Introductory Discussion:
What does it mean to
"believe"? What is "faith"?
Maybe...
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Thinking something is true
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Religion
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Worshipping something
Reading
-- Hebrews 11. 1-12
Talk
1 What
Kind of faith
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Context: Was it easy for 1st century Christians? No. They followed the One who was crucified! So the writer is concerned to tell his readers "We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved". (10. 39) and to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us" (12. 1) He wants them to hold on to their faith… And in between these two verses he puts this chapter about what faith is and how it works
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There are lots of"belief" systems... Religions from Animism to Zoroastrianism... people who say their religion is Jedi. People who believe in a "Force" . Some people talk about "Visualising" what you want and / or "asking the Universe"!
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When it comes to questions like “What sort of God do I believe in?” or “what sort of story do I believe about God and the world?” we can’t just pull an idea out of our heads, and think, “well, that will do!” We have to answer the question of authority for what we believe? Our writer goes back into the history of the Hebrew people; so we heard the story of creation, and the stories of four men and their families – Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham. (In fact there were many other stories mentioned later in the chapter, and in the end, the writer says “I haven’t got time to tell all these stories.”) So our authority for our faith in in the reliable record of people’s stories of meeting with God, that we find in the Bible.
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By "faith" we mean "faith in God", and specifically faith in the God of the Bible, not just in any God... It is faith that He exists and is the rewarder of those who seek him: that he is basically a good God.
Talk
2
Does faith
make sense?
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Answer that in a five-minute talk! There are loads of people around us – you will meet them in School at some point – who think that Christians are really stupid; that we have never thought hard about anything; that belief in God is like believing in an imaginary friend, and that science has proved there is no God. They say “Nobody believes that sort of stuff any more.” According to Devon Tracey (an atheist blogger) Christianity is part of our “ignorant, patently moronic and barbaric history”
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How can I answer that? Well, let’s look at a few ideas...
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Don’t accept the idea that “Christians accept what they are told without thinking about things properly. So you can throw away what Christians believe as the ravings of a bunch of morons who never think” Who says? It’s very easy to assume things like that – no proof, you just assume it because you’re told it! (There’s an inconsistency!) But that’s an easy one to sort out: we can prove them wrong. Yes it’s true that some Atheists no more about what Christians believe than some Christians – but it doesn’t have to be that way: the answer is in our hands. We can think hard about what we beleve.
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Don’t accept the idea that “faith is an outdated way of understanding the world. It belongs in a tiem long ago when everyone was, well, really stupid.” But Atheism is not a new thing. Our writer says that the person who comes to God must believe that he exists (v. 6)… so the possibility that God doesn’t exist, must have been there 2000 years ago; and a thousand years earlier David wrote “The fool (not the idiot but the ignoramus – the person who doesn't care about the truth) says in his heart “No God” or “God is nothing” (Ps 14. 1) There have always been atheists. (cf. for example Job 21. 15) And there have always been God-worshippers who think in a deep way about the person the worship.
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Andromeda Galaxy. NASA image. Public Domain Don’t accept the idea that “science has disproved faith. Now we have made amazing scientific discoveries, we have realised we don’t need God. Now we have made amazing discoveries about the world and how it works. But that neither proves or disproves Christianity. And Christianity has no need to go about discrediting science. And, although there are scientists who have like Richard Dawkins rejected Christianity, there are others like John Polkinghorne, John Lennox and Alister M’Grath who have embraced it and even find that their faith makes them curious about science, and their knowledge of the scientific world makes them love God better. “ Polkinghorne says “theism (belief in God) makes more sense of the world, and of human experience, than does atheism.” -
Finally, I believe there is one thing that atheists have yet to explain adequately – and not by making wild and unsubstantiated claims. And that one thing is the story of Jesus – his life, death , resurrection. And his continuing influence in our world today. I don’t think there is an adequate explanation for Jesus, that takes seriously the records about him in the Gospels, without God.
Talk
3 What
does faith do?
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Faith is more than "thinking something is true"… it is more than a set of ideas that you sign up to.
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Faith is the assurance (the Greek word is “hypostasis”) of what is hoped for, the conviction or cross-examination of what is not seen. Hypostasis is the act of standing on something; or it is something solid. It can mean a foundation. It is the stuff that settles to the bottom, of the glass - the stuff that is too solid to dissolve. It can mean thick soup. Or it is confidence; it is the real existence of something. Faith makes what we hope for as solid as if it were already there.
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So faith is dynamic. It makes us able to stand firm and take action based on what we hope for, what we do not see but what God has said to us…
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Faith is like falling backwards knowing you are safe because you have someone who will catch you.
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By faith, like Abel we are able to offer something to God that pleases him.
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By faith, like Enoch we are able to make a habit of walking with God. Enoch walked with God so closely and trusted him so much that when his time on earth was finished he didn’t die, God just took him to heaven.
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By faith, like Noah, we are able to do things that humanly don’t make sense, in response to what God is saying to us, and to work with God to save lost people.
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By faith, like Abraham, we are able to enter new territory, do things we have never done before, and see God at work miraculously in our lives.
©
Gilmour Lilly January 2017
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