How Can I Have Faith?

TALK 3 : STUDENT ALPHA: October 2009 How Can I Have Faith? I like to think I m a pretty cool individual. I like to think I can keep my head when all around are losing theirs. I like to think that s true, but it s not. On one classic occasion this became very apparent to me. It was when I first saw HER. I was in church, and she was gorgeous! I was dumbstruck totally speechless. How could I get to talk to her? She was talking to a friend of mine, then she went to get a coffee, so I went up beside her for a coffee myself. Normally I drink it straight, no milk, no sugar, just grab it and go,.but I had to talk to her! What would be the first words, the opening line, the great attention-grabber? I took hold of the milk-jug and, as if it were some great dilemma, said, To have milk or not?! She just smiled and walked away, leaving me standing there, wincing! Thankfully, though, she still agreed to marry me! Paul, writing to Christians in Corinth after Jesus death and resurrection 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17 says this: Those who become Christians become new persons. They're not the same any more, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun. New life is exciting! We had a new baby recently and she is gorgeous! All burps and giggles, she looks just like a miniature version of me. Lucky thing. It s so exciting getting to know this new person. New life is wonderful. Relationships are wonderful. And the most exciting relationship of all is our relationship with God. At the end of the Alpha course we ask people to fill in a short questionnaire, just to get feedback on what they liked, what they didn t like. Let me read to you a couple of things people wrote on their questionnaires. One person wrote this: I experienced God for the first time: the feeling of completeness and need for forgiveness that I so desperately needed was satisfied. Page 1 of 12

Another wrote this: My life has changed radically and for the better. I m a new person now a Christian. What does that mean, a Christian? Does it mean a 'nice person'? Oh, they re a Christian person. The simple truth is that you could be a very nice atheist! What about if you are born in a country that is supposedly a Christian country, does that make you a Christian? No! Being born in a Christian country doesn't make you a Christian any more than being born in a McDonald's would make you a Big Mac burger. A Christian is a Christ-ian a follower of Christ; someone who has a relationship with God through Jesus. Some would say, Do you know, I can never remember a time that I wasn t a Christian. Others would say, Well, I think there was a time when I wasn t a Christian, and I think I am a Christian now, but I couldn t tell you exactly how it happened. It was a bit of a process. It doesn t matter which of those categories you re in; what matters is that you know that you are a Christian now. It s a bit like if you re on a train going from one country to another. Some people will be awake at the moment the train crosses the border, they ll see the signs, they ll know the exact moment it happened. Other people will be snoring gently in the corner and the change won t be so obvious! What matters is that you know that you re at the right destination. And what matters is that you know that you re a Christian now and you can know that. St John says about Jesus, Yet to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. A child of God: the closest possible relationship with God. That s a common analogy in the New Testament. The New Testament also sometimes uses the analogy of a husband and wife. It s that close a relationship. But the point is this: if you re in that relationship, you know you're in that relationship. Page 2 of 12

Back to the questionnaires, we ask the question, Would you have called yourself a Christian at the beginning of the Alpha course? Here s some of the ways people have answered that question. One person wrote: Yes, but without any real experience of a relationship with God. Another wrote: Sort of. Another: In inverted commas. Another: Not sure. Another: Ish. Another: Yes, though looking back, possibly no. Now, if you re in a relationship, you know. Supposing you were to ask my wife Andy, Andy, are you married? and she was to say, Yes, but without any real experience of a relationship, or Sort of, or In inverted commas, or Not sure, or Ish, or Yes, though looking back, possibly no! God wants us to be sure of our relationship with him. Again, St John writes this: I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. How can we know that? How can we know that we re a Christian? How can we know that we have eternal life? Our confidence is based on three things like the three legs of a tripod, and each of them are essential. Each of these three legs represent members of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the word of the father, the work of Jesus and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Hold up a Bible The first is this: the Word of God, the word of the Father. Our confidence is based on this book, the promises in this book. And therefore it s based on facts and not on feelings. If you asked me how do I know I m married, one answer I could give you is to show you this: this document. It s our marriage certificate. This is evidence that we re married. And if you asked me how I know I'm a Christian, I would point to this book. Page 3 of 12

You see, our feelings are changeable. They go up and down with the weather, with what we ve had to eat the night before, or how well our favourite football team are doing (!), with how well life is going. A few years back my wife Andy and I were invited to go on holiday with some friends to Jackson Hole Wyoming, surely one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the USA. We got to stay in this incredible ski chalet set into the hillside overlooking this peaceful snow-filled valley. So tranquil, so beautiful. The first morning I got up early, slipped onto the balcony of our bedroom and breathed in the chill, crisp air. All was quiet. The world was still asleep. I turned and saw my wife curled up asleep in the bed, and I looked at this huge fireplace in the corner, and I thought, I know, I ll get her some breakfast and light the fire and, oh, how romantic am I?! So I crept over to the fireplace, struck a match, and with a smile on my face, watched as the smoke began to curl up out of the paper and kindling wood. Smoke curls became smoke clouds, clouds which, strangely, rather than disappearing up the chimney began to balloon out into the room. More and more smoke was accompanied by a more and more confused look on my face. I bent down and looked up the chimney and found a large metal handle. I gave it a good pull and the flue magically opened and the smoke charged up the chimney but not all the smoke. As I looked to the ceiling, at the smoke still curling upwards, my heart sank as I saw the most massive of evil-looking smoke detectors. I stood rooted to the spot waiting and then it began. Utter chaos. Alarms fired up, ringing around the entire house, echoing across the once-peaceful valley. This would not have been so bad but this was a state of the art alarm system. With the siren came a loud commanding voice: Fire! Exit immediately! Fire! Exit immediately! By now the entire house was awake and panicking, We re gonna die, we re gonna die! This would not have been so bad but the fire alarm was wired into the local fire station so now they were on the phone and jumping into their fire-trucks and heading up the valley. Meanwhile I was racing around trying to calm everyone, desperately trying to fan some of the smoke out of the now wide-open balcony doors. My wife was, perhaps not surprisingly, now awake, sitting up in bed, sheets pulled around her, hands over her ears, freezing. This would not have been so bad but my friend Pete had found a large red button in his bedroom, which he took to be an alarm reset button. He pressed it. But the alarm did not stop, because the reset button was not a reset button, it was a panic alarm button wired directly into the local police station. So now the police were on the phone, jumping into their cars and heading up the valley. Did I mention it was chaos?! Did I mention that I all I wanted to do was have a romantic breakfast with my wife? Suffice it to say that my feelings had changed quite quickly! Different days bring different feelings. And if our faith was dependent on how we felt, we would never be sure whether we are a Christian or not. But it s not; it s dependent on the promises of God. Page 4 of 12

In Revelation, chapter 3, verse 20. Jesus says this: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me. Holman Hunt, the British pre-raphaelite painter, illustrated this verse with this painting. It s called The Light of The World. And it illustrates this verse: Jesus, the Light of the World, is standing at the door of someone s house someone s life. What it s illustrating is that this particular person has never opened their life to Christ, and that s shown by the fact that this door is overgrown with weeds and thorns and thistles that have grown up around it. And Jesus is saying: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door invites me in I will come in and eat with them and they with me. Eating together, is a sign of friendship. He s saying, in other words, I want to come into your life and have a friendship with you. Now, when Holman Hunt painted this picture, someone said to him, Hang on a second. You ve made a mistake. You ve left off the handle. There s no handle on the door. And Holman Hunt replied, That s not a mistake. There is a handle, but the handle is on the inside. In other words, Jesus is not going to force his way into your life or my life. He s not Rambo or Jack Bauer! He s not going to kick the door in! We have to ask him, and if we do, this is the promise: he says, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in. He doesn t say, I might come in it s a promise: I will come in. So, for example, if any of you prayed the prayer that we prayed at the end of the talk last week and invited Jesus to come into your life, you can be sure he came in, whatever you felt. It s not dependent on feelings; it s a promise. Another promise of God is: I will be with you always. Page 5 of 12

Another promise of God says: I give them eternal life. Life, eternal, forever. The implications of the resurrection are massive, because Jesus rising from the dead assures us about our past, our present and our future. I ve said it before and I ll say it again, if the resurrection didn t happen then it s all utterly meaningless you have to start with the resurrection! The resurrection means we really can know that we re forgiven. When you look at the cross, it is such a difficult subject to grasp. How can we know for sure that the cosmic powers of evil really were dealt with when Jesus died on the cross? The answer is we know it because he rose from the dead. The Father raised his Son from the dead. It s not the case that the crucifixion was this huge defeat, and the resurrection was the reversal of that defeat. They are both part of the same story; the resurrection was the seal and the expression of the victory of the cross. The resurrection is the evidence that the cross really worked, that we really can be forgiven; the past can be wiped clean. The resurrection also assures us about the present: that we really can have a relationship with Jesus. Jesus is not dead, he s alive. And therefore you can know him, and I can know him. Thirdly, the resurrection assures us about the future: because If Jesus was dead, buried and rose again, that means that you and I can have the assurance that this life is not the end. There is life beyond the grave. Now some people think, Eternal life? That sounds really boring! I don t want to sit around on a big white cloud for years and years! But St Paul wrote this: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 C.S Lewis uses this analogy. He suggests that we think of this life as being like term-time and heaven as being like the school holidays. He says of people who ve died: The term is over. The holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning. All their life in this world had only been the cover and the title page. Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Page 6 of 12

Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on for ever, in which every chapter is better than the one before. In his word, the Father promises the most incredible things. We can trust those promises. The second leg of the tripod is the work of Jesus. Our faith is based not on what we do, but on what Jesus has done for us. Again, if you asked me how I know I m married, I could show you the wedding certificate, but another thing I could do is point you to an event that took place in London on 20 th June 1998. And if you asked me how I know I m a Christian, I would point to an event in history: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That s how we know that God loves us. In Romans, chapter 6, verse 23, St Paul writes this: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord or, as some versions put it, the free gift of God. We can t believe free stuff, can we?: we always think there has to be a catch. But not with God s gift. God s gift is free. It s free to us, but it cost Jesus everything. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 21, the apostle Paul writes this: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. In the Old Testament, Isaiah, chapter 53, verse 6 says: All we, like sheep, have gone astray this book represents us, all the things that we ve done wrong that form a partition, a wall between us and God. All we like sheep have gone astray, we ve turned, every one, to our own way all just done our own thing. Now let this hand represent Jesus Christ, who never did anything wrong. And what the verse says is: On the cross the LORD has laid on him on Jesus the iniquity of us all. Now the partition of sin rests on Jesus. That s what Jesus did on the cross and the perfection of his relationship with the Father ceased in that moment, utter spiritual torment, far beyond the physical pain of Page 7 of 12

crucifixion. But there s more: The apostle Paul adds something in this verse. Let s do that again, but this time let s allow this white handkerchief to represent the purity of Christ. Jesus lived a sinless life; he never did anything wrong. He then took upon himself the barrier between us and the Father. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Isn t it amazing: an exchange took place which means it s possible for us, because of what Jesus did, to be in a right relationship that s what righteousness means a right relationship with God and, as a result, right relationships with other people. So that God looks at us in the same way that he looked at his own Son, Jesus Christ, because of what Jesus did on the cross for us. So how do we receive this gift that God offers? We receive it by repentance and faith. Repentance is turning away from sin, from going our own way, turning away from the stuff that messes up our lives. God doesn t ask us to leave things that are good for us behind, but the stuff that, whether we fully realise it or not, damages our lives. What we leave behind is nothing compared to what we receive, and it s nothing compared to what Jesus gave up on the cross. But, make no mistake; we do have to turn away from the bad stuff. That s repentance. We receive by repentance and then faith. But what is faith? Faith is trust. Everybody exercises faith you re all exercising faith tonight. You re putting your trust in those chairs by sitting on them. [When you came here tonight you exercised faith that the food is safe to eat and when you sit down in your group, you are doing so believing that your group leader is not a mad axe murderer! You Page 8 of 12

can t prove categorically that they aren t, or that they are, they just might be!] Coming back to the marriage analogy, when two people get married they exercise faith. When you say, I will, you re entrusting your life to another person. Faith is putting your money where your mouth is: Jean-Francois Gravelet (1824-1897), better known as Blondin, was a famous tightrope walker and acrobat. He was perhaps best known for his many crossings of a tightrope 1,100 feet (335m) in length suspended 160 feet (50m) above the Niagra Falls. His act would be watched by large crowds and began with a relatively simple crossing using a balancing pole. Then he would throw the pole away and begin to amaze the onlookers. On one occasion in 1860, a Royal party from Britain went to watch Blondin perform. He crossed the tightrope on stilts, then blindfolded; next he stopped halfway to cook and eat an omelette. He then wheeled a wheelbarrow from one side to the other as the crowd cheered. He put up a sack of potatoes into the wheelbarrow and wheeled that across. The crowd cheered louder. Then he approached the Royal party and asked the Duke of Newcastle, Do you believe that I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow? Yes I do, said the Duke. Hop in! replied Blondin. The crowd fell silent, but the Duke of Newcastle would not accept Blondin s challenge. Is there anyone else here who believes I could do it? asked Blondin. No one was willing to volunteer. Eventually, an old woman stepped out of the crowd and climbed into the wheelbarrow. Blondin wheeled her all the way across and all the way back. The old woman was Blondin s mother, the only person willing to put her life in his hands. Faith is not merely intellectual; it involves an active step of putting our trust in Jesus. That s the second leg of the tripod. The third leg of the tripod is the witness of the Holy Spirit. So, the Word of God, the work of Jesus and thirdly, the witness of the Holy Spirit. It s based on him and not on us. If you asked me the question how do I know I m married, I can point to a marriage certificate, I can point to an event that took place here, but the third thing that I can point to is over ten years of the experience of marriage. And if you asked me how I know I m a Christian, I can point to this book, to an event that took place in history, but I can also point to personal experience. We looked at this verse where Jesus says: Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in. It s an extraordinary miracle, the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Jesus, can come into your life and my life. Page 9 of 12

What happens when he comes in? Well, he begins to transform us. And some of these things you can actually see objectively. In Galatians, chapter 5, verse 22 Paul writes this: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and selfcontrol. Sometimes people say, you know, I m a bit worried what would happen if I became a Christian. They say, I don t want to change. And if I did change, how would I change? Here s the answer: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness these are the characteristics that begin to develop in our lives. They sound pretty good, don t they? Not that they happen overnight. Fruit takes time to grow. In my case, they re taking a very long time! But hopefully, as life goes on we do become more loving, more joyful, more kind, more patient. And it s a love that drives us to make a difference to our world. This is not just a kind of selfish thing, that we feel great in and for ourselves; it s that we re given a desire and a passion to make a difference to our world. This is not an easy thing being a Christian is never going to be an easy thing. It s hugely challenging, hugely exciting, but it s not easy. And then not only are there objective changes; there s also a subjective experience. The Holy Spirit brings a deep, personal conviction that we are children of God. Paul writes in Romans 8, verse 16, that: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And as children, we are loved, completely. We were at home the other day and the oven was on, cooking a beautiful cake I had made. The glass oven door was very hot. My eldest daughter was too close to it, and she got a burn on the back of her middle finger. Tears, cuddles and ice-packs later, we all packed into the car and headed out of town on the motorway. After about thirty minutes in the car Abby began to complain again that the burn was hurting. But now we had no ice. What s the coldest part of a car, thought I. The window, was my genius conclusion! So I half-turned and encouraged Abby to press her hand against the Page 10 of 12

glass. We drove on, passing cars as we cruised down the outside the middle lane, and after about ten minutes I thought I would check how Abby was getting on. So I half-turned in the driver s seat again and this time saw my angelic 4 year old daughter, sitting high in her child seat, with just her middle finger pressed against the glass... yes, that s right, as we overtook car after car (that were all dawdling along dangerously at 40 miles an hour) she was, albeit innocently, presenting them with the middle finger salute. They re so lovely, they make mistakes, but still our love for them is TOTAL! And as I go through life, I often feel a failure. I often feel I ve messed up, I ve failed again! And at that moment, as we say sorry, you sense the Holy Spirit connect with your own spirit and say, Don t you realise that I love you even more than you love your own child? I love you because I love you. That s why we re not just downloading information about the Christian faith when we come here. That's how we know that we re in a relationship with God: We know it because of the promises of God he will come in We know it because of the death of Jesus for us, what he did for us And we know it because the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit May we pray. Again, I want to give people an opportunity. You may just want to be quiet for a moment, and you may say you re not ready to pray. But again, there might just be one person here who would like to pray. And I want to pray a prayer similar to the one that I prayed last week. And Jesus is alive, he s here tonight. You can pray this in your heart, echo it in your heart. Just say: Lord Jesus Christ, thank you that you love me so much. Thank you that you stand at the door of my life and you knock. And tonight I want to invite you in. I turn away from all the bad stuff in my life, all the things that I know are not right. I m sorry for them and I ask your forgiveness. Thank you that you died for me on the cross so that I could be totally forgiven, the slate can be wiped clean and that I can make a new start. And tonight I put my trust in you. I ask you to come in and to fill me with your Holy Spirit, to help me to lead the kind of life that deep down I long to lead. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen. Page 11 of 12

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