What Is Faith?

2nd Sunday in Lent, 3/12/17
Genesis 12:1-8


What Is Faith?
I. Faith is taking God at his word.
II. Faith is what faith does.


It seems there is a website these days for everything. I ran across one the other day which lists things that are hard to define. Are you ready to give it a try?

Try to define a color without using the word or pointing that color in an object. I thought about that one briefly and my brain went to automatic shut-down mode.

Here’s another one. Try to describe the taste of water. Not the feel of water. Not what water does for you. But its taste. Again, I decided to stop trying soon after I began. To be honest, we all have more important things to think about.

And one of them is right before us this morning. Today’s sermon text is the very beginning of the Bible’s historical treatment of one of the great heroes of faith—Abraham. By the way, at this point in his life the Lord had not yet changed his name to Abraham, but for our purposes this morning, I’ll refer to him by his more familiar name, Abraham. Yes, Abraham is considered to be a biblical giant because he was the father of the Jewish nation. But he’s also repeatedly noted for his faith. In fact, Paul’s thorough presentation of how we are declared not guilty of our sins before God showcases Abraham’s faith. A way of paraphrasing Paul’s point is to say that, when we have a faith like Abraham’s, we are declared not guilty before God.

So, with all this emphasis on faith, I guess we better clearly understand what faith is. But how do you define it? It’s not something you can see or hear or feel or taste or smell. In other words, we can’t use our five senses to understand it and attempt to define it. But let’s not give up trying. Instead, let’s look to this account of Abraham to see clearly what faith is. As we do so, may our Lord Jesus strengthen the faith he has given us.

Part I.

I haven’t kept a numerical count, so I only have impressions to go by, but it seems to me that the older I get the fewer promises I make. How does it seem to you? Do you agree? I can recall as a child making all sorts of promises. I promise to be good. I promise I’ll be quiet. I promise I’ll study hard for tomorrow’s test. I promise I’ll be home before dark. But I don’t make those promises anymore and the major reason for it is that I’m an adult and I don’t need to. But I’m still more careful about making promises than I used to be. And I’ve concluded that the reason for it is that I know how hard it can be at times to keep promises. So, I don’t say “I promise.” I say, “We’ll see.”

But you never hear or read your God saying the same thing. Instead, he makes one promise after another to us. In fact, in his word he makes so many promises to us that I’m not sure anyone has ever taken the time to count them all. And when he makes promises to us, it usually isn’t just a single promise. They tend to come to us in clusters. Listen again to his cluster of promises to Abraham, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God would make a childless couple into a great nation. Abraham didn’t know it when God spoke this promise, but the fulfillment of it would wait a quarter of a century.

Next, God promised to make his name great. Think about it; three of the world’s religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—all revere Abraham. Literally billions of people have considered him great.

Thirdly, God promised Abraham his protection. He would bless those who blessed Abraham, and those who contended with Abraham would have to contend with God. We see that happen repeatedly, not only in Abraham’s life, but in the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and the nation of the Israelites.

But God saves the best for last. He promises to bless all people through Abraham, a blessing that he would repeat to Abraham and, a blessing he would share with King David as well, a thousand years later.

Abraham believed these blessings would find fulfillment in the future. But perhaps it was the most immediate promise that was hardest for him to believe. God told him, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” Abraham wasn’t able to pull his mobile device out of his robe’s pocket and check out where he was headed, how many hotels were on the way, what his new surroundings looked like, and whether there would be sufficient pasture for his growing flocks and herds. Obviously, such a device didn’t exist. But even if he had one, it would have been useless because God didn’t tell him where he was going. He simply said, “Leave. Leave your relatives. Leave your lifestyle here. Leave everything you know to be familiar and go.” How could Abraham do that? How could he—how did he—explain it to his wife, Sarah? Did he get any resistance from her? From inside himself? Did he worry, and if so, how did he handle it?

He took God at his word. The God who must keep his promises, the God who cannot break a single promise no matter how large or small, had promised that he would bless Abraham. In fact, he would bless him beyond Abraham’s wildest imagination. Abraham believed God’s promises to him.

And that’s what faith is. Faith is taking God at his word.

Faith is taking God at his word. Do you realize how often he asks you to do that every day of your life? Your employer is transferring you to another location. Stressful doesn’t begin to describe your life over the next few months. Or maybe it’s not a new location but a new employer. And your insides are in knots. Or it becomes apparent you’re going to have to do without something in your life. You need to make a sacrifice. How will you get along? Or a child, a spouse, a relative or a friend needs the Lord’s help. The diagnosis isn’t good and healing is needed now. A week from now might be too late. And your God comes to you in his word and declares, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Is. 41:10). He makes his promises to you—not one, but a cluster of them. But it’s just so hard to believe what he says. Meanwhile, a childless man believes he will become a great nation. Why? Because God said so. But we have such a hard time doing that. And then we begin beating ourselves up for it. If only our God would help us. And he does! And he did! Your Savior, Jesus, always trusted his Father even when the command was to relocate to Calvary’s cross. His death on that cross made you his own, reminded you that God always keeps his promises, and calls for you and me to take him at his word in every situation of life. That’s what faith is.

Part II.

Living where we do, I’m sure we’re familiar with Charles Kettering, former head of General Motors research. When he needed an engineering problem solved, he’d call his engineers together. Outside the room where they were to meet, he’d place a table with this sign on it, “Leave all slide rules here.” Otherwise, Kettering said, as soon as he or someone else suggested a solution to the problem, an engineer would stand up and declare, “It can’t be done.” Kettering wanted his engineers to believe they could do it.

Faith—Christian faith— is always accompanied by action.

Abraham’s faith sprang into action immediately after God declared his promises to him. We read, “So Abram left, as the LORD had told him.” We’re aren’t told that Abraham agonized over it. Did he pray about it? We don’t know. We certainly get the impression that he didn’t wrestle with God about it. Instead, he got up and left. Faith in action.

That action continued. Listen again to the amazing thing he did. “At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.” He’s in a foreign country, filled with Canaanites. That’s God’s way of saying the place was filled with gross idol worship. Abraham is a nomad; he doesn’t own any land. And yet he arrives in Canaan and one of the first things he does is to build an altar to the Lord, a symbol of his worship of the only true God. And as he traveled further, his faith becomes bolder. He built another altar and also called on the name of the Lord. The best way to understand that activity is that Abraham began to proclaim the Lord’s saving name among these heathen people. Think about that! Amazing, isn’t it! But that’s what faith does. It enables us to do amazing things.

What is faith? Faith is what faith does.

Abraham knew that he had arrived in the land of promise. The greatest promise in the cluster of God’s promises was the promise to bless all people through Abraham—the promise of the Savior. Abraham’s faith in that promise couldn’t keep quiet. God was going to bless these people among whom Abraham was living through Abraham, and Abraham was full of zeal to let them know it.

What is your faith moving you to do? Are you tempted to remain behind in Haran rather than follow in Abraham’s footsteps to the land of promise? What is the journey the Lord is calling you to take? Whatever it is, go boldly in the faith God has given you! Know that he only wants to bless you. How can you be sure? That’s what he’s all about—blessing his people now and forever. Faith believes that. Faith trusts that. Faith is certain of it. That’s what faith is. Amen.