These 3 Remain - Faith
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An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. 'What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!', he said to himself.
As he continued walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes. Turning to look, he saw a 7 foot grizzly charging towards him.
He ran as fast as he could up the path. Looking over his shoulder he saw that the bear was closing in on him. His heart was pumping frantically and he tried to run even faster.
He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear raising his paw to take a swipe at him.
At that instant the atheist cried out: 'Oh my God!...'
Time stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.
It was then that a bright light shone upon the man and a voice came out of the sky saying:
'You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?'
The atheist looked directly into the light.
'It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps, could you make the BEAR a Christian?'
'Very well, 'said the voice. The light went out, and the sounds of the forest resumed.
And then the bear lowered his paw, bowed his head and spoke: 'Lord, bless this food which I am about to receive and for which I am truly thankful, Amen.'
A couple of weeks ago I began a new series of messages for the month of October with an overview of Paul’s message from which says,
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
During that intro to this passage I pointed out our natural tendency to focus all of our attention on the second half of the verse, “But the greatest of these is love” usually at the expense of skipping over the first part
Yes it’s true that Paul says love is the most important…or did he really say that?
Guess you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to find out I believe about that
Anyway whatever your take on this verse Paul insists that all three of these characteristics be present in the life of the believer
And it begins with “faith” in the introduction to his book, Dynamics of Faith, Theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich says, “There is hardly a word in the religious language, both theological and popular, which is subject to more misunderstandings, distortions, and questionable definitions than the word ‘Faith’”
In fact Koina Greek, which is the language that the New Testament was written in has 5 different words for the word faith
The word that would be used would all depend on what it was that the person speaking or writing was trying to convey
Having said that, the most commonly used Greek word for faith in the New Testament is the word that we find here in our text, “pistis”
Now I’m sure that with all the sermons you have ever heard about faith you have probably heard some pretty good definitions of what it means but I think that my favourite comes from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
It defines this word “pistis” in three stages, “1. A firm conviction, producing a full acknowledgement of God’s revelation or truth 2. a personal surrender to Him 3. a conduct inspired by such surrender”
It goes on to say that “Prominence is given to one or other of these elements according to the context.”
So this morning instead of concentrating on only one aspect of this multifaceted word, I am instead going to talk about 4 different aspects of faith that are all found in the New Testament
The first of these four is what we call “Saving faith”
Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
And Jesus Himself said this in
John 5:24
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
And of course the most famous verse in the entire book reads,
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
In sending his son to die for us, God has made atonement for our sins through His grace. This is for everyone, but the condition still lies in that we need to believe in order for his grace to become a reality in the form of salvation in our lives. That is, we need to respond in faith, and when we respond in faith, we receive the gift of salvation.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
This is saving faith, which Paul goes on to explain in his Romans letter, comes to us by way of hearing the message of the gospel of Christ (
We hear the message, we believe the message, we confess our belief and we are saved
Which brings me to the second aspect of faith found in the New Testament and that is “Action Faith” or putting what we believe into practice
This is what we generally refer to as “faith with feet on”
In his letter to the Galatian church Paul is trying to help them overcome the divisiveness in the body that some are trying to spread using culture and heritage and religious practices
In part Paul says to this group,
Galatians 5:6
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
“The only thing that counts is FAITH…expressing itself through love!”
Wow, what a powerful statement
How come we don’t see bumper stickers with that written on them?
That is so much better than “Honk if you love Jesus, Text while driving if you want to meet Him.”
James the brother of Jesus takes it even farther than Paul did in his short epistle when he writes,
James 2:14-
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
If James were reading over this message he would get to the first point and he would say, ‘Great, you have saving faith! Now what are you doing about it? Because if you are not doing anything about it is it really saving faith?’
This is a hard word I’m preaching this morning and I know it but Jesus actually preached much harder on this subject than I am
Matthew 25:41-
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
The third aspect of Faith that we find in the New Testament is what we will call “Keeping Faith”
Keeping faith is a continuous trusting in God and in His ways.
Continuous faith is tithing even when the money is tight, continuous faith is believing even when the report is negative, continuous faith says I will trust God and live according to His Word even when it isn’t easy or doesn’t make sense
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we live by faith, not by sight.
A few weeks ago during our Sunday evening service we were talking about what it takes to press on when life is throwing you curves and Winnie said something that has just stuck with me
She said that in her own story she came to that point where she just had to decide if she believed what she believed and if so than she had to trust that God’s Word was true and live accordingly
Now that’s not an exact quote but Winnie can correct me if I have presented her sentiments wrong
That’s keeping faith, and keeping faith is that one aspect of faith that we can grow in, that we can increase as we grow in Christ
Salvation faith can’t grow, you either believe Christ is the Messiah or you don’t, You can’t increase Action faith because it is just carrying out the words of Christ, you might be able to increase the amount of your obedience but the faith remains the same
But keeping faith grows in us as we trust in Him, and the more that we trust the more that it grows
The final aspect that I want to us to consider here this morning is the “Gift of Faith”
1 Corinthians 12:4-
There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,
The gift of faith is exactly as it sounds, a gift, given to us by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of empowering our faith in a specific situation or for a specific time
Perhaps you have wondered just how you would fare if faced with the kind of persecution that is faced by many of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world
Well Jesus told His disciples who would all face harsh persecution,
Luke 12:
“When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.”
And when Stephen who was the first recorded martyr of the New Testament church was faced with that moment of reckoning where his faith would be tested, we read,
Acts 7:54-
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
I believe that when we have done our best with keeping faith and we are then faced with a situation that goes beyond what any logical faith could deal with God intervenes and through His Holy Spirit He shores up our own faith to make us able to see through that which we would not otherwise be able to see through
Not everybody will experience the gift of faith for not everybody will be in need of it but when it is needed for the common good, the Spirit will be there to give it
There is so much more that we could say about faith and so many more scriptures that we could explore but let’s end this morning with just one more that I believe is crucial to our main theme, that being that each of these 3 elements from 1 Corinthians must be present in the life of the believer
So let’s close by reading from , also known as the hall of faith for truly no sermon about faith is complete without referencing this vital passage
We don’t have time go over the entire chapter so let’s just read verse 6
And 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.
Let’s pray