What Faith Really Is

a sermon on Psalm 14
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama<.center>


“Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’” When you hear that opening line from Psalm 14, what is your gut level reaction? Are you embarrassed by it at all?

A couple of college students were discussing religion, and before they knew it, they were arguing about the existence of God. Back and forth they went. Argument followed counterargument until they were basically talking past each other. Finally one of them said in frustration, “What do you know about it? You’re a …” I won’t repeat the word he used, but it was worse than “fool.” Name-calling is not a persuasive argument. Resorting to it is a sure sign you are out of your depth and have nothing constructive to say. Thus, when Psalm 14 calls those who do not believe in God “fools,” a thoughtful Christian might squirm a little in embarrassment. After all, there are some very bright, kind, sincere people who either do not believe in God or simply cannot make up their minds. We wouldn’t be very good Christians if we went around calling people who disagree with us names. So why does the Bible do it?

I am not sure it does. I am not sure the interpretation of this verse is as simple as, “Anyone who does not believe in God is a fool.” I say this for two reasons. First, atheism as we know it was unheard of when the Psalms were written. Atheism today is a belief system that tries to understand the universe and our place in it apart from any sort of divine being. The atheist says, “Such a being does not exist, now how do we make sense of the world?” No one in the ancient Israel said that. People argued over which gods were real, who among them was most powerful, what God was like, and so on; but in ancient Israel when the Psalms were written, atheism did not exist as a belief system. Second, however, it did exist as a lifestyle, and that is what this Psalm is talking about.

It is possible, no matter what you say you believe about God, to live as if God does not exist. You live for yourself. You do what you want to do. You do not really believe God will do anything to punish you if you do evil.

Our psalm, Psalm 14, is a lot like Psalm 94, which asks God to put a stop to the evil deeds done by wicked people. “They kill the widow and the stranger, they murder the orphan, and they say, ‘The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.’ Understand, O dullest of the people; fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?” [vv. 6-9]

The Hebrew word for fool in Psalm 14 is nabal. It does not mean silly, illogical, or stupid. Instead it describes a person who does the wrong thing because of an incorrect assumption about how the world works. A person who is nabal has a blind spot and gets into trouble because of it.

Psalm 14 claims that those who do evil have make a mistake about reality. They think they can do what they want and not suffer consequences. They have left God out of the equation. They do not call on God. They eat up God’s people as they eat bread. “How can they do this?” the Psalm writer wants to know. Do they lack knowledge? Don’t they know that God sees and cares and will take action? Don’t they know God hates evil? Have they never heard of the Exodus or any of the many other times when God rescued his people? They are fools. They have miscalculated badly. They have acted as if there is no God, but they will soon learn their mistake. That is the message of Psalm 14. It was written to encourage victims of evil. God does exist. He sees. He cares. He will do something about it.

That is a good message and would make a good sermon, but I want to take this one in a different direction. Psalm 14 opens a discussion about faith and unbelief and the intersection of our beliefs and actions. That’s the path I want to follow. My plan is simple: First, I will draw on the insight of Psalm 14 as I answer the question: What is faith? Second, I will present two very different people who wrestled with doubt. Their experience might help us. Finally, I will offer a brief word of challenge and encouragement, suggesting ways you might take something meaningful home with you.

Onward then to the question: What is faith? I think faith is often misunderstood in our culture. Most people equate faith with belief. To them faith means “believing something is true.” Some people think that Christianity is nothing more than believing that God exists, or that believing a god exists is the same thing or as good as Christian faith. Christianity, however, means much more that this when it uses the word faith. The reality is, belief is only the beginning of faith, and believing in God is only the beginning (or the beginning of the possibility) of Christian faith.

Faith requires an object—someone or something in which you have faith. For Christianity the object of our faith is God as he has made himself known in Jesus Christ. We put our faith in God, in Jesus who is God, and in his promises.

But, believing is only one part of faith. Another part is trust. It is not enough to read through the Apostles’ Creed and say, “Yes, I believe all this is true.” You must trust God as well. Faith responds to God not just with your mind, but also with your heart and will. This part of faith can be found in everyday language. You might say you have faith in a friend. You trust this person, enough, for example, to leave your child with them. That is faith as trust. You believe, and you trust.

This is where the fool of Psalm 14 goes wrong. Deep down he or she doesn’t really trust that God will do anything. Psalm 14 doesn’t care what the lips say. It wants to know what the heart says. You and I can’t hear another person’s deepest thoughts and feelings, but we can see how these play out in their lives. And this leads us to one more thing that faith is.

Faith includes belief. It includes trust. But Christian faith is never complete until it transforms your actions. Alister McGrath writes: “I may believe that God is promising me forgiveness of sins; I may trust that promise; but unless I respond to that promise I shall not obtain forgiveness. The first two stages of faith prepare the way for the third; without it they are incomplete” [McGrath, Intellectuals Don’t Need God & Other Modern Myths, p. 50].

By the way, this does not turn faith into a work. I am not suggesting that faith is something you do in order to earn God’s favor. John Calvin would tell you the same thing I am. He taught that faith is ultimately God’s work in us, and he was clear that faith takes the form of a response. Faith is not just something that happens in your head; it transforms your life.

McGrath explains it this way: Imagine you have blood poisoning, but a bottle of penicillin is sitting right by your bed. You must first believe that the penicillin is there. You must then trust that it is capable of curing you. But, it still does you no good unless you take the penicillin. You have to act on your belief. He writes: “Just as faith links a bottle of penicillin to the cure of blood poisoning, so faith forges a link between the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the tragic human situation in which we find ourselves” [McGrath, Intellectuals, p. 51].

So as you see, faith in God (as Christianity understands it) involves the whole person: heart, mind, soul, and strength. Faith is the place where belief intersects actions.

I want now to look at two people who wrestled with faith in different ways. One you have probably never heard of, Sheldon Vanauken. The other you have, Mother Teresa. Sheldon Vanauken was a student in the early 1950s who came to faith with a little help from C.S. Lewis. Christianity made a certain sense to him. It had a ring of truth. But he hesitated. He needed to be absolutely certain. Here is his situation in his own words, perhaps you can relate to it:

There is a gap between the probable and the proved. How was I to cross it? If I were to stake my whole life on the risen Christ, I wanted proof. I wanted certainty. I wanted to see him eat a bit of fish. I wanted letters of fire across the sky. I got none of these. And I continued to hang about on the edge of the gap. … It was a question of whether I was to accept him—or reject. My God! There was a gap behind me as well! Perhaps the leap to acceptance was a horrifying gamble—but what of the leap to rejection? There might be no certainty that Christ was God—but, by God, there was no certainty that he was not. This was not to be borne. I could not reject Jesus. There was only one thing to do once I had seen the gap behind me. I turned away from it, and flung myself over the gap toward Jesus. [A Severe Mercy, pp. 98-99]

Faith in Jesus means making a decision for him. Later on you may come to recognize how God was at work in your decision, but at the time it will feel like your very own. Confronted with Jesus’ claims and his promises, you have to choose: to accept him … or reject him.

In my own life of faith, I had such a moment. I believed in Jesus, and I knew I had to act on that belief, so I made my faith known to the church and requested baptism. (I had not been previously baptized. Had I been, I would have simply declared my faith and taken the vows of baptism for myself.) Later I had a crisis of doubt, and it looked for a while as if I might loose my faith, but when it emerged, stronger than ever, it was not my choice. At least I didn’t experience it that way. I was working my way through everything I could get my hands on about the resurrection of Jesus. And then I had a flash of insight. I realized both that Jesus is alive and that I believe he is alive.

Vanauken’s experience is helpful to me because it reminds me that there is a gap behind us as well. If you find yourself standing wavering on the edge of faith, remember that the decision to reject Christ involves just as great a leap of faith—in fact, I would say it demands a far longer leap—than accepting him does.

The other person I want to mention is Mother Teresa. Awed by her life of humble service, most people would find it hard to believe she struggled with doubt. The September 3 issue of Time magazine, however, reports about a new book called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. It is a collection of her private correspondence with her confessors and spiritual directors. And by the way, if someone like Mother Teresa needed spiritual mentors, don’t you think you and I do as well? This book is not an attack by an enemy. It is the loving work of a friend of more than 20 years who has now been assigned by Rome to gather evidence of Teresa’s sainthood.

These letters reveal a spiritual struggle the world never imagined was there. Early in her vocation, Teresa felt very close to God. She even had visions and dialogues with Christ. Her spiritual life was rich and her faith strong. After she began her work with the poor and dying in India, she entered a spiritual drought that lasted the rest of her life. Here is one excerpt from a letter she wrote to Jesus on the advice of her confessor:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love—and now become as the most hated one—the one—You have thrown away as unwanted—unloved. I call, I cling, I want—and there is no One to answer—no One to whom I can cling—no, No One.—Alone … Where is my Faith—even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness—My God—how painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith—I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart--& make me suffer untold agony.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them—because of the blasphemy—If there be God—please forgive me—When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven—there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.—I am told God loves me—and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart of Jesus? [Time, Sept 3, 2007, pp. 39-40]

Those are certainly heavy words coming from someone we have long admired for her faith. Her friend who published them believes they enhance her reputation as a light to those in darkness. Teresa prayed for union with Christ, and her prayed was answered in an unexpected way—she entered the experience of Christ’s agonizing sense of abandonment on the cross. She had said that if she were a saint, she would be a saint of “darkness” to share light with those in darkness on earth.

Others rejoice in these letters because, they say, all Christians struggle with doubt and emptiness—albeit not usually for so long. If we pretend that some Christians are above doubt, always spiritually charged, always joyful, then when we are not, we think something is wrong with us. Personally, I do not find these revelations about Mother Teresa troubling because in the gospels Jesus himself agonizes in the garden and on the cross. If Jesus faced trials of faith … well, you understand.

I want you to notice something else Jesus and Mother Teresa had in common—and we can have in common with them. Jesus suffered torment in the garden, but he went to the cross anyway, trusting God at the deepest level of his soul that God would vindicate him. Teresa likewise continued to care for the poor and dying day after day. She may not have felt her faith, but she lived it. Psalm 14 suggests that’s what matters most when it comes to faith. Just as some people show by their actions that they do not believe in God, others show by their actions that they do.

Notice too something Mother Teresa has in common with Sheldon Vanauken. He wrote of flinging himself over the gap to Jesus. She wrote of “surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” I suspect these experiences are the same. Both these people reached a point in their lives when ideas and beliefs were not enough. They had to choose. They had to give themselves wholly to Jesus, or turn away from him.

One last note on Mother Teresa. God is faithful. His presence and promises are good because he is faithful. You may feel close to him or not. Fortunately, your standing with him does not depend on your fickle feelings. It depends on what Jesus did for you on the cross. Always remember that. When in doubt, look to the cross. What Jesus did for you is sufficient, so be at peace, even as you wrestle with your own doubt, loneliness, and spiritual droughts.

Now, let’s end this sermon in a practical way. I want to give one little nugget to people at different places in their journey of faith. First, to those who do not believe in God but want to, I say this: God is there, and he is closer than you think. Pray to him. Say: “O God, if there is a God, I want to know whether You exist. And I ask You that I may be willing to bow before You if You do exist.” (That simple prayer, by the way, is from Francis Schaeffer.) I suggest to you that your desire to know God is a sign that he is already at work in your life.

Second, to those who more or less believe the Christian gospel but are wavering about making a commitment to Jesus Christ, I say this: Throw yourself over the gap. Surrender blindly. Jesus is alive. His way is the true way. He is your only hope. What else is there, really? What else is worth living for? What will you do with your life if you keep it for yourself? What will be the measure of it when it comes to an end? Don’t let it slip through your fingers. Give it to him. Give yourself to him.

Third, to those Christians who are wrestling with doubt, I say this: Look to the cross. Pray for seasons of refreshment. And read. Feed your soul. Read scripture. Read people like C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, Alister McGrath, Tom Wright, Max Lucado, and Lee Strobel. If you are not sure where to start, come talk to me. I can probably recommend something useful.

Fourth and finally, to those Christians who have an abiding sense of Christ’s presence, I say: Let your faith and his presence flavor everything you do. Share that joy. Don’t keep it to yourself. When you live your faith, you reflect God’s light into the world. And in case you haven’t noticed, the world needs it. Amen.

rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
September 16, 2007