April 22, 2007
What Is Faith?
Hebrews 10:35 - 11:1
A recent headline in the Sacramento Bee read: “Ignorance
of the Good Book Reaches Biblical Proportions.” You can say that pun again!
The other day I read about a chain of supermarkets in the U.K. which decided to
lecture shoppers about Easter. In a press release sent to the London Times
they said, “Brits are set to spend a massive 520 million pounds [US$1.02
billion] on Easter eggs this year, but many young people don’t even know what
Easter’s all about.” And then they went on to tell everyone that Easter was
about: “the birth of Jesus.” There was a hasty revision of the original
article, which complained about “Britons’ mounting ignorance regarding Easter,”
and changed their previous statement to say that Easter was about “rebirth.”
Then a third revision was released which finally got it right and said that
Easter was about “resurrection” — that is, after it had “consultations” with the
Church of England.
A lot of people are confused about just what faith is and what to
believe. Even those who seem very certain about everything, like the folks
writing the London Times article, don’t necessarily have it all
together. Some people find it easy to believe, in fact, some people will
believe almost anything. Other people find it difficult to believe, in fact,
they can’t help questioning everything. Some people say, “Just tell me what I
should believe, and I will believe it. Tell me what to do and I will do it.”
Then there are people who live in skepticism and doubt and say, “Tell me what to
believe and I’ll tear it apart and tell you why you shouldn’t believe it
either.” How do we acquire a faith which is neither easy believism nor
cynicism, neither naive nor belligerent?
The first point that we want to consider is: Faith is born out
of doubt. Doubt is the beginning of faith. There is such a thing as good
doubt. It makes us ask questions and think deeply about things. All through
the Bible we find people who struggle with faith. Abraham was a man of faith.
The Bible says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness” (Romans 4:3). But we also see Abraham struggling to trust God
and working at believing God’s promises to him. He makes several blunders that
seriously affected his life, and still affect the world today. And yet God
loved him and blessed him.
Jacob wrestled with God. He found himself in a tight place and
struggled to believe God and trust him with his future. But God is patient with
Jacob and uses him in spite of his wrestling. It almost seems that God wants us
to wrestle with him. He invites it and blesses those who engage him in this way
and do not just give up.
Job was certainly a man of faith, but he really fought to
understand what God was doing in his life. He wondered how God could allow some
things to happen. He said, “Even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is
heavy in spite of my groaning. If only I knew where to find him; if only I
could go to his dwelling! I would state my case before him and fill my mouth
with arguments” (Job 23:2-4).
David in the Psalms complains to God saying, “Awake, O Lord! Why
do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your
face and forget our misery and oppression?” (Psalm 44:23-24). The prophet
Jeremiah cried out to God saying, “You are always righteous, O Lord, when I
bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why
does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?”
(Jeremiah 12:1). These were not godless people who were cursing God, they were
people who loved God, and God loved them and honored them, even when they were
struggling with him.
All of these were good men, men of God. They were spiritual
leaders. The Lord blessed them and used them, but faith was not something easy
for them. They did not just go by blind faith, they struggled to understand and
trust God. So just because you have questions, or even doubts, does not mean
that you are a bad person or a spiritual failure. You are in the company of Job
and Jeremiah and most of the other biblical people of God. Their doubts did not
destroy their faith, they led to a deeper faith. Bad doubt is doubt that
refuses to believe God, gives up and walks away from God. Good doubt is the
struggle to understand God and trust him in spite of our questions. Frederick
Buechner says, “If you don’t have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or
asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and
moving.” Don’t be afraid of doubt.
It is tempting to read the Bible like a book of facts and
formulas. We search for proofs. We want to follow some black and white list of
things to do and believe. But the Bible is not a book of facts and pre-packaged
formulas, it is a book of stories — stories of people who walked with God, but
who also struggled with God. These are real people with real life problems and
questions. I have been rereading the Psalms lately and have been amazed at how
my own emotions of turmoil and struggle are mirrored in the Psalms. It would be
nice just to ignore the troubling questions of life and try to go skipping
through years denying these things exist. But what I love about the Scriptures
are the stories of real people. The Bible tells us about them warts and all.
God has broad shoulders and he can handle our questions. He invites us to
question him and struggle with him. If we were just fighting with God for the
sake of rebellion it would be different, but we are struggling with him because
we are struggling to believe, to understand and to trust.
If we have to have all the answers to our questions before we
believe, then we will never believe. We cannot fully understand God any more
than we can fully understand the ocean. Even Jacques Cousteau did not
understand everything about the ocean — it is too big to understand. It’s
impossible to understand everything about the ocean, but we can still jump in
the waves and swim. We can enjoy the water and the things in the ocean. We
don’t have to have to have all our questions answered about the ocean in order
to enjoy it. We can dive in, pick up the sea shells, watch the life in the
ocean and play on the beach. Likewise, we don’t have to understand everything
about God to enjoy him. We can dive in and swim in his presence every day,
enjoying the life we see in him. We can experience the reality of his presence
and his warmth.
Some people want to have God all figured out. They want to take
the Scriptures and organize the doctrines in nice neat formulas, lists and
charts. We would like to have God all figured out and put him in a nice little
box with a ribbon on it. But just when we think we have him safely confined in
a box, he breaks loose. Try to put God in a box and he will break out every
time. If you could put God in a box, he would no longer be God. Our
attempts to figure God out and make him understandable make him less than he
is.
The pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus’ day had God
all figured out and placed him in a box. But God broke out of that box and came
to them in the person of Jesus Christ. And because they only knew the god they
had in their box, they did not recognize Jesus and killed him. The devil
thought he had God all figured out. He sought to trap him and snare him and put
him in a box. He called it a grave. But God broke out of the box and called it
a resurrection.
I have a friend I have never met. We became friends on the
internet. He had read something I had written and began to correspond with me.
Recently he has begun writing daily prayers and sending them to his friends.
The other day he wrote a prayer and one line really jumped out at me. He prayed
to God saying, “Help me to be overwhelmed.” I love that. I want to be
overwhelmed. I want to live in the mystery of God. I don’t want to have God
all figured out, I want to live in wonder and awe. I don’t care if I don’t
understand everything. I want a God I do not completely understand. It adds to
the excitement for me.
This is what the Scripture is referring to when it says, “Now
faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This
is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the
universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of
what was visible” (Hebrews 11:1-3). Did you get that? Faith is being sure of
what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see.
Faith is not based on facts, otherwise it would not be faith. That is why we do
not need a bunch of proofs. Faith is not based on proofs, but on hope and
things unseen. You cannot prove the existence of God — that’s why we call it
the Christian FAITH.
That passage in Hebrews says that what is seen was not made out
of what was visible. The visible world was created by God. He did not take
something and make the world out of it. He created the world ex nihilo —
out of nothing. I picked up a can out of my yard after mowing the grass the
other day. It had been run over by cars and I think the mower even hit it. It
is all scrunched up and doesn’t look like much — just a crumpled piece of
metal. But I don’t think there is anyone in the world who would say, “Isn’t
that amazing how that metal evolved over time right there in the ditch!” No,
even in that crumpled can we can recognize a design, distorted as it is, and
understand that someone made it. No one would question that. No one would say
that this can just happened. We also realize that someone put it there.
But when we see a flower in the same ditch, some people want to
talk about how it evolved. It is a living thing — it can take nourishment from
the earth and transform the nutrients from the soil into new growth — and yet we
don’t want to admit that there was Someone who made it. It is far more
beautiful than the aluminum can. It has a far more intricate design. It is
living and can reproduce itself, but there are those who want to believe that it
is the result of pure chance and accident — with no purpose or Creator behind it
— no one who placed it here. It would be easier for me to believe that this
aluminum can just happened than it would to believe that the flower just
happened.
Faith can be difficult. There are no hard and fast proofs for
the existence of God, but there are no proofs that he does not exist either. In
fact, there is much more evidence that God not only exists, but that he created
the world and loves the world he created. He has filled the world with his good
gifts for us to enjoy. He did not just make a flower, he made it with intricate
design, amazing color and wonderful fragrance. It may be difficult for some to
believe in God, but for me, it would be much more difficult to believe God does
not exist. It takes faith to believe in God, but it takes a lot more faith to
not believe in God. If you can go to the ocean or the woods and not experience
God, then you have closed yourself off to what is around you. If you can see a
newborn baby and not believe in a Creator, you have made your heart stone and
your mind is closed to an obvious reality. There is only one reason that people
do not believe — they do not want to believe. They do not want to believe
because they do not want to obey. They do not want to surrender to God, because
they want to be their own god. And the amazing thing is that God does not crush
them because of it, he continues to love them — even if they decide to deny his
existence and live eternally away from him.
Faith is important, for the Bible says, “And without faith it is
impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he
exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). Faith
is a decision that we make. It is not a decision based on proofs and facts,
otherwise it would cease to be faith. It is a decision that is based on the
reality that we live in a good world where God not only provides for our basic
needs, but also blesses us with many good things and pleasures besides. It is a
decision that says, “Even though I can’t prove everything, there is overwhelming
evidence that God is real and true. Nothing else really makes sense.” Faith is
not irrational or illogical, it makes sense. The Scripture says that faith is
not just believing God exists, but that he rewards those who choose faith. He
is a God who gives his love to us. I love the phrase, “he rewards those who
earnestly seek him.” Faith is not something that jumps on us, it is something
that comes as we seek God — as we struggle to believe, trust and understand. It
doesn’t take any intelligence or effort to doubt. Anyone can do that. It takes
effort to have faith, it takes seeking after God. It is wrestling with God.
Questions are not only allowable, they are essential to authentic Christian
faith.
The second point is: Faith brings a reward. God rewards
those who seek him. The reward is that we get to live life without fear. The
reward is peace. The reward is the understanding that this is God’s world and
he is in control. It results in joy and dancing. Someone in the universe loves
us — in fact, the most important Person in the universe. The world has a
purpose. We have a purpose. We have a destiny. We are valued by our Creator
and cared for by him.
A father takes a hike with his one-year-old son who is in a
carrier on his back. The hike leads around the perimeter of a lake. In spite
of gathering clouds, father and son attack the rugged trail. Half way around
the lake, it begins to rain. The father reaches back and pulls his son’s hood
over his head, but unknown to the father, the child pushes it off. The rain
comes down harder and the boy begins to cry. The wind is howling, the rain is
pounding, thunder explodes in their ears and lightning flashes around them. By
now the child is terrified and howling at the top of his lungs. So the father
stops, takes his son out of the carrier and holds him close to his chest. He
protects his head from the rain as best he can, but still the child screams in
terror. The child only lives in the present moment. He has no idea that
eventually the storm will end. As his fear continues to rise, the father
whispers in his ears, “I love you, buddy. We’re gonna make it. I know the way
home.” Over and over again he speaks words of assurance into his son’s ears: “I
love you. We’re gonna make it. I know the way home.” The storm may be raging,
but the Father is speaking words of assurance to us as he holds us close to his
heart. Faith is trusting that, in spite of the storm, he loves us, we’re going
to make it and he is going to make sure we get home.
Rodney J. Buchanan
April 22, 2007
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Mulberry
Street United Methodist Church