Last week I suggested that we place a great deal of faith in our ability to buy and operate our cars because faith is an important and essential part of our lives. This past week I talked with several people and asked them to name 5 everyday things people have faith in. Here is some of what they said:
(Overhead 1)
•Job
•Family (spouse)
•God
•Church
•Pastor
•Other people
•Friends
•Myself
•County
•Bible
•Car
•TV
•Prayer
•Belief in a better place
•God’s promises
•Water
Those items that are listed in italics on the left were mentioned more than once. Why might these items be on this list? One important reason is that an element of trust is present in us toward these things. For example, one person said that they trust what their spouse says to them. Another person says we trust that when we turn the faucet on, water will come out of it. So therefore we have faith in them.
What does it mean to have faith? This is a key question to ask the week after Easter. Faith is essential in establishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ made possible by the Resurrection. But having this kind of faith is, at times, a very difficult thing to have.
We see this challenge in the hours and weeks following the Resurrection when the faith of the remaining disciples was stretched and challenged as they came face to face with our risen Lord as John records in chapter 20 and verses 19 - 29:
That evening, on the first day of the week, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As He spoke, he held out his hands for them to see, and he showed them his side. They were filled with joy when they saw their Lord! He spoke to them again and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so send I you.” Then he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you refuse to forgive them, they are unforgiven.
One of the disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin) was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in His hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in His side.
Eight days later the disciples were together again and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly as before, Jesus was standing among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put you finger here and see my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”” My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed. Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.
Here are at first ten of the remaining eleven disciples full of fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, even disbelief hiding behind lock doors because they believed they were marked men. Marked for arrest and perhaps even death because of their association with Jesus. Now, in spite of reports that He is alive, for at least John and Peter the reality of an empty tomb staring them in the face, here they are in shock and disarray and waiting for something bad to happen.
Their faith lay in ruins. They had believed Jesus was the Messiah. They had such high hopes for the future. The believed that the liberation of Israel was soon to occur. But, 48 hours earlier it all came crashing down as Jesus was taken off the cross, dead, and buried in a tomb that was sealed and guarded with armed guards.
Then Jesus shows up in the midst of their fear and uncertainty. “Peace!” He says. “Look at me! Calm down! Have faith! Believe!”
Faith comes back to life. Hope begins to open up like tulips do as they open to the sunlight
He then goes a step further and gives them something that we all need for our faith development. He gives them the Holy Spirit. More will be said about the Holy Spirit next week but it is very important to note that Jesus brings in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, like He had promised a few days earlier.
The Holy Spirit is essential for faith. The Spirit quickens our faith. He stirs our faith. He strengthens our faith. He is essential to our faith because He empowers our faith during times of doubt and fear and so forth just like He does in this passage.
With their faith strengthened by the word of “peace” and introduction of the Spirit into their souls, and of course the very presence of Christ himself, they are given a major responsibility – they are sent as Jesus was sent and they are given the ability to both forgive and not forgive. Then eight days later doubting Thomas, disciple #11, is brought again into the fold. Now, why did all of this take place? Why does John record these series of events?
First of all Jesus told them earlier that this would happen. There are gospel that record Jesus’ prediction of His own death and Resurrection. So, He is proving to them that what He already told them would take place.
But, Jesus also needed to strengthen their faith. It had been shattered. It was a mess. Their hopes and dreams about Christ had been dashed with the crucifixion. And so Jesus reappears to confirm what He had indicated so often to them about the Father’s plan of redemption.
Yet Jesus also had more for them to do. They had a mission. That mission we call the Great Commission. It would require of them tremendous faith that had to be strengthened and matured through both times of testing as well as growth and maturity through the work of the Holy Spirit within. Their faith therefore was essential to living out both their relationship with God and their mission given to them by Jesus.
One of the things that has been done over the years as a way of helping us access scripture in a better and more purposeful way is to label chapters of the Bible so that our faith is strengthened. We have done that with I Corinthians 13. We call it the “love chapter.” We have also labeled Hebrews 11 the “faith chapter.” And in this chapter, there are several important things to notice about faith: (overhead 2)
· A confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen
· Evidence of things not yet seen
· God approved people because of their faith they were made acceptable by faith in God
· By faith people of faith made things happen as they walked in faith
· By faith people received what God had promised to them
· By faith, hope was placed in the resurrection of a better life
This chapter of Hebrews is an exciting chapter about faith. We need to read it and study it and ask God to help us understand and apply.
There are great stories about people of faith in the verses of this chapter. People who were not always saints.
People like Rahab, a prostitute, who as we read in verse 31, “did not die with all the others in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”
These spies were Israelites sent on a mission to check out the land that God had given to them. Joshua 2:9 tells us of her faith, “I know the Lord has given you this land.” She knew and understood that God was at work and she sought protection for her and her family and God granted her that because of her belief that God was behind all that was going on.
There is the story of Abraham that we studied last fall. Robert Strand tells the story of a Wednesday evening Bible study whose particular topic one evening was on faith and obedience with Abraham and Sarah cited as Old Testament examples. Notes Strand, “I said, “Abraham looked old, felt old, acted old, and was old. Sarah looked old, felt old, acted old, and was old. The angel had brought good news to this aged couple, “You are going to have a baby!”
There was a pregnant pause for effect, and again, with great presence of mind I asked, “What do you supposed Abraham and Sarah went home and did after the angel finished with this message?”
The first shock was one absolute silence. Then the titters started, which in turn were transformed into gales of laughter. The only thing left to do was to pronounced the benediction.”
He was a man whose faith was tested time and time again. “By faith,” we read in verse 8, “Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as an inheritance.” In verse 11 we read, “It was by faith that Sarah together with Abraham was able to have a child, even though they were too old and Sarah was barren.” Then there is this great last sentence of that verse, “Abraham believed that God would keep his promise.”
Abraham and Sarah acted appropriately in faith that God would provide them with a child. Too often, we think of faith as being passive rather than active. We think that to have faith is to simply believe that God will act as we stand by. But in reviewing Hebrews 11, we discover the faith of those cataloged in this chapter is filled with actions of faith that both strengthened and stretched their faith, as they trusted God with their futures.
Our faith gets stretched and strengthened as well, doesn’t it? With the dents and dings of everyday life, we sometimes feel like we have been through a demolition derby as we come to worship and hear from the Lord. We can identify with Paul when he says in 2 Corinthians 4 verses 8 and 9: We are pressed on every side by troubles; We are perplexed; We are hunted down; and we get knocked down.” What kept Paul going during his life and ministry? Faith and trust in God and the full text of this passage illustrates this truth:
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed and broken. We are perplexed, but we don’t give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get back up again and keep going.
Last week I shared some responses to the question, “Why do people find it hard to believe in the Resurrection?” One person that I asked is a childhood friend and former neighbor. His response did not come until Easter had passed. But, it is a response that speaks to our question of today, “What does it mean to have faith?”
He began by stating clearly that he believes the Resurrection took place but has trouble with “religion.” Then he asks a question that affects the issue of faith, “Why would God sacrifice his only son for a world so rife with hatred and destruction?”
And he goes on, “even those in our own country who speak of righteousness, will think nothing of killing in the name of God. If He is the ultimate judge on right and wrong, why do we have capital punishment? Why do we attack another country, kill its innocents and claim we have righteousness on our side? If God loves all men and women, how can anyone claim that He is on "our" side to commit murder? And in a less horrific situation, those who claim righteousness also rape and pillage the earth, the animals that inhabit it, the savings and jobs and retirements of those who are less fortunate than they are.”
I have yet to respond to my friend’s e-mail but what would you say to him? Jesus faced the same questions when he walked the earth. He saw the hopelessness and the pain and the agony of people. He experienced first hand the evil and injustice of this world. So why did “God sacrifice his only son for a world so rife with hatred and destruction?”
Because it is only God who can truly rid the world of hatred and destruction – one person, one soul, at a time. And that requires faith and trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone for the salvation that can change the human heart and ultimately the human condition. How? Two ways: 1. Believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is the only way of salvation. 2. Living out that belief in a credible way because that is how those whose faith and life cataloged in Hebrews 11 were a part of God’s work in their time and place.
Why is faith important? Without faith there is no hope. And with hope, what is there?
My prayer this day is that God would stir us up. That He will strengthen and enlarge our faith and trust in Him so that we will give clear evidence that He is God! Amen.
