What is Faith?
—John 11:21–27
Andrew Fountain – Jan 7, 2018 Click on this slide and then press the spacebar to advance slides: ➜ (or swipe on a touch screen)
What is faith?
How the word “faith” is used in our culture
What it really means
Does anyone know where this quote comes from?
“I find your lack of faith disturbing?”
Who said this?
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so”
Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn
But you can’t live your life without any kind of beliefs
Every time I drive a car or ride the subway I am trusting the mechanical systems
Every time I go to the doctor or the bank I am putting faith somewhere
So this is a cute saying, but not true in real life
Another quote:
“I’m writing a letter to the Great Pumpkin because the Great Pumpkin comes every year and he gives toys to all the children.”
“When are you going to stop believing something that isn’t true?”
He persuades little Sally to wait most of the evening in the pumpkin patch with him
when the Great Pumpkin never arrives, Sally is very angry because she has lot a whole evening’s candy from trick-or-treating.
Does it matter that the Great Pumpkin doesn’t really exist?
Well it mattered to little Sally!
But according to this odd youtube video, Apparently not!
It really doesn’t matter that you are believing something totally false
As long as you believe something.
If you believe it, then that’s what counts.
Just have faith?
Is it really true that the important thing is to have beliefs
even if they are not based on anything real?
view video
But do people seriously believe that?
Faiths Act (Tony Blair)
Will your church to be part of a multi-religion faith group?
About Faiths Act : Why is faith important?
“At the heart of Faiths Act is the belief that faith can be a Force 4 Good .people of faith act together they achieve more than they can alone.”
So it doesn’t really matter if what you believe is true, because faith itself is a “Force 4 Good”?
So if I wrote to them and said “I believe in the great pumpkin, can I join your organization” they would probably say yes.
what if I said that I believe that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is really a lizard =
And I truly believe it (some people do)
What would they say? Do you think they would accept me?
Here is another quote for you:
“I don’t believe it!”
“Faith” is a way of tapping into some impersonal power view video
Luke Skywalker’s X-wing was stuck in a swamp
By believing strongly enough, Yoda was able to lift it out.
Let’s think about whether this works out in real life?
Would we try and apply this logic to medical beliefs?
Some people believe that if you get a wound, you should keep it as clean as possible
Others say you should rub cow-dung into it
It doesn’t really matter as long as you really believe it!
If you truly believe it, your Faith is a power that will heal you =
What are these?
How were they used? (problems were due to too much blood pressure)
George Washington had a sore throat and told his doctor.
The doctors applied leeches and when he was no better, more leeches
and more until he had lost 5 pints of blood
you only have around 8 pints! Most historians...
Was his problem that he didn’t believe in leeches?
No, his problem was that he did!
To sum up: there is a dangerous misunderstanding about faith in our culture today
We’re sensible enough not to apply it to health or finances (but having said that...)
We understand how stupid that would be
But for the really important things, like our destiny, there is confusion!
Faith is this abstract power, and it doesn’t really matter if it is true
If you believe that Mark Zuckerberg is really a lizard
or the Great Pumpkin
it’s not the thing you trust in, but the faith itself
Unfortunately it’s simply not the way life works
It really does matter who or what you trust
Think of it with people: some people are trustworthy and some not... What faith really means
We’ve looked at:
How the word “faith” is used in our culture
Now:
What faith really means
So the only really important questions are:
Important Questions
“What do I need ........ to do for me?”
“Is ........ capable of doing this?”
“Can I trust ........ to do it for me?” These are questions we ask of:
The doctor, dentist, lawyer, teacher, banker, insurance agent, taxi driver
Your own eternal destiny
I’d like to substitue “trust” for “faith”
Means the same without the “mystical” overtones
e.g. I trust my doctor. I have faith in my doctor
Jesus asked people to trust him in two ways:
trust his teaching
trust him as a person (which of course are very closely connected)
Jesus came teaching that there is another life after this one
In fact, we can begin this new life right away, even before we die
He called this new kind of life, his kingdom
But he didn’t just say this, he demonstrated the power of this new life
For example, when his friend Lazarus died:
John 11:21–27
Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
Jesus claimed that he himself had the power to take people through death and out the other side
He demonstrated that to Martha by raising someone from the dead who had been buried for four days
But that’s ok if you were there!
You may say “If I saw someone physically rise from the dead, then I would believe”
Actually that’s not totally true: If we are determined not to believe something, then we will deny any evidence
In fact, there is abounding evidence that Jesus was telling the truth
One of the best evidences is the way he continues to “raise from the dead” people who are living lost lives
He takes them from a dead life to a living one
A while back I showed a video of David Berkowitz, the evil serial killer who terrorized New York city till he was caught
He would leave phone calls for the police, taunting them about when he was going to kill next
Yet Jesus Christ has transformed him into a wonderful person. Life from the dead
You can go and visit him and see for yourself (you’ll have to go to the prison)
Jesus says John 10:10,11
…I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
He promises a new kind of existence
So what does it take to have this life that Jesus offers?
If you are looking for an easy quick fix, you’re out of luck, because what it takes is everything:
Mark 8:34,35
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. If there’s no cost, there’s no faith
Now that requires faith
If I said I had a way of giving you more strength physically
But it required you to die, and allow me to bring you back to life
that would require faith
So Jesus says, give me everything
and I will give you back 10 times as much
but you must be willing to surrender your whole life to me
It’s not an abstract “I have to have faith in Jesus”
But: following Jesus means I have to make changes in my life and I’ll do that because I trust him.
No cost, no faith
It’s the kind of faith that if Jesus turns out to be wrong, you’ve lost everything
What he offers is not just this life, but life in the age to come
How can I believe in that if I can’t see it?
Jesus came back from the dead, and there were many witnesses—we can talk more about that sometime
And there’s actually a lot of other evidence for an unseen world
But you can actually begin to experience his new life now
And as you do, you will grow in your trust for the age to come
And this trust grows, like it would if you kept going to a good doctor
The next step: talk to Jesus and make a commitment to stop trusting in anything else, including yourself, and trust in him.
But trust is not an on-or-off switch
There’s enough trust to become a follower of Jesus
But trust grows in any relationship
Growing as a Christian is growing in this trust
How do you grow in your trust of something?
Simply by doing it our more
Do you believe that working out every day would make you feel better?
I guess so
But if you did it, then this belief would grow.
My challenge to you is to work out the faith muscle in 2018
What does that mean? —more of that to come, but to start with
commit to some time with Jesus every day (just like the work out) 
