience to His
command! Join him in His ministry of loving service! And as you begin to
experience the joy of genuine faith, as you begin to move into the wholeness of
life you so desperately need and want, you will be able to offer Jesus your
genuinely free faith response: I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to
me as He says.
No one is perfect. We cannot have faith unless we admit this.
In truth, faith begins with the acknowledgement of our own inadequacy to make
ourselves whole, and our absolute dependence on God for our fulfillment. The New
Testament writers clearly teach that the very foundation of faith is our
willingness to turn away from anything in our life that keeps us from
acknowledging that God is in charge; that our fulfillment depends absolutely on
the sheer gift of God's Grace.
Even to this day, there are Christians ready to
do battle over the relative merits of “faith” and “works” and “reason.” There is
a story of the little Jewish lad whose parents enrolled him in the Catholic
school because it was the closest to his home. The little boy soon caught on to
the system. He saw a crucifix on the wall of each classroom. He observed that
the nuns were strict disciplinarians and were always talking about Jesus. One
day a visiting teacher asked this boy a question. “What is it that is furry, has
a bushy tail, sharp teeth and eats nuts?” They are not going to catch me on
this, the little boy thought. Then he gave his answer: “My head tells me it’s a
squirrel, but my heart tells me that it's the Lord Jesus.”
As we examine faith, we are not talking about separating our
head and our heart that way. The two work together. So much so, in fact, that
Jesus said that until we make the response of Faith, we cannot have the evidence
we need to make the “reasonable” interpretation of that Faith. However, it is
the Faith that comes first. Moreover, it comes from God. In addition, it is not
enough just to understand this. It is a matter of the whole person deciding for
Jesus: your heart, will, mind, emotions; your whole being.
For the Good News to enrich our everyday lives as
Jesus intended, nothing less than the “great leap of faith” is required.
Inevitably, we face a crossroad, one path leading to hopelessness and despair,
the other leading to New Life in Christ. “Choose wisely,” faith tells us.
“Choose the Way of the Lord!”
God is constantly
bringing new things into being in order to accomplish His good purposes and,
very often, it takes a great leap of faith to trust in them. We become faithful
Christians, not by earning God's Love but by accepting it, and then reflecting
it in the way we live -- and the way we love! It is impossible to truly accept
God's Love and not reflect it in our love for others!
In order to work out our human destiny according
to God's intention, in order to become the kind of person we have been created
to be, our belief in the infinite power of God is not enough. We need to enlarge
our faith. God has fashioned our human nature in a way that compels us to ask
not only “Who made me?” but “Why?” “Why was I born?” “Why am I living?”
The “flu.” is one of
those sicknesses that weaves its way through a community on an annual basis and
can really cause a person to feel depressed. At some point in the sickness, you
become convinced that the doctor has made the wrong diagnosis, and you are
dying, and nobody really appreciates that fact. There is the story of a man who
contracted the flu, died, and went to Heaven. St. Peter asked him how he got
there and he answered, “Flu.” And St. Peter said, “On what airline?”
Our Christian Faith
offers us no illusion that we are a people chosen for exemption from flu or any
other form of pain and suffering. It holds no promise of a trouble-free life of
easy comfort. It grants us no immunity from evil and its consequences. It makes
no exception to the rule of God's judgment. Rather, our Christian Faith provides
us with the spiritual equilibrium, the moral stamina, and the endurance to face
up to the burdens, the fears, and the evil days that overtake us -- often in the
most unexpected ways. With eyes of Christian Faith, we see things as they are in
the light of things as they will be.
In college, I was asked to prepare a lesson to
teach my speech class. We were to be graded on our creativity and ability to
drive home a point in a memorable way. The title of my talk was, “The Law of the
Pendulum.” I spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physical principle that
governs a swinging pendulum.
The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can
never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released.
Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns, it will fall short
of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an
arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of
equilibrium, where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
I attached a 3-foot string to a washer and
secured it to the top of the blackboard with a thumbtack. I pulled the washer to
one side and made a mark on the blackboard where I let it go. Each time it swung
back, I made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the washer to complete
its swinging and come to rest. When I finished the demonstration, the markings
on the blackboard proved my thesis.
I then asked how many people in the room
BELIEVED the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their
hands, so did the teacher. He started to walk to the front of the room thinking
the presentation was over. In reality, it had just begun.
Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the
middle of the room was a large, crude but functional pendulum (150 pounds of
metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.).
I invited the instructor to climb up on a table
and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a classroom wall. Then I
brought the 150 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a
fraction of an inch from his face, I once again explained the law of the
pendulum he had applauded only moments before, “If the law of the pendulum is
true, then when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and
return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger.”
After that final restatement of this law, I
looked him in the eye and asked, “Sir, do you believe this law is true?”
There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat
formed on his upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, “Yes.”
I released the pendulum. It made a swishing
sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused
momentarily and started back. I never saw a man move so fast in my life. He
literally dove from the table.
Deftly stepping around the still-swinging
pendulum, I asked the class, “Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?”
The students unanimously answered, “NO!”
What we need to
understand is that Jesus is not calling us to blind faith. The Gospel is such
Good News because, in it, Jesus demonstrates for us the kind of faith, the only
kind of faith that can bring us to fulfillment. The Good News is that the God of
infinite power, the God who created all things, large and small, the God who
knit us together in our mother's womb, the God whose works are fearful and
wonderful to behold, the God who determines the number of the stars, the God
whose understanding is beyond measure, this God, in all His Majesty, loves us.
The God who gives life and sustains life has created us out of love in order
that we may share in His life of love.
There are two types of people in the world: those that
get it and those that do not get it. Are you getting it? Let’s see…
Five frogs sat on a lily
pad. One decided to jump off. How many were left?
Five. He only decided to jump off, but never
took the leap.
It is not enough to make a decision. You have to
take a leap of faith and follow through with it. With all the sincerity of soul
and heart and mind and will you can command, say “Yes, Lord, I believe, I
accept, I trust.”
And he said, “Lord, I believe. And he worshipped
him.”[3]
First Scripture…
27
“I, the Lord, say that the
time is coming when I will fill the land of Israel and Judah with people and
animals. 28And just as I took care to uproot, to pull down, to
overthrow, to destroy, and to demolish them, so I will take care to plant them
and to build them up. 29When that time comes, people will no longer
say, ‘The parents ate the sour grapes, But the children got the sour taste.’
30Instead, all those who eat sour grapes will have their own teeth set
on edge; and they will all die because of their own sin.”
31The
Lord says, “The time is coming when I will make a new
covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32It
will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took
them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to
them, they did not keep that covenant. 33The new covenant that I
will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them
and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34None of them will have to teach his fellow-citizen to know the
Lord, because all will know me,
from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer
remember their wrongs. I, the Lord, have spoken.”[4]
Second Scripture…
1 One day Jesus told his disciples a story to illustrate
their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up. 2
“There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who was a godless man with
great contempt for everyone.
3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, appealing
for justice against someone who had harmed her. 4 The judge ignored her for a
while, but eventually she wore him out. ‘I fear neither God nor man,’ he said to
himself, 5 ‘but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets
justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’
”
6 Then the Lord said, “Learn
a lesson from this evil judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end, so
don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who plead with
him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant
justice to them quickly! But when I, the Son of Man, return, how many will I
find who have faith?”[5]
[4]American
Bible Society. 1992. The Holy Bible : The Good news Translation (2nd
ed.) . American Bible Society: New York
[5]Holy
Bible : New Living Translation.
1997 . Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.
