So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city. Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you." And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, "This Man blasphemes!" But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" — then He said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." And he arose and departed to his house. Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.
While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, "My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live." So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well." But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well." And the woman was made well from that hour. When Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, "Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping." And they ridiculed Him. But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. And the report of this went out into all that land.
When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, "Son of David, have mercy on us!" And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to Him, "Yes, Lord." Then He touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith let it be to you." And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, saying, "See that no one knows it." But when they had departed, they spread the news about Him in all that country.
Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."-- Matthew 9:1-8, 18-31, 35-38 [NKJV]
The dictionary defines "faith" as confidence or trust in a person or thing, such as faith in another person's ability; belief that is not based on proof; belief in anything; an obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, or engagement and the observance of such an obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, or allegiance; the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved. The Bible also has a definition of faith. In the eleventh chapter of his letter to the Hebrews, verses one through three, Paul wrote, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." (This last verse is a remarkable sentence. God did not scoop up a double handful of something and use it to bring all of existence into being. No, He simply spoke the word, and the heavens and the earth were created. So everything that is, all that we see, had its origins as a word from God.) In this chapter, Paul was writing a commentary on an even older message, one delivered by Habakkuk in his Chapter 2, verse 4: "Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith." "The just shall live by his faith." It is believed that this short verse lit a fire in the heart of Martin Luther, leading to the great Protestant Reformation. Paul further expanded and amplified it in the books of Romans, which looks at "the just", or the justified, in Ephesians, which takes up "shall live", and here in Hebrews, where Paul addresses the last two words, "by faith".
But just what do we mean by "faith"? I remember from the hippie days of the '60s and '70s, people would say "Keep the faith, man." And in the '80s, one of the slogans in vogue during the United States hockey team's improbable run to an Olympic gold medal was "You gotta have faith." But neither case had any religious overtones. One referred to the fact that the war in Vietnam could be brought to an end and the other gave us hope in a group of men achieving a previously unattainable goal. But I would prefer to talk about that last dictionary definition, and the one Paul gives us in his letter. I want to talk about our faith in God.
I think faith can sometimes be a confusing subject. We hear people say "if I only had enough faith" as they try to explain what they could do if only their faith were stronger. But faith does not come from anything within itself. It isn't some thing that can be amassed and added on to if needed. You can't just run out to the corner store and buy some extra faith if your stock suddenly runs low. As it turns out, that's OK, because the quantity of faith one has is not nearly as important as the quality of faith. Matthew and Luke both recorded an exchange Jesus had with some disciples who were unable to call a demon from a young boy. The father had brought the boy to the disciples saying that he had seizures and often fell into the fire or the water. The father feared for his son's life. But the disciples were unable to help. In Chapter 17, verse 20, Matthew records how Jesus responded when they asked why could they not draw out the demon: "So Jesus said to them, 'Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.'" We know from another parable Jesus used just how small a mustard seed is: barely visible. Could faith that small really cause a mountain to move?
Yes, because our strength of faith comes from the very object in which we place it. What you put your faith in makes all the difference in the world. What if we were in a burning building and I pulled out a spool of thread and started tying it around your waist while saying "I'll lower you to safety."? How much faith do you think you would put in that length of thread? Now what if I pulled out a good long length of one-inch diameter rope, and tied that around you? Would you have a little more faith in my being able to lower you safely to the ground? Would you have more faith in the thread being able to support your weight, or the rope?
Since faith is tied directly to belief, we need to frequently ask ourselves what do we believe in. We believe the rope is stronger than the thread, so we put our faith in it. We believe the churchgoing politician so we put our faith in them and give them our vote. We believe our car is safe and sound so we have faith in it to carry ourselves and our loved ones down the highway. In some cases, we have enough faith in some thing or some one to stake our lives on it. But would we stake our eternal lives on any of these, on any material object or any human being or other creature? Anything man makes is subject to fail. The strongest rope can suddenly snap. The best made and maintained car can still malfunction. Our household pet can turn on us and bite us given the right circumstances. Man himself is fallible. We were not created that way. We became flawed of our own will and action. You could say that Adam and Eve did not believe entirely in God when He told them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or they would surely die. We humans can and do fail. How many times have you put your faith and trust in someone, only to have them let you down, hurt you, betray your trust?
So we are often quite willing to put our faith, our very lives and the lives of the ones we love most, into something or someone that in all probability may fail us. Sure, we may have no other choice. And we might stack the odds in our favor as much as possible, like keeping good tires on the car all the time. But we are still putting some level of faith into something that can and will fail us given the correct set of conditions. How strong can such a faith truly be?
That leaves but one place where we should place our faith without hesitation and without fear of betrayal: in God. If we freely and fully put our faith in God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, then our faith will be as large and strong and ample as it could possibly be, for God will not fail us. He never has and never will. He has always kept His every promise. The Bible is full of examples and every time, every single time, God has kept His promise to us, His children. Think about it: He looked down and said "I'm going to clean up this mess but I'm not going to destroy everything", so He told Noah to build a boat. Sure enough, the world was flooded, His creation was cleaned but not destroyed. A promise made, a promise kept. He told Moses "Go back and tell that king in Egypt to let My children go. Don't worry... I'll give you the words to say and some tricks to back it all up", and that He indeed did, including the staff that could turn into a snake and back into a staff again. A promise made, a promise kept. He told the Israelites they had better turn back to Him or there would be a great price to pay. They didn't, and there was. He brought down the armies of Assyria and Babylon to defeat the Jews and carry them off into slavery, dispersing some of the tribes forever. God has also kept His word on the good stuff as well as the warnings. He said He would give us a great gift, the ultimate sacrifice, so that we could believe in Him and have eternal life with Him. And He gave us Jesus Christ. A promise made, a promise kept.
Everywhere you look in the Bible, God has kept His promises to us. In 1 John 1:9, John tells us that God is faithful and just. Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 9 speaks of "the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments". In chapter 9 verse 33, Nehemiah admits that God is "just in all that has befallen us; for You have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly." The beautiful Psalms nearly overflow with praises and songs to God's faithfulness. In First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 9, Paul assures us "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." And again in Second Thesalonians chapter 3 verse 3: "But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one." Over and over, again and again, in verse after verse, in Old Testament and New, we are assured of God's faithfulness to us more times than we can number.
In an unattributed quote, Ray Stedman, one of the foremost pastors and biblical expositors of the twentieth century, once said: "Even the weakest believer holds in his hands all that the mightiest saint ever possessed." He was talking about faith, and the faithfulness of God. It gets back to that mustard seed Jesus told us about. The only thing that really matters is what you put your faith in. If you put your faith in God, you can do anything.
And if we want examples from outside the Bible, all we need do is look around us today. Spring marks rebirth of the earth. Flowers blossom, leaves pop out on tree limbs, birds sing, and the world awakens from its winter nap. Just as Christ was resurrected from the grave, the earth is resurrected from the cold of winter and given new life. Summer finds us toiling to coax as much production out of the ground as possible, just in time for the grand harvest in fall before the winter rest. And then the cycle repeats with rebirth in spring. Since God willed it, season has followed season and forever will until He comes again for one final, eternal spring. Day follows night. Birth follows death. The grand cycle of the universe follows God's will as testimony to His faithfulness.
I am reminded of the hymn:
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;But what does God's faithfulness to us mean? It means God has faith in us. He knows we are flawed, but He knows when we are really trying hard not to be. He has faith that we will do the right thing, even when we let him down time after time after time. He has faith in us because we are His children. Just as any parent loves and has faith in their child, God's undying and unconditional love for us translates into an unshakable faith in us.
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
In Luke chapter 18, verses 7 and 8, Jesus offers yet one more assurance of our Savior's faithfulness, then asks a frightening question. "And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"
We have a Father who loves us, unconditionally and without hesitation. He always has been faithful to us and always will be. He has always kept His promises and provided for all our needs. There is no more powerful force in all of existence than He, nor will there ever be. Place your faith in God, and He will never fail you.
Have faith.
Amen.
