Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1 NIVUK
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.
Hebrews 11:6 NIVUK
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
James 2:26 NIVUK
I hate the way secularists characterise faith. They believe it's a blind leap in the dark taken by ignorant, gullible simpletons. Yet they have absolutely no problem at all believing that our entire universe was created by a chance collusion of atoms that causes a big bang and that life as we know it, with all its infinite complexity, is nothing more than a meaningless cosmic fluke.
They characterise faith in God and creation and prayer and the cross and resurrection as being akin to mindless superstition - like carrying a rabbit's foot for luck (I mean, the rabbit had four and he wasn't so 'lucky'), or wearing 'lucky' items of clothing or getting out of the way of black cats or crows.
Stuff and nonsense.
There is a world of difference between mindless superstition and what the Bible says is faith.
Let this be clear: a Christian believes. They have faith. Christians are people of faith.
But what kind of faith?
It is a faith consisting of three parts: a subject, a verb and an object.
Firstly, subject. What is faith? How does it work?
The Bible states that faith is reasonable. It is a reasonable inference from the evidence we see around us. As the Paul explains:
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 NIVUK
In other words, Paul states that creation alone is evidence of God's character - evidence enough for us to believe and for us to be held accountable if we do not.
So real Christians infer from creation that God us creative, has a sense of humour and beauty and is incredibly detailed in His artistry - so detailed that we can't even see some of it with the naked eye.
The writer to the Hebrews supports this argument:
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Hebrews 11:3 NIVUK
In other words, by inferring from the evidence - both the stunning and detailed complexity of our world and the Genesis 1 and 2 accounts - we understand that God created the world.
Do you see how this works? This is why the writer to the Hebrews uses the language of a legal contract and a criminal trial to tell us what faith is.
Faith is when we sign in the dotted line to receive something but haven't received it yet. However, we have the legal guarantee so we trust and believe that it will happen.
Faith is when a judge receives and considers the evidence in a trial and uses this evidence to infer and believe in what happened.
We must dispense with this ludicrous idea that faith fills the gap that lack of evidence has left. That is nonsense.
Every single journey of faith starts when God gives us a reason to trust Him and we agree. All through the Bible it's the same thing: God speaks, people listen, they trust Him and they obey.
Even when we became believers, we didn't just wake up one day and decide to follow Jesus just like that, out of the blue. No, we acted rationally on evidence we had received, examined and decided to accept.
And what evidence is that? The evidence of everything God has done, is doing and promises that He will do.
The evidence of what God has done is in His Word the Bible, the wonders of creation and what He has done in our life.
The evidence of what He is doing now is how He is changing our hearts and minds to follow Him by never ceasing to work in us to make us more like Him (Philippians 2:1-5, 2:13).
The evidence of what He do is all the promises He has made that He will fulfil (2 Corinthians 1:20), which we believe because of everything He has done and is doing.
Think on it like this. Why do we sit on a chair? It's because we've sat on the chair before and it's not crumpled beneath us. It's because it looks solid and able to take our weight. So we trust the promise that the chair is strong enough to hold us and comfortable enough to sit on.
When we do that - when we make an inference based on past and present evidence to trust something for the future - we are exercising faith.
Every human being has faith. Even the biggest atheists, agnostics and nihilists have faith in something. The question is not if we have faith, but what do we have it in, and what difference does it make to us.
That brings us on to the verb of faith.
Faith is not purely an intellectual exercise. We do not exercise Christian faith by placing our hands in the air and saying that we believe in God. As James puts it rather scathingly:
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.
James 2:19 NIVUK
Proper Christian faith is a verb because it does something. It must do something or it dies (James 2:17, 20, 26).
And that something isn't just turning up for church on a Sunday, singing some songs, listening to a preacher and going home.
Let me give you an example. One of our church members trains guide dogs for the blind. If one of those dogs gave the door steward a paw on the way in to church, began howling tunefully during the songs and wagged its tail every time the pastor said something it agreed with, would you consider it as a candidate for baptism or a post in the church leadership team?
Of course not! That would be patently absurd!
Well, neither would you consider someone who does all these things but has a so-called faith that has made no difference at all in their life.
James is strikingly clear throughout his short letter: faith produces works. Our faith must be absolutely practical. If it's not, then it isn't real faith. And it's not even faked faith. No, it's dead faith.
In case you think I'm just taking verses from one book in the Bible to make my case, take a read at the verses below:
‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” ‘Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.’
Matthew 7:21-27 NIVUK
This isn't some obscure, hard-core conservative, moralising theologian talking. This is Jesus Christ Himself.
And this teaching is echoed throughout the New Testament:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2 NIVUK
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. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:8-10 NIVUK
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:1-5 NIVUK
We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
1 John 2:3-6 NIVUK
And these are just a sample.
Our faith must be living. It must be active. It must do something. It must make a difference to us, and through us to the people around us. It must be practical. It must be useful.
A 'theoretical' faith is no faith at all. It's just an intellectual agreement.
I can agree that a train will take me where I want to go. I can agree with the train timetable. I can explain it to others and praise its frequency and its ease of use and plain, simple, legible font. But if I don't buy a ticket and get on the train and go where I want to go, what use is my faith and my nice words?
It's not enough just to agree that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose from the dead. That belief must turn into action (James 2:21-24).
You must follow Jesus and let Him transform your life.
So true faith, genuine faith, has the correct subject and verb. But it must also have the right object.
Let me tell you something that used to be very controversial before the pandemic: what you believe matters. Who you trust matters. What you put your faith in matters.
And especially for those who call themselves Christians.
Do you know where many of our fellow 'Christians' have made a huge mistake? They would rather trust any old schmuck who calls themselves a Christian and has similar politics to theirs rather than accredited, renowned experts.
How else can you understand why millions of American 'Christians' - doubtless well-meaning and sincere - put their faith in a man like Donald Trump, who blasphemed freely, is a serial adulterer, suspected fraudster and has no medical experience at all, instead of the Presidential Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci?
How else can you explain why well-meaning British and European Christians have turned aside from sound medical advice and have leant their ear and their mind to idiotic, unsubstantiated right wing conspiracy theories?
When did any preacher with no medical experience at all suddenly become an authority on vaccines, when he doesn't even comprehend what they are and what they do?
How else can you explain Brexit?
Paul got dead right:
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 NIVUK
And not just about doctrines.
So let's dispense with the illogical stupidity of post-modernism and relativism. All beliefs are not the same. They are not equal. They have never been equal.
It matters what you believe.
And in whom you believe.
That is actually the point of the Bible. At a time when nations even had a 'war season' (2 Samuel 11:1), and when battles were as much about which god was victorious as which army, even a passive reading of Isaiah (especially 40:18-26, 46:1-6) or Jeremiah (especially chapter 10) and other prophets will show you the Bible's stance on this: there is one God and all others are false.
This teaching came about at a time when polytheism abounded. Even in the New Testament, where we read these strident and unmistakable words:
Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’
Acts 4:12 NIVUK
Don't get me wrong. This is not intolerance or bigotry. Jesus being the only One we should worship does not excuse poor behaviour towards those who disagree. Christians are simply not allowed to discriminate based on belief. Why would we? We know how it feels!
We might believe that we are right, but we will defend the right of anyone to be wrong. Our faith should never express itself through subjugation and force, but through persuasion and love.
No, this is simply a statement of fact. This is no more discriminatory than the belief that the earth is spherical discriminates against flat earthers.
And neither is it arrogant. How can it be? Belief in the Gospel as the only way of salvation is not a belief that says that 'I'm right and you're wrong' or that 'I'm better than you'. No, it's more like 'I'm the same as you' and 'God is right and every one of us is wrong'.
Accusing Christians of arrogance because we believe that we are saved only through believing in Jesus is patently absurd because nothing is more offensive to arrogance than the Gospel.
Think about the message of the Gospel for a second. The message of the Gospel is that human beings are so sinful that it took Jesus dying the most violent and unjust death in history to pay the penalty for that sin. How can any human being stand before the cross and hold on to any arrogant belief that they are better than another human being? The cross is the greatest equaliser human beings have ever known!
The message of the Gospel is that there is only one God in whom we should believe. And that is not because we are being bigots, arrogant or intolerant. It's because there is only one God Who is worthy of our belief.
As the hymn writer put it:
'On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand'
True Christians long for you to believe in this God. Not because we have some form of bonus system going on. Not so our church membership and offering coffers swell. But because we want the best for you and we believe that believing in God to lead you and His Son Jesus to save you and the Holy Spirit to guide you is the best for you.
A true Christian is a believer. They believe in God. They believe in His Son Jesus. They believe in the salvation He bought for us on the cross. They believe in the Word of God, the Bible.
But let's not believe the nonsense the secularists would have us believe - that 'religious' people in general, and Christians in particular, are gullible simpletons. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Faith is a logical inference based on evidence. We have evidence that God is good, that He created the world, that He loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us and rise from the dead to lead us into Heaven, and that He's coming back for us someday. We have evidence and we choose to believe it.
Our faith is also not just an intellectual exercise. It should, and indeed, must, produce changes in our life otherwise there is little practical point to it.
It's not the power or the size of our faith that makes the difference, but whom we have faith in. I can believe all I want on a freezing cold evening in Scotland that I'll wake up to a tropical paradise with palm trees and a white sand beach in our garden. However, the next morning I'll still wake up to a dreary, driech Lanarkshire morning.
Our faith is in God and God alone. That's what makes the difference.
A real Christian's faith is real and attractive. Is this your faith?
Questions
'Faith is... reasonable inference from the evidence we see around us.' Is this how you see faith? How would you define it?
If faith must do something, what does your faith do for you?
To what extent do you think that who you believe in matters? Do you believe that having faith in Jesus and His work on the cross is the only way to be saved?
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