Faith is central in the Christian life. At the end of 1 Corinthians 13 Paul tells us that there remains faith, hope and charity or love, and the greatest of these is love. It’s like three steps on a staircase: faith, hope, love. You cannot conjure up love from nowhere. You take the steps to it. You start by trusting him; you trust him in every attack. He is your shield of faith. Then you hope or anticipate. If we have faith, then we can anticipate that he will protect us, and help and strengthen us, today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. As we do so, we appreciate and love him. We can look at many passages in the Gospels where Christ teaches the centrality of faith. Christ commended the faith of the centurion who believed he could heal without even coming to where his sick servant lay (Matthew 8:8). The Lord said, ‘Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee’ (Matthew 8:13). To the fearful disciples when the winds raged around the ship, the Lord said, ‘Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?’ (Matthew 8:26). Turning to the two blind men who asked him to give them their sight, the Lord asked, ‘Believe ye that I am able to do this?’ When they confirmed this, he said, ‘According to your faith be it unto you’ (Matthew 9:28-29). We may have a trial this week: very likely, a small one, an irritation, an aggravation; or possibly a massive one that takes the ground from under our feet and leaves us wondering what will become of us. Yes, but God knows; he allows it. God orchestrates it because we are being deepened in patience, and trained to anticipate God's dealings with us so that we admire him all the more.
Psalm 56 provides a wonderful example of the exercise of faith. David is in Gath and he has a double problem. He is on the run from Saul and there are 3000 men after him. So he goes into Gath to escape, and now the courtiers of the king of Gath are all against him, and he is right there in the enemy stronghold. He says, ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.’ He doesn’t know which way to turn, but he calms himself, and returns to the word of God, to the promises of God. He says, I ‘will praise his word’, his promises, his doctrines, that the believer shall never be lost, that none shall pluck him from God’s hand. ‘I will not fear what flesh’ – he almost says it with contempt – ‘can do unto me.’ That is all man is: flesh. I have God on my side; I can be delivered from anything. Verse 5: ‘Every day they wrest my words’; they speak against me. ‘All their thoughts are against me for evil.’ They will surely bring me down. This is not just paranoia; it was really happening. Verse 8: ‘Thou tellest my wanderings.’ Even where I've been foolish, David thinks, the eye of my God is upon me. He knows my situation. ‘Thy vows are upon me, O God. I will render praises unto thee, for thou hast delivered my soul from death.’ That is David taking up the shield of faith.
Sometimes the young believer says, ‘I don't know where I am. The trouble with me is I cannot fully trust. I may fall; I may let the Lord down; I may stumble and lose my way and then what? I do in a sense trust in him, but I cannot confess him, and I cannot be out and out for him, because I don't trust myself.’ You can only really say, ‘It isn't just about you, whether you can trust yourself. This is about the Lord. Can you trust him? That’s your assignment. You have gone to him and repented of your sin and yielded your life to him, and he has given you light and understanding. Don't you see, it is about him? You have got to trust him. Your assignment is to look to him and trust him no matter what, then you will prove him and he will always see you through. It is a life of faith and in every situation we are to apply our faith.