Real Faith (An excerpt from the sermon “God is Good”)

I’ve always known that there are basically three kinds of faith that are represented among people who call themselves Christians.  First, there is inherited faith.  Inherited faith is a faith that you receive from someone else like your parents or a spiritual mentor like a Pastor or Sunday School teacher.  I had the good fortune of growing up in church where there were many faithful people who impacted my life so I know what inherited faith is all about.  The second kind of faith is textbook faith which is a faith that you read about in the Bible or maybe in the biography of a great Christian.  Again, because I grew up in church I have vivid memories of learning about the great faith of  Abraham who was willing to obey God and sacrifice his son  One of my favorite Bible stories was how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, because of their great faith, were willing to defy the kings edict and not bow down to an idol.  Textbook faith is what the Hebrew writer was talking about when he wrote in Hebrews 12:1, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…  (NIV)  He’s talking about the many men and women who lived by faith in Hebrews 11.  In addition, over the years my life has been blessed on many occasions by reading stories about people like John Wesley or Hudson Taylor who were men of great faith.  The third kind of faith is proven faith.  Proven faith is personal faith that’s been developed and refined by going through the trials of life and comes out on the other side saying God is good.
Here’s what we need to understand.  When the trials of life come…when you find yourself in the middle of a storm…when things are more difficult for you than they’ve ever been before, as good as inherited faith is, it’s not  going to carry you through because it was something that was just passed on to you by someone else.  When the trials of life come…when you find yourself in the middle of a storm…when things are more difficult for you than they’ve ever been before, as good as textbook faith is,  it’s not going to be the faith that carries you through because it’s just something you’ve read about.  But when the trials of life come…when you find yourself in the middle of a storm…when things are more difficult than they’ve ever been before, it will be proven faith that helps you make it through because proven faith is your faith…your faith that has been tested and found to be true.  Proven faith is your faith that will be able to stand up to any circumstance no matter how difficult it may be.  And at the end of the day proven faith helps you to say, “Yes, this is awful, this stinks, this is terrible but it doesn’t change the truth that GOD IS GOOD.” Sometimes it is hard to remember that. Absolutely it’s hard. But in those moments your only choice is to hold on to that immutable truth about God that he is always good and just know that ultimately his goodness is going to come through, somehow, some you’re your circumstances today might be causing you to have a hard time seeing that God is good but he absolutely is, and THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE.