Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
This last Sunday, Pastor Herk preached an online sermon from Little Church in the Pines @ Bass Lake, California. He asked: What is faith and what is it not? The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defines the word faith in theology as: the assent of the mind or understanding to the truth of what God has revealed. Simple belief of the scriptures, of the being and perfections of God, and of the existence, character and doctrines of Christ, founded on the testimony of the sacred writers. Faith is a firm, cordial belief in the veracity of God, in all the declarations of his word; or a full and affectionate confidence in the certainty of those things which God has declared, and because he has declared them. One of the best ways to get a clear understanding of what faith means is to define what faith is not. One of the things that we need to understand is that we need to have faith if we are going to follow Jesus. Our assurance is based on our faith that our heavenly Father in Heaven is trustworthy and trust God with the outcome.
Daniel 3:15-18 “Now if you are ready at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image which I have made, good! But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you from my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
We can have firmly held but misguided faith that if I just had enough faith, God will heal and protect us from the effects of this fallen world. It’s a flawed concept of faith which inevitably leads to a shipwreck in somebody’s life; sometimes spiritual, sometimes physically, and sometimes both. Many Christians believe that the Bible teaches that faith is confidence in a certain outcome that they are wanting. People looks are God’s miracles in the Bible and say “look at the way people in the Bible received by faith and unwavering confidence”. The problem is that if this is your entire view of biblical faith, then the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego is very disturbing. They stood up to the sovereign king, refused to acknowledge and worship his statue, and would only acknowledge their Lord God. Their lives were at stake because of their faith in the One True God and their unwillingness to worship a false god.
They did not pretend to know what was going to happen to them. They had no desire to burn to death in a fiery furnace. They didn’t claim that they wouldn’t die. Instead of them offering some confident assertion pf faith, there great men of God said, “I really don’t know what is going to happen to us. We only know that we trust in God and obey Him. They did say that God was able to save them and would in fact rescue them from the King’s hand because even if they died, they were in God’s hand. They had faith in God. They said that if God did not save them from the fiery furnace, they would still worship Him only, not the king’s gold idol. Some may say, “no, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego believed without doubting. They did believe in their God, but they did not know His will in this case or what He was going to do. These godly men did not operate on the popular notion of what faith shall be. It was based on biblical faith, the kind that helps and doesn’t hurt.
What is biblical faith not? First, faith is not trust in our belief. We can read and say that we believe that a Bible verse or passage means something particular, but it may not. We need to be careful that we do not trust in our own beliefs. Faith is not faith in faith (what you believe). Many times, in Christians circles we link the effectiveness of our faith to how strongly we can convince ourselves that there will be a positive outcome to a particular situation. We are not taking into consideration God’s will or that God’s ways are not our way. We’re just looking at and thinking that if we believe strong enough in a desired outcome, it will happen. We may decide to allow no doubt to enter our minds and act and pump up our faith so strongly, prayerfully and powerfully to convince ourselves that God is going to honor our desires. But God is not looking at you pumping yourself up with faithful actions. That kind of faith there is not the kind of faith that trusts in God’s wisdom and power. It’s more of a confidence in the amount of belief we have conjured up in an attempt to control God.
You cannot control your Maker, the Almighty Creator God. The Lord knows the end from the beginning and the outcome of every situation. Does God answer prayer? Of Course! Sometimes, He answers them the way that we want Him to, sometimes not. But He always answers prayer.
Let’s continue Pastor Herk’s message of “faith” in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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