Faith alone is our theme for today.
A blind man begs Jesus for mercy, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! and after Jesus let him recover his sight, Jesus says, Your faith has made you well.
Our Epistle speaks about love, and our faith is always in God’s perfect love for us, a love that is patient and kind toward us, a love that never ends.
Our faith is in Jesus, because Jesus alone is image of that perfect love, especially in His sacrificial, unselfish, self-giving death for us. He says today: The Son of Man….will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.
What do you believe in?
The word faith simply means trust. And for the Christian, we always want to make sure we are clear on what we trust, on Who we trust.
People believe and trust in all sorts of things. And sometimes, it’s the wrong thing.
R. Kelly taught us to sing, “I believe I can fly – I believe I can touch the sky.” That would be trusting in the wrong thing.
Do you trust me?
You might trust me to preach the Word and pray for you – but I don’t think you trust me to fix your car or give you a root canal. And your lack of faith in me in those things would be very wise.
Saying we believe in faith alone isn’t quite enough. Saying you gotta have faith, you gotta believe, you gotta trust isn’t enough.
True faith feed’s on the true promises of Christ.
Who do you believe in and what do you believe about Him?
Jesus today told the blind man that his faith made him well…other translations capture that the Greek Word more precisely means that Jesus said, “Your faith has saved you.”
What did that blind man have faith in? What is saving faith?
That blind man would have us sing not, “I believe I can fly…I believe that I can see…” but, “I believe in Jesus and in His mercy.”
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
Faith alone feeds on the sola’s: Scripture alone and grace alone.
St John ties them all together when the Holy Spirit though him writes that:These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.
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St. Paul says that Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ
What do you believe in?
It’s good today on Valentines today to consider that above all things, you believe God loves you.
Do you trust that? Is that a trustworthy statement?
Well, if I depend on my feelings, and my ups and downs, and in betweens, and our Lord asks, “Do you trust me?”
I would honestly have to say, “I believe….help my unbelief”
If you depend on the circumstances of life, how things are going, how people you love are treating, what your health or finances or family situations are life and our Lord would ask,
“Do you trust me?”
Wouldn’t you have to say the same, “I believe…help my unbelief.”
And if our faith in those things, feelings, how we perceive God thinks of, if our faith depends on how things are going, then we are on sinking sand.
Remember how Jesus warned about hearing His Word and then having shallow roots or of the danger of being choked out by the cares and riches and pleasure of this life?
But Jesus today wants to set before your eyes something you can trust forever, not matter what is happening or how you are feeling.
It is His love that never ends. It is His perfect love for you and the world. It is His mercy and goodness that will follow you all the days of your life, and that which He uses to help you keep crying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy.”
And that is His death for you.
Faith clings to God’s love, especially when we consider His passion.
Today, I’d like us to consider a hymn that helps us have the right faith.
Let’s speak this together and then Miss Fredda will sing it for us.
Jesus, I will ponder now
On Your holy passion;
With Your Spirit me endow
For such meditation.
Grant that I in love and faith
May the image cherish
Of your suffering, pain and death
That I may not perish.
These things are written, that we may believe.
These things we ponder that we may believe.
In love and faith, we cherish the image of Jesus’ passion, His suffering, pain and death.
There is nothing more important to ponder than Jesus’ death for us, especially when temptation or trial comes our way.
There is nothing more important for us to think upon than the promise that God gave up His Son unto death, so how much more will He graciously give us all things, especially when we start believing wrong things about ourselves, about God or about our life.
There is nothing more important to believe in than the Son of God’s mercy for us in dying our death and bearing our sin on the cross.
Pondering the death of Jesus is important for at least 3 reasons.
Because, first the death and resurrection of Jesus has been something that God had been planning since the fall into sin.
Jesus today says, “Everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished,”
Jesus said it. We believe it.
It’s not a human tragedy. It was God ordained and it was divinely executed. St. John refer’s to Jesus as The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).
Isaiah 53 saysthat All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
We should be thinking about the death and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus I will ponder now, trusting in the death of Jesus, because God has been thinking about it since the foundation of the world.
Second, God had been thinking about since the foundation of the world because was no other way for you to be forgiven, for you to be saved, for you to have that perfect love to trust in.
Jesus must do this. He must go to Jerusalem.
There was no other way.
It’s not necessary for Him to do it for Himself. But it is necessary for Him to do it for us.
Sinners can’t save themselves. We need saved.
Sinners can’t make themselves righteous. We need to be declared righteous.
We can’t make our hearts clean. God must take our dirty hearts and create in us clean hearts. We need our sin carried away by the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
But that Lamb has to be sacrificed for our sin.
Faith trusts. Faith agrees. Faith know that all this was necessary and faith agrees with it, even if it doesn’t fully understand it.
We ought meditate and ponder on the death of resurrection of Jesus because it was 1.)Planned by God, 2.) Necessary for us, 3) because it produces true love in us.
Love is hard. Love is purposeful. Love doesn’t shrink back from what must be done.
The cross shows this. The cross shows how hard it is to love us, what must be done for us, but it also shows us God did it and does it and will do it.
God loves us. Look at the cross.
Trust that as the most trustworthy promise you have in this life.
God gives you His Son, all so that no matter what is happening, you can know that you can trust Him and His mercy.
And in that faith, God produces love.
Faith receives the mercy and love of Jesus and then gives it.
We can’t give what we don’t have.
Our sinful hearts don’t produce that type of love naturally.
Love that is patient and kind, that does not insist on its own way, but bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.
Our sinful hearts produce selfishness naturally.
We can’t give what we don’t have.
But we can begin to give, what we we do have.
And as we receive mercy and love, we begin again to show mercy and love, patience, kindness, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.
Love that comes from trusting the right things, in the right One.
Your faith has made you well