Faith

What is faith? Have you ever really thought about that question? I’ll ask it again; what is faith? It’s a very simple question, but one that has confounded people, both scholar and layman alike. Sure, we could go to a dictionary and look it up; the Oxford dictionary defines faith as a “complete trust or confidence”, or “firm belief, esp. without logical proof”, or “spiritual apprehension of divine truth apart from proof”, but these definitions are nothing but empty phrases. Sure, all of these definitions seem to fit the context of what we think faith to be, but they are still so lacking. All three definitions of faith seem to be rather lifeless. Throughout the entire Bible, God places an immense importance on “faith”. Why would God put such an emphasis on something that is so passive, unless faith, the kind of faith that God talks about, isn’t passive at all.

Of all the stories in the Gospel about Jesus and faith, the one that has most recently jumped out at me is the story of the woman that had bled for 12 years who touched Jesus’ robe and was healed. Let’s take a look at that passage. It starts in Mark, chapter 5, verse 24 and goes to verse 34.

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” -ESV

In all the recorded accounts of Jesus healing people, this is the only one in which someone was healed by Jesus without Jesus knowledge until after the fact. What makes this woman so special? Does the secret lie in who she is, or is it something she does? Let’s take a closer look at the story. In the story she touches Jesus robe and is made well, so it must have been because she touched Jesus. But wait a minute, at the beginning it says that a great crowd “thronged about him,” and later the disciples were puzzled by his question of “who touched me” because the entire crowd was pressing against Him. So it couldn’t have been just the fact that she touched him, because there were many people touching him. So if it’s not that she touched Him, could it be because of who she was? The story never does give a description of the woman other than she is afflicted with a seemingly chronic illness, so it’s probably not because of who she is that she was healed. If it’s not because she touched him, and it’s not because of who she was, than what makes this woman so special? Let’s go back into the story. At the end of the story, Jesus says, “your faith has made you well”. So here is where the faith of the woman comes in. Could it have been because of her faith that she was healed? I think that it would be very foolish to assume that she was the only one there among all the people gathered around Jesus who had faith, otherwise they wouldn’t have come from their villages to see Him. I’m sure some just came to see the famous man of Jesus, but I’ll bet a majority of the people in the crowd were there because they thought (they had faith) that he could help them in some capacity or another. So the woman is not alone in having faith in Jesus. So what could it be? Let’s imagine for a moment that everyone around Jesus had faith that he could heal them, but they thought they first needed to gain his attention so he could do something to them, or simply tell them they were healed. After all, that’s how he does it in almost every other situation. In fact, this story happens right in the middle of Jesus going to heal a sick little girl in that manner. That’s a good reason for people to be gathering in a throng around Jesus, wouldn’t you say? So everyone around Jesus is competing for Jesus’ attention, except this woman. This woman believed in her heart, she had faith, that if she even touched the garments of Jesus, she would be healed. So at risk of angering the crowd by coming in among them (women with this condition were considered to be unclean), she timidly approached Jesus, from behind, and touched his robe. It’s nothing theatric, nothing amazing or astounding, she just touched his robe, and immediately she was healed. This all happened before Jesus know what was going on. He turned around to see who it was that had tapped into his healing power without his knowledge. And he said to the woman, after she told Him what had happened, “your faith has healed you.”

So we see from this that faith is much more than what the dictionary defines it as. Faith is a belief, coupled with an action. Look back in the Bible to any place where God asks his people to be faithful, or full of faith; he asks them to believe and obey. For more on this, let’s take a jog over to the book of James. In James chapter 2 verses 14-17, James says:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. –ESV

James says here that faith, the kind of faith the Oxford dictionary defines, is not the fullness of faith that we need, it’s only part. For faith to have life in it, it needs to be active. As James states, to believe something and not act on it is almost like not believing. The faith that God talks about and wants from us, the kind of faith that the woman in the story had, is a faith from which works, or action, come naturally out of. That’s what made the woman in the story so special; she had faith, real faith. She believed in something so much that for her, to do what she did and for what happened to happen just came naturally. An example of this in daily life would be something like this: Say you are thirsty. You have faith that if you drink some water, you will no longer be thirsty. Do you hesitate or remain content with just that belief? No, you act on it. You drink some water, and sure enough, having drank the water, you are no longer thirsty. This is what real faith is like. Just the belief that the water would satisfy your thirst is nothing, I could believe with all my heart and strength that the water would quench me, but unless I act on it, that belief is completely useless. In the words of James, “faith without works is dead,” or faith without works is not real faith.

I now take this discovery that we’ve made, and I turn it back at myself, and I hope that you can turn it back at yourself as well. Do I have real faith, or do I have dictionary faith? Does what I believe show up in my life, or is what I believe only that, what I believe and nothing more. I urge you to think about that. I’ll leave you with this question, if what you believe doesn’t change how you live, is that really what you believe?

The Parable of the Sower

Matthew 13:1-9

July 1, 2006

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear."

Reading over this parable, and thinking about what it means, I’ve come up with some thoughts that I’d like to share. The first thing that needs to be understood is the interpretation of the parable. The second thing is some application of the interpretation. I will attempt to walk you through each of these as we go along through the parable.

In the story Jesus likens us to farmers scattering seed on his land. He explains that some of the seed falls on various types of bad soil, and some falls on good soil. The first point I’d like to make here is that the farmer in this story doesn’t seek out just the good soil; he scatters seed on ALL of the soil. It seems that sometimes Christians that are trying to spread the good news, seek out those people or those groups that they think would be most receptive to the Gospel, when in fact in spreading the word, we need to spread it everywhere we are, not just when and where think it will be well met. The simple fact is that however good we think we are at judging character, we can never know if someone is ready to receive the word or not, our job is just to put it out there. As Pastor Bob Flak of Grace Baptist Church in Manhattan, Kansas put it, we are called to be scatterers of seed, not judgers of soil.

Jesus goes on to say that some of the seed falls on the path where the birds immediately come and snatch it up. He later likens this to when the word falls upon someone, and Satan right away snatches it up from them, not letting it sit for a moment. Those of us who have been made new in Christ and are possibly established Christians can sit atop our pedestal and look at this part of the parable and say, “that doesn’t apply to me, I’ve accepted the word into my heart already.” While that might be true, not everything that God tells us is met with acceptance, or even understanding. As long as we remain in this fallen world, even an established and mature Christian will have patches of path where it is easy for Satan to snatch the word out from our hearts.

Jesus continues by saying that some of the seed falls on rocky ground, where the seed can sprout and grow up very fast, but once the sun comes out and gives its mid-day heat, the plant of the seed is scorched and withers away under the strain. He compares this to a person who is eager and very willing to accept the word and grows as much and as fast as he can, but doesn’t have the proper foundation so that when persecutions come, he is quick to give in and fall away. While an established and mature Christian will likely be fairly resistant to such a folly, we do need to be careful that we don’t let certain areas of our growth be on rocky ground, but cultivate every piece of ground with which we accept the word. We also need to be caution not to inspire or encourage such reckless and shortsighted growth in other, newer Christians who would be more susceptible to such an episode.

He continues the parable by talking about the seed that sprouts among thorns and grows, but is choked out and rendered useless by the surrounding foliage. He says that this is like the one who hears the word, but because of his environment or some other variable in his life, the word is not allowed to bear fruit because there is something hindering it or stealing what it needs to grow strong. Now while most Christians that take their call seriously will be careful to stay away from situations that obviously will hinder their growth in the word, there are some things that are not so obvious that can produce thorns in our life in small patches. I will be the first to admit that I most definitely have some thorns in my life that are restricting me from being what I am capable of being in Christ Jesus. I’m trying to rid myself of these thorns, but underneath each patch of thorns, is a finer, more deeply imbedded patch of thorn laying in wait. The simple fact is that as fallen creatures, the deeper we dig inside ourselves, the more thorns we will find. It doesn’t get better until we are made anew with Christ in our glorified bodies. My point throughout these three types of bad soil has been that no matter how “good” of a Christian you are or you think you are, each one of us has a little of this bad soil still left in us. Part of the Christian walk is the lifelong struggle against these soils, and only through the power and grace of Christ can we overcome in the end.

Lastly, Jesus talks about the forth type of soil, soil that is deep and rich, and accepts the seed and allows it to grow tall, put down deep roots, and produce lots of fruit. This soil is the soil that the word found in you if you are now fallowing Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. But even though this soil is good, and the seed can take root and sprout and grow strong and healthy, there are several things that can hinder the growth of the word even when it finds good soil.

The Japanese art of bonsai is the art of training a tree to become a miniature of its full size relatives. To train a tree to grow normally but significantly smaller in size, one has to restrict its growth and prune it in the proper place at the proper time, it’s very tedious. This same thing can happen to the word. If Satan can get into your life and restrict the growth of the word inside you, he will take full advantage. Through things such as anxiety, fear, or failure, the enemy can cut off our branches that we try to put out. If we allow Satan to enter our lives and control us through these things, he will tediously prune us and train us to be only a fraction of the Christian that we are capable of being. Another thing that is needed for the making of a bonsai tree is a small pot in which to grow the tree. If the tree had a great deal of soil to spread its roots down into, it naturally grows big. But if the tree has a very limited amount of soil to sink its roots into, it will grow only as far as its root system will let it. If we are put into a situation in which we are given the freedom to grow however much and as big as we want, we will grow, and we will get stronger. But if we are put into a situation in which our resources for growth, or the space in which we are able to grow in is limited, than we will only grow as far as our pot will let us. This could be the case in a situation where the word finds good soil in a person, but that good soil is in the middle of rocky crags. The word will grow and sink it’s roots down into the good soil, but the rocky ground around it will prevent the word from spreading further into the person‘s life. The person needs to cultivate that rocky ground, and make it more accommodating to the word so that the word can take hold in that part of the person’s life. This process goes on in everyone that receives the word, and if it doesn’t, growth does not happen and the result is a bonsai Christian.