How can we have faith?

I’m not here as one who has all the answers, all I want to do through is blog is to share some thoughts I have and some experiences I have had. This blog post is taken from my talk of the same title at at an Alpha course that we ran last term. My aim for this post is to discuss a little bit about what Christian faith is, and then get onto this question of how can we have faith?

Growing up, I used to believe that there was no God, I remember at a young age making the logical connection that the Tooth fairy wasn't real, so neither was Santa, and so neither was Jesus - yes I was that child at school who told the other kids. 

When I was 14 I was invited by a friend and started going to church, because it was full of nice people and I really enjoyed their company, never really had any religious faith of my own.

The big changing point for me in developing faith was when I realised that Christianity was not a religion but a relationship, and a relationship that never ends.

When I was at university I made decisions about my life and I decided what I wanted to do and this led me to living in the US for a year as an extra part of my degree. When I came back to do my final year, I imagined that I would finish that year and from then on the world was my oyster and I would live and work where was best for me. However, in that final year something happened, I met a girl. Although I had had girlfriends in the past, this one was different – firstly, she loved watching rugby. Dream girl! We clicked and got on so well and for me, life was never the same again. No longer was I thinking about my life and my future, but our life and our future, and as we got engaged and then married it was clear that my old life had gone; a new life had begun.

Paul writing to Christians in Corinth — 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.’

Relationships are exciting, and the most exciting relationship of all is our relationship with God. The Christian faith is all about this relationship with God that eventually defines you. I was on Facebook the other day, and a student that I know had written a status after a weekend away with his church. ‘It's surprised me at times when some of my friends have said "I didn't know you were a Christian." I don't want that to be the case any longer. Being a Christian is now my identity, not just what I believe.’

A Christian is a Christ-ian, a follower of Christ, someone who has a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. How that relationship happens will vary enormously. I mean, some people know the exact date. I know that for me it was a in February half term in 2006. Before that I was not a Christian. I became a Christian on that day, and since then I’ve been a Christian.

Other people 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.

John writes this: he says, ‘Yet to all who received him, to those who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God’ — in other words, in the closest possible relationship with God, a child of God. That’s a common analogy in the Bible. The Bible, and especially 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.

In questionnaires filled out after people had done alpha there was a question, ‘Would you have called yourself a Christian at the beginning of Alpha? The answers included:-

• ·   Yes, but without any real experience of a relationship with God.’ 
•     ‘Sort of.’ 
•      I would have called myself a”Christian” (in inverted commas).’ 
•      ‘Not sure.’ 
•      'Ish.’ 
•      ‘Yes, though looking back, possibly no.’

God wants us to be sure. 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?

Helpfully the books break course books for the alpha course break this idea down into 3 categories

1.     The Word of God

2.     The Work of Jesus

3.     The Witness of the Holy Spirit

1    Word of God

Christians have a confidence in the bible, the promises and the truth to be found on it. It is not based on our feelings about God, but the facts we understand in it.

If you asked me, how I know I’m married, one answer I could give you is to show you 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 the bible.

You see, our feelings are changeable. They go up and down — with the weather, with what we’ve had to eat or drink the night before. And if our faith was dependent on our feelings, it would be up and down all the time. But it isn’t dependant on our feelings it is dependent on the promises of God which we find in here.

One such promise is in Revelation 3:20. ‘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, a painter who lived in the 1800s, illustrated this verse with this painting. And he painted it three times. The most famous one is in St Paul’s Cathedral. 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. And the house represents your life, my life.

And 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 —I will come in and eat with them and they with me.’

Eating together, in the Middle East and in ancient times, as today, is a sign of friendship. He’s saying, in other words, `I want to come in and have a friendship, a relationship with you’

Well, when Holman Hunt painted this picture, someone said to him, `Hang on a second. You’ve made a mistake.’ He said, `What’s that?’ He said, `Well, 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 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 have ever prayed 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: ‘If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.’

Two other promises made by God are written in your books

Matthew 28:20: Jesus promises, ‘Surely I am with you always’

And then in John 10:28 says: ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.’ Look them up and see what you think, maybe discuss them with someone you know has faith in Jesus being who he said he was.

2    The Work of Jesus

The second reason for having faith is that it is not based 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 physical proof, a wedding ring or certificate, but another thing I could do is point you to an event that took place at St John’s on 28^th March last year. And if you asked me how I know I’m a Christian, I would point to an event in history: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Stuff that is discussed in the first few weeks of every alpha course.

Let’s look together at Romans 6:23 – 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 translations put it, the free gift of God.’

Recently our vicar Jeff got a piece of post saying congratulations; you have just won an equal share of $9,000,000. I wonder if anyone reading this thinks it is a genuine cause for celebration?

We always assume there is a catch. And of course with this one there is. There's always a catch. But not with God’s gift. God’s gift to us is free. It's not cheap, but it’s free to us. It cost Jesus everything.

2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 21 - 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.’

A reason we can have faith is because of what Jesus did.

The God of the bible is perfect, we are not perfect, non-of us are. We may think that we are good people, perhaps some of us are great people, but none-of us are perfect. We all fall short of God’s perfection. And therefore we cannot be in relationship with God because that would mean he was associated with imperfection.

But what Jesus did on the cross, and what this verse in 2 Corinthians says, is that ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.’ On the cross Jesus took our sin, our failings and our imperfection —so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ He swapped places with us. He who was perfect – traded his perfection his righteousness with us so that we may be made perfect.

Isn’t it amazing: this exchange takes place, 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.

The resurrection is proof that it had worked. I saw a youtube video recently that contained this cheesy poem. ‘On the cross, Christ wrote a cheque for our sins but at the resurrection we all cheered because that meant the cheque cleared.’

So how do we receive this gift that God offers? We receive it by repentance and faith. Repentance is turning away from the bad stuff, the stuff that messes up 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 we do have to turn away from the bad stuff. That’s repentance.

We receive by repentance and then faith in Jesus Christ. What is faith?

Faith is trust. Everybody exercises faith — I expect you are probably doing it right now if you are sat at your computer. You’re putting your trust and faith in the chair your are sitting in that it will hold you up.

Perhaps a better example of faith comes from a guy called Blondin. Blondin was a famous tightrope walker and acrobat in the nineteenth century. Large crowds used to watch him, particularly when he was crossing the Niagara Falls. There is a story of one time when a royal party came over from England to watch it, and it included the Duke of Newcastle. And on this particular occasion what Blondin did was, having walked across and back, he then took a wheelbarrow and he wheeled that across and back. And there was a huge crowd there cheering him. And Blondin went up to the party, the royal party, and he said, `Look, do you believe that I could put somebody in the wheelbarrow and wheel them across?’ And they all said yes. The Duke of Newcastle said yes, and he turned to the Duke of Newcastle and he said, `Hop in!’

Now, that is faith! It would have been foolish — he didn’t, incidentally, hop in! Putting your faith in a tightrope walker is not really that wise a move. But putting your faith in Jesus is a wise move, because unlike Blondin he is more than just a man, he is God.

And through faith in Jesus, and what he has done, we can receive the promises of God in his word, that we have eternal life.

3    The witness of the Holy Spirit.

The third reason to have faith is the witness of the Holy Spirit. So we have the word of God, the work of Jesus; and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Back to my marriage, 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 in March, but the third thing that I can point to is the last year and a bit months of experience of marriage.  And if you asked me how I know I’m a Christian, I can point the bible, to the event that took place in history but I can also point to 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.’ Actually, it’s not Jesus who comes in; it’s the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus comes in by his Spirit. And the Spirit of God can come into your life and my life.

What happens when he comes in? Well, he begins to transform us. 

Galatians, chapter 5, verse 22 - Paul writes this:

‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’

These are the characteristics that begin to develop in our lives and these fruit of the Spirit in our lives, they take time. And in my case, they’re taking a very long time! But hopefully, as life goes on we become more loving, more joyful, more kind, more patient and so on. 

When I first started going out with Cathie, I remember that we talked constantly and I suddenly thought, hang on at some point we are simply going to run out of things to talk about. I was telling her all my stories and my interests and at some point she was going to turn to me and say, ‘Aidan, I have heard that one so many times.’ I told a mate of mine this who had had a girlfriend for 3 years at that point, and he said don’t worry because at that point you will have started to make your own stories. That is the best part of the relationship because you go from talking about your interests to sharing your interests. And he was right and it is the same with God.

When you start a relationship with God, you get to a point where the things that he is interested in, become your interests. You can see the impact of this in your life and you can recognise the Love of God working in you through his Holy Spirit.

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 in a relationship with God. Paul writes in Romans 8, verse 16, that ‘the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God’.

What’s the difference between faith and knowledge?

Faith is trusting that a chair will hold your wait and deciding to sit in it, knowledge is the experience of having sat in the chair and knowing that it is safe to sit on. Initially you take a step (or sit) of faith, but then you know.

And inviting Jesus in is a step of faith, but when he comes in, the Holy Spirit testifies: he ‘testifies to our spirit that we are children of God’ and that we’re loved by him.

In conclusion, I am writing this because I took that step of faith, and then God gave me the knowledge that I'm in a relationship with him through his Son. That is what Christians believe.

We know we have a relationship with God because of the promises in his word— 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.

If you want to Jesus to come in to your life then all you have to ask. Jesus is alive, he’s where you are reading this. You can pray this in your heart quietly to him and he will hear.

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 could 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.