Faith is the Victory
(I John 5:4-5)
“Faith is difficult. That is why the people who have no faith are the weaklings of the world. I am amused by the kind of faith some people have. They are the people with a sort of high flown, dramatic religion that bears them up in disasters but doesn’t carry them with any grace or humor through the small vexations. They keep a stiff upper lip when the house burns down, but they’re grouchy if they lose a glove. Their faith can stand anything at all — except daily living.”
Thus spoke 81-year-old Evangeline Booth, the celebrated general of the Salvation Army, when interviewed recently by a reporter from The Christian Herald. What a keen observation! Is not this just what is always surprising us about the faith of our friends and our own religious faith? The hard, tragic circumstances most of us have the faith to manage remarkably well when they come; it’s the little affairs of our daily life that trip us up and send us sprawling. Our faith, sufficient in the trying emergency, is hopelessly inadequate for routine living. We have the faith to say with patient, faithful, old Job when the bitter, heartbreaking blows fall upon us and our loved ones are taken away to their heavenly home: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord”; but we haven’t the faith to be sweet and even-tempered and patient with those same loved ones while they are living with us amid the daily vexation of our own homes. “Our faith can stand just about anything at all — except daily life.”
The last Sunday in July, I went for the late afternoon service at New York’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church to hear the famous Scotch minister, Dr. Adam Burnet, of St. Cuthbert’s Church in Edinburgh. I arrived a little early and sat looking about that historic old church where so many of the great of our nation have worshipped. I remembered that it was in this church that Wendell Wilkie’s body lay in state. I remembered, too, that it was to this church that the eminent John Henry Jowett was called from his native Britain, and it was in this very church that such multitudes of our country’s leaders, in business and industry and government and religion, gathered to hear Jowett preach. What was the characteristic note that made Jowett’s preaching great? Here is a typical passage from one of his remarkable sermons:
“I think that the folks who are faithful in that which is least wear very radiant crowns. They are the people who are great in little tasks. They are scrupulous in the rutty roads of drudgery. They win the triumphs amid small irritations. They are as loyal when they are wearing aprons in the kitchen as if they wore purple and fine linen in the visible presence of the King. They finish the obscurest bit of work as though it were to be displayed before an assembled Heaven by Him who is Lord of light and glory. Great souls are those who are faithful in that which is least.
“Our Lord lived for 30 years amid the little happenings of the little town of Nazareth. Little villages spell out their stories in small events. And He, the young Prince of Glory, was in the carpenter’s shop. He moved amid humdrum tasks, and petty cares, and village gossip, and trifling trade, and He was faithful in that which is least. He wore His crown on other than state occasions. It was never off his brow.”
An article in the State magazine some time ago told of how T. J. Jackson, as a young professor from V. M. I. came a-courting in North Carolina to the manse of the old Macpelah Church. Finally, the young artillery instructor, who was later called “Stonewall” during the War Between the States, mustered up courage to ask Dr. Morrison, the first President of Davidson College, for the hand of his daughter in marriage. It is said that after Jackson had gained the Doctor’s consent and was riding back to Virginia, it suddenly occurred to him that a certain remark of his to Dr. Morrison on the night before might have left the wrong impression, so he turned his horse around and rode back five miles to set the matter straight. Such was the religious faith of General Stonewall Jackson, characterized by scrupulousness in the small affairs of life.
The great souls are those who are faithful in that which is least. They have a religious faith that can stand like a stone wall, not only in the raging battles and fierce storms of the soul, but in the small things of daily life. These are the folks who have that brand of faith about which St. John wrote in his first epistle: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
Why is it that more of us do not possess this brand of triumphant faith — as adequate for the daily drudgery as it is for the dress parade? In all frankness, most of us must admit that “our faith is not the victory that overcometh the world.” Day after day the world overcomes us — tramples our faith in the dust. And yet, we profess the same Christian faith as those heroes of the faith who have lived victoriously. Wherein does the difference lie?
Just here, in two very simple things: First of all, too many of us have persisted in holding to a very erroneous idea of what saving faith is. We have perverted the New Testament idea of faith into a matter of mere intellectual assent. What must a man do to be saved? “Believe, have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved,” we have parroted from the scriptures and taught that faith, or belief, was merely the intellectual acceptance of the proposition that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, miraculously raised from the dead on the third day, and so was the Son of God. We accept that. Such is our faith.
But this is not the New Testament meaning of faith and it is surely not the faith which is victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Many a nominal Christian, subscribing to just such a faith, has suffered one moral and spiritual defeat after another.
The victorious faith that can and does overcome the world is the faith that recognizes and accepts, with mind and heart and will, Jesus as the Son of God, the Lord of Life; the faith that follows Him in His example and in His commandments when smack up against all the conflicts and temptations of this world. This is the faith which is the victory and this alone.
Clement of Alexandria, in the second century, spoke of faith as, “The assent of the soul.” For Clement, there was not conflict between faith and works for, as he said, faith is the beginning of action — faith is merely the inward venture which is tested by deeds.
So, to come to a victorious faith which overcomes the world, we do not try to screw up our faith to a higher and higher notch, or hold with increasing intellectual tenacity to a certain written creedal statement — but rather we must learn the place of surrender in faith. We must give ourselves up, our wills, our lives, more completely to Christ, so that in very truth He does become our Lord, our Master. Then are we possessed by a faith that conquers the world. It is as St. Paul said: “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Our victory, our triumph over the world, is not by means of our own strength, it is simply a sharing in His victory when we surrender to Him. “This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.”
The second very simple reason that all too few of us have been possessed by this triumphant faith which conquers the world is that we have either neglected completely or minimized the importance of making daily use of the means of grace for strengthening and sustaining our faith.
We have the kind of faith which is sufficient for the great crises because when life knocks us on our knees we instinctively pray and immediately God rushes the spiritual reserves to turn the tide in our favor — but there is no triumphant note in the melody of our daily dozen because we haven’t felt there was anything important enough in the day’s routine to pray about … We won’t make use of the means of grace at our disposal.
- S. Mackay has a sermon on that familiar text from the 121stPsalm: “The Lord shall preserve Thy going out and Thy coming in, from this time forth and even forevermore.” Dr. Mackay gives his sermon the title ofThe Religion of the Threshold, and remarks: “Between these two things, the exits and entrances of the day, lie the whole problem and struggle of existence.
“Get into the habit each morning and each evening of meeting God for a moment on the threshold, as you go out and come in, and though you may not see it, others will begin to see a new element of strength and tenderness in your character. The man and woman who keep tryst with God at the threshold for just a moment each day, as they go out and come in, are ready for every emergency.”
Then, as Wordsworth says,
“Not all the dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.”
“This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
INVOCATION
”Almighty and everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being, who hast created us for Thyself so that our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee, grant unto us purity of heart and strength of purpose so that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing Thy will, and no weakness from doing it. In Thy light may we see life clearly, and in Thy service find perfect freedom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
PASTORAL PRAYER
Lord, we believe, help Thou our unbelief. We believe that Thou art God and that Thou didst send Thy Son, Jesus Christ, into the world that we believing on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
But the world is ever near us, and the tempting sounds we hear, and our fainting faith clings trustfully to the deceitful, sham securities of this lost and dying world. Help us to put our faith only in Thee who art the ever Faithful one, that amid the losses and disappointments, the victories and defeats of this mortal life, our souls may rest serenely secure in the unfathomable goodness and grace of the Eternal God, our Heavenly Father.
“Day by day may we grow in faith, in self-denial, in charity, in heavenly-mindedness, in the purity by which we may see Thee, and the surrender which makes us one with Thee. And then, mingle us at last with the mighty host of Thy redeemed for evermore,” through Jesus Christ our Lord.
| • Scripture Reference: 1 John 5:1-5 • Secondary Scripture References: 1 John 5:11-13 • Subject : Faith; Faith’s influence on character; 600 • Special Topic: n/a • Series: n/a • Occasion: n/a • First Preached: 9/7/1947 • Last Preached: 5/21/1949 • Rating: 3 • Book/Author References: The Christian Herald; State magazine |