LIVING BY FAITH

Believe.
Believe, we say. You've gotta believe.
Being a Christian is about belief, and faith, and living by faith.

If you've been in church for any length of time, you've heard words to that effect.
You'll have heard them over and over and over.
And it's true.
Belief. Faith. That's the central call of the Bible.

Belief. Faith.
The whole idea of faith is not so outlandish. Everyone walks around with some kind of faith. Some have faith in themselves. Or in the power of human reason. Or in the free enterprise economic system.;
Some people would say about faith that you could believe in any one of these things I mentioned -- or any number of other things or systems. What you believe isn't so important. As long as you're clear about them, and feel comfortable with it. If it works for you......
Faith. Does it matter what we believe? And, even more basic, what does it mean to have faith -- to believe in something, anyway?
And to kick start things we'll go for guidance to the teaching guide of our denomination, the Heidelberg Catechism.

What does it mean to have faith -- to believe in something?
Our teacher, the Catechism, says that if you have faith it means:
1. you know about something...... AND.....
2. you trust in that something.

Knowing...... and trusting.
Having faith, in whatever, doesn't mean that you check your brain at the door. If you're going to believe in something, you check it out first. Carefully. Examine the contents. See if they fit together. If it works. If it makes sense.
And then you take that knowledge and put it into action in a personal way in your life. You count on it, lean on it, depend on it.

Faith - knowing and trusting.
For example, you can have a basic faith in chairs. You exercised that when you came to church today. You know about pews. You've seen them hold other people. You know that they're built in a sturdy fashion. And then you sat down on the pew. You probably didn't shake the bench, and gingerly lower your weight on the edge. You simply sat down, trusting that it would hold you up. That's faith.

What does that mean in the Christian context?
What do we mean when we say "I'm a Christian and I believe."

It means, for a start, that as best you can you begin to investigate and learn and develop an understanding of Christian teaching. That's a growing, lifelong process. Through your life you begin to see how various parts of the Christian religion hang together; how one part depends on or affects the other.You begin to know about God - Father, Son, Holy Spirit. His nature, power, will. His laws and expectations for humanity. His Church. You learn. And continue to learn.
That's part of faith.
But then, as you try to live by faith, you also become very aware that there's a huge difference between knowing about someone, and knowing someone.
The first is arm's length. Distant. It doesn't affect you.I know about Donavan Bailey. I don't know him.
You can know about grieving. But unless you have had a significant loss in your life you don't know grief.
You can know about childbirth. But until you have had children you don't know the wonder and amazement of becoming a mother; life growing within you.
Faith - there's a knowledge part; knowing about.
And there is a trust part; that's the knowingbringing the knowing about home to roost; letting it impact our life.Christian faith is not some sort of spiritual fire insurance policy that we sign our name to once upon a time and stuff into a safety deposit box for future reference..... if we need it.
Rather than a lukewarm attitude that says, "Yeah, sure, whatever" to the words that tumble from the pulpit, our Reformed forebearers said that true Christian faith means becoming open to those truths in a personal way.
God created..... me.
God is grieved by sin..... in me.
God loves.... me.
God sent Jesus..... for me!
God calls...... me..... to serve Him with everything I've got.

All the truth of scripture applies...... to me!"Not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation." Belief. Faith.
A believing christian sees the Bible as true. She understands the Bible as God's Fully Reliable Word to the Human Race. Even more specifically, she sees the Bible as pointing in a full way and in every word to Jesus.
And through that she comes to know.

And then the believing Christian reaches out an empty hand and admits that all that which Christ has done -- His forgiveness, his adopting people as children of God, his eternal salvation -- all these grace-driven, undeserved and wonderfully rich items are available to him.

As a person who knows and personally accepts the message of the bible I come to that point in my life of saying: "I can't hold my existence together on my own. I haven't got the power to live a right and true life. I can't find real peace and joy in myself. I couldn't stand before God one day and explain everything I've done in a way that would justify Him letting me into His glorious, pure and perfect presence.I need the forgiveness of which the Bible speaks.The personal friendship presence of the Holy Spirit - I need that.
The forgiving grace of Jesus - I will die without it.
The surrounding, supporting love of the Heavenly Father -
I long for it!
Jesus, take me. I'm yours. All I have - is yours."Knowledge - and a conviction, a deep-rooted assurance.
Stuff that fills the mind.
And is anchored in the heart.
Faith.

Which brings up one last point we need to consider - something about this assurance element we've mentioned.
What if I haven't got it?
What if I find myself searching, grasping, seeking?
Coming, but never quite there?
What if I wrestle with........ doubt?

Often times when we talk of faith and think about doubt we end up thinking about the one character in the bible who becomes the handy whipping boy -
Doubting Thomas.
We shake our heads, wag our tongues and wonder -
"What was wrong with him?"

Truth of the matter is that ALL the disciples had trouble accepting and believing the central fact and the central person of History - Jesus Christ.
We're told that after Jesus rose from the dead, the women burst into the room where the disciples were gathered. They blurted out the exciting discovery they had made about the empty tomb, and the angels who appeared with the message of Jesus being alive. The bible records the disciples' response:"these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." (Lk 24.11)
And later, when Jesus appeared to His followers we are given this tidbit of history: "When they saw Him in Galilee, they worshipped him, but some doubted." (Mt 28.17)

Read through the Psalms and you will continually come up against questions that say, in effect, "Has God forgotten to be gracious?"
Job complains that God is silent.
Jeremiah asks, almost too boldly,"Will you be to me like a deceitful brook?"Do you see?
Doubt is not something strange.
Struggling with elements of Christian truth or applying them to our life doesn't mean that God tosses us in the doghouse or slams the door of heaven in our face.
Rather - as His divine Word so graciously shows, doubt and struggle are elements of everyone's human experience this side of glory. Everyone who lives East of Eden, in the era of thorns and thistles, who can only see dim reflections of ultimate truth and reality -every single one of us will have seasons - maybe days, maybe months, maybe many long, dry years - seasons when we struggle, waver, doubt.
Not that we want to go looking for it.
Doubt, when it gets deep enough, is a terrible affliction. Painful suffering. It can leave a person feeling like the little child who loses her parent in a department store -- alone, disoriented, frightened, shades of panic beginning to settle on the soul.
People struggling with doubt are in need of very special, careful, ongoing love and guiding presence of other believers. They don't need condemnation or shunning or silence.

Doubt - perhaps if we claim never to have doubted we need to examine whether or not we have fallen into some sort of spiritual coma, a false comfort, cheap complacency.
As one person put it, "When someone says, 'I've never had a doubt, you always wonder how much real wrestling with God has been going on. Great faith is, after all, not given in fully developed form. It has to grow. And when someone reports no growing pains at all, it just makes you wonder." [Plantinga, Beyond Doubt Leaders Guide, p.60]

For all of us there will be times when we resonate with the cry of the man standing before Jesus, desperately in need of Divine healing mercy, crying, "Lord I believe. Help me in my unbelief." (Mk 9.24).
Sometimes because our knowledge is clouded. We can't put various elements we have been taught together. They don't seem to fit.
Sometimes because we have been hurt by sinful actions of others, and are left to wonder, "Is THIS Christianity?"
Sometimes because of a loss or some pain in our life.
Sometimes - well, just because. To paraphrase the bumper sticker:
"Doubt happens."
And when it does, the challenge is not to cave in to despair.
The challenge, as a community and as individuals, is to then hang on by our fingernails, counting on, waiting on the gracious coming of the Lord.And not buying into the lies which Satan will try to plant in our heart, the despairing thoughts that because our faith is not strong, not resolute, that it has weak spots and places caving in with dry rot, that therefore God will condemn us, abandon us, or toss us into the eternal outer darkness. Remember then, at all costs remember, the single greatest element of faith --
that our sins are forgiven, and we are made right and acceptable to God because of the work done and the merit earned for us by Jesus.Jesus' goodness. The resolute strength of his faith The unwavering nature of his loyalty and purity THAT is what sets the mark for our eternal destiny and our present standing in the eyes of God.
Remember that, people. And together remind each other of that.
Doing that in awareness that there always will be the times of uncertainty since, as Hebrews says, "Faith is the assurance of things of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
And then together moving ahead, growing, maturing, hanging on in comfort through faith to the knowledge and assurance that when questions arise and we haven't got all the answers, and we can't see the future, and the clouds gather dark around us, there is One who has the final Answer, who holds the future in His hand, before whom shines the Son in all his glorious splendour.