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Faith
So, how is your faith today? What kinds of factors might influence how you would respond to that questions? If you tend to be a person who is generally quite confident and certain about most things in your life, do you think you might answer it differently that someone who tends to have lots of questions about things and likes to think things through carefully? And why would we be likely to answer the question differently based on those kinds of factors?
But however your own internal wiring might influence how you feel about faith, do you still find yourselves wondering about substantial and authentic your faith experience actually is . . . and whether or not you really have "enough" faith - or for that matter, how much "enough" is . . . and what does that look like anyway?
It's one of those things we don't often talk about, but the reality is that one of the reasons that thinking about those kinds of questions can sometimes be troubling to us is that when it comes right down to it, we are not exactly sure just what we do mean by "faith," or by what the life of faith looks like. Of course the problem with that is, that there are no shortages of images and ideas that have become popular in our culture that will be happy to shape our understanding if we are not clear about what the scriptures actually describe in terms of what faith and the life of faith is like.
Hebrews 11
Darby
Now faith is [the] substantiating of things hoped for, [the] conviction of things not seen.
2 For in [the power of] this the elders have obtained testimony.
3 By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by [the] word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear.
4 By faith Abel ... 5 By faith Enoch ... 7 By faith, Noah, ...
8 By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country, having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with [him] of the same promise;
10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is [the] artificer and constructor.
11 By faith also Sarah herself received strength for [the] conception of seed, and [that] beyond a seasonable age; since she counted him faithful who promised . . .
13 All these died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar off and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth . . .
20 By faith Isaac . . . 21 By faith Jacob . . . 22 By faith Joseph . . . 23 By faith Moses . . . 31 By faith Rahab . . .
32 And what more do I say? For the time would fail me telling of Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah, and David and Samuel, and of the prophets:
33 who by faith overcame kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
That's what we explore this week in the sermon. Noting some important insights from Greg Boyd's book, The Benefit of the Doubt, we look at how the idea of certainty sometimes gets confused with faith, and the strength tester device at fairs too often becomes a metaphor for the way we try to measure it.
Then, placing those images along side of the way faith is actually described in the scriptures gives us an opportunity to do some helpful reflection on what it actually does mean to live the life of faith.
If you would like to listen to the sermon again, or maybe for the first time, to can access our sermon library here, or you can watch the livestream version here
obtained promises, stopped lions' mouths . . . 36 and others underwent trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, and of bonds and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, died by the death of the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, evil treated, 38 (of whom the world was not worthy,) wandering in deserts and mountains, and [in] dens and caverns of the earth.
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