Alpha-How can I have Faith?
Alpha • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Joke:
The Stock Market Did you hear about the stock market yesterday? Helium was up, feathers were down. Paper was stationery. Fluorescent tubing was dimmed in light trading. Knives were up sharply. Pencils lost a few points. Hiking equipment was trailing. Elevators rose, while escalators continued their slow decline. Weights were up in heavy trading. Mining equipment hit rock bottom. Diapers remained unchanged. The market for raisins dried up. Balloon prices were inflated. And toilet paper reached a new bottom.
Intro Story
Are you a morning person or an evening person? Some people are at their best in the morning, some people are at their best in the evening. Some people are never at their best! If I’m at my best at any time of day, it’s in the morning. I wake up really early, I feel quite lively. But as the day goes on, I get tireder and tireder, and by 9 o’clock I’m beginning to fall asleep.
By 10 o’clock I really want to be in bed, and by 11 o’clock I’m asleep wherever I am! For example last night I was in bed at 9:45pm.
Erica teaches on Monday nights and usually get home around 10:30, she has been keep a strategy to try to get up 5:30-6:30 daily, weather she has to or not. She would rather stay up, than get up.
And I’ve always been like that. Even when I was a student, I was in college I was in bed by 11am and that is really sad! It is boring....I know.
17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Here Paul is writing In other words, he says: relationships are really exciting! And the most exciting relationship of all is a relationship with God. We are different.
He says: ‘Those who become NEW PERSON OR CHRISTIANS.’ What does that mean?
‘Christian’ mean? The word ‘Christian’
A Nice Person?
Going up a certian way with certain morals?
A judgemental person? A person who tells the truth?
Other people say, I grew up going to church, I grew up in a home that was “Christian”
So what is a Christian? A Christian is a Christ-ian: someone who follows Jesus, someone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ. And, of course, how that happens varies enormously. For some people, like for me, there’s a very definite moment:
July 24, 1997
July 24, 1997
C. S. Lewis used the analogy:
if you’re on a train from Paris to Berlin, some people know the exact moment they cross the border. Other people might have been asleep; they don’t know that. But what matters is that you know that you’re in Berlin.
And what matters is that you know that you’re a Christian now, if that’s what you would like.
And what the New Testament says is that we can know that we’re a Christian.
John 1:12
John 1:12
12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
Those who have faith in His name he gave the Rights to be children of God!
It’s like a child and a parent. In other places it’s talked about like a lover, or like a friend. And sometimes the New Testament even uses the analogy of a husband and wife – it’s that close: an intimate relationship.
Now, if you are married, you know that you’re married. If you’re a Christian, you can know that you’re a Christian.
1 John 5:13
1 John 5:13
13 I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.
There are three things that will help know how we can have faith.
1) The Word of God
2) The Work of Jesus
3) The witness of the Holy Spirit
It is like a 3 legged stool
The Word of God
The Word of God
Point 1
20 “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.
Jesus is the Door
Jesus is the Door
Show the picture of the door
Holman Hunt, Painted a picture called Light of the world
And this is what this verse is saying: imagine that your life is like a house and Jesus is knocking at the door of your life and he’s saying: ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. I’d like to come into your life, into the house of your life, and be part of your life. I want to come in and eat with you.’
Eating together is a sign of friendship. And effectively Jesus is saying, ‘I want to be your friend.’ That’s what it means to be a Christian: it’s to be a friend of Jesus. And Jesus is saying, ‘Look, here I am. I am standing at the door of your life, and I would love to come in and eat with you, be a friend of you.’ [image on screen]
And if you look at this painting,
you see that the door is kind of overgrown with thorns and thistles. It’s like the person’s
never opened the door to Jesus. And Jesus is knocking. Now, when Holman Hunt painted this painting, people said: ‘That’s a great painting!’
3. But someone said to him, ‘Look, you’ve actually made a mistake! Do you realize you’ve made a mistake?’ And he said, ‘Well, what do you mean?’
He said, ‘Well, look at the door: there’s no handle.’ And Holman Hunt said, ‘No, no, no, that’s not a mistake.
There is a handle. But the handle is on the inside.’
The Work of Jesus
The Work of Jesus
Many might think I need to be a better person, I grew up knowing and believing in right and wrong. I need to get back to that, Yes I used to go to church, but I need to get back to that.
All of this thinking is good, but it misses the boat!
The second leg of the tripod is the work of Jesus. It’s done, not do.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
What do you think of when someone comes and says this is the deal? You cant pass it up? You will never find a better deal?
I know can at times be synical, skeptical, sacastic about it.......
Story: The Gutters, he negotiated and kept coming up with better deals......
Jesus deal is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. His pitch does not change. Free is Free!
And we’re so suspicious. And we think, you know, ‘God is offering this free gift. There must be a catch.’ There isn’t a catch. It is free. But it’s not cheap.
It cost Jesus his life. He died for you, he died for me, so that we could be forgiven and receive this
The gift of eternal life, this gift of a relationship with him. And we receive it through repentance and faith.
‘Repentance’ sounds a really heavy word, but all it means is turning away from the bad stuff in our life, changing our mind about that stuff and saying: ‘Actually, that doesn’t do us any good anyway.’ God loves us. He never asks us to give up things that are good for us. He just says, ‘Get rid of that junk. Turn away from it.’
The Cost=And sometimes people talk about ‘the cost of being a Christian’, the cost of being a Christian is nothing compared to the cost of not being a Christian. The cost of being a Christian is nothing compared to what it cost Jesus to make it possible for us to have this relationship with God. That’s repentance.
And then faith. Faith is just trust. That’s what it means. Everyone exercises faith.
You’re exercising faith by sitting on these chairs – you’re trusting that the chair will hold you up. All the way through life we exercise faith.
The analytical side of me: That was an act of faith: you can’t prove it, but I based my life on it as an act of faith. Now I base my life on faith in what Jesus did on the cross for me, and on him. I put my trust in him.
That is the second leg of the tripod:
The Word of God
The Work of Jesus
The witness of the Holy Spirit
The Witness of the Holy Spirit
The Witness of the Holy Spirit
Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t think I’m a Christian. I haven’t had any sort of really dramatic experience.’
They’re sort of expecting that they’ve got to see something: Jesus has got to appear in their bedroom and say, ‘Helloooo, I’m here!’
But it’s not like that. You can’t see the Holy Spirit, but you can see its impact. And you can see the impact,
John 3 we dont see the wind, but we see its effects
New American Standard Bible Chapter 3
8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”
for example, on your own life, on the lives of other people. Maybe there’s someone here today and you say, ‘The reason I’m here is I saw the impact on a friend’s life, or a member of my family.’ You were observing the ‘wind’, the work of the Holy Spirit.
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Maybe even on your own life you’re beginning to see a change. Maybe something’s happened to you even in the last two or three weeks. One or two of you may say this has happened: things are beginning to change.
There is evidence and change in your life that happens over time.
I cant go to the field and plant and then a day later, go and expect a harvest? Each seed has time inovled in its maturity.
Sometimes we are harvesting things we did not plant or things that were planted in us that we don’t like the harvest.
God is the one who brings the increase and will help this fruit of the spirit Grow. Now if you want to grow in these,
Romans 8:16
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
And then the Spirit brings a subjective experience to our hearts. He brings it from here to here. St Paul writes that the Holy Spirit ‘testifies with our spirit that we are children of God’. It kind of moves from faith to knowledge. What’s the difference between faith and knowledge?
Finger prints Analogy
We have evidence that what is being presented to us is true.
We are sons and Daughters of God.
Break for 5:00 minutes, then Table Discussion and Dessert
Break for 5:00 minutes, then Table Discussion and Dessert