John
11:7-16; 20:24-29
Because life moves at such an incredibly fast pace these days it is
easy to feel as if we fall further and further behind in some of the most
important aspects of our lives.
The pace of life makes it difficult to find time to nourish our faith
and to nourish our relationships.
The cost of living makes us wonder if we can ever catch up
financially. We would like to save
and invest for the future, but today’s bills knock so loudly on our door that
it’s hard to think beyond today.
And the incredible stress on our time feeds into the stress of every
part of life.
So this morning we begin a new series of messages titled The Harder I Go, the Behinder I Get. Over the course of the series we will
consider how we “catch up” in four areas of our lives – faith, relationships,
time, and finances.
I will add a disclaimer at the beginning – a big disclaimer – I am
not an expert in any of these categories and I often feel far behind in each of
them. The suggestions I will make
are ones I struggle to incorporate into my own life.
Today our message deals with the first of our four topics –Catching Up On Our Faith.
Last week National Public Radio ran a series of reports called Losing Our Religion. It was another in a seemingly unending
series of news stories about the changing – and some would say, diminishing –
role of faith in today’s society.
I listened to some of it, with some interest, but I have to confess I am
a bit worn out with the stories about the demise of faith.
But those reports do remind us that as we live in an era when it
appears that many people are not only struggling to catch up with, or
strengthen their faith, some are struggling to continue to have faith.
So I want to begin by saying something I believe is very important –
there is nothing wrong with either doubt or struggle when it comes to our
faith. Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever struggle with doubt? It’s okay if you do. Sometimes our faith is not as strong as
we wish it were, and that’s okay.
Doubt, and its subsequent struggle with faith, is nothing new. One of Jesus’ own disciples struggled
with doubt.
John’s gospel relates the famous story of doubting Thomas, where Thomas declares that unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the
nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe (John
20:25). Certainly, Thomas
struggled with doubt, but we often overlook another story about Thomas. In John’s gospel, chapter 11, Jesus was
planning to return to Judea, because Lazarus had died. The disciples were alarmed at his plan,
because they were afraid Jesus would be killed. But Thomas was the only disciple willing to go with Jesus,
even if it meant losing his life.
In fact, Thomas even declares “Let
us also go, that we may die with him”
(John 11:16). There
certainly was no doubt at that moment in the heart and mind of Thomas.
But Thomas does serve as an example of our own struggle with faith –
there are days when we feel as though nothing can cause our faith to waver and
there are other days when we can’t escape this nagging sense of doubt. There are days when I feel like the
father who brings his son to Jesus in order to find healing. The father exclaims, I do believe, help my unbelief! (Mark
9:24).
There are many examples of the great Biblical characters struggling
with their faith. Peter also
doubted the first news of the resurrection (John 24:11), but we don’t call him doubting Peter. Peter, also, when
invited by Jesus to get out of the boat and go to him on the water, finds that
his faith fails him (Matthew 14:22-33).
Jesus asks Peter, You of little
faith…why did you doubt? It isn’t the only time Jesus expresses the
difficulty we have in expressing faith.
In Matthew 6:30 Jesus, as he talks about the worries of life, addresses
his audience with the words O you of little
faith.
The fact that we sometimes have doubts or struggles with faith does
not in any way mean there is anything wrong with our faith; it simply means we
are human. At some point, everyone
has some measure of doubt and struggle with faith, but that does not mean their
faith is lacking in any way. In
fact, I would say that the occasional doubt and struggle is a sign of healthy faith. Any faith that is afraid of doubt and struggle is one that
has too much insecurity to be healthy.
What we want to avoid is unhealthy
faith. Unhealthy faith is a
faith that leaves no room for doubt or for questioning.
Unhealthy faith also leaves no room for understanding that life
brings struggle.
Many people struggle with faith when they encounter difficulties in
life. In fact, some people point
to a tragedy or difficulty in life as the reason why they abandon faith. They believe that God failed them in
that moment so they decide a God who fails them in a time of need is not worthy
to believe in.
I am very, very sympathetic to the sufferings and struggles of
people, but faith never guarantees that life will be easy, and it is only
unhealthy faith that makes such a claim.
Faith is not a transactional relationship; that is, we don’t do
something for God, such as believe in him, and then get something from him in
return. In fact, the Scriptures
are very, very clear that life is not going to be easy, even if you have
faith. What faith does is provide
strength and hope to help us navigate life’s difficulties. A faith that believes we will never
struggle or suffer in life is an unhealthy and shallow faith, and one that is
likely to fail us when we do encounter life’s difficulties.
Unhealthy faith also steers us into a false sense of what is
important. I have great sympathy
for people who give up on church.
Any church that has existed for very long has experienced some kind of
struggle or conflict over some small, goofy matter. And I say goofy as a way referring to a nonessential matter
when it comes to the purpose of the church.
I was in a meeting recently of ministers, and it is a group that I
love. I love and appreciate my
colleagues and I enjoy minister’s meetings because of the encouragement and
camaraderie that we share. But
some of the discussions we have are perfect examples of the goofiness that
takes place in churches. A
discussion came up about a bit of conflict in one of the churches, and I was
asked what I would do. In my head
I was thinking I couldn’t care less about
such an argument, because it was over something that was absolutely
inconsequential, but I tried to be pastoral and formulate some kind of nice
answer, before finally saying, you know
what, I think you should just say you don’t care and let it go.
There are some things that simply should not get us worked up. They just don’t matter. And tragically, churches can crush the
faith of some people by drawing them into endless and meaningless debates about
issues that in the grand scheme of things really don’t amount to anything of
importance. They just don’t.
The older I get the less I care about a lot of “church issues.” I know that it is easier to worry about
those matters than some of the big issues we face in this day and age, but
there are people living under terrible oppression, there are people trying to
survive crushing violence, and there are people watching their children starve
to death so it’s hard for me to get excited about many of the “church issues”
that congregations sometimes face.
And I get even less interested in another expression of unhealthy
faith that lives in a lot of churches, and it comes under several names –
guilt, legalism, and duty. It is a
lifeless faith that robs people of any real sense of joy or enthusiasm.
Over the years I’ve sometimes had people pull me aside and say
something like this – Dave, you need to
get after us more. You need to
step on our toes. You need to
really lay it on us. If anyone
here wants that from me I’m sorry to say but you are going to be
disappointed. To step on anyone’s
toes or dump a load of guilt on them or tell them their faith is little more
than a sense of duty seems to me to be redundant. I would guess that many of you feel rather beaten up at the
end of the week so why should I beat you up some more when you come to church? I don’t come to church to get beat up
or to beat up anyone else. I don’t
come to have a load of guilt dumped on me. I don’t want to leave church feeling as though I’ve gone
fifteen rounds in a boxing ring. I
want to lift you up, I want to encourage you, and I want to remind you that God
loves you and has called you to a life that is rich in purpose and
meaning. I want you to discover
the sense of joy that faith can bring to life. I don’t want to load you down with a sense of guilt or
burden you with a long list of regulations. There are enough churches already offering that kind of
faith.
Healthy faith brings life, it brings hope, it
brings joy, and it brings enthusiasm!
Back in the fall Tanya and I bought an
elliptical machine, because we don’t like walking outside on cold
mornings. It’s a truly terrible
machine. It was actually invented
by a guy named Torquemada and was first used as a torture device back in the
Dark Ages.
I tried different ways of occupying my mind
while exercising, trying to make it through those workout times. I would prop a book on top of the
elliptical, but that didn’t really work.
I set up a TV but that didn’t work. But I’ll tell you what does work – music. I put some really good music on my iPod
and it works. The other morning I
went down to the garage and got on that elliptical and wondered why I was
putting myself through that punishment.
I started listening to a beautiful version of Great Is Thy Faithfulness and it went into the song, Another Halleluiah. Wow. Music just touches the soul. It’s as though it becomes a conduit for the spirit to flow
into us and through us. A time I
dreaded became a time of worship.
When doubt and struggle threaten to get you down, keep the faith. When you feel as though you don’t have
the faith to continue, keep on believing.
Always remember that the spirit of God brings life! Wherever the spirit is, there is life! Even death itself cannot overcome! The spirit brings life!
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