I finished part IV of Sinclair Ferguson’s In Christ Alone last night. The last few chapters of that section had to do with faith and its connection to God’s promises. It is often a lack of understanding about the true nature of faith that leaves Christians immature and struggling.
Sinclair points us to Hebrews 11 to show us “how faith operates.” Faith is essentially an assurance that God will keep His promises (the things hoped for). “Faith, then, in its present activity, is always looking forward to the future.” Hebrews 11 then goes on to focus on how this shaped the decisions and actions of people in space and time. Faith is manifested here and now as we wait for the there and then.
“(t)o live by faith is not to live by what we can see, feel, and touch- our sense-experience- but on the basis of what God has said and promised. … (f)aith is simply a matter of knowing what God says, trusting His Word because of who He is, and living in light of it.”
Faith receives God’s promises, and seeks to walk in light of them to produce holiness, or obedience. Sinclair mentions 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 as tying God’s promises to holiness. But it is not automatic. We have a responsibility. Sinclair lists a three-fold responsibility:
“First of all, I must know what God’s promises are. …
Second, I must feed my mind on the promises of God. …
Third, I must let God’s promises govern my lifestyle.”
Part of how that happens is praying in faith. This is another greatly misunderstood idea. He brings us to James 5 and the example of Elijah. Elijah was not a special person, meaning far superior in his obedience than us. He had issues too.
“The reason Elijah is used as an example is not that he was an extraordinary man: James stresses that he was ‘a man with a nature like ours’ (James 5:17). It is his ordinariness that is in view.
Elijah’s praying is used as an example not because it produced miracle-like effects, but because it gives us one of the clearest of all illustrations of what it means for anyone to pray with faith: it is believing God’s revealed Word, taking hold of His covenant commitment to it, and asking Him to keep it.
Shutting up the heavens was not, after all, a novel idea that originated in the fertile mind of Elijah. (Ferguson discusses how this is tied to the covenant in Deuteronomy 28, though the time frame was revealed by God to Elijah) … Like very ‘righteousman’ (James 5:16), Elijah sought to align his life with God’s covenant promises and threats. … This, then is the prayer of faith: to ask God to accomplish what He has promised in His Word.
We have to keep those promises in context, both in terms of what the promise means, to whom it applies and when it is to be applied. Some promises will not be fulfilled until the great restoration of creation when Jesus returns. But we continue to pray to that end.
The struggle is not our wrestling to bring Him to give us what we desire, but our wrestling with His Word until we are illuminated and subdued by it, saying, ‘Not my will, but Your will be done.’
Hopefully such sound, biblical thinking whets your appetite for this book.
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