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(55 mins!)
Statements people make about faith:
“I wish I had your faith”
“As you know I could never share your faith”
“Faith is believing something you know isn’t real.”
“You just got to have faith.”
John 1:10-13 – Faith is recognizing and receiving
John 2:11 – Faith is responding to the glory of Jesus
Dutiful Derek
Derek’s Father says: “We’re going to visit the Grand Canyon and you’ll be awestruck!”
Derek says: “Do I have to be awestruck??”
Derek's Father says: "One day you’ll meet a girl and you’ll fall in love?"
Derek says: “Do I have to fall in love?”
Derek’s Father says: We’re going to church to hear about the glory of Jesus and we’ll believe in Jesus.
Derek says: “Do I have to believe in Jesus?”
That’s a funny question isn’t it?
Faith is like being awestruck or falling in love – it must happen if you’re recognizing the glory of Christ!
John 3:13-16 – Faith is looking away from self to Jesus (cf Brazen Serpent)
John 20:24-31 – Faith is meeting the risen Jesus
The Christian life is a life of continuing faith
Through the Bible.
Faith is not something in me that I need to drum up
Faith is not a leap into the dark – it’s stepping into the light
In fact it’s being in the dark and having someone switch the light on
Faith is not a hoop you have to jump through to get something else: salvation
Galatians 2:17-3:5
Faith is receiving Jesus – it’s a life-long love affair.
Galatians 5:6
It begins by being passive with God and bears fruit in love for others
1 Samuel 17
Faithless, fearful Israel are saved by their Faithful, Fearless King.
Their unbelief turns to faith when they see His victory: they shout and advance
Every day we need to same: to look to our Champion, to shout and advance.
The life of faith is a continual looking to Christ.
Thanks be to God that He gives it to us.
Otherwise...it just wouldn't happen.
(gonna try and listen a bit later - thanks, Glen)
It seems that looking to our worldly corruption, the flesh as in the vulgar, a name of generations of dead men's bones, we shoud be quickened insteady by true humanity: Ben Adam, Bar Naesa(sp?), Jesus the true Human. Mary witnessed it first hand.