Living By Faith

Rev. Don Baird, Trowel & Sword, April 1996

Preamble: This short article by Don Baird would seem to be stating the obvious to a Reformed Christian. Salvation is by faith alone. This seems straight forward enough, but Don takes it one step further. Faith in what? Faith in God? Read on to see where Don takes us in answering these questions.

Living By Faith

Last Sunday we celebrated the Lord’s Supper again. May I ask you: What do you think about when you come to the table? I mean: After you have found your seat and taken in who you are sitting with, what do you focus your thoughts on?

Maybe the words of the minister will determine that. You may hear him say, “That we, then, may be nourished with Christ, the true bread from heaven. Let us lift up our hearts to heaven, where he is; our Mediator, at the right hand of the Father.” Or, at least, you would hear him say that if he was using form 1 or 2 from the RCA Book of Liturgical Forms. Otherwise it would be simply, “Lift up your hearts! Look to your Lord in faith!” But anyway, your thoughts are being directed to Christ in heaven. From there he sends his Spirit so we may commune with him in a living way.

On the other hand, you may just sit there looking at the bread and the wine before you on the table. And, when it is passed around, eating and drinking those elements. At the same time we hear the familiar words, “Take, eat, remember and believe that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was given for a complete forgiveness of all our sins.” Which leads our thoughts to focus on the historical event of the cross and what happened there. The bread is a sign and seal of his body given there; the wine of his blood poured out there. So we remember him in his death.

The way we focus our thoughts – and our faith – at the table portrays how we are to focus our thoughts – and our faith every day. Each day we want to commune with our Lord. We think of him reigning in heaven at the right hand of the Father. From there he has spoken his word, and from there he has sent out his Spirit so we may believe that word. But the more we hear of that word, and the more we trust in it, the more we realise its central message is the same as the Supper: the historical event of the cross and what happened there. The central focus of our faith is to be that event.

Recently we attended a funeral in another church. The service included the Geoff Bullock song, “Have Faith in God”. The verses speak of “the power of the presence of God” and the chorus continues,

Very disappointing. If we are to continue in faith, as the song encourages us to do, we would do well to focus our faith on what God has accomplished in Christ at the cross, and not so much on what he is doing in our hearts.

We can do no better than imitate the confession of Christ’s apostle:

“the life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

 It is by faith that we are to live. But not so much in the Son of God who loves me and is now at work in my life, although that is wonderfully true. We may rejoice at what the Lord is doing in our lives, but the focus of our faith is to be on the objective fact that Christ loved me so much that he gave himself for me on the cross.

That is the focus of God’s word; that is the focus of the Supper; because the cross is the ground of our redemption and the source of everything God graciously gives us. It is tempting to try to short-circuit God’s way. To become engrossed in what the Lord seems to be doing in us and with us. After all, that seems immediate and relevant. And it takes precious time to come to grips with the apostolic teaching on how we are involved in the cross. And yet faith is the Lord’s way. Faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Don Baird

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