Worth Green, Th.M., D.Min.
Perhaps you have heard the one about the man who walks up and ask the little boy the way to the post office. The boy points and says, “It’s down the street about a block on the right.” The man says, “Thanks. By the way, I am the new preacher in town. Come to church on Sunday and I will tell you how to get to heaven.” The little boy replies, “Aw, come-on, mister, you don’t even know the way to the post office.”
I appreciate that so many of you are here this morning. I hope it means that you think I know the way to heaven. If I do, it is “by grace, and through faith.”
This morning I am going to let grace take care of itself—-it always does; and talk to you about faith. The word “faith” occurs 268 times in the Bible: It occurs 18 times in the Hebrew Bible that makes up our Old Testament, 16 times in the book of James, 22 times in 1st and 2nd Peter, 31 times in the synoptic gospels, 31 Times in the book of Hebrews, 139 times in Paul, 2 times in Jude, 4 times in tshe Revelation of St. John the Divine, and just once in the four other books associated with the name of John.
The author of the 4th Gospel speaks of “believing” in much the same sense that Paul speaks of having “faith.” He uses the words “believe” “believed” and “believing” 83 times.
Of course, Paul also uses the term “believe.” In Romans chapter 10, verses 8 and 9 Paul uses both terms almost interchangeably, and he defines the content of what he calls saving faith.
He writes:
The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); 9 because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.
According to this text, there are three aspects to saving faith: 1) that God raised Jesus from the dead, 2) that the risen Christ is Lord, and 3) our personal acceptance and confession (lived out!) of the Lordship of the Risen Christ.
{Aside: This text is obviously foundational for the one thing Moravians consider essential to the Christian life: “a heart relationship with the Triune God who reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” That is theologically packed and loaded statement!]
And that brings us to our text. In 1st Corinthians 12 Paul speaks of faith as one of the gifts of the Spirit. He says:
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit…
It may be that Paul includes saving faith in the gift of faith. Even saving faith is a gift. In Ephesians 2:8 we read: “by grace we are saved, through faith, and this is the gift of God lest anyone should boast.” In our Easter Liturgy we confess, “by our own reason and strength we cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or come to him, but you (O, God) call me and enlighten us by your grace.” Still, I think Paul is referring primarily to a different kind of faith that is (as assumed by our text) possessed by some but not by all. I think he is speaking of the kind of faith that he ascribed to Abraham in Romans 4 when he wrote that —
In the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. in hope, (Abraham) believed against hope, that she should become the father of many nations.
This, of course, through a son by his wife Sarah. It is ordinarily not such a difficult thing to father a child. With disturbing frequency, some very young and foolish people do it quite carelessly, and they spend a lifetime regretting it. But Paul says that Abraham was no young man. Abraham fathered a child when he was about a hundred years old, and the womb of his wife Sarah was barren. When Paul speaks of faith as a gift of the spirit, he is referring to faith such as Abraham had. Therefore we can define this second kind of faith as “confidence in God, and of a simultaneous confidence in one’s own ability to accomplish what God would have one to do in the world.”
Do we accept that as a definition? If so let me make several observations about the gift of faith.
1. A woman who possess the gift of faith cannot do or receive just anything that she wants. She can do or receive anything that God wants.
Ordinarily, I would interpret and illustrate Paul-by-Paul and John-by-John, etc.; but during the Holy Week readings a passage leapt out at me from the 4th Gospel that speaks very nicely to the issue at hand.
In John 14:13 Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it that the Father may be glorified in the son.”
Non-believers read these words and scoff at us, because they think them grandiose and impossible. Christians read these words and say to themselves, “I must not have much faith, for I get very little I ask for.” There are two things to note here.
First note that what we ask, we are to ask in Jesus name. In telling his disciples to ask in his name, Jesus was not giving them a magical mantra to attach to the end of their prayers to ensure their success Rather, Jesus was reminding his disciples that when they ask for something, he himself is watching over the request. Knowing this a true disciple who wishes to be like the Master would not ask for things that are small, or mean, or selfish, or sinful. When we ask God for things, we must be careful to ask only those things that we would ask in the sight of Jesus. In James chapter 4 we read about why we are not more successful in prayer. In chapter 4 of the epistle that bears his name, James writes, “You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Second, please notice that Jesus says that the purpose of his doing what his disciples ask in prayer is that “the Father may be glorified in the Son. “ The master is not going to do anything for us in which God is not glorified. So, too, I suppose I should offer a caution. There are times when God wants things for his glory and for his purpose in the world that even those who possess the gift of great faith would like to avoid. Jesus is the best example possible. On the night when he was betrayed Jesus prayed that God might spare him suffering and death on the cross; but he finished his prayer saying, “Not my will, but your will be done.” (Mark 14) Jesus went to the cross in accordance with the will of God, not as a victim, but as a willing sacrifice. The cross is not the bad end of a good man, but a road traveled once, for all, by our now victorious Savior. Likewise, St. Paul is a good example. In 2nd Corinthians 12 we read how he prayed three times that God might remove his thorn in the flesh, a physical ailment. The answer he received from God was, “My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Great faith requires great patience, and according to Romans 5, it is “tribulation” that produces “patience. “ It is not surprising that those with the greatest faith are those who have suffered most.
[Aside: I have heard people say that others are ill because they lack perfect faith. I am quite sure that St. Paul would disagree!]
2. A man who possess the gift of the faith cannot always do anything that God wants him to do by himself, but he can do it with the help of others.
When Jesus said, “What ever you ask in my name, I will do it,” he was speaking to all of his disciples and to us through them. We hear the word “you,” and think of the 2nd person singular. Jesus is speaking to his disciples collectively; the “you” is 2nd person plural. What we cannot do alone, we can do together. Though Jesus begins by saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father,” Jesus quickly shifts from the singular “he” to the plural, “you.” A favorite little ditty, a bit of anonymous verse describes how a vision can spread from one to many.
One man awake awakens another,
The second man wakens his next-door neighbor,And three awake can rouse the town;
turn the whole place upside down.And many awake can raise such a fuss,
That it finally awakens the rest of us.One man up with dawn in his eyes – multiplies!
A good example is “Mission Possible,” the 72-hour Blitz Build designed to put a new roof on our Youth Building, and to raise money for Brian Huffman. That idea started with a single individual, Joey Transou. Then it spread to Karl Stimpson, and then to Henry Ebert, Rick Green, and Russell Burris. And the three, or four, or five, of them roused the town, or the board, and then they finally awakened the rest of us. With careful planning and expert guidance some pretty ordinary people giving extraordinary effort put a new roof on that building in two days, and the 72-hour Blitz Build turned into a 48-hour Blitz build.
3. A man who possess the gift of faith cannot do anything that God wants by himself, but he can do more than he thinks he can.
In his Yale Lectures on Preaching, entitled, A Faith to Proclaim, the late James S. Stewart, wrote that the principal business of preaching today is to tell men and women that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us, today, not just in the moment of death, but in the midst of life.
The great 20th Century Baptist George W. Truett once wrote, “One man, plus God is a majority in any situation.”
Thirty years ago I was watching a Billy Graham Crusade. Billy introduced the dean of a prominent Eastern Woman’s College. I cannot remember the name of the dean or the name of the college, but I will never forget what the dean said. She began her testimony saying, “I am just a small woman; but I have a great big God inside of me, and together we can do anything.”
It is amazing how God so often works through the “least of the least.” Gideon belonged to the smallest family in the smallest tribe. David was the least of his family. Jeremiah was only a youth. On the roof of the youth building many were inspired by sister Jane Wynn who worked as long and as hard as any man, by Bill Transou, who is no longer a spring chicken, and by Jack Hauser, 82 years young, who was on the roof virtually the whole build!
In Mark 11:23 Jesus said:
“Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.”
I do not think that Jesus was talking about a literal mountain, though mountains sometimes need to be moved. I think he was talking about the problems and possibilities of life. He says that when we have run out of our resources we must never forget that God has more, in abundance. He says that the man of faith can expect great things “will be done for him.”
Dr. Bob Pierce the founder of World Vision International often spoke of “God Room. “ He said that it is only when we have reached the limit of our own resources that we have entered the “room” where only God can work. He said that the problem with most of us is that we take up some task, as from God, and work at it a little while, and then say, “Oh, this is too hard for me.” We give up on the great task, and peck away at a lesser one. He says that we miss out on the miracle of God Room. God works in so many unexpected ways and through so many different people.
Robert Schuller was speaking of a need for perseverance when he said:
When faced with a mountain of a problem, I will not give up. I will find a way over the mountain, or a way around the mountain, or I will stay right where I am and turn that Mountain of a problem into a gold mine of opportunity.
Schuller implies three things: Never give up! Never give up! Never give up! When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on, because God is working still.
Let me finish this sermon with a question. It is the question that the Angel of the Lord put to Abraham after Sarah laughed at the idea of her getting pregnant by her husband. The angel asked, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” If you can answer that question, “No, nothing!” Then you may indeed have the gift of faith.
Finis