Where does faith come from?  This was a questioned asked not too long ago by a young man not too different from many of you, our school children, today. A good question it is, and one which we answer today. St. Paul writes in Romans 10, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.” There you have it. The source of faith is the Word of Christ. It is His work, it is His gift He delivers through His means of grace of Word and Sacraments.  This is also why when asked about which is the greatest Commandment, Jesus answers that the first and greatest commandment begins with hearing, quoting from Deuteronomy 6, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!” In other words, listen up!  Pay attention! And not just to anyone, but the Lord our God, the Lord who is One!

When we gather together for worship, when we are gathered together like we are today, first and foremost, we do so to hear Christ speak to us. Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. The promises that He speaks to us create and sustain this faith.

We listen as our Lord speaks, we receive His gift of faith and His grace in Christ. What do we hear? From God’s Word we learn to believe that we are sinners, we learn repentance, we learn to confess our sins, learn to forgive the sins of others as Christ has forgiven us, learn to confess the faith to the world, to live faithfully in their vocations in life. This life of faith flows from the Word of God that is received and believed. 

Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. When this takes place, the Lord working through His Word, He establishes a culture of prayer. How to listen to God’s Word correctly, how to receive the Sacraments for our blessings, how to pray and confess the faith and how to live in our vocations.

This is part of the beauty of Luther’s Small Catechism, the main tool of teaching God’s Word in Lutheran churches.  It starts with the 10 Commandments which preaches the will of the Creator for His creation. It is a Law that preaches death to sinners for not perfectly obeying all of God’s holy Ten Commands. Then follows the Creed, which preaches faith, or the resurrection from the dead, the Gospel which gives life and salvation through the forgiveness of sins received by fitgh in Christ crucified. Then the Lord’s Prayer preaches the holy life, a life of faith which clings to the promises of God in Christ Jesus.  Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension become the personal story of every Christian, who by grace alone, has been baptized into Christ for absolution and communion with Him in the forgiveness of sins.  Hearing, believing, teaching, confessing Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

What a contrast to the way that many of us think and operate about learning and education.  “Modern education is founded on the idea that children learn best on their own, and that all we can do is direct their self-education. Teachers exist to inspire, encourage, and then get out of the way and let the child discover what wonders the world has in store for himself or herself. Most modern efforts to instruct are based on this understanding. If only we present the material to children in the right way, and in the right quantity, we cannot fail.

“This model cannot work in the church. We are all sinners in need of God’s grace and mercy. But the cross of Christ is a stumbling block. We do not want to acknowledge our sin, or confess those sins before God. It is the Holy Spirit who creates faith, not our efforts” (Lincoln Winter, Teach These Things, p. viii). The Spirit crucifies the inner lusts of the heart, puts to death the actions of the flesh, contends against our corrupt inclinations, and begins new desires in us which are in keeping with the law of God.  And this all worked by the Word of God, in preaching and in teaching.

We must trust the Word of God to do what He has promised: Create faith that grabs hold of the promise of Jesus.  The goal of teaching is not mere instruction. The goal is to bring God’s people into the life of God through the Church. The main purpose of teaching these things, the goal of our school, the goal of our Daycare, our Sunday School, youth group, catechesis classes, Bible studies is simply this: faith in Christ. We preach and teach the truth of God’s Word to shape the faith and understanding of God’s people to God’s Word. The Christian may daily die to sin and rise to new life by the Gospel to claim the promises of salvation in Christ.

And this is why our Lord commands that we teach these things to one another and to our children.  It is a matter of life and death, of heaven and hell.  It may seem extreme to our modern sensibilities that we ought to speak of the things of God when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lied down and when we rise. It seems silly to us to go through the work of binding God’s word on our hands and homes, our heart and our head. And yet loving the Lord our God with our heart and all our soul and might, and our neighbor as ourselves demands nothing less.

And it is more than we can do. Husbands and wives struggle to love one another as a reflection of Christ and His bride, the Church. Children struggle to love their parents when they are disciplined. Our full hearts, minds, soul, and strength are not on loving each other as ourselves, much less on loving God. Yet the perfect fulfillment of the Law is absolutely necessary for salvation.  But because this is impossible for us, Scripture says in Romans 8:3-4 “For God has done has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” 

Only Jesus has kept the entire Law perfectly. And it is to Christ which we are directed by His Word, by His teaching, by His grace. To the cross of Christ where we see what a true and lasting love actually looks like as the Son of God dies to save sinners.  To faith in Christ, which hears and believes, teaches and confesses the Word of God.