A year ago I preached a series of sermons entitled “Faith is a posture.” I am not sure it was a perfect title but I was attempting to convey the idea that biblical faith not only includes what we believe but how we carry ourselves.
A man of faith believes in specific propositional truths (Paul will often make reference to “the faith” implying there was a known and agreed upon set of beliefs) but the man of faith is also marked by an inherent humility – humility, as we will see, that is inherent in the faith, not necessarily in the man.
The woman who believes in the gospel (the verb, “believe,” and the noun, “faith,” both come from the same root word) does believe certain historical events have happened – Jesus’ life, death and resurrection to name a few - but she also approaches life from a position of dependence.
Biblical faith assumes dependence. Dependence assumes need. Need acknowledged is humility. Here lies the posture of faith.
The Old Testament stock phrase for this seems to be the “fear of the Lord.” Proverbs begins by telling us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.” Fear of the Lord is a posture. It is a way of seeing ourselves in reference to the Creator of all things. Those who “fear the Lord” are those who love him, trust him, obey him, seek to glorify him, rely on, and rest in him.
Sin begins with a grasping for autonomy. “The Lord is holding you back” is the essence of the tempter’s deceit. “You could be more; you could be like God – totally independent.” Hubris is the beginning of all foolishness. Wisdom, on the other hand, recognizes a higher authority and is therefore marked by humility.
In the New Testament this posture of dependence is described in a variety of ways but perhaps none more famous than Jesus’ first beatitude in Matthew 5.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the spiritually impoverished. Jesus uses an economic term here – the poor – because it is a concept his audience can readily understand. The poor, in one way or another, are people in need. They need money or food or friends or power or better health or better habits or a hand-up or a hand-out or advocacy or justice or mercy. The spiritual poor are the same. They are people in need.
Martin Lloyd-Jones, one of the twentieth century’s great preachers and Dale Bruner, one of its greatest scholars, both argue that Jesus begins with the poor in spirit in his sermon on the mount because spiritual poverty is the foundation for everything else. Jesus begins with the poor in spirit because this is where faith begins.
To continue Jesus’ economic metaphor the gospel is a failed welfare system. I know nothing about economics but it seems like a successful development program should provide needed resources and training to help a family in need keep their heads above water until they are able to become more independent. But this is not the gospel. Gospel success is growing in our dependence and letting go of our inherent self-reliance. The gospel is not “here is a little help until you can do it on your own.” The gospel is “you will never be able to do it on your own but there is great good news, Jesus has done it for you, trust him.”
Someone who is growing in gospel faith will be growing in their understanding of the depths of their need. I hope I have matured in my faith since my college days (speaking of hubris, I am happy that the articles I wrote for my college newspaper are no longer available for anyone to see). But, if there has been spiritual growth over the years it is not because I am now more spiritually wealthy than I was. Becoming a husband, pastor, parent, neighbor, friend, community member, coach, and counselor have all revealed that I need help in every direction.
But faith as a posture is more than just recognizing our spiritual deficiency. It also means trusting in the full sufficiency of Jesus. Jesus’ sermon begins in chapter 5 with the poor in spirit and it ends with Jesus’ short parable of the house built on a rock. The house on the rock stands not because it is a better house than the one built on the sand but because its foundation is sufficient to weather the storm. Dependence doesn’t just imply a deficiency on our part but also assumes an object of our reliance. We depend on Christ.
Recognizing we will never be able to make it on our own but that Jesus has done all that is needed for us does not lead to passivity. There is much to do. The rest of the sermon on the mount outlines what needs to be done – anger and lust need to be rooted out of our hearts, neighbors and enemies need to be loved, generosity and prayer and our attitude towards money need to flow from the joy of knowing God as a benevolent Father who knows the needs of his children and delights in providing for them. But all such doing is only possible from a position of humility, of dependence. Dependence actually leads to meaningful productivity.
In the weeks to follow we will look at what this meaningful productivity looks like – meekness, mourning, mercy and other such traits that are celebrated about as much as poverty is in our culture. Productivity in the kingdom of God will not look or feel like productivity in the world. But this should not surprise us when the beginning of faith is spiritual poverty and not wealth, when the posture of faith is humility instead of hubris, when the goal of faith is ever more reliance on our gracious elder brother Jesus over against our imagined self-sufficiency. Blessed are the poor in spirit not the spiritually wealthy or even the spiritually middle-class. Here is where we begin the life lived in Christ.
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