THE PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH
Give me a sign Lord, any sign! Have you ever asked for a sign to encourage your faith, or to give you some assurance that you are on the right track? Have you ever needed something tangible to hold on to and help you feel like you can’t fail? I am sure you have. I know I did…
For my grade 12 graduation banquet, my romantic notions told me that it would be cool to have an escort at this auspicious occasion. I was not the ladies man that I am now so this was a bit of a daunting task. Yet there was this girl in my church youth group who I had liked and felt this might be an opportunity to begin something with.
Nervously one Friday night after youth group, I asked her if she would like to accompany me to my grad banquet. But, I said, don’t answer me now…tell me on Sunday. I thought it good etiquette to give a girl time to think.
The next day, I was shooting at barn swallows on my brother-in-law’s farm with my CO2 pistol. If you know barn swallows they are extremely hard to hit while they are diving at your head. If you know pistols they are hard to aim with. I fired about 50-60 rounds and missed every one.
Then a thought came to me. I was still nervous about asking this girl out and beginning to hope she would say “no”. So I asked the Lord for a sign. Noticing a swallow sitting on a wire, I said, “Lord, if I hit that swallow she will say yes. If not, I will know that this was not meant to be.” Thus I guaranteed myself some peace. There was no way I would hit that bird. Well you know what happened, I hit the bird, he swung down on one leg, dangled, then fell into the waiting jaws of the farm dog. Now I was twice as nervous – the Lord showed me she would say yes.
Sunday she came up to me and said she would be glad to go. We went and it was the most tremendous disaster of my life. I am so embarrassed by the event that I can’t even share the details with you. When I wondered whether there would be another date after this fiasco…her lips said “no” but her eyes said “read my lips.”
We have a fascination with signs and wonders. We want a sign from God about whom we should marry, where we should work, or where we should live. We ask for a sign that shows God loves us, that will help us to believe in him. And there is no doubt that God works miracles. But signs can get you in a lot of trouble. If we look for signs to guide our decisions or to increase our faith, more often than not, we will be disappointed. Our faith in God will suffer as a result. We may even hurt our faith and miss out on real opportunities to develop genuine faith.
After Jesus had turned water into wine, he headed down to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. While there, Jesus cleared the temple of the money changers, performed miraculous signs and told Nicodemus how to be born again. Then he returned to Galilee by way of Samaria.
The peculiar thing to note is that John reminds us that “a prophet has no honor in his own country.” What makes this peculiar is that next we read, “When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him.”
Think about it: Joseph was not accepted by his own brothers when he told them of the dreams he had; Jeremiah was thrown down a well for speaking the truth to his fellow Israelites; Isaiah was sawn in two…Jesus was not accepted in Galilee. Knowing this passage and taking it quite literally I asked the Conference not to place me in my home church to train as a minister.
But now the Galileans welcomed him. What’s peculiar about that? Well only a short time earlier they wanted to throw him off a cliff. He sat down to read the words of Isaiah from a scroll in his hometown synagogue, then stood up to say that this prophecy was fulfilled in their presence…in himself. They called that blasphemy then and wanted to kill him.
What changed? Signs! They saw the signs he performed in Jerusalem at the Passover feast. The result is what we could call a “fickle faith.” They did not actually have a faith in Jesus; what they had was a curious fascination in the son of Mary. More so, they wanted to see what Jesus would do next. Where do these people go when there are no signs?
What of the throngs of Christian pilgrims who journey to see a weeping Madonna? What of the statues of Jesus with bleeding hands? Prayers are said; bargains made…if only they could witness a miracle, validate their faith. Is this faith?
Jonathan Edwards wrote: “I suppose no one will doubt that some natural men do reach out to the evidence of the truth of the Christian religion on the basis of rational proofs or arguments. Doubtless Judas thought Jesus was the Messiah on the basis of things he saw and heard. Yet he was a devil all along. We read in John 2:23-25 that many believed in Christ’s name when they saw the miracles that he did. Yet Christ did not trust them. Simon the sorcerer believed when he saw the miracles and the signs which were done, yet he still remained bitter and in the bond of iniquity. So too we read of those who believe for awhile and were greatly affected, even joyfully receiving the word, yet their religious affections were not spiritual.”
Faith based on signs for the sake of signs alone is a fragile faith.
WHAT IS OUR FAITH IN JESUS BASED ON?
A man begs Jesus to come with him and heal his son who is dying. He believes Jesus can do this because he has heard about the wine incident. Maybe he was in Jerusalem too. This father has a certain kind of faith, a belief that Jesus is some kind of miracle worker. This father is desperate and is willing to try anything.
As parents we know the agony of watching our children writhe in their illnesses. We try different medicines; we go to the doctors and plead with them not to label it a virus; as a last resort sometimes, we pray. What I’m saying is we can understand the essence of this father’s faith and the pain that got him there.
Jesus replies, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders…you will never believe.” It seems callous of Jesus to say this to a father whose heart is breaking. Is this a positive or a negative statement? A rebuke or a challenge? Is Jesus saying that people need signs in order to believe?
If you compare the attitudes of the Galileans with the Samaritans of this same chapter, you know it’s a rebuke. When Jesus taught the Samaritan woman at the well about the living water that only he could give, she believed in him. She even testified to the other Samaritans so that they came and heard Jesus. And they said, “We no longer believe because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
There were no signs; there were only words of grace and truth. And they believed. What a contrast.
Despite all the signs they would eventually witness, these Galileans would follow Jesus to Jerusalem, watch him get crucified, and not lift a finger to stop this murder. Faith that is based on signs tends to nurture a view that when good things happen it’s a sign of God’s love, and when bad things happen, it’s a sign of God’s failure.
Philip Yancey, in his book "Reaching for the Invisible God" describes the way God gets blamed for things in this way.
"When Princess Diana died in an automobile accident, a minister was interviewed and was asked the question “How can God allow such a terrible tragedy?” And I loved his response. He said, “Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going ninety miles an hour in a narrow tunnel? Just How, exactly, was God involved.”
Years ago, boxer, Ray “Boom-Boom” Mancini, killed a Korean opponent with a hard right hand to the head. At the press conference after the Korean’s death, Mancini said, “Sometimes I wonder why God does the things he does.”
In a letter to Dr. Dobson, a young woman asked this anguished question, “Four years ago, I was dating a man and became pregnant. I was devastated. I asked God, “Why have you allowed this to happen to me?”
Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother a couple years ago who pushed her two sons into a lake to drown and then blamed a fictional carjacker for the deed, wrote in her confession: “I dropped to the lowest point when I allowed my children to go down that ramp into the water without me. I took off running and screaming, ‘Oh God! Oh God, no! What have I done? Why did you let this happen?”
Now the question remains, exactly what role did God play in a boxer beating his opponent to death, a teenage couple giving into temptation in the back seat of a car, or a mother drowning her children?
Is God responsible for these acts? To the contrary, they are examples of incredible human free will being exercised on a fallen planet. And yet it’s in our nature as mortal, frail, fallen people to lash out at one who is not, that being God."
Oswald Chambers said, “Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.”
So is Jesus callous to this father who wants his son healed? On the contrary, he is extremely compassionate on this man. Jesus’ intent is that this man would learn true faith.
The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.”
What the official wanted was for Jesus to literally come to his house, actually put his hands on the child and heal him. If Jesus did this, the father would believe. Jesus instead says “believe and he will be healed.” This is not about having enough faith. When we do not receive healing, that is the common response – you don’t have enough faith. What Jesus wants is belief without signs. That is the point he makes. He wants this man to develop a deeper faith, one that is not based on signs, one that doesn’t rest on what Jesus can do but on who Jesus is. “Go,” he says, take Jesus at his word and believe.
What if the royal official in this story had walked away angry and bitter? He would never have received what he needed from Jesus. There are times in our lives when everything will look as if it is going down the toilet and we will wonder why God does not answer our prayers. It will seem like he is deaf to us. We will wonder if he still loves us. But if you push through those experiences, hang on and not give up, you will find your faith growing. Faith takes effort on our part. It is not just handed to us by God. He challenges us in those dark times to believe that he is faithful. And God honors the persistence and perseverance we put into our quest for God.
Do you see the result? The man went home and his son was healed at the exact time Jesus said he would be healed. “So he and all his household believed.”
What is this sign pointing to? Remember that a sign we see on the roadside is not the actual place, but only a sign pointing to the actual place. These signs in John point to something about Jesus. What is it that we should see in Jesus?
This sign tells us that Jesus is a faith developer. He wants to develop a deeper faith in those who choose to follow him. This is his work in our lives: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).
He is the originator and the one who will complete our faith. Jesus came to give us faith and make it grow. This sign tells us that we are in the hands of One who does not always answer our prayers the way we expect, but works to develop a deeper, stronger, more resilient faith.
Tom Landry, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, said, “The job of a coach is to make men do what they don’t want to do, in order to achieve what they really want.” Isn’t that what Jesus does? He allows us to go through trials that we really would rather not; allows us to face things that we want to avoid, in order to achieve what we have wanted in our hearts all along. Jesus coaches us through those valleys, those dark times – he doesn’t leave us till we’re done – and he does it so we come out with greater faith in him.
“Jews demand miraculous signs,” Paul wrote, “and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:22-24). The greatest sign that God gave us assuring us of his love and faithfulness is the cross on which his Son died. We need no other sign to guide us.
I don’t know what you may be struggling with this week, or this year, and to tell you to simply have faith is trite and meaningless. There is nothing meaningless about your difficulties. To ask for a sign of hope in the midst of those trials is not wrong, so long as we ask with faith and not for faith. But the author and perfecter of your faith calls you to take him at his word, to go and do in faith what he calls you to do, and believe that he is with you.
AMEN
