The Remaining Three
A Sermon on Faith
I Corinthians 13:13
Houston pastor John Bisango describes a time when his daughter Melody Jean, age five, came to him and asked for a doll house. John promptly nodded and promised to build her one, then he went back to reading his book. Soon he glanced out the study window and saw her arms filled with dishes, toys, and dolls, making trip after trip until she had a great pile of playthings in the yard. He asked his wife what Melody Jean was doing.
“Oh, you promised to build her a doll house, and she believes you. She’s just getting ready for it.”
“You would have thought I’d been hit by an atom bomb,” John later said. “I threw aside that book, raced to the lumber yard for supplies, and quickly built that little girl a doll house. Now why did I respond? Because I wanted to? No. Because she deserved it? No. Her daddy had given his word, and she believed it and acted upon it. When I saw her faith, nothing could keep me from carrying out my word.”
This morning, and over the next three weeks, we will be looking at the “Love chapter” in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. As you may have noticed, this morning we will looking at the first of the three things that must be in the Christian life; faith. If I were to ask you what faith was, how would you describe it? What does faith look like, and how do you know if you have it or not?
J.O. Fraser, former missionary to China, likened faith to a muscle in your body. “Faith is like muscle which grows stronger and stronger with use, rather than rubber, which weakens when it is stretched!” Others have defined faith in different ways:
Definitions of Faith
• The art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.—C. S. Lewis
• Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.—St. Augustine
• Faith is voluntary anticipation.—Clement of Alexandria
The Oxford Dictionary of Current English defines faith in the following manner : noun -complete trust, unquestioning confidence: strong belief, especially in religious doctrine. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, the Greek word for faith is the word pistis . Besides standing for the word faith, pistis can also be translated as assurance, belief, faith, fidelity.
No matter what you words you use to describe, it is one of the foundations that Christianity is built upon. If you did not have faith in God, an unquestioning confidence, one would have to wonder if you were a true believer. Without faith, we are left blowing in the wind, much like the tumbleweeds you see in the old Western movies.
What does faith look like in the church? How does a person rely on faith? Where do we go from here? I have three different ways of looking at faith this morning.
1. Wonders of Faith
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Verse 1 is not really a formal definition of faith; rather it is a description of what faith does for us. It makes things hoped for as real as if we already had them, and it provides unshakable evidence that the unseen, spiritual blessings of Christianity are absolutely certain and real. In other words, it brings the future within the present and makes the invisible seen.
2. Faith = Foundation of the Christian Life
Hebrews 11:6 (NCV) - Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he is real and that he rewards those who truly want to find him.
No amount of good works can compensate for lack of faith. After all is said and done, when a man refuses to believe God, he is calling Him a liar. Here the author of Hebrews explains that faith is mandatory for those who approach Him. Faith is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Unless you are willing to come God’s way and believe Him, you cannot possibly please God.
a) Saved by grace through Faith
Ephesians 2:8 (NKJV) - For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
It all originates with the grace of God: He takes the initiative in providing it. Salvation is given to those who are utterly unworthy of it, on the basis of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is given as a present possession. Those who are saved can know it. Writing to the Ephesians, Paul said, You have been saved. He knew it, and they knew it.
The way we receive the gift of eternal life is through faith. Faith means that man takes his place as a lost, guilty sinner, and receives the Lord Jesus as his only hope of salvation. True saving faith is the commitment of a person to a Person.
Any idea that man can earn or deserve salvation is forever exploded by the words, and that not of yourselves. Dead people can do nothing, and sinners deserve nothing but punishment.
It is the gift of God. A gift, of course, is a free and unconditional present. That is the only basis on which God offers salvation. The gift of God is salvation by grace and through faith. It is offered to all people everywhere.
Christians have been saved by grace. The grace of God is the source of salvation; faith is the channel, not the cause. God alone saves. Salvation never originates in the efforts of people; it always arises out of the loving kindness of God.
b) Live by Faith
Proverbs 3:5,6 (NKJV) - Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
We must trust Him not only for the salvation of our souls but also for the direction of our lives. It must be a commitment without reserve. Faith is the Samsonian lock of the Christian; cut it off, and you may put out his eyes—and he can do nothing.—Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A man slipped and fell off a cliff while hiking on a mountaintop. Luckily he was able to grab a branch on his way down. Holding on for dear life, he looked down only to see a rock valley some fifteen hundred feet below. When he looked up it was twenty feet to the cliff where he had fallen.
Panicked, he yelled, “Help! Help! Is anybody there? Help!”
A booming voice spoke up. “I am here, and I will save you if you believe in me.”
“I believe! I believe!” yelled back the man.
“If you believe me, let go of the branch and then I will save you.”
The young man, hearing what the voice said, looked down again. Seeing the rock valley below, he quickly looked back up and shouted, “Is there anybody else up there!”
Vance Havner had the following to say about how we should live by faith. “God is faithful, and He expects His people to be faithful. God’s Word speaks of faithful servants, faithful in a few things, faithful in the least, faithful in the Lord, faithful ministers. And all points up that day when He will say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
What terrible times we have in our churches trying to keep people faithful in attendance and loyalty! How we reward and picnic and coax and tantalize church members into doing things they don’t want to do but which they would do if they loved God! The only service that counts is faithful service.
True faith shows up in faithfulness. Not everyone one can sing or preach, but all can be faithful.”
3. Faith fixes on the Divine revelation
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT) - Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.
Not a great faith we need, but faith in a great God.—J. Hudson Taylor
Faith is the attitude in which, acknowledging our complete insufficiency for any of the high ends of life, we rely utterly on the sufficiency of God. - C.H. Dodd
We need to focus consistently on Christ instead of our own circumstances. Christ has done everything necessary for us to endure in our faith. He is our example and model, for He focused on the joy that was set before Him. His attention was not on the agonies of the Cross, but on the crown, not on the suffering, but the reward.
The people listed in chapter 11 are the “cloud” that witnesses to us, “God can be trusted! Put your faith in His Word and keep running the race!” The writer compared the Christian life to a long-distance race. The runners—believers—find themselves surrounded by a great “cloud of witnesses,” or the heroes of faithfulness. These witnesses are not heavenly spectators who observe the conduct of Christians, but those who have given testimony by their examples (see Heb. 11). Christians can run the race of life well only by laying aside any impediment that hinders one from putting forward his best effort. “Sin,” especially that of “unbelief,” also forms a crippling hindrance to good running. A distance race that requires endurance, persistence, and sustained effort—not a short sprint.
Conclusion
Charles Wesley, studying Abraham’s faith as described in Romans 4:13, wrote a hymn of eleven stanzas about faith. The most popular stanza has provided a watchword for the Victorious Christian Life movement for a hundred years:
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at life’s impossibilities,
And cries, It shall be done!
