Faith is Essential

This week I’m going to share with you about the one thing that is essential in relating to God. The one thing without which it is impossible to lead a life that is pleasing to God.

I wonder how many of you can guess what I have in mind. What is that one thing? It is faith.

Oh, how much is contained in that one short word of five letters, faith. I’m persuaded in my own life, I’ve only just touched the fringe of the limitless ocean, which is the potential of faith.

Each time I teach about faith, I feel a new thrill of excitement, and I always seem to learn something new about faith myself while I’m teaching others.

The first thing I want to say today is that faith is essential. There is no substitute for faith. Nothing else will do for us what faith will do.

The first scripture I’m going to turn to is in that great faith chapter of the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. This is what it says:

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

That’s the basic condition for approaching God. The only condition upon which we can or dare approach God because God has ruled out every other condition, every other basis of approach. God says, if we’re to come to him, we must believe. That’s a divine must. The Lord permits and accepts no alternatives. We must believe. We must believe two things.

First of all, that God exists. I’m persuaded that the majority of people really believe that, even some people who call themselves agnostics or atheists. I believe there are very few people in the world who don’t really somehow or other believe that God exists. But that, by itself, is not enough. Many people who believe that God exists do not meet all the requirements for coming to God in faith. For must not only believe that God exists, we must believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

We’ve not to come to God believing that if we do what he requires, if we seek him earnestly with our whole heart, without raising any barriers of obstinacy or prejudice or unbelief, if we seek him that way, he will reward us. You see, the ultimate object of faith is God himself, his goodness, and above all, his faithfulness.

Faith, in the Bible sense of the word, is not directed primarily to a thing, but to a person. And that person is God. We must believe in God’s faithfulness, his goodness, his reliability, his love, his mercy.

And that’s why unbelief is a sin. Many people don’t understand that unbelief is a sin, but it’s a sin because it denies the goodness of God. It impugns God’s character. It suggests that God is not reliable, that he’s not good, that he’s not faithful, that we cannot depend on him. And that is a sin.

So, faith goes right to the very heart of God himself. It reaches out beyond theories and creeds and dogmas. It touches God, God himself, God as a person, God as a father, God as someone whom we can depend upon.

However, the word that’s translated ‘faith’ in our New Testament, the Greek word is pistis. That word does not mean only faith. It means also faithfulness. As a matter of fact, that’s really its primary meaning in secular usage outside the New Testament. The primary meaning of the word is faithfulness. So, believing in God is not merely something intellectual. It is being faithful to God. God is faithful. We have to believe in his faithfulness, but likewise, we have to prove ourselves faithful.

In other words, what I’m trying to explain to you, and it’s something that people find hard to grasp because of centuries of church tradition and teaching, we tend to think of faith as being in a creed, in a doctrine, in a formal theology. But it isn’t. It’s a relationship to God, and it’s a relationship in which we have to meet conditions that go beyond our intellect. It’s not just what we think or what we believe with our minds, but it’s being faithful to God. That kind of faithfulness springs out of commitment.

In other words, believing in God is not just having an intellectual idea about God, or knowing what the Bible says, or being able to quote scripture, but believing in God is being committed to God. It’s being loyal to God. It’s taking your stand with God. It’s refusing to side with the forces of evil. It’s rejecting compromise where God’s integrity and God’s truth is at stake.

So, it’s never just a question of intellectually accepting doctrine, but it’s a question of committing ourselves to God. And this commitment, which is the basis of faith, establishes a direct, ongoing, personal relationship with God.