Title: Quality of Faith (Luke 17:5)
quality of faith
Luke 17:5-10
Guys, should we call this case good faith? What should I do? We do not call this belief, but ignorance. But in reality, in many cases, there are many beliefs that hide this recklessness.
There are generally four types of people's beliefs.
First, there is only knowledge when we say we believe, and there is belief that there is only excessive rational judgment and no emotions at all. This is a type that can be found especially in people who are called intellectuals. They know God, they know the Bible, and they know the profession of faith. If you ask me to teach others, I can teach them well. But the only belief of such a person is knowledge. My chest is cold. So, when I see a person with a warm heart, I think it is a fanatical faith. He thinks he is the only one who is intelligent and has the right faith. This is an illusion rather than a belief.
Second, there is a feeling of trust and reliance, but it is faith without knowledge or will. You lose your sanity by relying only on excessive emotions. This person is called. It seems that they believe and are moved by the forgiveness of sins, rejoicing and singing praises, but this heat does not last for long. These people even have problems with their relationships. Most people who meet easily and break up easily are overly sentimental. It is a pitiful belief that, when even a small tribulation comes, it collapses quickly and that heart disappears as if you ever believed in it.
Another is a person who wants to believe and does not know how to believe, but is troubled because he cannot believe it. I live my whole life with a heart I want to believe, but I can't believe it over and over again. It is also unfortunate that this kind of faith, which is always there with only the hope of believing, without having faith in the spirit even though the heart is desperate.
If you go to Italy, it is said that there are great graves. This man said that when he died, even if there was a resurrection, he would never rise, so he had to cover his tomb with marble. As he had promised, he covered it with thousands of kilograms of marble without any air leakage, but one day the hard marble top was split in two. Just before he was buried and placed in marble, the vitality of an oak tree that a bird bit and flew away broke the solid marble in half. This is the vitality of faith as big as a mustard seed that Jesus is talking about today.
Faith is like this. First, it is a matter of presence or absence. The first is the question of whether there is a right faith or not, and the second is the question of the quality of that belief. And the last thing to think about is the question of the amount of faith.
In today's text, Jesus wants to talk to his disciples about the quality of their faith. A parable is given to explain what one must do in order to have this kind of faith, and the core of the story is the story of the duty of a servant. This is to show the way to become a person of good quality of faith.
The first is that the servant must immediately know his identity. I am a servant. The servant has neither my will nor my plans. Only those who live by the grace of the Master. it's nothing. A servant is always a servant, and a servant cannot change and become a master. So, everyone, please don't try to be the owner. If you are an errand, living as an errand is happiness. I need to know who I am and who I am before I want anyone else to be. We are papers, and we must be paper servants.
The second is obedience. The quality of faith comes from obedience. Faith with obedience can bring about God's miracles, but if you want to have faith without obedience, it is robbery. So is the church. If you do not show your inner obedience and show only the outward boasting of your faith, then that person is nothing more than a Pharisee. A servant without obedience has already lost his identity as a servant. It no longer exists.
And another faith that does not expect anything in return is a good faith. The servant works outside all day and must attend after returning. It is not a separate payment. Verse 9 says that. If you look closely, there are many people who have good faith in church life. Serving, loyalty, and devotion are exceptional. It's really nice to look at, and I'm proud of it. However, there is a hill where you have to stumble at the end. Do you know what it is? It means you don't know yourself. In the end, you stop hoping to be praised and then you fall. From that moment on, your faith plummets. Faith falls to the ground.
Today, the Lord wants His disciples to have new faith. And the disciples will also be challenged quite a bit. Until now, they had never thought deeply about the quality of their faith. Even when the Lord rebuked them, ?쏰 you of little faith,??they only thought about the visible amount of faith. I hadn't really thought about it that deeply.
Dear saints!
We also need new beliefs. A belief that tried to appear plausible only by clinging to knowledge and rational judgment, a belief that only admired faith because it was biased toward emotions, and a formal faith that only had a vague wish to have faith and always lingers there, especially for a few years. I hope that you will be able to develop a qualitatively mature faith by breaking away from the faith to boast of the amount of visible faith that you have obtained it.