COMMUNITY FAITH

Faith ■Do you understand what “faith” means in the Bible?

■That’s wonderful, because I don’t…or if I do I’m just starting (after 40 years of following Christ) to understand what faith means.

■For many years my faith was taught to me with verses like: ■Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.

■“… is really not theology but magic. “Faith” in this theology is really not the acceptance of a God Who reveals Himself as mercy. It is a psychological, subjective “force” which applies a kind of violence to reality in order to change it according to one’s own whims. Faith is a kind of super effective wishing: a mastery that comes from a special, mysteriously dynamic will power that is generated by “profound conviction” Father Thomas Merton

■That was how I understood faith…even to the point of trying to raise someone to walk from a wheel chair.

■Later I became convinced (because I heard people say so often) that great miracles happened in the developing world because we didn’t “need” God or have to depend on him in America and later in Hong Kong.

■Increasingly though I see faith more as a rest than a fervor. ■I don’t feel a need to “convince” God of my faith and then he will reward me.

Hebrews 11:1 ■Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11: 8-10 ■ By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

■Increasingly as well I am seeing areas highlighted in the scripture of community faith that impacts others.

■ The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

■About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

■The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ■ 31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

■When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.” 36 The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.”

■Faith is a hope that that God is at work to empower us to restore communities and ultimately the world. ■Abraham was the ”man of faith” but it was so that he could be a blessing to the nations…to others.

■Faith is always done in community…because our individual faith will never be enough. We will always wrestle in different seasons of our life. The characters of the Bible show us that individually we have times of great faith and other times…not so much. That’s where the ”corporate faith” comes in

■Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Conclusion