Sacrament Meeting Talk, Feb. 2003

Oak Hills 2nd Ward
23 February 2003

The most important choice we can make if to decide to have faith in Jesus Christ.

I would like to share some things with you that I have learned about faith in the big part of a century that I have been in this mortality.

1. Faith in Jesus Christ is not something one has, though we speak that way. Strictly speaking, faith is what we are. It is like honesty. Honesty is not something one has; only knee-jerk honesty is real honesty. If we have to stop and decide each time we speak if it is worthwhile for us to tell the truth, we are not honest. Likewise, if we are faithful, we do not stop to think if it is worthwhile to keep the commandments of God; we just act faithfully because we have acquired the characteristic of faithfulness. It is what we are.
2. Everyone has faith, and there is no shortage of faith in this world. But the only faith that saves anyone’s soul is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is to obey His commandments. Specifically, it is to obey all of the commandments He gives to us as an individual, as we promise to do when we partake of the sacrament. We receive instruction from the Savior through the scriptures, through His living prophets and others who preside over us in the Holy Priesthood, and we receive it directly through the gift of the Holy Ghost. Without faith, that is to say, without being obedient to the instruction He gives us, it is impossible to please Him or to do any good thing. All good comes from Christ. If we do not obey Christ, we of necessity are doing evil, for there are only two choices in any situation. There is no middle ground. Either we do good through faith in Christ, or we do evil. Evil covers the whole range of things that are not as good as they could and should be. If we have faith in Christ, we do His will, and then our acts are as good as they could and should be. In sum of point No. 2: Either we act in faith in Christ and do good by doing what He directs us to do, or we do evil because our faith is in something or someone else.
3. Why we do what we do in responding to the instructions of Christ is as important as what we do. Our Savior has commanded us to attend Sacrament Meeting. If I attend because I love Him and want to do His good, my obedience will be accepted. But if I attend for some other reason, it is not counted as faith. Cain learned this when he performed sacrifices unto the Lord. He had been commanded to offer sacrifices, but did so only because Satan prompted him to do so. He did the right what but had the wrong why, so his offering was rejected.
4. How we do what we do in acting in faith in Christ is as important as what we do and as why we do it. It is not enough to do what we are asked to do, even if we do what we do out of love. We must also do what we do correctly. Oliver Cowdery learned this lesson when he tried to translate the inscriptions on the plates from which our Book of Mormon came. He wanted to do a good thing and probably had a good motive for doing it. But he did not inquire of the Lord how to translate. He proceeded by the means he thought appropriate. But that is not faith in Jesus Christ. Had he inquired of the Lord and tried to figure out what the inscriptions meant with the help of the Lord, he probably would have succeeded. I have made this same mistake in disciplining my children. In trying to teach them the way of Christ, and out of love for them and for the Lord, I nevertheless sometimes have disciplined them in wrong ways, which wrong ways did not work. Had I gone to the Lord for specific instructions as to how to do what he wanted me to do, the result would have been far different.
5. When we do what we do in acting in faith in Jesus Christ is equally as important as what we do, as why we do it, and as how we do it. The Lord has His own timing, and if we are on His errand, we must act when He says to act, not at our own convenience. If we receive an instruction from the Lord and say in our hearts, “That is a good thing to do. Someday I will do it”, we are rejecting Christ as our master and do not have faith in Him. To have true faith in Jesus Christ we must receive His instruction and do exactly what He says to do, for the right reason, how He says to do it, and exactly when He says to do it. There is no other way to true faith in Christ.
6. Faith cannot become strong without hope. As our faith grows, we begin to have confidence in our relationship with our Savior, and that confidence waxes stronger as our faith grows. It becomes a bastion of power against the opposition to faith that enables us to endure to the end.
7. The end to which we and our faith and hope must endure to have full faith is charity, the pure love of Christ. This love is the ability to reflect the love that comes from Christ back to Him and also to all others we encounter in our daily walk of faith in Christ. When we have this love, there will be no obstacle, no barrier, no task, no opportunity that our faith cannot overcome. We will then be just men made perfect through Jesus Christ.
8. There is a tremendous opposition to this true faith in Jesus Christ in this world. The principal opposition might be said to be worldliness, or taking our cues and instruction from the people around us in the world. But to say it that way simply masks the real truth: the principal opposition to Christ in this world is within each one of us. It is our temptation to be selfish, to do things our own way, according to our own desires. The world affects us only because we individually want it to do so. We are agents. We can choose. But our choice is limited to doing our own will, which always produces evil of some degree, or to have this true faith in Christ which we have been describing, and do good. So the opposition to faith in Christ boils down to our own selfishness.
9. It is difficult to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Our Savior said: Straight is the gate, and narrow the way and few there be that find it. Any human being can find it once they know the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of preaching and teaching the gospel to every soul is to set every soul free to choose between Christ and selfishness. If we choose Christ, we have but entered the gate; we must then press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and endure to the end, which is to be a person of pure faith in Christ, which is also eternal life. Anyone can do it, but few do, because only a few want to. Motivation is hugely important. If you wanted to become a skilled violin player, you would have to practice many hours a day for years to attain your goal. And not everyone has the innate ability to succeed at that task. But the Savior makes it possible for every human soul to develop pure and full faith in Him. This is more difficult to do than to become a skilled violinist. But we are given 24 hours a day to practice for a lifetime, and that is enough to become faithful.

Let us remember King Benjamin’s insight: The natural man is an enemy to God and has been since the fall of Adam and ever will be [selfish] unless he putteth off the natural man through the atonement of Christ and becomes as a little child: meek, submissive, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things the Lord sees fit to inflict upon him. (Mosiah 2:19) We will do this by doing as Mormon enjoins: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.” (Moroni 7:48)

The Lord’s curriculum is unerring. Anyone who wants to love God with all of his heart, might, mind and strength will, through prayer and repentance, learn to overcome by faith and to enter into the rest of the Lord Jesus Christ for all eternity.

Let us summarize: The most important thing any of us will do in our eternity is to practice until we become a person of full faith in Jesus Christ so that we do what He instructs us to do, for the right reason, in the right way, at the right time, in full hope in Christ and in the pure love of Christ. There is no other way. I pray that each of us may accept the love of Jesus Christ and come unto Him through praying with all the energy of our hearts to be full of faith, hope, charity in Jesus Christ. Amen.