Virtue Signals – Faith

Faith                                                                    

Good morning! It’s good to have all of you here this morning. I’m Pastor Ryan Lenerz, and I go by the pronouns He/Him. . . .

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I know that makes some of your heads explode, but I said it to show an obvious example of “virtue signaling” in our culture. The new series we are starting today is “Virtue Signals.” As Christians, we should signal to the world a set of virtues very different from what our culture is signaling.

Ultimately, as Christians we should be identified with Christ. That’s why everything we do in our service today is centered on Jesus. We’re going to sing praise to Jesus; we’re going to remember His death on the cross through communion; and we’ll share a message that is all about putting our faith in Jesus, our Savior.

Virtue Signals Explained

I already gave you a nugget of what today’s message is about. Maybe you haven’t heard the phrase “virtue signaling”; but right now it’s a popular trend in our culture, especially on college campuses and in corporate board rooms.

To understand virtue signaling, let’s look at the role of signals – of any kind.

• Signals are simple signs that communicate much more to us than just the sign itself. When we see a red light in traffic, we know we must stop. We know that cross traffic is probably moving because they have a green light. And we know that we should soon get the green light ourselves and be able to move forward.
• Similarly, a virtue signal is a small action or statement or banner that communicates much more than the signal itself, hoping to make others think more highly of your virtue. For example, a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag or a rainbow flag on a house. Those are two simple signals that say much more about the spread of beliefs those people hold than about political views only.
• Back when the Toyota Prius first came out, it was rare and pricey and not very comfortable to drive. Still, some rich Hollywood actors bought the first ones because it was a virtue signal to the world that they cared more about the environment than everyone driving Gas-Only cars. Nowadays, a red 2010 Prius is just a signal that your pastor is cheap!
• Last week I read an article that made me laugh. Corporations are trying to get in on virtue signaling, so to show people how much they care about the environment, they started installing bee hives on corporate rooftops in Manhattan. The problem is, so many corporations did this all at once, and Manhattan has so few trees and flowers that there are actually too many bees and it’s killing off the bees that are native to the area. So many bees in a concrete jungle!
• One common virtue signal you may notice on occasion goes like this: someone changes their Facebook profile picture for a new cause they care about but never do anything to actually support. They just want you to think more highly of them because they care about it and took two minutes to change their picture.

Here’s the thing: the Bible tells us the virtues that should identify us as Christians, and they’re not the same virtues the world is posturing with. Biblical virtue signals for Christians should include Faith, Hope, Love, Grace, Truth and Humility. The list could keep going, but I plan to keep this series to six weeks.

My hope is that at the end of this series we all will evaluate our lives against these virtues to make sure we are signaling to the world, through how we live, the character of Jesus rather than our own ideologies.

From the Hereafter Back to the Here and Now

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 – ¹²For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. ¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

The Apostle Paul is telling the church in Corinth, “Look, in this life you see only a tiny, foggy piece of the things of God. But when the Last Day comes with judgment, Heaven, and Hell, then finally we will have all the answers we’ve been striving for. In the meantime, here’s what we should be focused on: faith, hope and love.” These three virtues should define us in this life as well as the next. That’s why Paul ties these three words together in the same paragraph half a dozen times in his letters. This is why we are beginning our series by shining a light on these virtues first. Today we will look at faith.

Most Basic Identification of a Christian: Belief in Jesus

When we speak of faith, we really are talking about belief. This is not just a superficial belief that something is correct, but a belief that runs so deeply it impacts how you view the world all around you. The instruction to be people who hold this depth of belief is found all through the Bible: most famously in John 3:16 – “. . . for whoever BELIEVES in Him will not perish, but have eternal life”; and most directly by Paul in Acts 16:31 – “BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

Belief in Jesus means putting your faith and your trust in this person Jesus Christ, who walked this earth 2000 years ago to actually be God and to be The Way you can one day stand in the presence of God.

This is the fork in the road between a Christian and a non-Christian – between a Believer and an Unbeliever. Do you believe? Do you put your faith in Jesus? This is why faith is listed first among the virtues in 1 Corinthians 13. Without faith, a person is not a Christian. You can have hope for a better future and be a loving person and not be a Christian. The foundation for all Christians begins with faith.

You can even want to be a good person and volunteer your time at the food pantry and go to church regularly; but if you don’t have faith – if you don’t actually believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world – then you aren’t a Christian. Your faith and your belief in Jesus is where everything begins with God.

Christian faith means:

• Abandoning all trust in one’s own resources;
• Casting oneself unreservedly on the mercy of God;
• Laying hold of the promises of God in Christ, relying entirely on the finished work of Christ for salvation and on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit for daily strength;
• Complete reliance on God and full obedience to God.

Faith is the virtue by which all of us should seek to be recognized.

Faith is the Foundation for All God’s Saints

Speaking of faith, there is a well-known passage in the Bible known as the Faith Chapter. If you have a Bible, I would like for you to turn to Hebrews chapter 11. This chapter walks through a list of many characters whose stories are told in the Old Testament. Their lives all share one common thread: Faith in God.

This theme is clearly spelled out in Hebrews 11:6, where the author writes:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Take a moment to run through the list of characters in Hebrews ll.

• Verse 4      Abel
• Verse 5      Enoch
• Verse 7      Noah
• Verse 8      Abraham
• Verse 11    Sarah
• Verse 17    Abraham again (his willingness to sacrifice Isaac)
• Verse 20    Isaac
• Verse 21    Jacob
• Verse 22    Joseph
• Verse 24    Moses
• Verse 29    Israelites at the Red Sea
• Verse 30    Marchers at Jericho
• Verse 31    Rahab

I hope you’ll read this whole passage of Hebrews 11:32-38. It goes on to tell of many Christians who experienced severe persecution during the days of the early Church in the New Testament.

Growing in Faith

The people listed in Hebrews 11 are our spiritual ancestors. I don’t know about you, but I get excited when I read this list! I’m encouraged when I see the faith of those who have gone before me. I also feel challenged. Do I have faith like the faith those people demonstrated with their lives?

Does my life SIGNAL my belief in Jesus? Do people recognize what I stand for not because of my job as a pastor but because they see how my faith in Jesus impacts every part of my life? Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. The good news for us all is that we have a lifetime to grow our faith.

Faith doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It begins small and develops through experience. When we read of the saints listed in Hebrews 11, it’s easy to think, “Well, I just don’t have faith like theirs. They are Heroes and I’m a Zero!” We must remember, however, that none of them began with the same faith they ended with.

• Abraham had faith to follow God’s leading to a foreign land AFTER God showed up to him.
• And Abraham had faith to sacrifice his son Isaac despite Isaac’s miraculous birth to 90-year-old Sarah.
• Before Moses followed God, he experienced a bush that didn’t burn up. Later, when he doubted God again, God did miracles to prove He was with Moses.
• Even Jesus’s disciples started out with missteps, and Jesus called them “O you of little faith.”

So right now, if you feel your faith is small, that’s okay. Try the following:

• Focus on the times God has felt truly REAL to you.
• Remember the times He answered your prayers.
• Think about the saints in your own life – people around you who have a deep and steady faith. Lean on them
• Most importantly, ask God to grow your faith. (Granted, this might mean He will take you through a challenging adventure to get the job done.)

Others of you may go through times of doubt about God. Fortunately, that doesn’t disqualify you from Heaven. It’s human.

I imagine there were nights when, after a long day of boat building, Noah sat back and looked at this giant ark in the middle of the desert and thought, “Am I nuts?”

Just before his execution, John the Baptist, Jesus’s own cousin, sent his friends to Jesus just to verify that Jesus REALLY WAS the promised Messiah. John was asking, “Are You SURE?”

So when we start to doubt, when we start to wonder if everything we believe is REAL, we have to just dig our heels in and choose to believe. We have to fall back on the foundation of why we became a “Believer” in the first place, and trust.

In either case, Jesus tells us that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. God does the big stuff. We simply have to be people who BELIEVE GOD CAN and WILL do the big stuff for us in life.

Growing in Faith

To wrap up this message we have to turn back to Hebrews and see how the author concluded his message about these Heroes of the Faith.

Hebrews 12:1-2 – ¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.

Run with God. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Live by faith, not by sight. That’s the challenge – and the blessing. Believers get to experience this life in a supernatural sense, in touch with the Creator and Sustainer of this world.

Remember – when your faith feels weak it’s not up to you to WILL yourself to have perfect faith. That is Jesus’s job; He is the author and perfecter of your faith. We see how much the faith of Jesus’s disciples grew, by the power of the Holy Spirit, during the time of the book of Acts. Jesus will do the same in your life as long as you keep your eyes on Him. What He started, He will finish. Hold on to that assurance.

So what do we do with this faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior? We worship. We give Him the glory and the praise only He deserves.