Over the years, long before I headed off to seminary at the age of 40, I found certain passages and books of the Bible to be especially exciting and interesting. While there were too many to list all of them here, they included the Great Flood of Noah’s day, the plagues of Egypt leading to the Exodus, the collapse of Jericho’s walls, Gideon’s victory over the Midianites, David’s killing of Goliath, Elijah’s defeat of the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel, and most of the book of Daniel. In the New Testament I enjoyed the account of Jesus’ birth in Luke, Jesus’ miracles, and most of the book of Revelation. You can probably detect a pattern here: God’s power demonstrated in dramatic events which delivered his people and defeated his enemies. The sort of things we would expect from a mighty and holy God!
Those passages and others like them still appeal to me a lot. But since then, largely as a result of my pastoral ministry, study, and life experiences, I have also come to appreciate “quieter” passages, especially those that speak of faith.
Faith – also called belief and trust – is the essential fact and requirement of a Christian’s life. Without it, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6); through it God justifies us (Romans 3:28) and saves us by his grace (Ephesians 2:8). But it’s important to note from the start that biblical faith requires an object of that faith. Unlike what is portrayed in popular movies and television shows, true faith is not some personal spiritual quality which we create or conjure up to give us an optimistic view of the future. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is not a feeling; it is an assurance of something specific. Ultimately, faith is belief in the greatest “unseen” reality, and that is in God himself.
In pondering faith and its meaning and applications, I have found three verses to be especially helpful and motivating. You could call them a “Trifecta of Trust.” They are more than just any three verses from among many that could be chosen; these verses impacted me at different times in my life, and they represent to me ascending levels of trust in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ. They are as follows:
The first verse is about believing there is a God, specifically the God who revealed himself to us in the Bible. While there are many verses that call on us to believe in God, the one that first impacted me as a teenager was my confirmation verse,
John 1:12, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
This verse speaks specifically about Christ and promises a blessing attached to faith in him and in God. As a young believer, I knew that God was real and I believed in Jesus by name. I also appreciated that he accepted me as his child (though at the time I wrongly saw this adoption as a future event; in my mind, the “right to become” a child of God did not mean I was there yet.)
In its context, this verse contrasts the unbelief and rejection which Christ faced from his own people, to God’s adoption of those who receive his Son. For the reality is that most of the world then and now rejects our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who reject him will in turn be rejected by God, for the promise of salvation in John 3:16 is followed by the warning of John 3:18, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Paul adds in Romans 1:20 that there is no excuse for such disbelief: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
So the basic requirement of faith is to believe in God. It is the foundation for all that follows, even to eternal life.
The second verse(s) was given to me after I arrived and began my studies at seminary. At that time I was a candidate with a large Lutheran church body, but encountered resistance from the very beginning by that church’s candidacy committee due to my belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. Realizing that I was on the fringe of that denomination and would be constantly at odds with its teachings and leaders, I began to consider alternative Lutheran bodies.
It was a scary time. We had sold our house, quit our jobs, and moved to a different state to attend seminary. I was attending one of the most expensive seminaries in the country, and now on top of that, the idea of leaving a likely placement for an unknown affiliation meant more uncertainty.
After a particularly rough meeting with my candidacy committee, I contacted one of the alternative church bodies I had learned about: The American Association of Lutheran Churches (AALC). During a phone conversation with the AALC’s Seminary President, Dr. Norm Lund, we prayed for my discernment. Then Dr. Lund told me to open my Bible to the following verses:
Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him,and he will make straight your paths.”
In that entire Bible which I opened, there was only one passage that was highlighted. I don’t remember highlighting it, nor reading it before that moment. But there it was, standing out from the page in glorious yellow highlight: Proverbs 3:5-6. I knew as I read it that the Lord was making my path straight to where he wanted me: in the AALC. Over the next two years that same passage kept coming to me in books, on a key fob given me by an elderly gentleman usher, and finally on my ordination day banner (and cake!).
It’s one thing to believe there is a God, and even to believe he is your God, but it takes more to follow that God wherever He might lead you. This is especially true when there is no way you can see the situation working out. You accept the promise that the Lord will direct you in the right way, and that the result – his result – will be good.
This is tough to do, because we want to be the masters of our own fate, and to be in charge of where we’re going and what we’re doing. We may turn over some things to God, but everything? Trust in the Lord with all our heart? Seriously? At minimum, we want to understand what is going on and why things are happening to us as they are: “Why me, Lord?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “Why now?”
Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust completely in God, who happens to be the One with all power, all knowledge, and all love, who seeks what is best for us. I think that sounds like a good plan to trust that God knows what he is doing.
Now that I have retired, I have questions about where God will lead. What paths will lie ahead? What all does He want me to do? Those questions are natural, but Karen and I do feel confident that the Lord will make His will for us known, and that we can trust Him for making all our future paths straight. The key to me is two-fold: to trust in God, and to acknowledge Him in everything I do.
Finally, the third verse is one that has become more important to me over time as my ministry has brought me close to people who have remained strong in faith even when horrible things happened to them or their loved ones. They showed a deeper level of faith that trusted God in the worst of times when He did not answer their prayers as they desired. A loved one was not healed; a relationship ended; a job and home were lost. And yet, they still trusted God and worshiped him in spite of their disappointments. The verse which speaks to me about this level of faith – a faith that believes in God when there is no deliverance – is found in the book of Job, and was spoken by Job in the midst of his losses and afflictions. Job questioned why those horrible things had happened to him, who was a righteous man, but he affirmed that his faith did not depend on God’s blessings:
Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him . . .”
Both previous verses contain a promise: John 1:12 promises adoption as God’s children, and Proverbs 3:5-6 promises God’s guidance and assistance. This verse promises nothing to the faithful believer. It requires nothing from God; the believer will trust God no matter what, no matter how badly things turn out. This is an incredibly powerful kind of faith, and the people who show it humble and inspire me.
It was the kind of faith shown by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3, who when ordered by King Nebuchadnezzar to bow down before his golden image or face death in a burning fiery furnace, could answer: “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
It was the kind of faith shown in 2015 by the 21 Coptic Christians who were ordered by their Libyan Islamic captors to renounce Christ. They refused, and instead praised Jesus Christ even as they were beheaded. It is the kind of faith being shown by Christians in many places today, who put their faith, and hope, in the true God regardless of their earthly fate.
So where does this leave me? I know I have the first level of faith, that is belief in Jesus Christ. I have learned to trust and rejoice that God directs my paths and I try to trust Him in more and more areas of my life. But of that third level of Job-like trust when there is no deliverance, I’m less confident. I want to have that kind of faith; I just don’t want to face what Job, Shadrach, and the Copts did to prove it. And yet, look at what Jesus went through for me . . .
So where does this leave you . . . ?
The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord look upon you with favor, and give you peace. Amen.
Read: Hebrews 11
Well stated. Miss seeing you and Karen. Miss your sermons too.