How to Claim Your Gift

[These are some thoughts shared with parents, grandparents, and family members of Upward basketball participants during halftimes of games today. What follows isn't exact because I simply jot down note for myself for these presentations; but this is what I intended to say anyway.]

The theme passage of Scripture the young people in Upward are focusing on right now is Hebrews 11:1, which says:

Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being sure of what we do not see. (NIRV)

Some of you may have read or heard about the TV personality who claimed, maybe half-jokingly, this past week that he hadn't washed his hands in ten years. He said that he didn't believe in things he couldn't see and he couldn't see germs.

But there are lots of things that we believe in that we can't see. I can't see oxygen. But I believe that exists.

And although God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, we can't see Him right now. Yet many people believe in Him.

I may have mentioned to some of you that for ten years of my life, I considered myself to be an atheist. But I married a Christian and just to get her off my back, I started going to worship with her on Sunday mornings. Something strange started happening to me after I did this: I started to believe that God saves from sin and death those who have faith in Jesus, Who died and rose for people like me...and you. I received faith in Christ.

When I think of faith, I don't think of it as a virtue. The Bible says that faith is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9). Faith in Jesus that saves us from sin and death and gives us life with God isn't something we can earn, work for, manufacture, or achieve in our own effort. And God wants to give faith in Jesus to everyone.

What I've learned is that there are several reliable places where God will meet us and present us with the gift of faith or the gift of deepened faith in Jesus.

First, God will give us faith in Christ through the Church. Some people say the Church is full of hypocrites. They're right...and I'm one of them! A hypocrite is anyone who at any time claims to be one way, but acts, or thinks, or lives in another. We hypocrites need the Church. I always say that the Church is God's hospital for hypocrites and there's always room for one more. The Bible says that the Church is "the body of Christ." In the fellowship of imperfect Christians, we can receive faith.

Second, God will give us faith in Christ through the Bible. When we call the Bible, "the Word of God," we mean that unlike other books we might read--instruction manuals, novels, biographies, whatever, the Bible is filled with the living power of God that will help me do what I can't do on my own: Have faith in the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and have faith in Jesus.

Third, God will give us faith in Christ through Holy Baptism. Holy Baptism isn't something we do; it's something God does. When we're baptized in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, God claims us as His own. We may choose to walk away from God, but in baptism, God commits Himself to never giving up on us. I know that I can turn back to Him for forgiveness, new life, strength, hope, peace, encouragement, and whatever else I need.

Fourth, God will give us faith in Christ through Holy Communion. In Communion, God gives Himself to us and fills us with His life and forgiveness.

Fifth, God will give us faith in Christ through prayer. Jesus tells us to pray to God the Father in Jesus' name. When I feel crummy because I know that I've committed a sin, failing to love God or love other people, God still lets me come to Him. Covered with the goodness and perfection of Jesus, I can ask for forgiveness, seek guidance, gain strength. I can ask for the faith to trust that Jesus is with me always and that, because of Jesus and my faith in Him--however weak my faith may be at the moment, nothing can separate me from God!

My faith isn't always strong. But I'm grateful that God is willing to renew the gift of faith within me as I meet God in the Church, in the Bible, in Holy Baptism, in Holy Communion, and in prayer in Jesus' name.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of faith, which helps to trust in You even though, right now, we can't see You. When our faith wanes, when we sin, when we face discouragement or important decisions, helps us to turn to You and receive the gift of renewed faith. In Jesus' name. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Christian Faith: The Basics, Part 38

In the last installment of this series, I said that the primary work of God the Holy Spirit, is to sanctify believers, make them holy, set them apart for God. We said that, this side of the grave, no believer in Jesus Christ is perfectly holy. All Christians are works in progress.

That fact led Martin Luther, the one-time priest and Biblical scholar who inadvertently started what's called The Reformation, to say that believers in Christ are "the Holy Spirit's workshop."

The Apostles' Creed says that the first tools used by the Holy Spirit in the process of sanctification, to facilitate our transformations, are "the holy catholic Church" and "the communion of saints."

The first thing to notice here is that Christian faith is not an individualistic "Jesus and me" proposition. God does care about us as individuals, of course. But we were created to live in a community with God, our neighbors, and all creation. This community God meant to be bound together by love. Not the syrupy, sentimental mush that is often portrayed as love by popular culture, but a tough and unconditional commitment to be the best and do the best for the other.

According to Genesis, the first human beings lived in the community God wants for us. The "self" of Adam and Eve weren't important; they were elevated, enhanced, and defined by their relationships with God, each other, and God's creation. Being part of something bigger and greater didn't diminish them; it lifted them.

Then, all hell broke loose. It happened when the first humans thought to transgress the boundaries God had established for their own well-being.

And what was the first consequence? The two humans, who had previously walked naked, unaware of how their bodies or lives might be misused, hid from God, alienated, afraid that God would see them for what they had become, rebels against the community for which they were made.

When confronted by God, Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. Community was distorted.

God's project ever since then has been, first, to lay the groundwork and then, to create the means by which all humanity could once more be reconciled to God and to others.

It began with the descendants of Abraham, the Jews, God's chosen people to whom God would teach the hard lessons of grace, community, repentance, and renewal, among others, and to whom He would make the promise of a Savior Who would finally and ultimately fulfill Israel's mission to be a light to all nations.

Jesus became that light and through His death and resurrection, made it possible for all people to be reconciled to God, beginning the process of becoming a full partner in God's community of love once again.

Today, when we're baptized, we become part of "the holy catholic Church" and "the communion of saints." We're no longer naked in our sins, alienated from God or others, or ticketed for death. We're welcomed into God's family, covered by grace, and called to love all with the tough-minded commitment with which God has always loved us.

In the Church, we become part of something bigger than "I," yet each individual part is elevated by a sense of self-worth and indispensability. This is what the first century Christian preacher Paul was describing when he wrote, "we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another..." (Romans 12:5).

Paul writes elsewhere:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks*, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:12-13)

Notice the words I've italicized above. When we are baptized, we become part of a family of believers, who are nurtured by the Spirit, pulled by the Spirit, and broken by the Spirit, away from our inborn addiction to self and toward community.

That happens in the Church which, the Creed, first of all describes as holy, meaning set apart, and catholic. The word catholic comes from the Greek, literally meaning according to the whole. No matter how many ways we human beings try to slice and dice the Church, all who confess Jesus Christ and receive Holy Baptism and Holy Communion as intended by Christ, are part of one body. We Christians are stuck with each other for eternity.

Church translates the word found in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, ekklesia. This is a compound word meaning, roughly, called out. Christians, not by their own effort but by God's efforts alone, have been called out--or fished out--of the death-bound ways of the world into relationship with Christ, the life-giver, and which, in turn, changes our relationships with others.

The church is "the communion of saints." The word communion, more strictly, means community. The Church is an eternal fellowship that isn't confined to the buildings of brick, wood, or cardboard in which believers may meet in this world. The Church, in fact, is a community of saints, a good Bible word that simply refers to all who trust in Jesus Christ.

All saints are sinners and, in this world, don't get over their penchant for sinning. But saints are forgiven sinners who, day in and day out, turn to the God revealed in Christ, asking for the power to resist temptation and forgive as they've been forgiven, among other things.

The creation and sustenance of "the holy catholic Church" and "the communion of saints" is the work of the Holy Spirit, work the Spirit has been doing for more than two thousand years now.

More tomorrow.

*Here, Paul is referring to everyone who isn't a Jew, Gentiles.