The Launch part 2 // rethinking faith
May 30, 2007 by Nic
Read This // Matthew 14.24-33 (The Message)
24-26 Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror 27 But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid. 28 Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.29-30 He said, “Come ahead.”Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, “Master, save me!” 31 Jesus didn’t hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, “Faint-heart, what got into you?”
32-33 The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down. The disciples in the boat, having watched the whole thing, worshiped Jesus, saying, “This is it! You are God’s Son for sure!”
Watch This // Slides
Launch Slides ( numbers below match their slide number)
1.Where does your faith come from? Your parents, your friends, your pastors?
When was the last time you thought about what you believe?
Maybe it’s time to consider this…
2.Jesus is doing more than just putting on a show of his power.
He’s proving a point to Peter, “You can do what I do”.
3.It seems like Peter became afraid and lost his faith in Jesus,
But was it Jesus who Peter lost faith in,
or was it himself?
4.If that’s true, then why couldn’t the disciples cast out the demon in a boy in Matthew 17. Surely they believed Jesus could heal him.
5.Jesus calls 12 men to follow him. He spends 3 years teaching these men to do the same things that he was doing. Jesus then instructs them to go, spread the gospel. He doesn’t micro manage them, he has faith that these men are capable of starting the church.
6.It says in Mark 5.26/34
“…She had suffered a great deal, and she had spent all she had on doctors. ..” I imagine that means she has no job, no house, and no money. Yet it says “when she heard about Jesus…” She had hope. At this point She must be in one of two positions. Completely desperate, and broken or she’s at the point physically of life and death. Either way Jesus is her only hope.
7.She was standing there believing all the right things, and Jesus just passes her by.
How many people in that crowd were believing all the right things?
But if faith is about believing the right things, and trusting Jesus,
then why wasn’t she healed when Jesus walked by her?
8.Jesus never even saw her, yet it says he realized power had gone out of him. In a crowd of People, dozens of people were touching Jesus, all of whom needed something from him, why is she the only one? Then Jesus says your faith has healed you. So it wasn’t just standing by believing in Jesus that healed her, it was when she believed it enough that she did something.
9.In the gospels Jesus clearly shows that it wasn’t the movie stars of his day that had faith. it was the desperate, the down and out, Any time Jesus points out faith it’s in a person you would never suspect. Like a roman solider, a man with leprosy, women and children.
10.rethinking that faith is all about God
rethinking that faith means your weak.
rethinking that faith is how many bible verses you know
rethinking that God has faith in me
11.Is my faith based on another persons beliefs?
Do I swallow whatever I hear about God?
Who is the biggest contributor to my faith, do they have an agenda?
What was the last thing that shook my faith?
What does a person with a strong faith look like?
How do others view my faith?
Answer This //
Do you really live out what you believe? If not why are you still holding on to it?
Forgive me, but I’m going to put a long comment that is an excerpt from an introduction to a book of writings of Kierkegaard. I put it here especially because you talk about Faith, and I feel Kierkegaard has a lot to say about Faith. The excerpt unfortunately is a secondary source, and so I would urge you to consider Kierkegaard (if you haven’t done already), just to dialogue with your own conceptions of faith.
http://regenerationayk.wordpress.com/2007/05/16/download-ebook-kierkegaards-provocations/
Subjectivity and Truth
Kierkegaard expends great efforts contrasting objective thinking and subjective truth. For him, faith is not a belief but a certain way of being in the truth that extends beyond reason’s ability to grasp. By “subjectivity” Kierkegaard does not mean subjectivism: a belief is true because one believes it to be true.
He is concerned with the degree to which a person “lives within” the truth he confesses. To him subjectivity means turning away from the objective realm of facts – that can be learned by detached observation and abstract thinking – and immersing oneself in the subjective, inward activity of discovering truth for oneself. At its highest pitch, subjectivity culminates in faith – an infinite passion that is both rationally uncertain and paradoxical. Faith requires risk, which objective certainty abhors.
But this is the distinctive mark of Christian faith. Faith means to wager everything and to suffer for the truth, despite the offenses of the Incarnation and the Cross.
Faith, therefore, requires a leap. It is not a matter of galvanizing the will to believe something there is no evidence for, but a leap of commitment. “The leap is the category of decision” – the decision to commit one’s being totally to a God whose existence is rationally uncertain and whose redemption is utterly an offense. This is why, according to Kierkegaard, all proofs for the
existence of God and the deity of Christ fail. To try and prove God’s existence by means of a purely neutral, objective standpoint is completely backwards. It is to go back to the aesthetic
sphere. To the contrary, God is known by way of passionate, undivided commitment. Besides, Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but rather a life to be lived. “Proofs” are thus not only unconvincing but irrelevant. God is spirit and therefore can only be known in a spiritual (i.e., subjective, inward) way. The how of one’s existence is what is decisive. Herein lies the importance of commitment; an act of the will that transcends reason’s requirement.
Again, we may refer to Abraham. Here was a man willing to commit infanticide in the name of God. “How then did Abraham exist? He believed. This is the paradox which keeps him upon the sheer edge and which he cannot make clear to any other person, for the paradox is that he as the individual puts himself in an absolute relation to the Absolute.” God requires of each of us this degree of commitment: an absolute relation to the Absolute. Such commitment can be terrifying as God leads us “out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water.” And just as Jesus Christ produced certain effects on his contemporaries, to be his in faith one must be a contemporary of his and have vital, decisive contact with him now. There is no such thing as a second-string disciple.