What is Faith? (Acts 17)
- Today’s culture completely misunderstands what ‘Faith’ means.
- Let’s be very clear about what it really means and be challenged for the coming year.
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Video cover image by Sarah Noltner unsplash
- Can anyone give me a definition of faith?
- My goal today is to answer the question:
1. How the word “faith” is used in our culture
- Does anyone know where this quote comes from?
Who said this?
“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so”
- Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn
- “Faith Based Community” → “Evidenced Based Community”
- It is very good in theory, and because of this we can build bridges and make medicine
- In practice it requires lots of faith
- Was there bias in the experiments
- Were they conducted fairly
- Failure to Replicate
But there is another idea around today that is very wrong
- Not only is faith not based on evidence
- But is is good to have some kind of spiritual belief, even if there is no evidence
- A while ago I received an email message asking our church to be part of a multi-religion faith group
But this thinking leads to an even more dangerous idea: Even if you believe something false, it is still good to have faith
- 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
- It turned out he was wrong—in the end no Great Pumpkin ever appeared!
- Christian version of it “the Word of Faith” movement
2. What Faith really means
- Would we try and apply this logic to medical beliefs?
- 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!
- We’re sensible enough not to apply it to health or finances (but having said that...)
- 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
- I’d like to substitute “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:
- 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
3. What it means to trust Jesus
Acts 17 - Paul visits Athens
- While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was greatly upset because he saw the city was full of idols.
- So he was addressing the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles in the synagogue, and in the marketplace every day those who happened to be there.
- Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, and some were asking, “What does this foolish babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)
- So they took Paul and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming?
- For you are bringing some surprising things to our ears, so we want to know what they mean.”
- (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there used to spend their time in nothing else than telling or listening to something new.)
- So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects.
- For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you.
- The God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands,
- nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives life and breath and everything to everyone.
- From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live,
- so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
- For in him we live and move about and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’
- So since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human skill and imagination.
- Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent,
- because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
- Now when they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”
- So Paul left the Areopagus.
- But some people joined him and believed. Among them were Dionysius, who was a member of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
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- 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:
- Now that requires faith/trust
- 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
- How do you grow in your trust of something?
- Simply by doing it more and finding it trustworthy
- 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.
- 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
- My challenge to you is to work out the faith muscle in 2024
- 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)