Defining Faith

Okay, we are going through a series on faith, and the title is Simply Defining Faith. This is part two of three, and today's topic is, What Does It Mean to Trust? Now, last time it was, What Does It Mean to Believe? And now we're adding a layer to that, What Does It Mean to Trust? Last time we began with a question about John 3 16. What did Jesus mean by the word believe? And we saw that the Greek words pistis and pisteio, which is the family of Greek words that we translate faith or believe or trust, has a broader range of meaning than the English word belief.

Sometimes English doesn't quite capture what the original language meant. So the Mounts dictionary, M-O-U-N-C-E, defines pistis, the noun of the family, as faith, faithfulness, believe, trust, and it says it carries the implication of action based on the trust that may follow. Mounts defines pisteio, the verb, as believing or trusting.

So it can be either or. It seems as though the noun pistis can have a much broader range than the verb pisteio. But that's looking at it from our 2026 point of view. We weren't actually in the first century. But it seems like pistis is slightly broader than pisteio. But either way, Mounts defines pisteio as believing, trusting, and entrusting or communicating something into another person's care.

Not communicating, commuting something into another person's care. That's really important. Hold on to that thought and we'll get to that in the story that we're going to hit today. Now, in this particular series, we're not doing the typical turn to this scripture, here's what it means, and I'll turn to this scripture, and here's what it means, and I'll turn to this scripture, and here's what it means.

And I normally do that. But in this series, we're doing stories. This is a narrative-based sermon series where we're actually looking at how they behaved to define what they meant. Because if you look at what they did, you understand what they meant. And it eliminates all confusion as to what did they mean when they said pisteio? Did they mean intellectual belief alone?

Did they mean trust? Did they mean loyalty? Did they mean all of them? So we're looking at the stories in this one. That's the point. This is a narrative-type sermon. But we are going to do a little nerdy stuff because we need to get some Greek definitions. So there's another dictionary besides mounts called kiddl. Well, that's its nickname. It's the theological dictionary of the New Testament. And it takes the thought a bit further. In discussing the Christian use of the word family, it says that obedience, trust, hope, and faithfulness are also implied.

And faithfulness is another word for loyalty. Okay? So in other words, biblical faith doesn't stay only in the mind. And these are just definitions of the word. All you've got to do is look it up. But we don't need to just look it up. We can see this in the stories we're going to see as well. Okay? So what we learn or what we believe actually affects how we act. And let me just make a kind of a bold... It'll sound dogmatic, but it's not me being dogmatic. It's Jesus being dogmatic.

Let me make a dogmatic statement. God does not count intellectual belief as faith. Let me say it again. God does not count intellectual belief as faith. It doesn't even count. You need it. It's necessary. You can't have faith without it. But if all you have is intellectual belief, I believe there's a God. I believe what he says is true. And that's as far as it goes. God says, nay nay. That is not faith.

And I'm going to show you that today from Jesus' own mouth. Not mine, because who am I? Nobody. Okay? Jesus says this. Now, there is also, from our first sermon, a British theologian who is one of my favorite first-century historians, N. T. Wright. He approaches the words from the first-century point of view as best we can ascertain them. And he was pretty good at it. And he looked at this word family of pistis and pisteo that we translate faith, trust, or belief. And he says it carries the meaning of loyalty or allegiance. We're going to get there in our third sermon.

But that doesn't eliminate belief in the mind. Okay? So, God is not against intellectual belief. It's absolutely necessary. But what this word family shows, according to N. T. Wright, in the New Testament especially, is the idea that faith goes beyond believing a fact or two about Jesus. Yeah, I believe Jesus is from God. Yeah, I believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Yeah, I believe he died for my sins. Not enough. All right? And it involves placing our confidence in him and then remaining faithful to him.

So in the first sermon, we saw people in John chapter 2 who believed in Jesus because of his signs. Remember that? But Jesus would not entrust himself to them because he knew what was in man's heart. So they pisteo him, but the word meant only belief in the usage, in the context. But Jesus would not pisteo them back because he knew what was in their heart, the heart of man.

And then he talked about a man, and that man's name was Nicodemus. And Nicodemus also believed in Jesus because of his signs. And Nicodemus was correct. Jesus did not correct him, but he also didn't congratulate him or praise him at all. In fact, when Nicodemus told Jesus that he knew he was from God, Jesus said, essentially, that's not enough. You need to be born again. In other words, you need to become somebody different, somebody other than who you are right now.

Believing is not enough. So yes, belief is essential. Faith cannot begin without it. But we must, you know, receive God's word as little children, meaning like a little child believes mommy and daddy, we should believe God. But we have to go so much further than that in order to please God.

Very thirsty today. Had a very salty lunch on the way down here from Austin. So that leaves us with the question, and where we're going to examine today is, will we trust God when believing him becomes difficult? This is where belief becomes trust. And this is where God starts to become pleased. So this is the second part of the series. What does it mean to trust? What does it mean? Do we know? Can we answer the question? And after we hear the story today, hopefully we will be able to answer the question, what it means to trust God? Belief and trust are very, very closely related, but they're not exactly the same thing. Belief means we accept that something is true. Trust means we act on what we believe to be true by placing our confidence in the person who said it. Okay, that's not enough of a definition, but that's a start. We're going to get to a much better definition in just a moment, and that definition comes by example. The definition comes by... I love this example, because this example was given to us out of love and absolute maturity from some very wonderful men, the apostles. They did not have to tell us this story. They lived this story, and this story is very condemning of them, and they could have buried this story, and we would have been none the wiser, but they told on themselves after the fact so that we would learn the lesson from them. And I just... I appreciate that. When you listen to this story, remember who's telling the story. It's the guys who were being rebuked. We're the ones teaching us. Think about that. We, you know, you do something embarrassing. What's the first thing you do? Right? You cover it up. I love this. I love this example.

Okay, let's get back to comparing belief to trust. I believe that someone is capable of helping me. That's belief. But trusting means I'm willing to play something important, like my life, in his care. Let him handle it. Without me having to intervene, unless in this case God requires me to intervene. Now, if he tells me to intervene, I will. But trust says he handles it without me having to intervene and try to control it. It takes us back to the definition of pisteo, the verb of the family group, the action word for faith that we looked at in the first sermon. Mounts tells us that the word means to believe or trust, and it can mean either one. And it can mean to commit something in charge or power of another person. And that is a very helpful way to understand the word pisteo. Trust means I'm placing something into another person's hands because I believe they're reliable. I am confident in them. We talk about trusting God and putting things into his hand. We trust him with our future, with things that we can't control. And that's really easy to say. Oh, I can stand up here and I can say that all day long. It sounds like I know what I'm talking about. But do we trust him when we don't understand why something is happening? And very importantly, sometimes we have to trust him when it appears that he's doing nothing at all. Now, this is very, very important for every one of us, every single one of us. Do we trust him when it looks like he's not even doing anything? You know, Thomas Jefferson had that issue with God. Thomas Jefferson was a famous deist. Yes, God made this wonderful universe. He acknowledged it. Thomas Jefferson was the president who set up the first church in the Congress Building, in the Capitol Building. Thomas Jefferson was a religious man. But he didn't believe God actually cared about you. He created things and then he just went off and did his own thing and let you do your own thing. So, sometimes we can get that way. Sometimes we believe God's really not involved in my life. And we say things like, so we don't sound like we're accusing God, we'll say something like, well, I'm really not that important of a person. And we try to put it on ourselves. Like, the reason God doesn't pay attention, since I don't want to sound like I'm accusing God, is that I'm not that important of a person. Yeah, but God said you were. God said you were. So, that is a lack of trust. And that's where trust becomes difficult. When our ugly self-reliance side threatens to take over a situation when God isn't doing what we want him to do when we want him to do it. It's one thing to believe that God is a loving and faithful God when life is going well. Oh, that's easy. It's another thing to trust him when the evidence in front of us seems to point another direction. When disaster is looming over us and we're in the valley of the shadow of death, as David called it in Psalm 23. Then do we trust him. And that's the difference that I want us to see today.

The question is not, do I believe what God says? That's a good start, but as we'll see in today's example, if that's all we do, God and Christ will not be pleased with us at all. Belief is not going far enough. So what are they looking for in us? They're looking for me and you to say, am I willing to place my care in their hands because I believe them? Because I have belief, am I willing to actually act on it? Does that make sense? There's a story in the gospel that will make it make sense. And Mark shows this point very clearly. The disciples believed enough to follow Jesus. They had intellectual belief. They learned from his teachings every day. They believed enough to get in the boat with him, but once the storm came, they faced a much harder question. Did they trust him? Mark chapter 4. Turn there with me.

I want us to look at this story that most of us know very well, but I want to look at it specifically through the lens of trust. And we're going to end this story. We're not going to be so judgmental of those disciples at the end of this story. We're going to have a little bit more understanding of them, maybe, than when we first read this, especially as a child. Let's start in Mark chapter 4 and verse 35. On the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us cross over to the other side. Okay. Did you hear that? Before they ever got in the boat, before the wind started blowing, before the waves began filling the boat, Jesus told them where they were going. Did you catch that? This wasn't just some guy, a ship captain, saying, we're going that away. This was the Lord. And he said, go to the other side. That was their orders. That was what they were supposed to do.

Let us cross over to the other side. The disciples heard the statement directly from Jesus, and they believed him enough to get in the boat. They did it, but their belief was about to be tested.

Actually, their trust was about to be tested. They passed the belief test. They passed it. Go to the other side. They did it. Yay. I believe Jesus.

But did they trust him? And what was the difference in Jesus' opinion of their belief versus their trust? This is, to me, fascinating. It's so important to stop and consider. They were not tempted, tempting God, by getting in the boat. You know, it says in the Old Testament, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. It's in Deuteronomy. They were ordered by the Lord to cross the other side of the lake. It was God's direct order to cross the lake. Have you ever had an order from God? Don't work on the Sabbath. Even if your boss tells you to, you've got your orders. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. You've got your orders. You know where you're going. Go to the other side of the lake. That was their orders. The Sea of Galilee is where they were. It's a very large inland lake. Large enough to call a sea. But I want to point out that if you stand on one side of the Sea of Galilee and look across, you can see the other side. Which means you can make the trip in less than a day. You can hop in in the evening, and when you get across the other side, it'll still be evening. It's not like standing in Corpus Christi and then trying to sail to Mexico. You can't see Mexico from Corpus Christi. You're going to be on the water quite a while.

That's not what Jesus was asking them to do. They get into the boat, and they set sail. Verse 36. Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was, and other little boats were also with him. So they leave the majority of the crowd, and they head across the Sea of Galilee. And then in verse 37, everything changes. Everything changes. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat. So it was already filling. Very important. Very important. This was not a small storm. I would just want to point out, out of respect to those disciples, these were men who were experienced fishermen. Not all of them. I believe Matthew was a tax collector, but some of them, they had lived on this lake. They knew this lake like the back of their hand, and they'd been in a boat all their lives, since they were little boys. They knew what a storm was. And they knew whether a storm was a dangerous storm, or it was a no-big-deal storm. These weren't inexperienced sailors. This was no small matter. Under normal circumstances, they would have been in very real danger. These guys knew what they were doing. And the waves were coming over the side of the boat, and the boat was filling with water. So from their point of view, they were in very real danger. And where was Jesus? Verse 38. But he was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.

Think about that picture for a moment. The wind is blowing. The boat is filling with water. The disciples are doing whatever they can do to keep the boat afloat. And Jesus is asleep. Now remember what we just said about trust. Sometimes we have to trust God when we don't understand what he's doing. They didn't have to tell this story.

Why did they tell it? Sometimes we have to trust him when it appears he's doing nothing at all. Our lives are in danger, and the Lord is asleep. That's exactly where the disciples were. They believed in Jesus. They had followed him. They had listened to him. They'd seen all the miracles he could do. But they're in a situation that they cannot control. Do you get that? They're in a situation that is beyond their reach. Very scary. And Jesus appears to be doing nothing!

Put yourself in their shoes. You've likely been there before. You may be there right now. Where is God? What is he doing? When is he going to save me? How can I escape this trial? How can I? Me?

They were in real distress. So they wake him up and listen carefully to human nature's response. That they didn't have to tell us, but they told us anyway, knowing that we would relate to this response. They said, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

That question tells us a lot, and it sets the framework for Jesus' reply to them, and by extension to you and me. They didn't ask, Jesus, are you going to stop this storm? They asked, do you care about me? Do I matter to you? Do you love me?

They had reached a point where they were experiencing something that seemed to contradict what they should have known about Jesus. It was Jesus the Christ. Do you care about me? He was about to die for them. Do you care about me? And that's where our trust is tested. This story is so important for us, for you and me. Remember, this was written by Mark, who was a protege of Peter, and Peter was in the boat. This account is very likely told to Mark by Peter, and so that Mark, and by us, an extension of Mark, would learn the lesson. In other words, we're the target audience.

They could have buried this story, but they didn't. They passed the story down so that we would learn, not a valuable lesson, a critical lesson, if you're going to be a Christian. One thing, you know, it's one thing to believe God when everything around you supports that belief. But what happens when we know what God has said, but what we see in front of us, makes us wonder if he really cares. And let's look at what Jesus does.

Verse 39. Then he arose and he rebuked the wind.

What a simple statement. He just got up and said, stop. And he said to the sea, peace be still, and the wind ceased, and there was great calm.

You know, Hollywood would have dramaticized this. It would have put a wand and had Gandalf light the wand up and tried to make a big thing out of it, and he would have fought back the wind. The wind would have fought back. The waves would have pushed against him. No. No drama at all. This story has zero drama when Jesus wakes up. He tells the wind to stop, tells the sea to calm down, and then he turns, probably folding his arms, and looked at the disciples. Now the drama begins.

The storm had no drama in it to Jesus. The lack of faith, huge drama. And it was the point.

The boat stops filling with water, and Jesus turns to his disciples in verse 40. But he said to them, Why were you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?

That is the key statement of the story. This is not a lack of faith. Notice that Jesus didn't say, Oh ye of little faith. He said, No faith. And look it up in the original Greek. It literally says, No faith. The absence of pistis.

But they had intellectual belief. They believed him. They knew he was the Christ. They knew he was the Savior. They believed. And they had no faith, according to Jesus. Now remember, they were likely in their 20s, most of them. They were really inexperienced and young. They didn't have the Holy Spirit yet. Don't judge them. They are telling us this story themselves to teach us. But the lesson is clear.

Remember, we learned in the first sermon, the word translated faith here is pistis. And Mounts tells us that it means faith, belief, trust, or faithfulness. So what kind of faith is Jesus talking about here? And what kind of faith was he talking about in John 3 16?

This is where the context helps us. The disciples already believed in Jesus. They were following him. They were in the boat. They were going across the lake. They believed.

A lack of intellectual belief was not the problem that Jesus had with them. Many Christians today will say that all God is looking for is belief. And Jesus said, you don't even have faith if that's all you have.

Not a little faith, no faith. Their problem was that the storm came and they didn't trust him. And that's what disappointed Jesus.

That's why their question was so revealing. Do you care that we are perishing? They were judging his character. When the storm came, they saw the storm, not who was in the boat. It was the storm that determined their actions.

Jesus Christ was in the boat!

They had begun to doubt the one who told them to get in the boat in the first place, and he was in the boat with them. Do we ever make that ridiculous of a statement to God? Of course we do! This wouldn't have been written if we didn't. They were looking at the wind and the waves and drawing a conclusion about the Son of God. If he really cared about us, this wouldn't be happening to me.

Have you ever done that?

Don't say no.

I've been with you for 12 years, and I've been with myself a lot longer. I'm not judging you, but I know for sure we do that. Of course we do. You pray, you face the storm, whatever storm it might be, and you pray, and nothing seems to change. So you wait, and still nothing seems to change. And then the thought comes, if God really cared about me, why is he allowing this? Hence the story of the disciples in the boat. That's exactly where trust is tested. The problem is not that we see danger. That is not a problem. These were expert fishermen. They knew what danger was. That's not a problem. Read the Psalms. King David talked about problems and enemies facing him all the time, and he brought it before God faithfully. That was not the problem. The disciples were right about the danger. They lived on that lake. They knew it like the back of the hand. They knew how to operate a boat. That establishes the idea that the storm was very real. They weren't sissies or cowards. These were tough men. The danger was real. The danger was real. And your and my danger may be very real. That is not the point.

There's a Psalm that says, many are the afflictions of the righteous. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. But the Lord saves them from them all. Right? The problem comes when we take the reality of the storm, we look at the storm as though it's evidence against the character of God. And that's the flaw in human nature. We're looking in the wrong place. The disciples looked at the storm instead of the Son of God in the bow of the boat or the stern of the boat. That's where they should have been looking. Jesus had already told them. Let's cross over to the other side. That's where the Son of God told them to go. Where's He told us to go? Do you know what He never said? He never said, when He told them to get in the boat, there won't be a storm. He never promised you will have a comfortable trip. Oh, we're going to get a boat, and you're going to get in the first class section of that boat, and you're going to have a mimosa along the way?

No. God never promised that. But the one who made the statement to get in the boat and cross over was still in the boat. And that's what they had forgotten and sometimes what we forget. Trust isn't denying that there is danger or trouble in your life. Trust isn't going to God and saying, hey, God, you know, I know this is no big deal. It's a big deal. Okay? When you get something in your life that's a big deal, it's a big deal. Trust is remembering who's in the boat with you, and having confidence that you're going to get to your destination, because he said you will. It's not that the boat isn't about to sink. It's that somebody's in the boat with you.

We have to get that point where we trust God enough not to conclude that his seeming silence means he doesn't care. So what does trust look like?

What should they have done? Should they have just let him sleep? No. Read the Psalms. They should have woken him up. Waking him up was the right thing to do. When you're in trouble, you go to God. Don't you? You wake him up. Of course, he doesn't sleep. But you go to God. What was their flaw? They should have just woken him up and said, could you please fix the storm? Instead, don't you care about me? They judged him.

Trust means I believe God enough to act when he says, on what he says, even when I don't understand, what in the world he's doing. I do it anyway.

I let what God has said define my actions, not the storm. Think about it that way. God defines where I go, not the circumstances.

That's the difference. The disciples heard the same thing that you and I have heard. We have been given a destination. Their destination was to cross to the other side. Our destination is to seek first the kingdom of God. The storm made that promise look impossible. But was it? No. Why? Because Jesus was in the boat.

If Jesus says, you're going to the other side, you're going there. You're going to get there. It doesn't mean there will be no discomfort or inconvenience, and it doesn't mean there will be no pain. It means that discomfort and pain do not get the final word with you. And God gets the final word. Okay, so what is God looking for? It's simple. This one is not complicated, and it's told in the form of a story. When circumstances contradict what God has said, which one will you believe and act on? If you keep believing and following God anyway, despite the circumstances, that's trust. If you follow God anyway, even though it doesn't make sense, but you know God said to do it, that's trust. So here's the challenge for us. We started this sermon with an examination, or the series, with an examination of John 3.16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes Pestello in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And that word, believe, or Pestello, is part of this word family that means faith. And the question we're answering is, what is God really looking for when He says He expects us to have faith? We've seen in two sermons now words directly from Jesus Christ Himself, that belief is not enough, that we have to go much further. And the disciples in this story had belief, but they had no trust. And when life gets tough, they doubted Jesus' power. Actually, they didn't doubt His power. They doubted His character.

They'd seen His power. They'd seen the miracles. They just doubted whether or not He would use it to help them.

So where's the storm in our life right now? What's the situation where you know what God said, but everything you see makes it difficult to trust Him? I didn't say impossible. I said difficult. It makes it challenging. That's where faith moves beyond the scope of intellectual belief, and it actually becomes something that God is pleased with.

So you may believe intellectually that God is a faithful God. You may believe that He cares about you, but you trust Him when you can say, I'm going to follow Him even when I can't see what He's doing. And you act on that belief, and your actions show your trust. That's what the disciples had to learn in the boat. It's something that every Christian eventually has to learn. So I hope that's clear. You have to learn that. I have to learn that. It's something every Christian has to do. I know what God has said, and it is true. And we honestly say that. That's belief. Trust is putting yourself in His hands because of that belief. And once we learn to trust Him, faith will actually require something more. So we're actually in the middle of this sermon series. We've talked about belief, which is critical, but not enough. And we've talked about trust. And as soon as we trust, God starts to be pleased with us. But there's actually more. Faith goes further. It will require us to remain faithful or loyal to Him, even when obedience becomes costly to us. And that's where we're going to go in the final sermon.