A Study In Faith 1

Morning!

Raises his cup of coffee

It is Wednesday May 21st of 2025 in the nation’s capitol.  It is a cool late spring morning and overcast with a near 100% chance of rain today forecast.  Looks like it’s another umbrella day.  High forecast is 62.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Today we are getting started on a new topic to study.  I’m going to start us out with a word.

Faith.

What is faith?

The Christian definition of faith is simple.  It means putting one’s trust in that which you have good reason to believe.  This, however, is not the definition you will find if you go looking in the dictionary.  Here is the dictionary definition of faith.

Faith: (noun)

- Allegiance to duty or a person: loyalty; fidelity to one’s promises, sincerity of intentions

- Belief and trust in and loyalty to God, belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion; firm belief in something for which there is no proof; complete trust

- Something that is believed especially with strong conviction

As you can see, it is a decidedly unchristian definition and not particularly helpful in our Christian walk outside of a basic understanding of what the word means.  Let me start us off with an example.

Matthew 16: 1-12

“Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven.  He answered and said to them, ‘When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’, and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’  Hypocrites!  You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.  A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.’  And He left them and departed.  Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.  Then Jesus said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.’  And they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘It is because we have taken no bread.’  But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, ‘O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread?  Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up?  Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up?  How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’  Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

In this passage here in Matthew, Jesus corrects His disciples.

They were concerned that Jesus was upset they had forgotten to buy bread, when in fact, Jesus was speaking to them about the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  Jesus says to His disciples, “You of little faith.”  What He means is that the disciples had not put much trust in Jesus or in God.  Jesus then reminds them of the very real miracle and demonstration of God’s power, sovereignty, loving-kindness, and patience that each of them had witnessed.  They had witnessed the multiplying of the five loaves and two fish, where the multitude was fed.  Not only had they seen the miracle for themselves—they had participated in it.

They gathered baskets full of leftovers from what they had started with,

and they held on to those baskets after the event.

Jesus teaches His disciples about faith—about putting their trust in Him—by giving them tangible proof, something they had seen with their own eyes, to remind them where their trust should be.  Jesus points to direct evidence the disciples had witnessed, participated in, and apparently forgotten quickly.  He takes a piece of reality—where God revealed Himself through a miracle—as a reminder.  Proof.  A miracle that happened before their eyes.  Interestingly enough, the disciples experienced the very proof and sign that the Pharisees and Sadducees were demanding.  Had the Pharisees and Sadducees been less focused on their own teachings and more interested in learning from Jesus, they too would have seen the sign—just as the disciples and so many others at Jesus’ teaching event did.

Faith, Jesus teaches, is about putting your trust in that which you have good reason to believe.  There is also an undercurrent of understanding being couple with faith that I want to note for us.  We’ll come back to that thought though.

Now, before we go too much further I want to make a distinction for us to consider.  There is trusting that something is and then there is trusting in something that is.  Let’s look at an example.  I don’t know about everyone, but I trust that information exists.  Just out of curiosity…

Information: (noun)

- Knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction; intelligence, news; facts, data; the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something; a signal or character representing data, something which justifies change in a construct that represents physical or mental experience or another construct; a quantitative measure of the content of information

- The communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence

- The act of informing against a person

- A formal accusation of a crime made by a prosecuting officer as distinguished from an indictment presented by a grand jury

Information exists.  Information is not physical—it is an immaterial thing.  We have tangible proof that information exists because we are communicating it through the words we are using right now.  What are words without information?  Nonsense is the answer.  Through repeated use and careful attention, we can prove that information exists—even though there is no direct physical proof that it does.  Regardless of how convoluted and unhelpful the dictionary definition might be, we can put our trust in its existence through personal experience.  We put our trust in information when we begin to use it: Every time we speak.  Every time we think.  Every book that has ever been written, every story told—each one was created by someone who placed their faith in information to convey what they meant to convey.  Only a fool would say information does not exist—for it takes information to convey the thought that information does not exist.

There is faith that something exists.

Then there is faith in that thing.

There is our trust that God exists.  Here is the reason that swayed me.

Everything that has a beginning has a cause.

The universe had a beginning.

Therefore the universe has a cause.

The physical scientific proof that we have regarding the universe points to an absolute beginning where all space, matter, time, was created.  (The specific scientific proof can be called the Big Bang and has been categorized and listed in numerous books if you want to dive deeper).

Nothing creates itself.

That means the cause of the universe is space-less (immaterial), powerful enough to have created the universe (omnipotent), wise enough to have designed it (Omniscient), outside of time (Eternal).

This is the basic argument, if you will, that convinced me that God exists.  That, however, is very different from putting my trust in God.

Matthew 14: 23-34

“And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on a mountain by Himself to pray.  Now when evening came, He was alone there.  But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.  Now int he fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them walking on the sea.  And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’  And they cried out for fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid.’  And Peter answered Him and said, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.’  So He said, ‘Come.’  And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.  But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’  And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’  And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.   Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying, ‘Truly You are the Son of God.’  When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Genesaret.”

Peter gives us an example of putting our trust in God.  Peter had good reason to believe that he could walk on the water—Jesus was walking on the water right in front of him, even though it was storming and the waters were astir.  Peter takes the evidence that was given to him by Jesus and takes action upon it.  He begins by praying to Jesus, asking Him to command him to the water.  And so, Peter stepped into the water and began to walk upon it.  Another miracle done in the presence and eyesight of Jesus’ disciples.  It wasn’t until Peter took action, though, that his trust was put in Jesus.  I find it noteworthy that Peter’s faith was tested—and bested—by the danger of the world around him, even in the direct presence of Jesus, while walking on water.  If Peter struggled with faith—putting his trust in Jesus—in this situation, then it becomes a little more understandable the trouble that I have putting my faith in Jesus.

There is something important in this passage that we should pay attention to and that is the disciples reaction to Jesus’ miracle here.  Jesus’ disciples worshipped Him because of this moment that they experienced.

Proverbs 3: 9-10

“Honor The LORD with your possessions, and with the first fruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.”

The first fruits of the increase of their faith was to worship Jesus.

So how are we doing with that?

Does God reveal Himself to us?  Does the Holy Spirit Work in our lives?

How?

If we don’t have an answer for the question, why?

For our upcoming study we are going to be focusing on faith and asking Jesus to increase our faith in Him.  Through increasing our faith we are going to be praying and striving to increase our understanding of Jesus as well.  So let’s take a moment today, if we’re following along, to get our chronicling journals ready and to ready ourselves with resolve to use them more.  I want to remember the moments that Jesus gives me.  I don’t want to be a disciple that forgets.  I don’t want to be the walker in the wilderness that tests and tempts God.  I want to be faithful in remembering the God who saved my soul and what He does in my life and the lives around me.  I hope you’ll join me in this journey as well.

Proverbs 4: 1-9

“Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to know understanding; for I give you good doctrine: do not forsake my law.  When I was my father’s son, tender and the only one in the sight of my mother, he also taught, me and said to me: ‘Let your heart retain my words; keep my commands, and live.  Get wisdom!  Get understanding!  Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.  Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you; Love her, and she will keep you.  Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.  And in all your getting get understanding.  Exalt her, and she will promote you; she will bring you honor, when you embrace her.  She will place on your head an ornament of grace; a crown of glory she will deliver to you.”

For Christians, faith is putting our trust in that which we have good reason to believe.

What are our personal reasons for trusting in Jesus?  Not believing that Jesus exists, but instead why do we put our faith in Him?

And let’s not forget…

1 Peter 3: 15-16

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good soncience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.”

Remember to rejoice today!

Pray without cease!

Keep our minds on the good, the pure and the righteous and reach for the heavenly fruits of Jesus Christ!

I think that will be a good start for the day.