As
church-going Christians, we talk about some things over and over. Take faith,
for example: it’s the topic of many Christian conversations. That’s true in the
Bible, too. The word “faith” is everywhere in the New Testament. It’s one of
the “big three” that Paul mentions in I Corinthians 13 together with “hope” and
“love.” We even sing about it. Why, I’ve known the hymn “My Faith Looks Up to
Thee” since I was a child! But we don’t think about the definition of “faith” very
often. We should do that now and then, though, especially since we Protestants
believe that we aren’t saved by our good works, but by our faith.
So…
what is “faith,” anyway? The very simple answer is that “faith” is “trust.”
Faith is trusting that God will do what God has promised to do. Faith is
trusting that Jesus didn’t lead us astray when he told us that the best kind of
life is a life of sacrifice that is lived for others. Faith is trusting that
the Spirit is guiding us every single day, even though we may not feel it at
the time. Faith is saying, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me
so” and trusting that Jesus is going to show us that love.
One
example of what faith looks like in action is through an activity called a
trust fall. It’s a secular example of faith, but it’s a powerful one. I
participated in a trust fall at a summer camp many years ago. I climbed up
three or four rungs of a stepladder while several of my friends stood behind
me. I was asked to allow myself to fall backwards off that ladder, trusting
that my friends would catch me before I hit the ground. It takes a lot of trust
to do that! And that’s faith: allowing ourselves to fall backwards into the
arms of God and trusting that God will catch us before we hit the ground.
Most
people, though, don’t think of faith as trust. In fact, if you ask a random
Christian who is sitting in a church pew on a Sunday morning to define faith,
he would probably say, “Faith is what I believe.” He might even give you some
examples: “I believe that God loves me; I believe that Jesus is the son of God;
and I believe that Jesus rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.” Now, those are
all good things to believe (and I hope that everyone here believes the very
same things); but all those beliefs are only the basis for faith. That’s because believing
is something that you do with your head; while faith is something that you do with your heart. You can believe all
sorts of things and not have an ounce of faith! The author of the book of James
said as much when he wrote, “You believe that there is one God? Good! But even
the demons believe that!” (James 2:19) His point is that trusting in God goes
way beyond intellectual beliefs.
In
fact, those beliefs can trip us up if we’re not careful. In her book The Luminous Web, Barbara Brown Taylor
writes that “the Bible is one long story about how God demolishes human beliefs
in order to clear space for faith.” The moment we think we have God’s ways all
worked out, God pulls the rug out from underneath us with something new that we
had never even considered! Abraham believed that Ishmael was the child of God’s
promise – until long-barren Sarah bore Isaac. Elijah was certain that God’s
voice fell like fire from heaven – and then God spoke to him in a whisper that
came out of sheer silence. Paul believed that he was helping God to get rid of
heretics – until a bright light knocked him flat on his back and he heard Jesus
ask him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And when Job believed that he
knew how God worked, God appeared in person and showed him a few things – and Job
realized that reality was way, way bigger than he had ever imagined that it
was. Our beliefs can (and should) change as we experience more and learn from those experiences.
So,
does this mean that we shouldn’t try to think about what we believe? Of course
not! In fact, we should probably try to think about it a whole lot more than we
do! One of the greatest ancient Christian thinkers, Anselm, said that a
Christian life should be “faith seeking understanding,” and that certainly
involves thinking about what the Bible says. God wouldn’t have given us brains,
after all, if God didn’t want us to use them! But our human brains are limited.
We can’t possibly understand all of God’s ways! Compared to God, we have the
brains of a flea! Long ago, God said through the prophet Isaiah: “My thoughts
are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways. As the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher
than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 54:8-9) That’s as true today as it was in Isaiah’s
time.
So, if
we will never completely understand God by reading the Bible, what is the Bible
there for? The Bible is there to point beyond itself to the living God, to his
son Jesus Christ, and to all the workings of the Spirit. The Bible is like an
eye-catching sign that points the way to Disney World. The sign may be
beautiful, but what it points to is a whole lot better! The stories of the
Bible are meant not just to tell us who God is and how God works, but to
inspire the faith that I talked about at the beginning of this sermon – the
certainty that God can be trusted with our lives and with our eternal destiny.
If we come to the Bible as a book of puzzles about God that we are supposed to
solve, then we’ve missed the point! That was the problem with the Pharisees did
back in Jesus’ time. They studied the scriptures so much that they got stuck in
them and missed what those scriptures are pointing towards! In this morning’s
reading from the gospel of John (5:36-40), Jesus told the Pharisees, “You study the
scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.
These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to
me to have life.” The Pharisees were so busy studying the beautiful sign that pointed
the way to Disney World that they never did make it to the park itself.
So,
what’s today’s take-home message? It’s just this: believing things about Jesus is good; but having faith in Jesus is even better. In fact, Jesus
wants us to have faith like a little child! Remember that Jesus told his
disciples, “Let the little children come to me, for the kingdom of heaven
belongs to such as these.” Little children aren’t old enough to believe much of anything, but they certainly do
trust – and trust deeply. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all have that kind
of faith? As we live our lives following Jesus the best that we can, may we believe as thinking adults, but may we have the faith of little children!
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