The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Walking by Faith in Uncertain Times

Episode Date: October 5, 2017

What's the difference between "believe-ism" and true Christian faith? In this episode, Jeff explains how to distinguish between the two, and he points out how we can more fully entrust ourselves to Christ and walk in faith, uncertain as life may be.

You're listening to the Jeff Kavens show. Episode 36, Living by Faith in Uncertain Times. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show.

And I welcome you to the show this week. we are talking about living by or walking by faith in uncertain times, and we want to take a look at really what biblical faith is, and what does it mean to, you know, to walk by faith? We use those words quite often, but uncertain times is what is in the forefront right now. And I'm, of course, speaking about the great demonstration of horror and evil that took place in Las Vegas. And at the time of this broadcast, there were 59, 59 people who have lost their life and over 500 people who have been seriously injured in one way or another. And, you know, I started thinking about this and I actually had something else I wanted to share with you this week. And then this came up

and it just didn't seem appropriate to, you know, to talk about something else. And so I wanted to, I wanted to bring this up and offer a couple of suggestions for prayer and then take a look at walking by faith in uncertain times because when things like this happen, it does shake people. It gives people a sense of insecurity. It gives people a sense of doubt and inhumanity. And they seem to be happening more and more. And we need to learn to walk by faith in our lives. And I think that that's a really, really important thing to do. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about it. But when I say that our prayers, for example, are with the families of those who have lost their loved ones, those that have been traumatized,

those who have been injured. I don't mean that as a fond sentiment, you know, of we're thinking of you, our thoughts are with you. I think that we as Christians, we as Catholics, have more to offer than our thoughts, you know. I think we have more to offer than kind sentiments. We really do have prayer that we can offer people. And when we pray in the name of Jesus, we are agreeing with the will of God for people's lives. And this speaks to the closeness, the solidarity that we have with Jesus as members of the body of Christ,

that he has shared with us some of the responsibility to carry out his will in the world today. And we can do that by praying. And so I suggest that we pray for the families for comfort, that God would bring people into their lives that would bring comfort to them. We cannot fix this. We cannot say anything. We do not have a verse or a paragraph right now that is going to diminish the great pain that they are experiencing.

But we can pray for comfort and we can comfort ourselves. I have been in situations before where people have lost loved ones and my mind immediately went to theology. It went to, you know, things that are quotes that I could say, whatever, but didn't work. And they just needed somebody to hold them and to be with them. And so I encourage you to hold these people in your heart in prayer and pray that God will be done and that He would comfort them and that God would bring about an ever-increasing justice in our society today. This is what we pray for.

and fight for is justice, and we pray that people would come to know the truth of the Trinity, to be brought up into the life of the Trinity, which is love. And what we saw demonstrated in Las Vegas is the complete opposite. It is the opposite of the love of the Trinity. And I can't even begin to guess why somebody would do that. That's not my role right now. That's going to be taken care of. but I do know that I have the power of prayer, and I can reach out to these people to do that.

So join me in praying for them. Well, we're going to be talking here about walking by faith in uncertain times, and maybe you've gone through your own period of uncertain times, and you're kind of confused as to how do I walk? Or what does it mean to be a man of faith or to be a woman of faith? And that's what we want to talk about. reminded of the scripture in Hebrews 111, which says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. I love that verse, and I have memorized that verse for years.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. I think, you know, first of all, I want to talk about a little bit about, you know, faith and what faith means. you know, the word faith, and what it doesn't mean. Because I think we have some misunderstandings about what faith is and that oftentimes people will equate faith with simple believism. You know, I say, well, do you have faith? They go, yeah, I believe in God. Do you have faith?

Yeah, I believe in Jesus. Do you have faith? Yeah, I believe God does miracles. And that's what people oftentimes equate with faith when that is not faith. That's believism. They're believing something. But I'm going to show you today on the show that faith is more comprehensive deeper than just believism. And that when we say we have faith, that it really does involve our doing something.

It involves our getting active. So faith is one of the richest terms in the Word of God. And there are three primary ways to use the word faith. that really helps us to tap into the richness. Faith as a gift received from God. Faith is a gift received from God. And we believe as Catholics that at baptism, we received three theological virtues,

faith, hope, and love, charity. And so we have faith in us. And that results in how we live. We have faith. faith also as our personal assent to the truths of the Catholic faith, that we believe these things. I'm going to show you that goes a little bit deeper than just believism, and then faith as the content of divine revelation. It's what we believe. We have this faith that we believe.

And I like what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5.7, he said that we walk by faith and not by sight. so for you and me when we conduct our lives on a daily basis at home neighborhood family whatever it might be we walk by faith not just by sight we don't walk by just what we see but we walk by faith and i'm going to dismiss this common understanding in popular television shows that that means that we just sort of walk in this blind faith that's not what this is talking about at all but we walk by faith and not by sight. And to live out these dimensions of faith in our everyday lives,

we've really got to have some kind of understanding on this. So I want to start off by saying, what is faith? Okay, what is faith? And there's two words, and I'll put these in the show notes for you. In Hebrew, the word faith is emunah. Emunah. I'll put that in the show notes. Emunah.

In Greek, P-S-T-I-S. And when we talk about emunah in the Hebrew scriptures, I want to give you the first example of this that we see in scripture, and that is all the way back in the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 17 and verse 12, it's when Moses was with Aaron and her and surrounded by the enemy. And when Moses' hands were held steady in the air, they were prevailing. But when his hands were weighty and went down, they were defeated. And here's how it goes. It says, but Moses' hands were heavy, and then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it.

And Aaron and her supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus, his hands were steady until the sunset. Now, that phrase, thus his hands were steady until the sunset, that word steady in Hebrew is the word emunah. It's the word that we get faith. when his hands were steady. Now, this word emunah in Hebrew, and this is going to completely, I think, blow out of the water some of your notions

of what faith is. Emunah carries the meaning of steadiness, long endurance, fidelity, but more than anything else, it carries the concept of faithfulness. Faithfulness, that's right. Faith is better understood as faithfulness. and that's one of the characteristics of God's ethical nature is faithfulness.

God is faithful. And that's a beautiful thing that we worship a God that is not subject to nominalism, this philosophy, that there are no universal principles or things that we can depend upon. No, he is faithful. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it says in 1st Corinthians 1, 9, God is faithful by whom you are called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And then Paul

told Timothy in 2.13, he said, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. For he cannot deny himself. I like what Deuteronomy 7.9 says. Now, all these will be in the show notes for you. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God,

the faithful God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. So we know that God is faithful. And we also know that his son is faithful. His son is faithful. And that's what the writer of Hebrews said. In fact, the writer of Hebrews compared the faithfulness of Moses with the faithfulness of Jesus in Hebrews 3, 5, and 6 when he said, now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant

to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful over God's house as a son, as a son. See? So the sun is faithful. Now, the basis of our faithfulness. We have received faith at baptism. The basis of our faithfulness is not our own strength. It isn't our own intestinal fortitude. We're going to do it. We're going to pull our boots up by the straps as good old faithful Americans. That isn't what we're talking about here. The basis of our faithful is his faithfulness. That's the gold standard right there. It's God's faithfulness. You be faithful as he is faithful. And it tells us in Habakkuk chapter 2 in verse 4. And if you want to know where Habakkuk is, just put your Bible on the side and look for that area that's well worn.

No, just kidding you. But look for Habakkuk 2.4. It says, but the righteous will live by his faith, by his faith. And so for those who have struggled with concrete examples of faithfulness, we know that God has provided us his son, Jesus Christ, to show us what faithfulness is. Now, I came across a catechism paragraph that I thought was absolutely amazing. I'll put it in the show notes, but I think it's amazing. And I have coined this paragraph 346. as a mental sacramental. It's a mental sacramental. And what I mean by this is that this paragraph in the catechism

talks about some of the laws that have been established at creation by God and how these laws will remind us of God's unshakable faithfulness in his covenant love. Listen to what it says in paragraph 346. In creation, God laid a foundation and established. establish laws that remain firm. Now, what would one of those, I'll break from it, just for a moment, what would one of those laws be? And you could probably think of a number of them, but if you're like most people, you're going to run to gravity right away, you know?

It tells us that when God laid a foundation, he established laws that remain firm. And one of those laws is, yep, gravity. You can bet on gravity. Gravity is going to work every time. He says, it goes on, says, in creation, God laid a foundation and established laws that remain firm on which the believer can rely with confidence. Now, get this. Get this. You're going to love it. For they are the sign and pledge of the unshakable faithfulness of God's covenant. For his part, man must remain faithful to this

foundation and respect the laws which the Creator has written into it. Now, what are we saying there? This is something so beautiful. What we're saying here is that when you witness gravity, take a moment if you want to. If you're in the car and there's a pen there, pick it up, drop it on the floor. You'll notice it works. Gravity works. If you are, God forbid, to drive off a bridge right now, gravity will work whether you want gravity to work or not. It's going to work, okay? And when you see gravity working, you are seeing, my friend, a sign and a place. pledge of the unshakable faithfulness of God's covenant. That is a mental sacramental.

That'll draw you to the Lord all day long as you see gravity in motion. It's an amazing little paragraph in the catechism, and I absolutely love it. I love it. It's so great. Now, one of the times where we speak about believing in faith in our lives the most is in the mass and we we recite the creed together in the mass and when we recite the creed together we say a bunch of things you know there's major categories like i believe in one god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth of all things visible and invisible and then it goes on

and says i believe in one lord jesus christ the only begotten son of god born of the father before all ages. God from God, light from light, true God, from true God, begotten, not made consubstantial with the Father. And it goes on. It talks about for our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered, death, was buried. And then it goes on and it tells us, I believe in the Holy Spirit. This is what we say. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.

And then it goes on to, I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. And then it ends with amen. Now, we say that all the time in mass, don't we? We say it all the time in mass that we believe these things. You know, we believe these things. And I think it's a reminder to us of what we believe, certainly. But let me tell you what the creed is not. The creed is not simply a checklist of the things that we typically believe.

In other words, we don't go to Mass and say, I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, check. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, check. That is not why we recite the creed at all. We recite the creed, we recite the creed as a way of entrusting ourselves, to God in a powerful way. Now, here's what's interesting. One of the keys to understanding the creed, which we say every week,

is the word believe. And because the word believe and the word faith and amen are all connected. They're connected. The catechism tells us in paragraph 150, and this is so important, faith is first of all,

a personal adherence of man to God. And at the same time and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself holy to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature.

that's paragraph 150 that will be in the show notes now what is that saying let me let me kind of just uh uh make this really simple to to understand all right what we're saying here is this faith biblical faith is not just believism i'm just not exerting spiritual energy and saying I believe, I believe, I believe, almost as if I'm trying to convince myself that I believe. No, that is not biblical faith. Biblical faith has two aspects to it, two. And what I'm about to share with you can literally change your life in uncertain times. I'm going to take a break.

When I come back, I'm going to give you the two aspects of biblical faith that will change your life in uncertain times. times and from this point on the creed and what you say when you say i believe is going to be totally totally life transforming you're listening to the jeff kaven show we'll be back in a moment the bible is such an important part of our catholic faith but it's not always easy to understand there are 73 separate books and so many names places and events that sometimes we just stop trying to figure out how it all fits together the good news is the great adventure bible studies make it easy for you to understand the Bible. By focusing on the story that ties all of Scripture together, the Great Adventure Bible studies give you the big picture of the Bible, and once you

see the big picture of salvation history, the Mass will make more sense, the Catholic faith will make more sense, and you will see how God has a loving plan for your life. The Great Adventure Bible studies have helped hundreds of thousands of people to understand the Bible and grow closer to Christ. There's no other Catholic Bible study series like it. And you can get started on the great adventure today by creating your free account at ascensionpress.com. Okay, are you ready for those two aspects of what it means to believe? What are you ready for that? Okay, so there are two aspects to believing. In paragraph 150 of the catechism says it, but it's kind of veiled in a way. You got to kind of have to unpack it. Okay, so what one paragraph 150 says about faith is this.

First, first of all, we would say that it's something intellectual. Faith is something intellectual. If someone says to you, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God? And you say, yes, I do. Check. Intellectually, I believe it. I believe it. All right? And so, in other words, my mind makes some mental assent to all that God has revealed in Scripture and through the church. The church says this, I believe it. Mental check, I believe it. I'm there. Well, that's good.

But that's only half of it, all right? That's believism. Belivism doesn't change the world. It doesn't change lives. Belivism, right? In fact, we're told in James that faith without works is, as they say in Texas, dead. Faith without works is dead. So, number one, something intellectual.

My mind says, yes, I believe what the scripture says. I believe what the church teaches. Now, the second aspect of biblical faith in uncertain times is a personal entrusting of oneself to God. One of the words that is translated, belief, is the Hebrew word, amen. So we start the creed off with, I believe, we end it with, Amen. So the second aspect of biblical faith, Emunah, in Hebrew, is a personal entrusting of oneself to God. So when you put it all together, you have, number one, something intellectual, my mind makes a mental assent and says yes to what God has revealed. I say yes. Now, here's the problem. A lot of people just stop there. And they say, well, I do believe.

No, you're agreeing with something. That isn't believing. You're a lot of agreeing with something. The second part of it completes it to where we have believe and faith and that is you are now going to personally entrust yourself to God in what you believe. You're going to put it on the line all in as they say in cards and Texas hold them. I'm all in. All the chips are in. I've given myself completely over to this. In paragraph 1062 in the catechism it says in Hebrew Amen comes from the same root as the word believe. This root expresses solidity, trustworthiness, faithfulness.

And so we can understand why amen may express both God's faithfulness towards us and our trust in Him. And I love what it says in paragraph 1064 of the Catechism. It says, thus the creed's final amen repeats and confirms its first words, I believe. I believe. So this is really, really a powerful, powerful thing. So in building on this a little bit, the catechism also teaches us that our response to God's revelation is faith. And when God reveals something about himself, and the church teaches us something about the mystery of heaven and the Trinity and the economy of God. Our response is faith. Our response is not just believing. Our response is faith, and that is mental assent, yes, I agree. But now I'm going to entrust myself to God.

And that's why the catechism says in paragraph 142 and 143 that our response is faith and what the church calls the obedience of faith. My friend, that is a great thing to remember today. Whatever you're going through right now is that if you're going to respond to God, it's not just believism. It is the obedience of faith. And how did God reveal himself? Paragraph 53 of the Catechism says, and I know I'm giving you a lot of that this week, but that's just the way it is. He says, says in there that God reveals himself in words and deeds. So how do we respond? In words? you got it and deeds words and deeds a personal adherence to god an intellectual assent yes i believe now let me give you uh let me give you a story that one of my friends uses in a teaching i thought

uh it really does make the point it really does make the point about the difference between just believing and believing and entrusting yourself okay and the story goes like this. If you've ever been to Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls is a little bit scary. You know, I mean, you get up there close and you think about the idea of falling off, you know, into those falls. It's not going to go good at all, even if you've got a nice cushy barrel around you. Not many people have survived that. But there's a, there's this guy that is a daredevil, I guess you would call them, and it kind of like the Wellenda brothers. And they do these, you know, walks on tight ropes between buildings and such.

Well, there was this guy that had this great big tightrope across Niagara Falls from the United States side all the way over to the Canadian side. And I'm going to describe this for you. The crowd has assembled on both sides. CNN and Fox are there. Anderson Cooper. Shepard Smith, everybody's there. They've got sponsors.

They're talking about this event with other dared. and they're talking about it with sports stars and going to breaks and coming back. And suddenly it's time. It's time now where this guy is going to actually walk across Niagara Falls on this little half-inch rope and a pole in his hands. And drum roll and the crowd goes quiet and he takes his first step. And he takes his second step. And he calculates the third and the fourth.

And it ends up taking him close to a half an hour. He crosses the center point, and he's over onto almost the Canadian side, and about a half an hour goes by, and he finally takes that last step, and he makes it, and both sides of the Niagara Falls, both sides, both countries begin cheering in such a loud way, applause and everything, and the commentators are going crazy, and then it kind of dies down, and one guy yells out from the American side, do it again, Do it again. And the tightrope artist grabs the microphone and speaks to both sides on this giant amplification system and he says, do you think I can do it again? And the crowd yells, yes, we believe. We believe you. We believe in you. You can do it. And he yells back to the crowd. Do you think I can do it again? Blindfolded. And they yell, yes. We believe. We believe. And he says, do you think I can do it blindfolded? Pushing a wheelbarrow. And the crowd once again yells, yes, we believe. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. And he says, do you think I can do it again, blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrel with a human being in the wheelbarrow. And the crowd yells, yes, yes, yes. And both sides in unison. Yes, we believe, we believe, we believe.

and he gets on the megaphone and the microphone and he yells out, I need a volunteer. And the crowd grew quiet. And they realized at that point nobody believed. Everybody made mental assent that he could do it.

But nobody entrusted themselves to him. Is that the kind of faith that you have in your life right now, where you believe what the church teaches with enthusiasm. You believe what you read in scripture with great excitement, but you're not entrusting yourself to the one who wrote it. My friend, if that's what you're experiencing, it's an empty faith, it's faith without works, it's dead, as they say in Texas, and it's not going to bear fruit. If you're living in

uncertain times right now in your life, you need more than just believism. If you're struggling in your marriage right now, you need more than believism. If you're really struggling with loneliness, if you're struggling with depression, if you're struggling with anxiety, if you're struggling with a lack of direction in your life, you need more than simply believing precepts. You need to entrust yourself to the Lord. And so walking by faith, get this, walking by faith is believing what we have been given and then entrusting yourself. In other words, getting in the wheelbarrow with Jesus in uncertain times.

In times where you feel like emotionally you are walking over. Niagara Falls and I know from some of the correspondence that I have received from you that I know that there are some real lonely times and some some uncertain times and I want you to know that I love you pray for you when I say I love you I love you in the Lord I love you in the Lord and I pray for you in uncertain times I want to I want to kind of end this show by reading something from scripture that gives you a lot of examples of people who walk by faith in uncertain times okay and we call this the hall of faith it's hebrews

chapter 11 it starts off by stating what i stated at the beginning of this show now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen and now here goes the the hall of faith for by it faith for by it the men of old received divine approval by faith we understand that the world was created by the word of god so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear by faith able offered to god a more acceptable sacrifice than cain through which he received approval as righteous God bearing witness by accepting his gifts. He died, but through his faith, he is still speaking.

By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him. Now before he was taken, he was attested as having pleased God. And without faith, it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark for the saving of his household.

By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which comes by faith. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was to go. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land living in tents with Isaac and Jacob heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city which has found, which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.

By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, it just goes on and on and on with tremendous stories of people who walked by faith. They walked by faith. And you can too.

Read that chapter. There's more there. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you right now, but read it for yourself. It is an amazing chapter. an amazing chapter. Now, let me just conclude with this. I really encourage you to pray and ask God to show you the areas of your life that you need to really address when it comes to faithfulness. If you want to be a man of faith, you need to be a faithful man. And I'll tell you, that's my prayer in my life. Do I struggle with it? Oh, I do. I do. I do. I want to be a faithful man in my walk with God, my walk with my wife, my walk with my children, my walk with finances, my walk with my time, my walk with my affections, all of these things. I want to be a faithful man, a man of faith. That's my prayer. That's my prayer. A woman of faith,

the same thing. And so we look at the various areas of our life. Are you faithful in your walk with God? Now, what would that look like? that would look like I believe in God, but I'm entrusting myself to God in all these areas. Do you need to work on faith when it comes to your marriage, when it comes to your prayer time, when it comes to family, when it comes to work, when it comes to your finances, do you need to walk in faithfulness more? That's our prayer this week. And as we have been watching the news and what's happening in Vegas right, now in Las Vegas, I'm reminded, and I don't mean it lightly, that what happens in Vegas

doesn't stay in Vegas. It's impacted all of us. And that's the nature of sin. Pope John Paul II said that sin is not a private thing. It has concentric circles and impact and waves as that rock is dropped in the middle of a pond all shores feel the results of sin and great sin and great horror and great evil has has happened and it does affect us no what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas it impacts all of us and I want to encourage you to walk in faith in uncertain times now and that is to believe to make mental assent but to entrust yourself to God. Now, if you know of somebody who's struggling right now, I would encourage you to pass this show on to them. If you have questions, if you have comments,

please go to iTunes and rank the show. Give me your comments. You can go to SoundCloud also. Ascensionpresents.com is where this podcast is housed. And my email is The Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com. And I read every email that comes my way. Let's close in prayer, shall we? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, I thank you today for giving us life.

And Lord, these certainly are uncertain times, but we know that you're the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we do believe in you. And that means that we say yes to all that you have taught, all that you have given the church, but we also we complete this faith equation by entrusting ourselves to you.

Lord, we're going to get in the wheelbarrel with you. We're going to get in there. We're going to entrust ourselves totally to you in the uncertain times. Even though it looks like we're walking over Niagara Falls on a rope, Lord, we're going to entrust ourselves to you. And I pray for all my friends listening right now

that are going through these difficult times that they would walk by faith and not by sight, and that they would receive the inheritance that you have for them as sons and daughters of God. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My friend, have a great week in and walk in faith. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.