The Pathway to Faith
I
had a friend come by my office the other day to say good-bye. He had finished
his PHD and was leaving to go to Stanford for a post doctorate position. During
the years that he was at Utah State University, we had many discussions and
sometimes we ventured into religion. My friend does not believe in God or that
there is anything after death but an end to everything.
I
have often thought about what it would be like to not believe that there is
life after death or that we do not have a loving Father in Heaven that wants us
to return to him after this life is over. The Apostle Paul told us what it
would be like if there was nothing after this life:
As
I have pondered this, it has caused me to reflect on why I have a belief in and
hope for more than this life. When did I KNOW that God lives and Jesus is the
Christ and what was the path that led me to this knowledge?
To
help us better understand my journey, I would like to go to the scriptures and
follow the path of the Peter, the fisherman as he becomes Peter the Apostle. In
doing so, I am in no way comparing myself to Peter, but laying out the path
that he took as an example of what we each need to be willing to follow which
will lead us to faith. The first principle we need is faith. Not just faith,
but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. What
does it mean to have faith ? The Apostle Paul says that faith is:
The
Prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon describes faith when he says:
And now as I said concerning faith—faith is
not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for
things which are not seen,
which are true. (Alma 32:21)
Remember
when Peter first met Jesus? In Luke Chapter 5 we find Peter and his brother were
involved in their daily labors as a fisherman. Jesus came to them and told them
to cast out their nets into the water. Peter told Jesus that they had toiled
all night and had caught nothing, but being obedient he did as Jesus asked and
their nets were so full their nets broke. It was then that Jesus told Peter and
Andrew to follow him and become fishers of men. The scriptures said that they
straightway left their nets and followed Jesus.
On
another occasion, Peter and the other disciples were again in a ship. This time
there was a storm raging, when Jesus comes towards them walking on the water?
Peter recognizes the Master and asks Jesus if he can come to him on the
water. Jesus simply says, “come”. Peter,
not doubting his human abilities leaves the boat and walks on the water. As
long as Peter’s focus was on Jesus he was able to walk on the water, but then
he loses his focus and sees the waves and begins to sink. He cries out to Jesus
for help and the scriptures say:
“And immediately Jesus
stretched forth his hand,
and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” (Matthew 11:31 )
Peter
had faith in Christ or he would not have asked to come to him on the water. So
why did he fail. Maybe it was because his faith was the kind of faith that I
talked about last week, the faith of a child – young and untested. Later Jesus
asked the disciples as question:
13….Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.
15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” (“Matthew 16:13-17)
Through
revelation from God, our Heavenly Father, Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ,
the Son of the living God. Peter now had a testimony of who Jesus was. But his
faith was going to be tested even more. The night before Jesus was to give his
life as a sacrifice for all mankind, he gathered his Apostles into a room to
celebrate the Passover and spend some last hours teaching them what was going
to happen. After the supper Jesus took a
basin of water and started washing the feet of the Apostles. Peter thinking
this was the task of a servant tells Jesus he should not wash his feet. When
the Savior tells Peter if he cannot wash his feet, Peter will have no part with
him, Peter still not understanding what Jesus was trying to do says that he
should not only wash his feet, but his hands and head. The Savior being patient
tries to explain that he only needed to wash his feet.
Later
that same evening Jesus tells Peter that before the night was over he will have
denied knowing Jesus three times and Peter tells the Lord: “Peter said unto him, Though
I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. (Matthew 26:35). But later that night
it’s deny, deny, deny.
After
the death of Christ, we find Peter with a few of the Apostles out fishing again.
Why after all they had been through did Peter go back to his worldly labors?
Did he think that the last three years were done and that was it? As they are
coming in from a long night with empty nets they see a man on the shore. He
asks them to cast their nets into the water. Peter responds by telling the
person on the shore that they had toiled all night and caught nothing, but
being obedient they cast off their nets and it is so full the nets brake. This
begins to be familiar to Peter and he takes a closer look at the person on the
shore and recognized it is Jesus. He jumps in the water and swims to meet him
where there is some fish cooking and Peter and Jesus have an important conversation
about his love for the Savior or the fish (which represented worldly things). Elder
Jeffry R. Holland, of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, puts the conversation
between the risen Savior and Peter in perspective when he says:
“The
Savior … continues to look into the eyes of His disciple and says again,
“Peter, do you love me?” Undoubtedly confused a bit by the repetition of the question,
the great fisherman answers a second time, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love
thee.
The Savior
again gives a brief response, but with relentless scrutiny He asks for the
third time, “Peter, do you love me?” By now surely Peter is feeling truly
uncomfortable. Perhaps there is in his heart the memory of only a few days
earlier when he had been asked another question three times and he had answered
equally emphatically—but in the negative. Or perhaps he began to wonder if he
misunderstood the Master Teacher’s question. Or perhaps he was searching his
heart, seeking honest confirmation of the answer he had given so readily,
almost automatically. Whatever his feelings, Peter said for the third time,
“Lord, … thou knowest that I love thee.”
To which Jesus responded (and here again I
acknowledge my nonscriptural elaboration), perhaps saying something like: “Then
Peter, why are you here? Why are we back on this same shore, by these same
nets, having this same conversation? Wasn’t it obvious then and isn’t it
obvious now that if I want fish, I can get fish? What I need, Peter, are
disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my
lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone
who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has
commissioned me to do. Ours is not a feeble message. It is not a fleeting task.
It is not hapless; it is not hopeless; it is not to be consigned to the ash
heap of history. It is the work of Almighty God, and it is to change the world.
So, Peter, for the second and presumably the last time, I am asking you to
leave all this and to go teach and testify, labor and serve loyally until the
day in which they will do to you exactly what they did to me.” (“The First and
Great Commandment”, Elder Jeffry R. Holland, General Conference Address,
October 2012)
Did
Peter finally get the message of what faith in the Lord Jesus Christ meant? Sometime
after the Savior had taught the people after his resurrection and the Day of
Pentecost had finally come, we find Peter and John going into the temple. As
they enter the temple, they see a man there begging for alms. The man asked
Peter and John for an alms, but Peter simply said to the man: “Look on us”. The
man was expecting to receive something, but instead Peter said:
6 Silver and gold have I none;
but such as I have give I
thee: In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his
feet and ankle bones received strength.
8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and
entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
(Acts 3:6-8)
Peter
did not just tell him to rise up, he took him by the hand and lifted him onto
his feet. Peter was fully converted. The transition of Peter the fisherman to
Peter the Apostle was complete. He finally understood what the Savior was
trying to tell him on the shore by the sea. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is
not something we just feel. It is manifest in the way we live our lives. It is
active not passive. The first principle of faith is that we must act on our
hope that Jesus Christ is our Savior and do the things that he did. We must be
willing to follow the example that Christ set in his ministry and be active in
helping all of Heavenly Father’s children, our brothers and sister come to know
the same things that we are seeking. Only then will our hope in Christ bear the
fruit of true faith.
Next
week, I will discuss my experiences in The Path to Faith – Part 2,
Your
comments and questions are welcome.
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