The Mystery Of Faith

This Sunday, I have the wonderful opportunity to preach at New Song. The topic I've chosen is on that tugs on a lot of heart strings and stirs many emotions this day and age - faith. The aspects of faith are as deep as the ocean, but what I want to get at is that while we struggle from time to time with believing that things will turn out the way we'd like them to, the faith that we profess and lean on is there to build us up stronger.

Faith never did much good without adversities to help shape it. It's not necessary to have faith if everything is 100% A-OK. Through tragedy and trial, faith in something (or someone) larger than ourselves is developed.

When the Marines landed on the beaches of France - June 6, 1944 - they had faith to the extreme that their guns would fire, that their brothers would look out for them, that the might of the US would prevail. Well, all of these things happened, but not without many of our sons thinking that the whole mission was falling apart at the seams.

Faith without a reason to have faith is useless, but we have hope that comes from God alone that our faith in Him is never in vain. Paul writes about this assurance in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19...

12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

What he is saying here is that if Christ had not been raised from the dead, there's no reason to have faith, and no reason to believe in anything from here on out. That's the mystery of faith - we all need to have it, whether it is bearing fruit right now or much later. That's also the hard part about faith, because we don't always see immediate results. Faith is hard - no getting around that, but faith is also temporary, because one day - our faith will be our eyes. We will see Jesus face to face, and all the wrestling, doubting, and hoping will disappear before Him.