The Action of Faith

Very interesting this morning as I listened to a sermon from Eric Ludy he preached last week and as I sat in the sermon at my church this morning. Both sermons were on the same subject: The Action of Faith. First we need to define what faith is. Faith is frequently described as the well known phrase "blind faith", that is belief without reason or without evidence. But this is not faith at all. If you look at every other faith besides atheism, you will find faith is defined by a very different standard. And that standard is pretty clear in Hebrews 11:1.

"Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."

  Faith is not just some blind belief. It is KNOWING that something you don't not have manifest right now will take place. It is interesting how the atheist think faith is blind without evidence and claim that science has or will have all the answers. Yet very few fields demonstrate the carrying out of faith better than science. Every time a science experiment is carried faith is exercised. How? Every time an experiment is carried out, the scientists does not know that the laws of science are actually going to hold up. They expect they will because they have seen it take place over and over and over again. But when it comes to the moment of the experiment, they cannot know that they will. It a future event and they cannot know it. Expecting it to happen is not the same as knowing it will.

  But faith goes beyond just expecting something to happen. It means acting on it. If I want to sky dive, I have to know about the parachute. If I don't know about the parachute, I won't think about sky diving. But once I know about the parachute, I can study it. I can watch it in action. I can believe it will hold me if I were to jump out of the plane. But knowledge and belief that it will work doesn't save me when I jump from the plane. I have to actually take the parachute and put it on. I can't just have it in my possession, I have to wear it. And I have to get on the plane.

  But faith is still more than that. Faith cannot just be possessed. It MUST have action. If I have a parachute on my back, it does me absolutely no good if I do not use it. If I have a parachute and I jump, the parachute is useless if I don't pull the string. The ultimate test of faith in the parachute is in the jump. When you jump you are 100% undeniably committed. And that is where faith is carried out. It is when you can do nothing but rely on that which you have faith. Faith is exercised every time you sit on a chair and you put your weight on it. There is no going back when your weight is placed on the chair. When you skydive, the moment of truth is in the jump from the plane. You better have the certainty of things hoped for when you jump. And when you pull the string of the chute, you take life-saving action that is rooted in your faith in the parachute.

 And this is how the Christian walk is based. Because of sin, we are in a doomed plane. It is going to crash and we must jump before it does. But what are we placing our faith in? What action are we going to take to demonstrate it? Are we going to deny our sin and stay on the plane? Are we going to jump? And what is our parachute? Religion? That is like tying a weight to our neck and jumping. Jesus said he was the only way unto salvation. Jesus Christ is the only parachute that will hold. He is the only one whose strings cannot be broken. And we do not accept this blindly. We have tried to see if Jesus is good and if he is true to his word. And he has never failed to hold to his word. Jesus cannot lie. He will never back off his promises and when we put Jesus on and pull the string of the parachute he has provided, we will be saved.