What is Biblical faith?

Last week we talked about circumstantial faith where our faith in God often depends on God’s activity or inactivity in our everyday life experiences. Today we are going to look at Biblical faith.

So what is Biblical faith? Is it a force? Is it a power? Is it something we use to get God’s attention? According to Scripture, faith is none of those things. Faith is actually very simple.

What is faith? Is it different than hope? How do you even measure faith? If things are going well with you and God, does that mean you have a lot of faith? If things are not going well in your life, if your prayers are not being answered, does that mean you don't have enough faith? Unfortunately, messages about faith today are very me centered. Do I have enough faith? Am I praying or believing enough? In reality, the object of our faith is much more important than the amount of faith we have. The object of our faith should be Jesus and what He did!

What is faith NOT? Faith is not a power or force. We have a tendency to believe that God is over there and we are over here and if we make a lasso out of faith we can “rope Him”. And because of our great faith, get Him to do things He was never going to do. It is not if we believe, we will receive. Faith is not a formula and once you get it figured out then God will start doing things for you. Prayer, prayer, prayer, go to church, prayer! Nope, not the right combination. Okay. Prayer, go to church, go to church, prayer, fast. Nope that didn’t work! Faith is not a formula.

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Hebrews 11:1-3 NLT.

We tend to resist the biblical definition of faith because it takes faith out of our hands and puts God back in control. Much too often, we don't want God - we want a genie. But the goal of faith is not to get God to do what we want him to do; the goal of faith is to get us to live in accordance with the character and promises of God. Ultimately, faith comes down to trusting that God knows what he is doing.

Faith is what we hope far, so there is a difference in hope and faith. Faith is the hope taken one step further. Hope is “I think this is going to work out” but faith is being absolutely sure that something is going to work out. The bridge between hope and faith is the Promise of God!

In Hebrews 11:2 we get an illustration. “Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.” This is how the faith of the Old Testament and the New Testament is defined. In verse 13, the writer of Hebrews wrote: “All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it.” Somehow something happened to these ‘saints” of the Old testament that allowed them to not only be hopeful but to have confidence – their hope became faith.

“It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.” Hebrews 11:8. This is from a story in Genesis, where God told man named Abram (Abraham) to “start walking in that direction and I will tell you when to stop! Just leave your family, your land and go, go, go, until I tell you to stop! I am going to take you somewhere new but I’m not telling you where.” The Bible says BY FAITH, He obeyed God.

God told Noah that “It is going to rain”. Noah said “God, I believe you. Boys, get to building”! God said to Abraham, “Go” and Abraham said “Family pack up. We’re moving.” These are acts of faith.

Let’s look at a story of faith from Luke. “In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Luke 5:12.

He came to Jesus saying with confidence saying “I don’t know if you are willing, but if you are willing, I know you can make a difference in my circumstances. But I am not presumptuous enough to assume that just because I asked that you have to. Just because I believed don’t mean you are forced to heal me. I believe you can and I hope you are willing. “Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.” (Verse 13). The man came humbly and asked Jesus and didn’t try to talk him into it for whatever reason.

Our relationship with God should be that each day we can wake up and say, "If You never do anything else for me, You are still God. If you don’t answer another prayer, Jesus is still my Savior. If I don’t see you in the everyday circumstances of my life, that doesn’t change anything. My eternity is still secure! I can still worship you, because my faith is not based on the circumstances of life. And the great news is that I can bring everything to you. I can fall humbly on my face before You and say, God, I beg of you, I so badly need a job, I so badly need a friend, I so badly need relief from this ailment, or I so badly need to be free of my sin and my guilt. If you are willing, I have absolute perfect faith that you can do these things, IF you are willing.”

Sometimes God is willing at the moment, and sometimes God is willing later, and sometimes God is not willing at all because of something He knows that we don’t know. And, sometimes He is not willing for reasons we will never know. But, He is still God and we still aren’t! And we are still loved as His children. We are still His children not because He answered a prayer but because back in history, He sent His beloved Son to be our forever Savior. And this is always true whether he says He’s willing. Or He says wait. Or He says nothing and so nothing changes or sometimes things get worse.

This why sometimes we see people that have extraordinary faith and their circumstances are not great but they continue to believe in God. We say, “What’s up with this God? They have all this faith and, hey, they are doing so well!” But they continue to say everyday “if God is willing but so far He’s not willing but He is still God! Jesus is still my Savior, why wouldn’t I worship Him with both hands in the air? Why wouldn’t I sing at the top of my voice? Why wouldn’t I continue to follow Him and follow Him and follow Him? The scriptures say that many of the people who followed Him died without an answer to their prayers. They died before they saw the Promise. At least, we are living on “this side’ of Calvary and other the other side of His promise to send a Messiah. So why wouldn’t I trust Him? Because Biblical faith is not the ability to see God in the circumstances of life. Faith is confidence that He is who He says He is and He will do everything He promised. And if He says “No” to me, that’s His business, He’s God.”

But we want to shrink God down. We want to put Him in our pocket, back pack or purse and carry Him around with us. We want to have Him and pull Him out and say “meet my needs”, but whoa, back up God, I just want you part of the time. I don’t want you to take over until I get things the way I want them. Maybe not now but in a couple of more years I want you to take “control”. I know I need you but not right now!

This sounds all fine until we hit rock bottom and we do hit rock bottom. And then do you know what? We want a big old, created the universe, all powerful, God. One who is bigger than your circumstances! Not one who just has the world in His hands but has the world, like, on His fingernail! And do you know the good news – that is exactly who He is!!!! But He doesn’t do your bidding and He doesn’t do mine. Because He is God! But as big as He is, He knows my name, He says call me Father! And He says come to me with all your “stuff” because you believe I can do something about it. And that is all the faith I am looking for. We say, God, I believe you can if you are willing. And God says, “You know what, some days I am going to be so willing. Other days I am going to say I am not willing right now but will be willing later. And sometimes, I am not going to be willing at all.

But you can get up off your knees and love me and know that I love you because you are beyond circumstantial faith. You are trusting in the God that created the universe. The God that sent His Son to die for you and that loves you with all His heart. AND he has your best interest in mind, when you can see it and when you don’t. He has the ability to do anything He wants to, including the ability to say “no”.

As Christians we can come to God and ask for anything we want and we can believe He “can” answer our prayers and we can hope He will answer our prayers. He can do what you asked Him to do. But Faith is not a power or force. Faith is simply confidence that God is who He claims to be, as revealed in Scripture, and that He will do everything He’s promised to do. Faith is confidence that God loves us based on what Jesus did. Faith is that if God chooses to, He can say yes. Also, the confidence that if God says NO, He is still God!

Above lesson is based on a sermon by Andy Stanley.


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