Merredin Uniting Church

When we become Christians we often say that we have “put our faith or trust in Jesus?”

There are people who go into ministry, or into the mission field, and they say that “they now live by faith.”

But what is faith? How do you know if you have it? And what do you hope that it will do?

I have been challenged in my own life over the past several months about this. Do I trust in God or my own ability? Do I really trust God to provide for my needs or must I rely on the generosity of others? How do I know that my prayers have any effect at all?

And as I have struggled with this, I have been drawn into a place where I have been asked to put my faith onto the spiritual anvil, so to speak. To have it tested in the fire to see if my faith really is “built on the foundation of Jesus Christ and is built of gold, silver and costly stones rather than wood, hay or straw.” 1 Cor 3:11-12

As I have shared this with others, especially those of more spiritual maturity, it has become clear to me that I am not alone. We have a longing to be a people of faith but in the reality of our material world we hold back on laying ourselves down completely for Christ’s sake.

So that’s the root and reason for our focus at SNAC this year. I thought of calling it “A Year of Living Dangerously” until someone told me that it was the title of a movie relating to the events around the overthrow of the Sukarno regime in Indonesia in the 1960’s. But the thought is still there … it is dangerous to live by faith. It is full of risk.

I came across a blogger on the internet the other day who was suggesting that Christians should stop arguing with with atheists about the existence of God. He said this, “Faith is belief in the absence of proof. That is the whole point. That is God’s way of testing us. I have no doubt that if He wanted to prove His existence, He would. If we could point to actual physical proof that He exists, that would remove the need for faith, our only obligation. It would then become very easy to believe in God, and nowhere in the bible does it say being a Christian will be easy… It follows that we would never be able to prove His existence.”

Faith is acting in the absence of proof.

And this is something we really struggle with.

And yet we exercise faith everyday without realising it. We go to doctors, receive prescriptions we can’t read and take medication we know very little about. In fact, we do that without even bothering to examine the doctor’s credentials or investigating the effects of the medicine. We could be killing ourselves but we never think twice about it. We simply trust that the doctor knows what he is doing and that the medicine will help. That’s faith.

However, we say that such faith is insufficient for the really big decisions of life. Really?

Do we trust a human doctor more that we trust our Creator and Saviour?

Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  In verse 6 we read that “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.”

The chapter goes on to list those of the Old Testament who lived a life of faith in the promise of God but who never saw that promise materialise. Clearly a case of “being sure of what is not seen, certain of what is hoped for.”

In Hebrews 12 we are challenged to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles … and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

We are called to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” The Author – the one who creates it and gives it substance and authority; the Perfecter – the one who makes it complete in every way. Sometimes Perfecter is translated as the Finisher of our faith, meaning making it complete so that nothing needs to be added.

In the KJV Hebrews 11:1 is translated as ‘Faith is the substance of things we hope for …” We have kind of skipped over the word Hupostasis in the more modern translations – it implies a concrete assurance, or directed translated “a fixed thing of which you may be certain, or which you can hold in your hands.”

Faith is about real things and it is accepting these real things as relevant for you. Your salvation, your hope, eternal life and life right now.

You know the story of Blondin’s invitation to the man in the audience to go across the Niagara Falls on his shoulders on a tightrope. The man believed that it was possible but he was unwilling to stake his life on it, and refused to go with him.

Faith is not real until it’s all your holding onto and it is only as good as that in which it is placed.

No matter how much you trust people, religion, church, ministers, politicians, not one of them can help you in every crisis, and certainly not after you die. It’s not that they don’t want to help you; they just don’t have the power to do it all.

Faith must be a reliance upon God – Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. He alone has power to deal with your sins. He alone can give you eternal life beyond the grave. He alone can deal with the impossibilities of this life to bring healing and reconciliation, to supply all the needs of the hungry. He alone can set the prisoners free, release the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

The question is then: Do we really trust God? Do we trust Him enough for all these things? Will we bank everything on Him – throwing off those things which hinder, and so live our lives in absolute faith and trust in the Almighty?

Some may say that their faith is not strong enough for that. Some may live a little bit more in their faith but few will really put their whole life into God’s hands.

I understand that … I have some hesitation myself, but let me tell you a story.

A young boy had been waiting for the first big freeze of winter so that he could ice skate on the lake. When it happened he ran down to the lake and confidently he went out onto the ice. But a few metres out, the ice cracked and he fell through into the freezing water.

What went wrong?

He had sincerely believed that the ice would hold him.

The problem was not with his faith, but with the object of his faith.

A few weeks later he went back but was now afraid to trust himself on the lake. At the insistence of his friends he reluctantly ventured out, nervous and trembling. The ice held firm.

You see, it is not the strength of our faith that matters but the strength of what we place our faith in. Even a weak faith has a strong Saviour when that faith is in Jesus.

And so, where are we going with this?

I want to challenge you to step out in faith this year in a way which you have never done before.

Live dangerously. Take risks with God.

The Bible is full of people who did that and one of the reasons why we have the Bible and why we should read it so much is that it shows us that God can be trusted. Even in the things which seems foolish, no, perhaps especially in the things that seem foolish.

Think of Gideon and his fleece. God wanted him to lead a depleted army against a strong enemy. Gideon was scared, uncertain. He went through this whole testing of God thing with the fleeces and no matter what he did, God’s answer was “Yes!”

God’s answer to us is “Yes! Trust me and see what I will do.”

Read the Bible for your encouragement this year. Remind yourself that God is to be trusted in every way.

Pray expectantly for wildly foolish things. Don’t try to guess which things are “in the will of God” – you have no idea what God wants to do. But He does want you to trust Him to know which things are right and which are actually foolish. He knows when to turn water into wine, when to walk on the water and when to multiply food. He knows when to heal and when to raise from the dead. There are no things which are beyond His power; and if what you ask is out of love and for His glory, He will do it. Always!

Trust that God wants to communicate with you, that He wants to share things with you and involve you in His ministry.

He is not always the still small voice. Sometimes He is a thunder on a mountain, a burning fire, an earthquake.

And sometimes He might require difficult things of you – Trust Him. For Abraham, his faith was credited to him as righteousness.

Abraham did not always believe God because God seemed to say and expect foolish things. “You will have a child” when his wife was past childbearing. It was a promise but it didn’t seem possible so this 90 year old man had sex with a young servant girl to help fulfil God’s promise – as if God needed any help.

But a child was born to this aged and barren woman – that was God’s plan.

So when God invited Abraham to offer this son in sacrifice he had no hesitation. He headed to the mountain with the wood, the fire and the son of God’s promise. He trusted God in this most difficult and foolish of choices, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Take risks with God this year – not for God but with God.

Read the Word, pray expectantly, trust His voice, do what He says.

To close, let me remind you of the story of Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20. A vast army was coming against him, the future was hopeless and so he turned to God.

God said to him that he would not have to fight the battle. He trusted this word, gathered his people told them to have faith in the Lord their God. Then they marched out towards the enemy with the worship team up front and they sang songs praising God for the splendour of His holiness. When they came over the hill to the battle field they saw only dead bodies lying on the ground.

I believe that we are at the edge of a new adventure with God. I believe that God is going to be doing amazing things in the lives of people who never thought twice about Him. I believe that we are entering a spiritual revolution. And I believe that He wants to use you and me – He doesn’t need us, but He invites us to be part of what He is doing. Take the risk!

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