When Faith Isn’t

Lord’s called us to do. If you
would take your Bibles and turn back to the Gospel of John, the
Gospel of John, and we find ourselves even yet in chapter two. There’s one thing that I’ve learned
and observed in my 25 years of being a Christian is that Christians
put a lot of stock in their faith. A lot of stock in their ability
to exercise their faith. A lot of stock in their estimation
of their faith. I think most people have a rather
elevated view of their faith and their ability to exercise
their faith, there is absolutely no doubt that the scriptures
declare to us that we are called to place our faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. But you don’t have to get very
far into the scriptures to discover that that faith is to be of a
certain kind. is to be of a particular brand,
if you will, of faith. It’s a God-given faith. It’s
a faith that changes you. It’s a faith that works. It’s a faith that begins to live
out and change from within the person who exercises that faith. As I come to this message, which
I’ve entitled, When Faith Isn’t, I would say that we almost come
in our day and age to a crisis of faith. A time in our Christian
society where we don’t even really understand what faith is anymore. And we think that all we need
to do is believe that Jesus existed. or believe that he really was
the son of God. We need to discover, we need
to realize that there is a faith, there is a kind of faith which
is not pleasing to God. A faith that is substandard,
a faith that is in essence empty. What John does in this very brief
passage, and it absolutely is a transitional passage, but that
doesn’t mean that it’s unimportant. In fact, for me, I rejoiced and
I’ve already seen the Lord put together a number of elements
that I didn’t even plan that affirmed this passage as being
just perfect in our preparation for the Lord’s table. John puts
this little section as a transition from that first temple cleansing
which we considered for several weeks. He sandwiches this transition
between that and between his interaction with Nicodemus. And
he effectively shows here that Jesus knows the heart of mankind. He knows the nature of their
thinking. He knows their faith. He knows what’s going on in their
heads and in their hearts. The other thing that we draw
from this is this was not a populist movement. Jesus didn’t need to
be popular. Jesus didn’t need the swell of
the masses in their affirmation of Him and who He was. In this
very short passage, three little verses, what we begin to see
is the false faith that was so popular. The false faith that was so prevalent. And Christ knew it all. if you
would, go back to chapter two. And in order to set the context,
I take you back, I’m not gonna read the entire passage, but
if you go back to verse 12, that’s where we found ourselves in the
temple cleansing. He was going down to Capernaum,
he ended up at the Passover, the Passover was near, he went
into the temple, he found all of these sordid things going
on, oxen and sheep, money changers. And he began to drive them out
because they were literally in the court of the Gentiles, which
was essentially their evangelism program, or was supposed to be.
The court of the Gentiles was to draw them in and to impart
the Jewish faith to the Gentiles who came in. Well, this didn’t
sit well. It didn’t sit well with the religious
elite. And so in verse 18, they asked
for his authority. On whose authority was he doing
these things? We looked at that passage several
weeks ago and discovered that essentially what Christ was proclaiming
there was his resurrection. They didn’t grasp it. Even his
own disciples didn’t grasp it. We come to verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem
at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, observing
his signs which he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, was not
entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men, and because
he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself
knew what was in man. We would think, perhaps you would
think, that even in light of my introduction, that I’ve misread
this passage. That there’s good things going
on. After all, many believed in His name. But once you take
that passage in full, you have to almost put that believed in
quotes. there was this group of people
that began to react to the things that were going on. This gathering
of people that saw his miracles, who were taken with his miracles,
they were impressed by his miracles. And in a sense, they wanted to
affiliate with Jesus just because of the miracles that he has done.
We don’t even know what all they are. John doesn’t even record
them. In fact, if you look at a harmony
of the Gospels, this particular passage is positioned before
almost any works had been done, other than the cleansing of the
temple. They saw the works, whatever they were, they were impressed
enough by them to have some kind of faith in Christ. But it wasn’t
a Gospel kind of faith, it wasn’t repentance. It wasn’t an acknowledgement
of their own sin. It wasn’t an expression of their
need of a savior. They were amused. They were impressed
at these things that Jesus was doing. And they probably even
sensed that he had some supernatural power and perhaps even that he
was a supernatural being. As one said, they believed in
Jesus like they believed that Tiberius was the emperor. They
acknowledged him as such. But there were no acknowledgments
of sin. There were no seasons of repentance
in their life. There was no yearning to discover
more of his holy nature and his call upon their lives. There
wasn’t any of that. Some said that they believed
in who he was as the Messiah, only in the sense that they may
have deemed him the fulfillment of what the Old Testament prophets
had said for years. But they missed what the Old
Testament prophets said about themselves, that they desperately
needed a Savior. And so they accepted him, perhaps
as a prophet, maybe even as a Messiah. But they didn’t give their life
to Him. They didn’t give their hearts.
They weren’t ready to hear about their sin. As one said, while
such faith is better than none, it is not the deepest faith. It is no more than a beginning.
It does not know Him as the Son of Man, still less as the unique
Son of God. It is therefore imperfect and
liable to be overthrown. We’ll take a look at that in
a moment. How legitimate is this faith? We’ll see that as John’s
gospel unfolds, that little by little, those who said that they
believed in Christ were falling by the wayside. So much so that
at the end of chapter six, you have a great, great departure. You say, they believed in his
name. They believed in who he was. They saw that he was a miracle
worker. They saw that in some sense he
was someone special and they believed in him. They were willing
to accept him in so far as that went. But they didn’t really
embrace him with their whole heart. And there’s a hint as
to why in verse 23. In verse 23 it says, when he
was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed
in his name, observing the signs which he was doing. That really
was the great prompter to faith. Not the character of Christ,
not his sinless nature, not the fact that he was the would-be
Savior who would pay the penalty on the cross, none of that. Just one that did a lot of amazing
things, amazing works. They were observing. And this
is one of John’s favorite terms. John uses it 23 times and Paul
never uses it. They were watching. They were
intently observing. They were taking it all in. They
loved these signs. And from what we’ve already seen
of John’s gospel, John will allude to signs many times that he never
even tells us what the signs were. There were all kinds of
miracles being done, none of which were recorded by John up
to this point, unless perhaps you consider the temple cleansing
a miracle, which I think is a stretch. It was a work. It was an articulation
of his lordship, of his calling as the Messiah. But it wasn’t
a miracle in the true sense of the word. All this to say there
were all kinds of miracles. All kinds of miracles being done,
enough so that a great crowd was gathering around Christ because
of them. John doesn’t even record. In
fact, at the end of John’s gospel, he acknowledges that. In John
chapter 20 verse 30, many other signs Jesus also performed in
the presence of the disciples which are not written in this
book. In fact, John goes on to tell
us why they’re not written. In chapter 21, verse 25, there
are many other things of which Jesus did, which if they were
written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that were written. In other words, John
just says there is so much, there’s so much to know about this Savior,
this Lord Jesus. There’s so much that he did,
so many miracles that he performed, even if you started writing at
the beginning of time and wrote throughout history, you could
never fill it. John doesn’t record these, but
he says that it was enough to generate this faith of a kind. One pastor said it this way,
testimony. Testimony is communicated by
signs. These signs had a purpose. They
were meant to communicate something about Christ, something about
his nature, something about his calling. Testimony is communicated
by signs, faith is awakened, and it is suggested that where
it is sincere and develops into trust, there will issue the life
which results in an ever deepening knowledge of Christ. Let’s unpack
that for a moment. He basically says that Christ
came and began to do these works as a sign, as a testimony. They were a piece of communication. They were meant to communicate
certain things. Essentially, we know that they
were to attest Christ’s nature as God. And he goes on to say
that faith is awakened. Faith is the beginning. It’s
not the end. It’s not the end result. It is
a start. And I think awakening is an appropriate
term there. It was as if their eyes were
opened to who Christ is. That doesn’t mean that they are
saved by that particular faith, not yet. But when it is sincere,
he goes on, and develops into trust. They see Christ for who
he is, and though he is speaking into their life, and though he
is calling them to repentance, they take him for who he is,
they trust him. And he says from there, they
will issue the life which results in an ever deepening knowledge
of Christ. Do you know Christ in that way?
Do you yearn to be corrected by Him? Do you long to have your
sin pointed out to you? Do you long to grow more and
more in Christ-likeness every day? Or do you think that just
that first moment that you heard Jesus’ name, that you were complete
in and of that faith? It’s not the case. In this particular situation,
their faith was just this veneer. It was superficial, it was flat.
It was based exclusively on these miracles that they had seen.
They were impressed, that might be a better word. They were impressed
with Jesus. They hadn’t put their faith in
him, not really. This is a recurring theme throughout
John’s gospel. I already alluded to that. John
7 31, many of the crowd believed in him and they were saying,
when the Christ comes, he will not perform more signs than this
man, will he? In other words, they believed in
him, but then they wonder whether he’s really the Christ. That’s
not saving faith. Saving faith is one that apprehends
Christ for who He is. He is the Savior of mankind. John 11, 47, likewise, the chief
priests, the Pharisees convened a council saying, what are we
doing? For this man is performing many signs. We see them. Yet we know that by and large,
the Pharisees didn’t place their faith in Christ. Witnessing and
observing signs is not proof that one is saved. It doesn’t
necessarily lead to salvation at all, does it? There’s one little section that’s
recorded in Mark’s gospel that points this out. John or Mark
chapter 6 says that when they had crossed over, they came to
the land of Gennesaret, they moored to the shore. When they
got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him. They
ran about that whole country and began to carry here and there
on their pallets those who were sick to the place where they
heard he was. Wherever he entered, villages
or cities or countryside, they were laying the sick in the marketplaces
and imploring him that he might just touch the fringe of his
cloak. And as many as touched it were
being cured. That’s all they wanted. That’s
all they wanted was a physical healing. That’s all they wanted
was to have some miracle performed. They weren’t clamoring. to Christ
for who He was, not in His completeness. They weren’t clamoring to Christ
for salvation. They weren’t yearning for Him
to forgive their sin. And in a sense, this verse, many
were believing, many believed rather in His name, observing
His signs which He was doing. as long as they were seeing them.
It’s kind of a, what have you done for me lately, Jesus, kind
of an attitude. As long as Jesus was doing fancy
things, they were happy to follow him. But you leave off these
miracles, and they would depart in droves, and they did. These
people had been attracted to Jesus largely because of these
signs. They maybe were intrigued with
him, but it wasn’t a deep kind of faith. In fact, as this is
a transitional passage, essentially what this is, this faith that
they supposedly have is a faith that kind of along the lines
of what Nicodemus had. Look down at chapter 3 in verse
2. Lord willing, we take up Nicodemus
next Lord’s Day. In verse 2 it says, this man
came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, and you can almost
just hear him begin to schmooze, Rabbi, we know that you have
come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that
you do unless God is with them. That was their attitude. They
knew that God was with Jesus. They knew that he had done some
amazing things. But the faith that rests only
on a miracle isn’t true faith. That’s when faith isn’t faith
at all. Luther called it milk faith. It may grow into something
more, and in many cases did, and we’ll take a look at Nicodemus
next Lord’s Day. This intellectual conviction,
this so-called intellectual faith isn’t faith at all. It’s a start.
It’s an awakening. But as one faithful pastor said,
Jesus regarded all belief in Him as superficial, which does
not have as its most essential element the consciousness of
need for forgiveness and the conviction that He alone is the
mediator of that forgiveness. If that isn’t at the core of
our faith, it isn’t faith. It’s not the faith that Christ
looked for. Glance down if you would at verse
24, but Jesus. Now when he was in Jerusalem
at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name, observing
his signs, which he was doing, but Jesus. And that’s what makes
this such a remarkable transition. It’s like we’re traveling at
full speed and suddenly we hit the brakes. Skidding and spinning. Because you see that many believed
in his name. Isn’t that what he came for?
Isn’t that enough? He did the signs and they believed.
But Jesus, but Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to
him. And this is such a graphic, it’s such a graphic statement
in the original. Jesus had a hand in this too.
Jesus was part of this relationship. And on his part, he looked at
them and he knew. He knew the superficial nature
of their faith. He knew that it was, if you will,
half-hearted. And there’s a play on words here
that usually isn’t captured only by a few English translations.
The word believed and the word here that Jesus was not entrusting. That word is the same. It’s the
word for faith. And you could say that many trusted
in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t trust in them. There’s a play on words. He didn’t entrust himself. He took them at face value insofar
as he was able, but he knew their hearts. He knew what they were
really like. He couldn’t enter into this deep
relationship with them Because He knew what was in their
hearts. He knew they were half-hearted. There is this word play between
this word here in verse 24, entrusted and believed, and verse 23, Jesus
didn’t trust them. He didn’t entrust His person
to Him. As one said, He had no faith
in their faith. That’s a good way to put it.
Jesus knew all men. And because he looked for genuine
conversion, he looked at the heart, he looked at them and
he knew that he did not have legitimate faith. Look at verse
24, Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them. Why?
For he knew all men. He knew what was in their hearts
and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning them. It’s
not like when he came into town, hey, tell me about so-and-so.
What’s he like? Good guy? Not at all. All Jesus had to do is look at
him. He knew exactly who they were. He had what one called a penetrating
insight into man’s characters. And you know, God has that, right? God knows exactly what you’re
like. God knows what your fears are. God knows what your weaknesses
are. God knows what your strengths are. God knows where you’ve blown
it. God knows about your sin. God knows about your thoughts. Jesus Christ knew human nature.
He knew what their motives were. He knew what guided them. He
knew what drove them. He knew what they loved. It was amazing to me. Absolutely
amazing. A number of commentators came
to this and weren’t quite sure if this was supernatural knowledge.
Really. The Lord Jesus Christ, God in
the flesh, Why is it so astounding that he could look on another
individual and know immediately, know instantly as God, what makes
them tick? He knew about Peter, didn’t he?
Chapter 1, verse 42, he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at
him and said, you are Simon, son of John, you should be called
Cephas. He knew him so well, he knew his character, he knew
his weaknesses, he knew what his proclivities were. He knew
this impetuous nature. He knew that he was going to
be a leader. Jesus knew more about Peter instantly than Peter
knew about himself in a lifetime. Nathanael? Jesus had Nathanael
figured out, didn’t he? Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
him and said of him, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom
there is no deceit. Nathanael was astounded by that,
remember? He knew about Nicodemus. We look at Nicodemus, next Lord’s
day, Lord willing, Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God. He called Nicodemus to account immediately. He knew
exactly what Nicodemus was doing. He knew about the Samaritan woman,
didn’t he? Samaritan woman returned home
to her village and said, come see a man who told me all the
things that I have done. This is not the Christ, is it?
Jesus knew about her. Jesus knew about the disciples.
He knew when they were bickering. He knew when they were grumbling,
John 6. Jesus knew about Judas, didn’t he? He knew Judas’ heart. John 6.64, there are some of
you who do not believe. Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were, who did not believe, and who it was who would betray
him. Nothing caught him off guard. This isn’t Jesus placed on earth
in this capacity of learning about the nature of mankind and
assigning arbitrarily to some people these poor characteristics. Jesus knew. Jesus knew Peter. Not only initially, but even
after he walks with Peter, he knows where Peter’s going. Will
you, Peter, lay down your life for me? Truly, I say to you,
a rooster will not crow until you deny me three times. I’ll
tell you what I know, Peter. He knew about Thomas too, didn’t
he? He said to Thomas, reach here with your finger and see
my hands, reach your hand and put into my side and do not be
unbelieving. He knew Thomas’s doubtful heart. Jesus didn’t have to gather information. He didn’t have to sit back and
observe particular habits of men to know that there goes a
lazy man. There goes a lustful man. There
goes a foolish man. There goes a sinful man. Jesus
knew instantly. Jesus has known all along. That’s
why Jesus came. It was a divine attribute. He knew exactly what was in a
man. every person with whom He ever dealt with. One faithful shepherd said Jesus
knew human nature all too well. He knew quite well that there
were many who were only attracted by the sensational things that
He did. He knew quite well that there
were many who would have followed Him while He continued to produce
miracles, wonders, and signs. But if he had begun to talk to
them about service and self-denial, self-surrender to the will of
God, a cross, carrying a cross, they would have stared at him
with a blank incomprehension and would have left him on the
spot. That’s true. That happened. And so it’s absolutely appropriate
that we come to this passage to examine our faith. I know of a certainty that there
are many in this room with a sincere faith who’ve taken Christ for
who He is and have examined their hearts and have fallen on knees
of repentance and placed their faith in Jesus Christ alone for
salvation. I know there are many. But just based on human nature,
I know that there are others who have placed their faith in
faith. We think that just believing,
or believing that Jesus was a certain thing is enough, and it’s not. Faith issues forth in obedience,
doesn’t it? And the scriptures call us to
examine our faith. Faith issues forth in love, doesn’t
it? And it calls us to examine whether
what we’re doing is loving. There are tests of faith throughout
the New Testament. Godliness, righteousness, holiness,
the fruit of the Spirit, sanctification, as Hebrew says, without which
no one will see the Lord. It’s an active faith, it’s a
living faith. I told you at the outset, but
I’d already seen the Lord begin to put this together. I didn’t
plan this. But when my brother stood up
and read from Mark chapter 4, I thought to myself, he just
stole my closing illustration. No, he didn’t. He just paved
the way. Turn, if you would, to Luke chapter
8. You want to examine your faith? What
a great passage to do it. The parallel passage of what
our brother read from Mark’s gospel. I picked Luke’s. It’s also in Matthew chapter
13. Jesus is in the midst of this
large crowd. He’s got devoted followers, the
disciples themselves. There are harsh critics all about
him. There are curious onlookers.
There are some who had placed a kind of faith in Christ. And Jesus issues this call to
examine their faith, and he basically says, in this parable of the
soils, that there are four kinds of faith. Four different kinds
of soil that represent the human heart. And a seed, the gospel,
goes into each of those soils. Each one in a different condition,
each one with a different result. Look at verse 5, the sower went
out to sow his seed, and we’re told in verse 11 what that seed
is. The seed is the word of God.
The seed is the gospel. There’s no problem with the seed.
It’s perfect. It’s good seed. The parable is
not a parable about the quality of the seed. The parable is a
parable about the quality of the man’s heart into which the
seed falls. Look at the first soil, verse
5. About halfway through, as he sowed, some fell beside the
road. It was trampled underfoot and
the birds of the air ate it up. There is no faith here at all. In fact, Luke’s gospel adds that
the seed was trampled underfoot before being eaten, gobbled up,
taken away by the devil himself. That’s the first heart. They
hear the message, it goes in one ear and out the other. It
doesn’t resonate. These are the people that won’t even give you
a fair shake. They won’t let you even engage in conversation
about those things. They’ve heard it all. They don’t
want to hear anymore. But the second, the second one
is one of the ones I want to look at this morning. The second
one, verse 6, other seed fell on rocky soil and as soon as
it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture. I
would say that these are the very same people, same kinds
of people that Christ is talking about in John chapter 2. Who
have faith in their faith. They hear it, they’re amused
by it, and initially it looks legit. They come, they even sign
up, they go. And then they just run out of
energy on this Christianity thing. This rocky soil that he mentions,
it’s rock really with a tiny little bit of soil on top. And
Matthew and Mark both make it clear that that’s the issue,
that the seed, as soon as it sprouts, and it looks legit,
it starts, it looks like everybody else. They sit in the same church,
sit in the same place, they even buy the same Bible, and for a
time it looks legitimate. But when it starts to grow, just
runs out of moisture. Verse 13 tells us these on the
rocky soil are those who when they hear they receive the word
with joy. Oh, they love what they hear and
they have no firm root. They believe for a while and
in a time of temptation they fall away. It’s the hasty heart. It’s the flippant heart. It’s
the heart that comes to church, church going, they go to retreats,
they go to all these things, and they even receive it with
joy for a time it looks so real. But when the difficulties come,
when challenges come, time of temptation, when they
realize that they’re in this battle of their life against
sin, temptations, trials, persecution. No, no, they didn’t sign up for
any of this. They thought that they were being exempted from
all of that. They weren’t. There’s a third
kind of seed and soil that Jesus points to, it’s weedy soil. Look
at verse seven, other seed fell among the thorns and the thorns
grew up and choked it out. These too were among the people
that Jesus was talking about in John chapter 2. They had placed
their faith in Christ. They had seen His works. Look
at verse 14, the seed which fell among the thorns. These are the
ones who have heard. You might even say they placed their
faith in Christ. They saw Him for what He was.
But as they go on their way, they’re choked with worries,
and riches, and pleasures, and they bring no fruit to maturity. They start off okay. They have
all the resources. The seed was good. There’s competition. There’s trinkets. There’s the
world’s allures. There’s toys. There’s all the
stuff that the world has to offer and all the things in it. They’re ambitious. They look
the part for a lengthy season, much longer than the rocky soil
Christian. As one said, the choking is not
a sudden process. Like the trampling and devouring,
nor a rapid process like the withering, it takes time. It
is as they go on their way through life, and before they’ve reached
the goal, that the choking of the good growth takes place,
therefore they never reach that goal. But you and I prayerfully
are thankful that there is a fourth soil. Verse 8, other seed fell
in the good soil and grew up and produced a crop hundred times
as great Jesus tells about this soil in verse 15, but the seed
and the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word
in an honest and good heart, hold it fast and bear fruit with
perseverance. These are the ones who see Christ
for who He is. They see themselves for who they
are. They know that they bring nothing
good to the equation. They desperately need Christ
as the Savior. That’s the faith that Christ
looks for. Not this fleeting, not this flippant,
not this casual approach to Christianity. It’s Christ. It’s Christ that
we embrace by faith. Would you humble yourself before
him? Our merciful King, Every heart
in this room, by your grace, would examine itself. And Lord,
we come solemnly to this table. This is an institution that you
ordained. Even in the night in which you
were in the midst of being betrayed. Lord, how could we come flippantly?
How could we come casually? How could we come half-heartedly?
Grant us the grace to examine our hearts. It’s in Jesus’ name
that we pray. Amen.