"The Two Kinds of Faith" Second Sunday in Lent March 20, 2011 Romans 4:1-8, 13-17
When you begin the season of Lent with talk of ashes and repentance and temptation you can either wonder why the Church would be so morbid as to focus on such things or you can realize that we really ought to step back and approach the things of God in humility. That’s what we ought to do with faith. If we see that we must repent of our sins and that our only hope in facing temptation is in Christ, then we also see that we must live by faith. But to do so in humility is the challenge. There are two kinds of faith. There is the kind you usually hear about and that odds are you may think yourself as what faith is. Then there is the kind of faith that God gives. The two kinds of faith are easily confused because we by nature look at spiritual things from our own perspective and not from God’s. We are born turned in on ourselves and so our doctrine of faith is turned in on itself. But we must look at spiritual things from God’s perspective. We must go to the Word of God and let it have its say. We must correspond to it rather than bend it to our own ideas and beliefs and wishes. If we don’t there is no hope, no salvation, no blessings from God. It’s hard to come to terms with this because we don’t see that. If you don’t believe in God your life may go along very well. If you do not submit wholly to the Word of God you may be perfectly content in life. So what’s the big deal about making sure you have faith right? Some of you might be aware of a popular pastor in America who just released a book this past week promoting the notion that it’s a toxic doctrine we hold to when we believe that millions upon millions of people will spend eternity in hell. He says that this turns people away. Who wants to hear a message that most people are going to hell where they will suffer eternally? So instead, he says, we must look again at the Bible and see that it teaches that “Love Wins,” which is the title of his book. That, in fact, cutting off those who do not believe solely in Christ is the opposite of the message of the Bible. That the God of the Bible is loving and not wrathful. Where do you begin to respond to this kind of teaching? One way is that when you start with yourself you’re going to go wrong. When you start with God you’ll be where you need to be. Why go around proclaiming that millions upon millions of people are going to spend eternity in hell? The Bible doesn’t approach things that way. What it does is talk about who God is and what He does for us. You cannot know God or understand Him or believe in Him apart from the way He has revealed Himself to us, which is in His Son Jesus Christ. If you start with yourself you don’t have Christ. If you don’t have Christ you don’t have God. But if you start with God then you see that you have to look at yourself in light of God sending His Son into the world. If we go around with the message of “We’re saved and you’re not” then, yeah, people won’t give us the time of day. But if we go around with the message of, “We’re all in need; we all have problems; we all, including ourselves, fall into sin and need help, in fact, salvation; and the Good News is that God has given us that in His Son,” then we can leave it up to the Holy Spirit to work on their hearts and minds rather than give them a message that centers in them. Paul says in the Epistle reading that it all depends on faith. When I hear that I want to correct it. Doesn’t it all depend on Christ? Yes, it does, but it’s also true that it depends on faith, that’s what the Epistle reading clearly says. The problem is that our sinful flesh turns faith into something we do. So if faith is something I do, then it all can’t depend on me, because then I am saying my salvation is in myself, not in Christ. So what does Paul mean by saying that it all depends on faith? What he means is that it depends on faith from God, not from ourselves. We can only know the truth if we are looking to God for the truth rather than ourselves. That’s the danger with starting with yourself. False teachers are well versed in the Bible and can quote the Scriptures left and right and often prove their points on specific Scripture passages. This is why they often sound so good, because they talk about God and the Bible and that God is loving. But beware of anyone who talks about God apart from Christ because there is no loving God apart from His love for us in Christ. This is the way it is with faith. Faith in faith is not faith in God. Faith that is from God is faith in Christ. It is faith that is from Him and produced by Him and flows from Him and centers in Him. Faith as we have it is faith in faith, which is really faith in ourselves. If you listen to others, or maybe even yourself, talk about faith you will hear this. I’m glad I have my faith, it’s what got me through my tough times. This is also communicated without using the word ‘faith’: You have to believe in Christ; you must surrender yourself to Him; you have to give your life to Him; you must turn to Him; you have to take the first step; you must accept Him. All of this is faith in faith because it is faith in what we must do, not in what God has done for us in Christ. This kind of faith is actually faith in ourselves, not in Christ. The faith that God gives is not faith in faith but faith in Christ. The faith that God gives is faith that He produces, He gives, He brings about, and that sees its only power in what Christ has done, not what we can or should do. That is why the apostle Paul says it depends on faith. It has to depend on that otherwise it’s not depending on God. Think about how we prayed earlier in the Collect of the Day: “O God, You see that of ourselves we have no strength.” We are not saying, O God, *we* see that of ourselves we have no strength—which would actually be a pretty good prayer. But this one’s better. We’re praying, O God, *You* see that of ourselves we have no strength. We don’t readily see of ourselves that we have no strength, God sees it as clear as day. He knows. He understands. He gives us faith. He gives us faith because we have no strength of ourselves to produce faith or to hold on to it. He gives it to us. He produces it and sustains it. We went on to pray in the Collect: “By Your mighty power defend us from all adversities that may happen to the body and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul.” It’s by His power alone that we have this kind of faith, that we can go forward in the midst of a world that is filled with chaos, with epic earthquakes, and giant tsunamis, and nuclear emergencies, and upheaval in parts of the world where dictators blithely slaughter the very people they ought to be serving. The faith God gives us strengthens us to go forward when month after month we see that we’re not yet out of an economy that limps along. When our faith is weak, when we are assaulted by doubts or difficulties in life, we are tempted to look at our faith, to worry about our faith, or try to work up more faith. But we must not look to our faith but look to Christ. Looking to Him, faith will take care of itself. Faith in faith points us away from Christ. Faith in faith is faith in ourselves and not in Christ. Faith in Christ is faith that God produces and gives. Those who fear that we are not showing people a loving God when we tell them of hell and eternal damnation are not viewing God as He wishes to be known. He wishes to be known as the God who loves everyone in Christ. It is Christ who was lifted up, as He Himself says in the Gospel reading. That whoever looks upon Him, whoever believes in Him, will have everlasting life. And we do have to believe, right? We do have to faith in Christ, right? Believing in Him, having faith in Him is what we do, isn’t that plain to see? The way the Bible looks at it in another portion of Scripture is this: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And we must do that. But the real question is not, How do we do this? The real question is, Who does it? Are you able to do it? Are you able to work out your salvation? If you are, how can you know that you have done enough? How can you know it’s been good enough? God has the answer for us, and it’s in the very next thing He says after the part about working out your own salvation: “for it is God who is at work in you.” He is the one who does it, not you. You can’t. You can never have enough faith, but God can give you enough faith. Either you trust in yourself or you trust in Christ. If you trust in yourself you strip away everything Christ has accomplished on the cross and you have stripped yourself away from God. If you trust in Christ you see that there is not only nothing you have done to gain salvation but there is nothing you can do. Christ stripped away all of His glory so that the glory of God could shine into the world in the form of grace, mercy. If we want to hold onto our faith we are seeking to earn salvation and we will get what we deserve, but it won’t be what we want. Paul says that if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Then he quotes the Old Testament: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” His explanation is this: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. God saving us is not something He owes us because we have done anything, it’s what He gives us because of what His only-begotten Son has done at the cross. Paul says: “And to the one who does not work but trusts Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’” It all depends on faith. It has to be apart from works, apart from what we do, apart from ourselves. Otherwise we have boasting only in ourselves and not before God and we have done away with everything Christ accomplished on the cross. Paul says that is why it depends on faith, it is in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed. He also shows how it is accomplished, it is by God, not by us: in the presence of the God in whom [Abraham] believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. That’s what God has the power to do, call into existence the things that do not exist. He calls into existence faith in you. It is of Him, from Him, by Him, and centered in His only-begotten Son. In conclusion, here is the way one theologian put it: When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my own… in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will… look to Christ and Christ alone. Then I hope to hear him say, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” So, when all is said and done, love does win. Love wins in Christ. It is in the cross and at the cross that love wins. Faith looks to that alone, nothing else. Certainly nothing inside of one’s self. Faith realizes that all from God is a gift—His Son, eternal salvation, grace, mercy, even the faith itself to believe in Jesus. It all depends on faith. That is nothing other than saying, It all depends on Christ. Thank God! SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? 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