Renewed in Faith

This week’s topic in our 40 Days of Renewal series is Faith. Faith is one of those words that’s used a lot and can mean different things. So I thought it might be helpful to try to understand what faith is, particularly from a Biblical point of view. 

What is faith? The schoolboy put his hand up “It’s believing something you know isn’t true!”

Haha! But deep down, I wonder if we don’t secretly worry about whether that might be right?

Several years ago, I was speaking in church on a Sunday evening about the proofs for the Resurrection. Someone said to me afterwards that they weren’t happy with too many facts as it didn’t leave any room for faith. Were they right?

I think not. 

Christianity is a faith based on verifiable facts. Luke, who is regarded as one of the world’s greatest historians, opens his gospel with this, “to write an orderly account … that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught”. (Luke 1:3-4)

Similarly, he opens with book of Act with (after his resurrection) “(Jesus) presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs”.

And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is almost challenging his readers to try to disprove the resurrection, by presenting them with evidence which they can go and verify.

Where is ‘faith’ here? Let’s look at what faith is. It’s vital we understand this because our eternal salvation is at stake. The Bible says that we are saved by faith (Ephesians 2:8,9), and without faith it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

It also gives us a definition Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

How do we get this faith? 

Noticia

Firstly, we have to understand what the ‘things hoped for’ and ‘things not seen’ are. In other words, the facts. What does Christianity teach? What is the Gospel?

The basic facts (or doctrines) are:

• The Creation – how God made the world which was ‘very good’
• The Fall – how mankind chose to rebel against God and bring death and suffering into the world
• Redemption – how God acted in history, culminating in sending his Son, who suffered the penalty for that rebellion in our place, and offering salvation to everyone who believes
• Consummation – how God will bring history to a close and usher in a new heavens and a new earth

Anyone reading the Bible, young or old, layman or scholar, believer or unbeliever, ought to agree that these are the things taught by the Bible.

At this stage it is simply fact-finding. The same applies to anything else we might want to learn about. When talking to others about their beliefs, we are listening to what they have to say. So that we understand where they’re coming from and understand their terminology.

It’s not necessarily agreeing with them, that comes next.

Assensus

Having identified the facts, the next question is – do we believe them? Do we think they are in fact true? Is it reasonable to believe those facts? For the Christian, this is where apologetics come into play. Arguments and reasons to believe the facts.  

But this is still not the faith that saves us. We can know the facts of Christianity, and believe them to be true, but that does not save us. Vital as this (and the previous) stage is, it’s only got us to the same place as demons! James 2:19

Fiducia

What we need now is to trust, commit. Act as though our lives depend on what we believe. It’s more than believing in God, it’s believing God. Taking him at his word and acting on it.

An illustration might help. 

Imagine you’re on a walk when you come across a ravine. Too wide to jump over, too deep to climb down. To fall down it is certain death. But then someone comes and points you to a rope bridge. You see the bridge and know that it’s there and it looks like it might reach to the other side (the facts). Fortunately, you’re an engineer, so you calculate that the rope will indeed hold your weight. You watch other people go over it which confirms that belief. When you finally put your foot on it and commit your life to your belief that the bridge will support you, that’s when you’ve exercised active trust.

Committing to a belief is what saving faith is. Active Trust. It is based on facts, which can be tested or verified. Those facts have to be believed to be true. But then we have to trust our lives to them. Or to make it more personal, we believe God and do what he says, even if (maybe especially if!) we can’t see the outcome. 2 Cor 5:7

And here’s the strange thing. What God asks us to do may seem odd, counter-intuitive, or even unreasonable. ‘Count it all joy when you go through various trials’, ‘Love your enemy’, ‘Deny yourself’, ‘Don’t grumble’, ‘Don’t worry’, ‘Give thanks in all circumstances’, and so on. But what is reasonable is that we do those things because it is God who is asking us to do them. It is entirely reasonable to trust the All-Powerful, All-knowing God who has demonstrated such love for us that he gave his Son for us. Our faith is in the Person of God.

Hebrews 11 is a great chapter. Having told us what faith is in Heb 11:1, the author goes on to give a long list of examples of people from the Old Testament who ‘by faith’ did something.

And that’s the point. If we trust God with our lives, we’ll be doing things that demonstrate that. Our lives will stand out as being different. They have to, otherwise our faith is not real (James 2:18-21)

So being Renewed in Faith has to do with going back to the basics. Knowing what we believe and why. And then risking our lives on them – which is no risk when it is God we’re trusting.

A famous Christian missionary, Jim Elliot wrote this: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”.

By the way – if you’re wondering what those headings are about, it’s the way theologians have categorised these three steps. Of course, it had to be in Latin…

Noticia	Knowing the facts
Assensus	Assenting to the facts (acknowledging them to be true)
Fiducia	The act of trust, by which our heart embraces, trusts in, and personally rests upon Christ for our salvation