Transcript Faithing

6 Apr 2014
Sermon for FXCC Deaf Ministry
(Borrowed Stolen from Randy Harris)
Watch the video
Follow the instructions on the screen
 GORILLA
CLIP
• Count the passes
• People don’t see the gorilla
• Weren’t looking for it
 Motorcycles
often overlooked in traffic
• When hit – “I didn’t see it”
 When
we read the Bible we may miss
something because we weren’t looking
for it
 We didn’t know we were supposed to
look for it
 English
words are sometimes both nouns
and verbs
• Wish (I make a wish) and wish (I wish for …)
• Hope (I have a hope) and hope (I hope for …)
• You can even “hope a hope” or “wish a wish”
 In
English we have a noun - faith (I have
faith)
 And the verb is believe (I believe …)
 In Greek they are the same word
• Noun pistis (πίστις)
• Verb pisteuo (πιστεύω)
 English
needs a verb – faith, to faith,
faithing
• I.e. I faith, do you faith
 Is
the gospel of belief/faith
 Faith as a noun appears?
• 0 (zero/nada/zilch) times
• In 21 chapters
 Always
a verb
 In John you don’t have faith, you faith in
John
• Faith is something you do
• It is dynamic
 If
you are looking for it,
• Then it is obvious
• It becomes interesting
 Not
something you have
 But something you do
• Over and over again
 Example
from John 11
• Raising of Lazarus
• Raising the dead is a great miracle
• And it is even greater when they are already
rotten
 How
many miracles recorded in John?
• 8 miracles are recorded
• Fewest of all the gospels
 Only
8, but there is a lot of talk/dialogue
with each recorded miracle
 The dialogue is IMPORTANT
 Jesus
goes from Jerusalem to Bethany
• Less than 2 miles distance
• Jesus had waited in Jerusalem after hearing of
Lazarus’ sickness
• Jesus has intentionally delayed until Lazarus has
died, been entombed, and “ripe”
 17 When Jesus
arrived,he found that
Lazarus had been in the tomb four days
already. 18 (Now Bethany was less than two
miles from Jerusalem, 19 so many of the
Jewish people of the region had come to
Martha and Mary to console them over
the loss of their brother.) 20 So when
Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she
went out to meet him, but Mary was
sitting in the house.
 21 Martha said
to Jesus, “Lord, if you had
been here, my brother would not have
died. 22 But even now I know that
whatever you ask from God, God will
grant you.” 23 Jesus replied,“Your brother
will come back to life again.” 24 Martha
said,“I know that he will come back to
life again in the resurrection at the last
day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the
resurrection and the life.
 Jesus
and Martha have a theological
discussion about resurrection
 Martha believes in the resurrection
• Not a Sadducee
 Jesus
replies “I am…”
 In Greek this is normally one word emi
(εἰμι)
 But here we see ego emi (ἐγώ εἰμι)
 Important?
 John
18, arrest of Jesus in the garden
 Vs 2 Judas arrives with soldiers
 “Who do you want/seek?”
 “Jesus of Nazareth”
 Jesus replies ego emi (ἐγώ εἰμι) “I AM”
 What happens?
• Soldiers draw back and fall to the ground
• This is Moses and the burning bush!
 Whenever
Jesus says “I AM” picture a
wink, wink or nod, nod
I AM GOD
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection
and the life. The one who believes faiths
in me will live even if he dies, 26 and the
one who lives and believes faiths in me
will never die.Do you believe faith this?”
27 She replied,“Yes, Lord, I believe faith
that you are the Christ,the Son of God
who comes into the world.”
 25
Martha’s confession is one of the GREAT
moments of displayed faith in scripture
And when she had said this, Martha
went and called her sister Mary, saying
privately,“The Teacher is here and is
asking for you.” 29 So when Mary heard
this, she got up quickly and went to him.
30 (Now Jesus had not yet entered the
village, but was still in the place where
Martha had come out to meet him.)
 28
 31 Then
the people who were with Mary in
the house consoling her saw her get up
quickly and go out. They followed her,
because they thought she was going to
the tomb to weep there. 32 Now when
Mary came to the place where Jesus was
and saw him, she fell at his feet and said
to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died.”
 33 When
Jesus saw her weeping, and the
people who had come with her weeping,
he was intensely moved in spirit and
greatly distressed. 34 He asked,“Where
have you laid him?” They replied,“Lord,
come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 Thus the
people who had come to mourn said,
“Look how much he loved him!”
 37 But
some of them said, “This is the man
who caused the blind man to see!
Couldn’t he have done something to
keep Lazarus from dying?” 38 Jesus,
intensely moved again, came to the tomb.
(Now it was a cave, and a stone was
placed across it.)
 39 Jesus
said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of the deceased,
replied, “Lord, by this time the body will
have a bad smell,because he has been
buried four days.” 40 Jesus responded,
“Didn’t I tell you that if you believe
faithed, you would see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Jesus
looked upward and said, “Father, I thank
you that you have listened to me.
 42 I
knew that you always listen to me,but
I said this for the sake of the crowd
standing around here, that they may
believe faith that you sent me.” 43 When
he had said this, he shouted in a loud
voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The one
who had died came out, his feet and
hands tied up with strips of cloth,and a
cloth wrapped around his face. Jesus said
to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
 John’s
stories have someone in addition
to Jesus being a secondarily important
character
• John 9 the man born blind – the parents are the
other important character
• Here in the Lazarus story the other real main
character is Martha
 Martha
had just said “I faith that you are
the one who is to come into the world”
 At
the tomb she hesitates/waivers and
reminds Jesus that Lazarus’ body is now
stinky
 Jesus
replies “didn’t I just tell you that if
you faithed you would see the glory of
God?”
 Will
you/we faith the moment? Yes or no?
 We would probably all confess like
Martha did
• We would confess Jesus as Lord, if/when asked
• In John, the question is will you faith the moment
 Faith
is not what you have, but what you
do
 You have to faith today, tomorrow, the
next day, the next moment
 Most
of us would pass an orthodoxy test
• Central points of faith
• Jesus is lord
 But
that is not what is most important per
John
 But the important question is
• When we leave here
• When we face life’s important moments
• Will we faith them? Or not.
 When
a loved one dies, will I faith it?
 When we are caught in sin, will we faith
it?
 When I have a serious illness, will I faith
it?
 When I win the lottery, will I faith it?
 These tests happen all our lives
 In John the word is ALWAYS a verb
 We need to get back to faithing
 The
primary problem is not what we
believe
 The primary problem is we don’t faith
each moment of life
 What we believe is not changing how we
live
 John calls us to believe faith
 There
is a postscript to the story of
Lazarus in the next chapter
 9 Now
a large crowd of Judeans learned
that Jesus was there, and so they came not
only because of him but also to see
Lazarus whom he had raised from the
dead. 10 So the chief priests planned to
kill Lazarus too, 11 for on account of him
many of the Jewish people from
Jerusalem were going away and
believing faithing in Jesus.
 There
is a party!
 Lazarus is alive!
 Many come.
 Both Jesus and Lazarus are there
 People wanted to see someone who was
dead and now lives and the one who
raised him
 Vs
10 “…plan to kill Lazarus as well…”
• A a brilliant plan
 Because
in Jesus
many Jews were faithing (vs 11)
 Chapter
12:10
• What would it take to make the chief priests
•
•
•
•
believe?
If they weren’t convinced now, they never will be
They are unwilling to faith!
They plan to get rid of the evidence they have
They have a moral/heart problem
 There
are others like the chief priests out
there even how
 But we are Martha, not the chief priests
 We have faith, but have trouble faithing
each/every moment
 Every act of faithing counts
 Every time we fail to faith, it counts
Something we have?
Or something we do?
 We
will not steal because we are not
thieves
 But people are willing to compromise
(steal) if money is not involved.
• $6 no
• Cokes yes
• On a test yes
Story of Moby Dick
Is faith in your/my life a verb?
Or a noun?