What does the Bible say about faith?

The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on faith. 

• Genesis 28:16, faith in God's presence (Jacob woke from a dream and declared that the Lord was there)
• Psalm 23:1, faith in God as shepherd (the Lord is my shepherd)
• Psalm 27, faith in God as savior (the Lord is my light and salvation)
• Psalm 121:1-2, faith in God's help (my help comes from the maker of heaven and earth)
• Matthew 7:7, faith in God's good gifts (ask, seek, and knock; God will respond)
• Matthew 17:20, faith can have big results (if you have faith, even the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains)
• Mark 8:29, faith in Jesus (Peter calls Jesus the Messiah)
• John 1:11-12, faith makes us God's own (to all who believed, he gave power to become children of God)
• John 3:16-17, faith brings eternal life (God so loved the world that he gave his only Son; everyone who believes in him has eternal life)
• John 6:44, faith comes from God (no one can come to me unless the Father draws them)
• John 14:1-2,faith that Jesus and God are one (Jesus says: don't be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me)
• John 15:16, faith responds to God's love (you didn't choose me; I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit)
• John 20:30-31, documentation supports faith (signs of Jesus are written down that you might believe)
• Romans 6:6-11, faith gives life (we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus)
• Romans 8:15-16, when we cry to God it is the spirit bearing witness that we are children of God
• Romans 8:28, faith in God's goodness (in all things, God works for the good of those who love God and are called by God)
• Romans 10:9, confession of faith (if you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved)
• Galatians 2:20, faith transforms (not I, but Christ living in me)
• Ephesians 2:8-9, faith and grace (we have been saved by grace through faith)
• Hebrews 11:1, faith and hope (faith is the assurance of things hoped for but not yet seen)

Sermon ideas about faith

Belief and trust 

Sermons on faith can point out that faith has a cognitive component. For example: I believe that God is one. But as the epistle of James points out (James 2:19), the devils believe this too and shudder as they do. Belief that certain claims are true is a necessary but not sufficient component of true faith. 

Along with belief, the Christian also trusts God the Father to provide all that's needful for thriving, trusts Jesus Christ and his saving work, trusts the Holy Spirit to regenerate and keep on regenerating the believer's heart. Christians know it is safe to lean on God with all their weight, that God is a refuge and strength, a bulwark, a mighty stay within the shifting currents of life. 

Calling and gift 

A sermon on faith can acknowledge faith's mystery. Faith is the believer's calling: Believe in God and believe me, Jesus says (John 14:1). But faith is also God's gift: "No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me" (John 6:44). In this respect, faith is like other precious commodities. Patience, for example, is the believer's calling — clothe yourselves with patience (Colossians 3:12) — but also fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). How, exactly, this mystery of faith is to be parsed is not wholly clear, and it has caused plenty of spats, as between Augustinians and Pelagians and between Calvinists and Arminians. Yet all believe that God is active in the believer's acquisition of faith, and all agree that the believer has an urgent responsibility to cling to God's saving grace. We belong to God. 

Faith grows in community 

One of God's regular ways of introducing human beings to the life of faith is by seeing to it that so many are born or adopted into a Christian community. From early on, by word and by example, children begin to understand that life centers on Jesus Christ, on the Word of God, on the worshiping community, on evangelism and the hunger for justice. The life of faith seems natural to such children, almost inevitable. They feel connected to God, connected to their family, and connected to the Christian community. 

Responding to their calling, believers and their children engage in edifying worship. Songs, prayers, Bible readings, sermons, sacraments, gifts, recitation of creeds, communion of saints — all these things express faith and strengthen it. They expose believers to the breathing of the Holy Spirit. Openly accepting supernatural reality, believers defy secular materialism. Time after time, they say "I believe in God, the Father almighty." In an act of defiance they practice their faith; they rehearse it. 

How do we have faith? 

When it comes right down to it, it's hard to say how we have faith — and sermons on faith can also acknowledge this. Maybe the plainest thing to say is that we have a strong inner conviction. We discover that we have faith. We are convinced that the gospel is true, and that it is not only for others but also for us. And we discover that the Bible writers knew about our mysterious, unshakable conviction. They call it the witness of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the hidden persuader. It is the Spirit who stimulates childlike faith. The Spirit witnesses to the truth of the Bible, telling us in our hearts that they are from God. The Spirit sparks faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is the Holy Spirit who broods over our deep places when we ache with the sense of God in nature. 

How do we contend with evil? 

People of faith must learn to contend with evil. It can contaminate faith. It's harder to believe in God when we see children suffer, old people suffer, or animals suffer. Maybe all things work together for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28), but the good is often hard to spot. We must look for it with the eyes of faith, and sometimes we strain to see it. 

But goodness is real enough, and sometimes it shows up in strange places. The story is told of a terrible cell in the dungeon of an old English castle. No light could reach it from the outside. On one wall, the stone had been worn into the shape of a hand, because men dying of thirst leaned there while they licked the filthy moisture that leaked from the moat through one small crack. In that darkness someone had scratched — with a belt buckle, perhaps — the old words of Jacob: The Lord is in this place — and I did not know it (see Genesis 28). 

We need faith even to believe in our own redemption, and the reason is not that we are so humble. The reason is that we are not so faithful. We secretly think Jesus isn't up to the job of saving us. So we consider others dead to sin and alive to God, because we think love requires us to give them the benefit of the doubt. But we won't give ourselves the same benefit. Maybe it would help to recall that ethicist Lewis Smedes used to remark about the scope of God's rejecting grace. God rejects our pride, to be sure; but God also rejects our despair. The reason is that, of course, we needed to be died for, but also that in God's gracious judgment we are worth dying for. 

Misplaced faith can be tragic or even dangerous. Before World War II, both Germans and Japanese believed in their own national and cultural superiority, and drew from their faith a sense of entitlement. Because of their superiority they were entitled to other people's land, their treasure, their obedience. Both nations had to accept painful but clarifying defeat and rehabilitation. 

A final illustration of the distinction between belief and trust. In the summer of 1859, a French acrobat named Charles Blondin announced that he would cross Niagara Falls on a high wire. Huge crowds gathered on both sides of the falls. Sporting men bet large sums on Blondin's chances. High above the deadly torrent the daredevil started slowly along the thin wire, carrying only his fifty-pound balancing pole. Foot by agonizing foot, leaning into the stiff wind, Blondin made his way across the length of the wire. Then Blondin came up with an even more outrageous stunt. He would attempt the crossing with his manager riding on his back. Bigger crowds gathered; larger sums were bet. Two questions: Do you believe Blondin could succeed? If so, you would be like the men who bet on him. But now the harder question: Would you have trusted Blondin enough to get on his back? 

Excerpts about faith 

Following are sample excerpts from Zeteosearch.org sermon resources about faith: 

• "Although Psalm 25 has this form, it seems to have been written as a model prayer, based on the cries of individuals to God in earlier psalms. The fact that model prayers like this appear in the Psalter indicates how important it is regularly to recite words that call us to faith and dependence on God." Sermon Preparation by Jerome Creach from Working Preacher  

• "In swapping the life-giving Jesus for the death-dealing Barabbas, we chose the way of death. God, however, through Peter, invites us to turn away from that way of death and toward the way of life that is faith in Jesus Christ." Sermon Preparation by Doug Bratt from Center for Excellence in Preaching.  

• "So that faith, which is coming to Christ, is the result of divine drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation, and faith, important as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs." Scripture Meditation or Sermon by Charles Spurgeon from The Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching.