Embers of Faith

Isaiah 42:3

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Our Bible passage today comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 42, and we read there in verse three.

A bruised reed, he shall not break. And a smoldering wick he shall not snuff out. (Isaiah 42:3)

Many years ago there was a lady in my congregation who was working at a pro-life booth where they would try to talk to people, it was at a big event. And a woman came up to her and admitted to her that she had an abortion. And now she felt so guilty about it. She had actually been involved in a life of prostitution, and she just felt that God could never, ever take her back. This woman from my congregation had a wonderful opportunity to witness to her and to talk to her.

Sometimes it’s very easy for our faith to be bruised or possibly even be extinguished. Isaiah is using kind of interesting pictures about spiritual life inside of us, a bruised reed and a smoldering wick. Sometimes because of the weakness of our faith and the lack of spiritual life inside of us, the lack of sanctification, that we can sometimes feel so crushed and so bruised. And it’s at those moments when we’re aware of our sin that we kind of conclude, I do not belong in God’s house. That woman, when she talked to the lady from our church, expressed to her that she couldn’t come back to church because she just felt that her life had been so bad and so awful. And so the woman from our congregation tried hard to encourage her to come back.

This text that I just read to you from Isaiah allows us to sort of peer into the heart of God based upon the work of Christ, his Messiah, the Chosen One, our Lord Jesus, and his mission to come into the world to save people. And I’ve always loved this passage. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. Think about how delicately Jesus dealt with the sheep that he ran into, some of whom were really crushed by their sin. The woman that was caught in adultery, the thief on the cross. The woman who came crying at Jesus feet and so appreciative of his grace.

The faith that’s been placed in your heart as a Christian is God’s creation. It’s his work, and the Holy Spirit will not work against himself when it comes to that faith. He does not want to destroy even the little embers of faith that might still be burning in your heart. And so God is always going to deal very tenderly with that faith.

I brought along a little illustration that my dad taught me when I was in about sixth grade, and I always liked this illustration. He said he took out a dollar bill one day and he said, how many pennies worth am I holding? And I said, a hundred. So that would be about a hundred pennies. How many pennies worth am I holding? About a hundred. Then he took it like this. He said, now how many pennies worth am I holding? I said, a hundred, and then he held it, just barely by the corner, and he said, now how many pennies worth am I holding? I said, a hundred. He said, right, no matter how I’m holding it, it still has the same value. And he said, think about your hand sort of like faith that God puts in your heart. Sometimes our faith is good and strong, and we’re holding on to Christ, sometimes really firmly. And other times maybe our faith is really very, very weak and we seem to barely have it in our hearts. And yet the value of what it’s holding on to, and that represents Christ and having all of our sins paid for and the hope of heaven, that value doesn’t change.

Now, my dad said, at the same time, you don’t want to walk around with a dollar bill holding it like this because you could lose it. The wind could blow it away, or someone could take it from you. It’s much better to have a firm grip on it. And the same is true, he said. With our faith, we should want to have our faith strong and firm, because there’s less chance of it then being taken away from us or losing it. And so God is always encouraging us to strengthen our faith in Christ through His Word and Sacraments. But at the same time, even a little bruised reed or a smoldering wick that is just hanging on to that wonderful hope of Christ still possesses the full amount of our salvation in heaven. Amen.