The Trial of Faith - Part 1

We all know the importance of faith. The very message of salvation through Jesus Christ is a message of faith, and Hebrews 11:6 tells us why:

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

But how does faith actually work? And why is it that "without faith it is impossible to please God"? And maybe, most importantly, how does faith actually work in a situation like mine? This is what I want to explore in this post today.

Let's first take a closer look at Hebrews 11:6. This verse shows that faith has two levels:

1. Faith in God's existence – to "believe that he exists"

2. Faith in God’s character – to "believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him"

It's not good enough just to have the first level of faith. That is a passive faith – a mere belief in the existence of God (after all, even on God's part, "existence" is passive). True faith, however, is active. It takes belief in God's existence to its next level (since the verb "rewards" is active, it also requires an active response from me). It motives me to actively seek God earnestly.

Today, a dear friend and brother, Cal Marsh from Christ Chapel in Macon, Georgia, wrote to me and shared his own paraphrase of Hebrews 11:6, as if spoken by the Lord directly to me, and it really encouraged me. Here is that paraphrase:

"Nothing pleases Me more than your steadfast faith in all that I am and all that I promise to do."

I once heard someone explain the nature of faith with this illustration. There once was a stuntman who was crossing Niagra Falls on a tightrope. The watching crowd oohed and aahed as he defied both gravity and fear, crossing over to the other side of the great waterfall, then turning and coming back to the crowd. When the daredevil had reached the crowd, he called out to them: "How many of you believe that I could cross over to the other side and back again with a man in a wheelbarrow?"

Based on the great cheers that came from the spectators, it was obvious that everyone believed he could. The daredevil then shouted to the crowd: "Great! Now I need a volunteer to climb into my wheelbarrow!" Silence was the only answer from the crowd. Their faith in his skill was only a spectator faith. Personally putting their life on the line was, however, a different story.

Faith in God puts your life on the line with him. It is more than just mental assent, an acknowledgement of the truth. Faith steps out with God beyond your past experience, beyond your past capacity, beyond the known into the unknown. By definition, faith "stretches you." It breaches the safety zone – the personal "don't touch me" zone you have created for yourself which is comfortable and with minimal risk – and places you out on the living edge with God.

Faith, essentially, means total trust in God – trust in God's promises, trust in God's character, and trust in God's capability to do all he has promised to do. That's why Romans 4:18-21 describes Abraham's faith in this way:

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…Without wavering in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead – since he was about a hundred years old – and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised."

Hebrews 11 is often called the chapter of faith, but in this chapter, the writer is simply explaining in more detail a point he has made at the end of chapter 10. In Hebrews 10:35-39, he wrote:

"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a little while, ‘He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased by him.’ But we are not of whose who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."

In this passage we discover more about the nature of faith:

• Faith is about having an unwavering confidence in God
  
• Faith is about persevering under adverse circumstances
  
• Faith is about not shrinking back

I have a choice as to how I will respond in my current situation. I can respond in faith, which means not throwing my confidence away and persevering to do the will of God. Or I can respond with fear and doubt, and "shrink back". I, together with my family, have decided to have faith in God. This faith has launched us beyond the realm of what is humanly "possible" into the realm where "nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37). As Jesus said in Mark 9:23:

"...Everything is possible for him who believes."

But what happens now? There is a type of faith often preached today which emphasises a demand for instant results. Faith becomes almost a formula for getting what we want in life - a spiritual button that we push and God responds to, snapping to attention, and doing our bidding, like the genie of the bottle. In this distorted view of faith, God becomes the servant and we become the master.

This twisted understanding of faith is very much a product of modern thinking. We live in a world of instant expectations. Our cars are fast, our food is fast, our communications are fast, and we expect God to be fast. We drink instant coffee, eat instant noodles and expect from God an instant resolution to our problems. We’ve translated the modern demand for instant satisfaction into an instant-answer theology.

But God doesn’t quite work that way. Although 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that God is not "slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness," 2 Peter 3:8 tells that God also doesn't work according to the convenience of our time schedule. He doesn't fit neatly into that five-minute slot we've conveniently allowed for him in our busy timetable.

In order to comprehend how faith really works, we need to gain a biblical understanding of faith. In Hebrews 6:12, the writer says:

"We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."

Note that these two words - faith and patience - go hand in hand. We don't inherit what God has promised just through faith, but through faith and patience. Faith and patience aren’t contradictory; they are complimentary (see also 2 Thessalonians 1:4).

This doesn't mean that God doesn't often answer quickly or even instantly. I'll share one example from my own experience.

When I was 18, I traveled with my dad into the deep jungles of South East Asia, going from village to village along the Thai-Burmese border, preaching the Gospel and praying for the sick. It was in the middle of the rainy season, and we were continuously wet, literally from head to toe, for more than three weeks. Because this area of jungle was one of the worst malaria areas in the world, my dad and I had prayed and asked the Lord for his protection. We were also taking quinine, as a preventative measure, but knew that this did not totally protect us from malaria.

We had just arrived in one village and had sat down to eat when I began to feel seriously ill. I excused myself from the dinner and lay down on my sleeping mat, under a mosquito net. But within a few minutes, I began to shake violently and had a raging fever.

I managed to pull myself back to the room where my father and the village elders were eating and told Dad I was ill. I didn’t need to say much; he could see that I was exhibiting all the classic symptoms of malaria. He walked me back to the room where I had my sleeping mat and told me to stand there, while he laid hands on me and prayed for me. I remember clearly the words he prayed: "In Jesus' name we take authority over this attack on David’s body and we command this malaria to take its hands off David!" I also remember my thoughts at the time. I had absolutely no faith. All I could think about was: "Please get the prayer over quick, Dad, so that I can lie down."

After Dad had finished praying for me, I lay down on my mat, but a few minutes passed before I realised that I was not longer shaking. In fact, my fever had broken and the horrible illness I felt in the pit of my stomach had disappeared. But I can remember thinking at the time: It's just because I've lain down. The moment I stand up again, the shaking will return.

That shows just how little faith I had. Yet my Dad's faith, it turned out, was more than enough for the both of us. After about five minutes, I finally decided it was ridiculous to lie there, trying to explain away the sudden absence of symptoms. I stood up and was amazed at how strong I felt. It was just dawning on me that I had been healed...and it had happened so fast that it had taken me by surprise. I went in to the eating area and joined them for dinner, feeling suddenly very hungry.

This is just one of many stories I could tell, but the important thing to note is that I believe that God can and often does respond "instantly." The danger, however, is to equate "successful" faith with such instant results. But is that what faith is actually all about?

Take a look at 1 Peter 1:6-7:

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These [trials] have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed."

According to Peter, true faith – genuine faith – is "tried", or "refined", in the same way that gold is "tried" or "refined" by fire. Peter calls this the "trial of faith." James also describes the same thing in James 1:2-4:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance most finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

You'll notice that God is working on many levels in your life. The mistake many Christians make is that they think that God's primary goal is to make them happy, comfortable and satisfied. Far from it, God's primary goal is to mature you to be like Christ (see Romans 8:29). And the mechanism by which God matures you is faith - or, more precisely, the trial of faith!

This is important to understand, because if we miss this point, we'll totally misunderstand the work of God in our lives. Here I am, sick with a disease that threatens to take my life. But God is interested in far more than just healing me. His purpose is to mature me, and to glorify himself in my life. And so, for that reason, God may choose to delay his answer in order to "test" my faith – to prove it genuine. This testing of my faith, as James 1:3 explains, is designed to develop perseverance, which in turn must "finish its work so that [I] may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

To be continued...click here for "The Trial of Faith - Part 2"