Belief or Faith

OT Lesson: Genesis 12:1-4a (CEB)

The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
those who curse you I will curse;
all the families of the earth
will be blessed because of you.”

Abram left just as the Lord told him, and Lot went with him.

NT Lesson: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 (NRSV)

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. This is the second Sunday in Lent, and the communion Sunday. So, how is your Lent going? There are a few things you can do to make your Lent more pious. You can meditate with the daily Lenten devotional which the church provided, and still available for pick up. The other thing is to come to the Community Lenten Wednesday Soup & Supper. It was at the Catholic church last week. I went to St. Joseph Catholic church with Samuel and Hannah for the first time. A few nice church ladies gave us a tour of the sanctuary. It was very beautiful. Their sanctuary has different kind of beauty from ours, such as it is very colourful. They have huge pipes for the organ which were very impressive. But then I was told that their organ is electronic, and the pipes are decorative. Well, in that case, those pipes were serving their purpose very well. The Community Lent Soup & Supper this Wednesday will be at the Lutheran church, and we are going to host it on the following Wednesday. We need to provide soups. Please sign up. There is one big common thing between Catholic church and Lutheran church—beer. Martin Luther was a German and did not oppose drinking beer year round. In fact, he encouraged people to drink beer. His reasoning was like this: When you drink lots of beer, then you sleep. When you sleep, you don’t sin. When you don’t sin, you go to heaven. Thus beer helps go to heaven. Even his wife owned and was running a brewery which still operates day in Wittenberg, Germany.

Bock Beer

But then what has the Catholics to do with beers? The Catholic monks in Einbeck, Germany invented a very nice beer, which was called Einbeck beer from the town name. It is now known as bock beer, which is my favourite beer. And the monks began to feel guilty of drinking such wonderful beer during Lent because the Catholics are not allowed to have anything good during Lent, such as no meat on Fridays. The monks wanted to live by the rule because they were the German monks. Who is the rule maker in the Catholic church? Pope. So they sent the bottles of bock beer to Pope Clement VIII in Vatican from Einbeck, Germany, asking if it is OK to drink this great beer during Lent. The problem was back in the seventeenth century, there was no refrigeration technology, and no fast transportation. It took about forty days in the hot days, which spoiled the beer. Upon reading the letter from the monks, the Pope became curious—“So, this beer is that good, making the monks feel guilty? Hmm.” He had one sip and spat it out immediately, yelling “Santo Dio! This is not a beer! No good things during Lent, but I declare that any Christians can drink as much bock beer as they want during Lent!” So the Catholic monks in Einbeck enjoyed Lent with the tons of bock beer because that was the direct order from the very Pope. And because of this, Pope Clement VIII is my favourite Pope. And even though I am not a Catholic, there is at least one Catholic rule which I can willingly follow.

Abraham Leaving Home Country

Now, let me really begin the sermon. Today we have Abraham. I know what you think—“Abraham again? Come on, please!” Well, to defend myself, I did not choose today’s Scriptures, just followed the common lectionary. Abraham is extremely important figure in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, so he will definitely come again and over again. But his life is quite interesting, and the same old stories in his life can also be very exciting according to our perspective. Genesis 12 is the very beginning of the story and the journey of Abraham. Abraham is introduced at the end of chapter 11, but that was just the genealogy and no actual story. Here is the brief genealogy of Abraham: He had at least two brothers, Haran and Nahor. Haran had a son and two daughters. The son’s name was Lot. Abraham’s other brother Nahor married Haran’s daughter. The Hebrew word דודי (dodi) mean ‘my uncle,’ but its literal meaning is ‘my love.’ It is because they used to marry their uncle, so their uncle was also their love. Abraham went one step further because he married his half-sister, same father but different mothers. And their daughter-in-law, Rebecca, was the daughter of their nephew. When we dig Jacob and his wives, it gets weirder. The Jewish family tree in Genesis is really tangled. Maybe we can deal with it at the Saturday Bible Study some day.

Anyway, one day God appeared to Abraham and told him, “Hey, leave your home country. Just go to the airport, then I will tell you which air plane to get on.” Well, I guess not many people can follow this kind of direction. And the thing is Abraham was living in the most advanced and developed country at that time. So no matter where he goes, it will be a worse place to live in unless he stays at his home town. So it is not like telling someone in Korea to fly to America. It was more like God is telling someone who was born and raised in this country and well settled, to go to somewhere like Cambodia or Uganda. And the thing is, Abraham actually did, and he was seventy-five years old. 

Justification Not by Work

Apostle Paul in his epistle to the church in Rome says that Abraham was not justified by works when clearly Abraham did a great work of faith. How many well settled Americans, do you think, can actually move permanently to Cambodia within a month? Not many. Maybe one in million? So Abraham obeyed with the great work of faith, and yet Apostle Paul says Abraham was not justified by works—Period. And he affirms what the Genesis says by citing it: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” And he continues, “The promise…did not come to Abraham…through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” Likewise we are not saved by our own works but by our faith through the grace and love of God. I guess this is kind of easy for you because you must have heard it million times so far. So I don’t want to say the same old same old thing again. Because that will make my already boring sermon even more boring.

Two Words for One Thing?

Learning a language is always difficult unless you learn it as a baby. In that way, I envy Samuel because he simply absorbs two languages. Anyway when I was learning English in Korea, I found that there are many English words which can be translated into two different Korean words, and vice versa. For example, in Korean language, we distinguish two types of owls with different names. In this case, it is easy for me because I don’t have to distinguish the two in English. But the other way is troublesome to me. The Koreans do not distinguish pigeons and doves. Now I can tell but I had hard time learning the difference. Alligators and crocodiles are one word in Korea, and still I am confused about them. And even now I have no clue about the differences of bunnies, rabbits, and hares. In Korean language, we only have one word for all three and we do not distinguish them at all. So it is painful for me to learn those kinds of things.

Faith vs Belief

The other example comes from the Bible. When I was reading the English Bible for the first time, I found that the Bible mentions two different but similar words—faith and belief. In Korean language again, those two are not distinguished. So, I googled but no clear answers. I asked many pastors and professors in Canada and America, and was told most times that those are the same thing. But if those are identical, there is no reason for us to have have two words. So I’ve been pondering for a long time and came to my own conclusion. I don’t know how much sense it makes linguistically, but I believe it makes some sense theologically. And it is very simple.

Belief is obviously from the English verb ‘to believe.’ If you believe in God, you have belief on God. If you believe your mother, then you have belief on your mother. The flow of action is from the person who believes. Then from where is the word faith? It is from Latin. But Latin equivalent to believe is credo as we see in Apostle’s Creed. Another Latin word is fido, and faith is from this fido. Another English word from fido is fidelity. The dictionary definition of fidelity is the faithfulness to a person or something demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. Let’s just go easy. The fidelity is not cheating your spouse. So if a husband is faithful to his wife, then she believes that he will not sleep with another woman. In this case, the flow of action is reversed. When a husband is faithful or has faithfulness, it is not that he believes but she believes him.

In this way, when “we” have belief, then we believe in God. But when we have faith, then “God” believes us, “God” trusts us. In the book of Job, God assembled a big meeting up in heaven and Satan came as well. And God said to Satan, “Have you seen Job? He is so good and righteous. He will not betray me.” Obviously God believed and trusted Job. In other words, Job had faith. Abraham by obedience proved that he is trustworthy. And God believed that Abraham will always obey. In other words, Abraham had faith. It is fairly easy to have belief because the Bible says that God is faithful. God is faithful and we can trust and believe in God. But it is not easy to have faith because unless “God” believes and trusts us, what we have is not faith by any means.

Conclusion

Friends, we all have belief. That is why we are worshipping God either in person here at the church, or online at home. But today, let us examine ourselves if we have faith, if God can trust us, and if we are trustworthy. If so, that is great and let us continue that way. If not, let us do our best in this season of Lent so that God can believe and trust us. In other words, let us have faith. Proverbs 25:13 says, “Like a snow-cooled drink at harvest time1, is a trustworthy messenger to the one who sends him; he refreshes the spirit of his master.” Let us have faith and let us refresh the Spirit of our Master from this season of Lent and on. Amen.