Sermon – Fourth Sunday after Epiphany 2023

Let the words of my mouth & the meditations of all our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, our Strength & our Redeemer. Amen. __________________________________________________________________________________________

When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, & said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel…And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; & as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. Matt.viij.10 & 13. _________________________________

What does it mean to be a Christian? To be a disciple of Christ?

If you know your little catechism, you might remember there are two things required, repentance & faith. The life of every sincere & true Christian is a life marked by repentance & faith. You are not a disciple of Christ without these two things.

Today we’re focusing on the latter of these: faith.

What is faith?

Skeptics are critical of faith; they often refer to it as ‘blind faith’. To a skeptic there is no difference between faith & superstition. Superstition is an irrational opinion or belief. And that’s what skeptics think the Christian faith is – an irrational opinion.

But faith in God isn’t irrational. It is really the only rational option we have.

The late R.C. Sproul once asked the astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, what caused the big bang; to which Dr. Sagan replied, ‘I don’t want to go there.’

One scientific periodical put it this way, “Before the Big Bang there was no space or time. So, it is actually meaningless to ask what caused the Big Bang to happen – there was no Universe in which that cause could have existed.”

Given that there was neither space nor time before the Universe began, and that there was no Universe in which the cause that started the Universe could exist, is not then our only rational option to believe that the Cause of the Universe is something outside of the Universe, something outside of time & space – an eternal & transcendent Cause? And what do we call that which is eternal & transcendent? That is what we call ‘God’.

Faith in God, rather than being a superstition, is actually the most rational option we have. ___________________________

Now some of you are wondering what I’m going on about, because the faith in our gospel lesson is not about faith in God as Creator or faith in the existence of God, but rather faith in God as our helper. But I’m going to say that an arbitrary distinction to make.

Why do some have faith that God exists, but don’t have faith in him as Saviour? Why do some have faith that he will save us in the day of his wrath, but don’t have faith that he will see us through the mundane struggles of our daily lives?

We are not deists…or at least, we shouldn’t be deists. A deist believes in a God who started creation off but then checks out until he decides to bring it to an end. That’s irrational because a universe that can’t start itself can’t sustain itself. God, who is the only self-existent being and therefore the source of all being, is present in every atom in every moment; otherwise everything would come to an abrupt end. Likewise, the God who regenerated you, by whose Spirit you were born again, isn’t just going to dip out and leave you by yourself. Do you think he saves you only to leave you to fend for yourself? He’s always with us, sustaining us in every moment unto the end. It is irrational to think otherwise.

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We sang such a wonderful text a moment ago. What a friend we have in Jesus. In the last stanza, it says that when even those whom we love on earth forsake us & turn on us, we may always rely upon & trust in Christ. Why is that? It is because Christ is God and God is changeless. The author of Hebrews famously wrote, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, & forever. That’s why we can trust him,

because, unlike humans, he does not change. Placing faith in Christ is not blind faith; it’s the most rational faith – because Christ is a sure bet. It’s not only that he is good, but he is always good. And he will never be anything other than good.

That is a Being we can trust.

______________________ I know you’ve heard me say this before (it’s kind of a motto of mine) – God, who is Perfect & Good, will bring all things to their good & perfect ends.

So why do we worry? Why do we lack faith in God to do what is good?

When you pray, are you a pessimist? Do you not believe that God is working out his good & perfect purpose in this world? Have faith!

I will confess I worry about things. I worry about things I can’t change. I worry about things that happened long ago in the past. I worry that things are just going to get worse. Why? Why do I do that? Why do we worry when God will do everything right? We think -Well, he might not do things exactly the way I would have them done. Well, good! We should be glad God doesn’t always do things our way, because he knows better. He’s Perfect. He’s Good. We’re imperfect & far from good. Rather than worry, it should be a relief to us that God is in control. We need to have faith that he is working out his good purpose. ___________________

And don’t judge his work while it’s yet unfinished! What if the centurion had done that? What if rather than trusting God was still working out his good purpose, he just gave into despair – rather than trusting God to heal, he just complained why God allowed his servant to fall ill? If we still followed the older lectionary (like our brothers in England still do) we would have read a different gospel today: the story of when the disciples are caught on their ship in a storm while Jesus slept. Who remembers that story?

Remember how the disciples acted? They were fearful. They were pessimistic. Lord, save us, we perish! And how did Jesus answer them? Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? The disciples were judging the work unfinished, they were judging things from the standpoint of the storm, rather than from the standpoint of faith, faith in him who silences the storm.

Like the disciples, we all go through our own little storms in this life. And, like the centurion, we all have those loved ones who need to be healed by Christ – whether physically or emotionally or spiritually or all of the above. Don’t put more faith in the storm rather than in the Lord who commands the storm. Don’t put more faith in the illness rather than in him who makes us whole again. Don’t put more faith in the sin that rebels against God rather than the grace that redeems us unto God.

When you pray, remember to whom you are praying. Remember who he is. He is Perfect. He is Good. He is Changeless. To doubt him is irrational. The only rational option is to have faith – to have faith that God will heal, that God will calm the storm, and that God will save. That is what God does. That’s who God is. He is Good & Perfect, and he will never change! Have faith in him! Have faith!

Let us pray.

Eternal Father, who art Good & Perfect, in whom alone we rest our weak & little faith, Have mercy upon us, and by thy grace enlarge & strengthen our faith. As thou art changeless, let our faith in thee also be changeless. We believe; help thou our unbelief. And this we ask in the name of him who is Author & Finisher of our faith,

Jesus Christ. Amen.