Twisted Scripture - James 1 (Greg Boyd)

all right if I'm looking particularly ugly this morning there's a reason for it I just want you know you press something eels unusually ugly well it's unusually so do you have this will you eat something and it transforms your face like one time when I was in grad school I woke up at 2:00 in the morning he looked at my face was all itchy I looked in the mirror and I was a monster I mean it was absolute master I had one when I was totally shot when I was just you know I had a little slit it's right they went to the hospital and they did what was the top specialist on food allergies was there and and first thing he says to me is these things are almost impossible to figure out unless they happen regularly I could have been any combination of anything we think it was head something do with the strawberries I eat that day I don't know but anyways so that happened to me last night I woke up and I was not a monster I hope but uh nice I my skin itches my eyes are all puffy and wrinkly and swelling do I look terrible but Steve tells me you can't tell on the screen because we don't have high definition and I'm boarding we just keep it that way from now on you know if I can gloss over a little bit make it fuzzier and that'd be that'd be better so my sucks anyways I'll try to figure out what I'm allergic to then so I won't be hugging you next week okay so we are in this series and twisted Scripture we don't get like from looking pretty anyway so who cares twist the scripture and I'll tell you this today we're going to talk about faith and this description will be out of James 1 I put together messages in series with a team of people talked through different things everything works better in community and I initially was resisted this talking about faith and doubt and things like that because I said I think I just preached on that like a year ago I did a whole series to month series in fact faith and doubt and they responded pointing out that they actually went into the archives and that was three and a half years ago or a piece of series see that somebody that just freaks me out it just freaks me out I just I could sworn I just did this last year if it was even that long ago I find that my ability to keep track of time is just going out the window I you know with your younger you make mistakes in terms of hours or days or maybe you know a week was that three weeks ago or four weeks ago now you miss decades it's just it's going faster and faster and faster and faster if you can't slow it down and tomorrow I'm gonna wake up I'll be 94 and I'll always be looking like this yeah it's just this is how it goes it's got a roll with it man I can't believe it so so we thought that since it was three and half years ago and this is a foundational issue and very widespread misunderstanding of what faith is about we're going to talk on this so if you were here three-and-a-half years ago this will be review but it's important review its foundational review we tend to forget things and so nothing a little repetition so don't fall asleep on me got that and if you were here in the last three half years you just came you're rather new here this will probably be new to you in fact it could be paradigm shifting and whenever you are giving something that's a complete reframe of something it's a little hard to swallow so I just consider I ask you to consider it and chew on it and if you want to go deeper on this I wrote a book on this called benefit of the doubt which they told me it was published over a year ago and I thought that was like a month ago and how is all this possible it's called benefited out and it would it fills it out more than I can do in in one sermon so here's what James 1 says when you ask you must believe in that doubt believe in that doubt get rid of doubt believe because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind those who doubt should not think they will receive anything from the Lord they are double minded and unstable and all they do believe and do not doubt are we supposed to squelch all doubt will all doubt away that's the question pair with me here for a moment Heavenly Father I just bless all the folks that are in this auditorium and all the folks who will be listening through podcasts our beloved pod listeners around the globe I I just pray God that your spirit opens our hearts and minds to receive your word and instruct us I pray Lord that you would teach us what it is to be a people of faith and to exercise faith and and not just teach us but motivate us to be faithful and rid out of our minds use this message to rule out anything that could be holding us captive that could be clouding your beauty that could be obstructing our discipleship that could cause us to be concerned about things that we don't need to be concerned with just free us to dance in your presence be held by your warm embrace to keep our eyes fixed on you and Jesus name we pray and all of God's people said amen amen so here's the thing I last week mentioned in the process of talking about this twisted view of salvation and if you were here for that encourage you to download it it's another paradigm-shifting foundational concept but in standard view people think that faith is intellectual assent and that's one way that faith has gotten twisted they think its intellectual assent and then if you enjoy if you intellectually say yes to certain beliefs like Jesus is Lord he rose from the dead and things like that then you are saved and and people tend to think that salvation is something that God just gives us because in return for for our intellectual assent so it's a contract a legal contract you here's the deal you give me this and I'll give you that like buying a car yeah I give you money you give me the car we give intellectual assent God gives us salvation and what we showed last week was that that is a mistaken conception of salvation and faith faith is not just intellectual assent and salvation is not just acquittal from Hell it's some kind of a deal it's a it's a it's a relationship a marriage relationship they're supposed to have with Abba Father our heavenly bridegroom now here's another way that faith has gotten twisted and this when we speak on this morning because people that's widespread they think of faith is something that takes place between your ears it's an intellectual assent they tend to see it as a psychological concept the question do you have faith is a question about it some datum in your brain it's something going on in your brain that that believes things it's a psychological concept and because people see it as a psychological concept they tend to think that your faith is as strong as your psyche is certainly the more certain you are that you're right about this belief the stronger your faith is the more you doubt the weaker your faith is and since faith is virtuous doubt must be evil right and since faith is saving doubt maybe is damning so you create culture people who want to avoid doubt like the plague faith is the antithesis of doubt that seems to be on the surface with James one is teaching though I'll surely it around that that in fact is not the case but let's just get on this concept for a while so your faith is as strong as you are psychologically certain and God deliver does everything on that and so what you to do is you create a culture people who are shunning doubt and trying to make themselves certain of things and the more certain we are the more blessed we are we've mean that's virtuous it raises some interesting questions like like oh how much how certain do you have to be I'm just what is the saving minimum if you're a B does it require 100% certainty cuz then I'm out hold over 90 we've got some four seventy five percent sir how about 50.1% okay just I just is that the benchmark how certain do you do you have to be I have met people who you know felt like they wanted to commit to Christ but they they said I can't cuz I I just am not fully convinced yet and what they're thinking about is they still have some reservations in their brain about this I said well if you're waiting for a hundred percent certainty it's not going to happen the question is are you confident enough to commit to it wait well they have questions or reservations you're uncertain isn't an issue but but see that it's a psychological concept at work I don't know I'm not one percent certain or I get questions like this sometimes the lady several years ago of course it could have been several decades ago I'm I'm all screwed up but she came up after the service and and she was you know teary-eyed and sweet lady and she said you know I love Jesus with all my heart and she really could see the sincerity there and I love God but this she said but I see I have a master's degree in literature and I wish I didn't because with this I've just trained to read literature in different ways and frankly some of the stuff of God if people in the Old Testament well some of them strike me as fables or myths iiiiii question whether they're historical and then there's some parts of the Old Testament that I can't even read because it's so bloody and gory and I question how could that be God's Word so I have doubts about some parts of the Bible some parts are absolutely love but some parts I just really doubt is God's Word am I still saved and I still saved and she was like asking us with fear and I still saved and the assumption behind that is hey her level of certainty has gone down in certain parts of the Bible and that might disqualify her from this contract you know she won't get the deal of salvation unless she she has a certain level of certainty or is this is if I made a little more traumatic his I had this several times a person come up after the service and and ask the question is reason my son who's dying of leukemia is the reason he's that healed because I waver in my faith I'm not certain God's gonna heal him and some folks tell me that if I'm not certain God's gonna heal them that God's not going to heal them I need to have certain faith that to believe in that doubt that's what the Bible says and I sometimes though so it's my fault that my kids dying by killing my kid with my uncertainty how do you carry that around I mean live with that for a little bit and it's just so I've called this the strength tester model of faith you go state-fair you see this game you know macho guys try to play this where yeah I hit this mallet and or this pellet and it sends this mallet up the pole and you try to ring the bell strength tester although I'm told there's nothing to do a strength has to do a technique but I'm not gonna try it because it's intimidating I'll probably go two inches in everyone laughs so but here's the deal so in this here's analogy that the idea is farther up the strength tester you get yeah the more faith you have in the more blessings you get and so I'm throwing these numbers on arbitrary let's say 50% is the bare minimum if you have 50.1% well you just barely bathe into the kingdom now you're saved okay now you can go to heaven you got your acquittal and that's the bare minimum now if you can get that thing up to 65 percent or so you start moving the blessing zone and parking spaces start open up to you and and fortunate things start to happen you know you you get more certainty so you get more blessed you get that up to about 85 90 percent without you move into prosperity zone or everything you touch this prosperous your job flourishes and everything is just going wonderful and maybe you can start praying against some headaches and some ankle sprains and see some healings okay because the power starting to flow because you've got more certainty but if you can get up to 99.9% even 100% and ring that stupid Bell well now you've got mountain-moving faith here Jesus kind of faith you can bring peace in the Middle East and and peace to your marriage I mean it's just everything is gonna be I don't know about the marriage but peace little babe I'm playing off that old GD joke nevermind as an EDD moment so easy so what happens is people trying to convince themselves I mean this is the model it's not usually put off that explicitly but that's the model and few people I culture people who basically are doing kind of the wizard of the lion in The Wizard of Oz / I do believe I do believe I do I do I do believe I do believe in the Bible I do I do I do I do believe in there I believe in Jesus and I believe yeah I'm gonna be healed I'm and he's gonna be healed I'm doing a plane and the trends are gonna work series this year I'm do believe I do believe I do believe and God says you've got to be kidding on that last one okay that's better off praying for pieces on at least alright so we think this is twisted we think this is twisted something is off with this so I'm gonna raise four kind of objections and questions and negative consequences of this view there many more I talked about in the book but I'll deal with like the top four and then and then I'll deal with the James passage okay so here's some questions we always start with Jesus because Jesus is the central criterion for what God is like what his will is like when it's characters like so I always ask the question how does the view of God presupposed in this theological position square with what we find in in the life and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus and I submit you that this view assumes an uncrewed of God here's why I Illustrated when I was in grad school I worked in a church and one of my Jobs was visiting people in hospital stuff and so there's this guy that was called on to come and visit he wouldn't go to our church but he was related to somebody in the church as a real tragic thing that happened his name was Gary he was 21 years old young vibrant passionate man loved Jesus he was to be married in six months good-looking guy he was a pastor of a youth group but he was playing rugby with his youth group and he tripped and it was a freak accident tripped he broke his neck at just the wrong place and the result was he was paralyzed from the neck down and the doctor said that they have said there is nothing that we can do nothing medicine can do for him as the permanent condition it was just terrible now the thing is is that I went to visit him and talked with him and I quickly found out that he went to a church and sometimes called word faith churches where they take this a certainty seeking or strength tester model of faith faith that's seeking certainty and they they take it to an extreme where they teach that if you are absolutely view of faith and you're absolutely certain that God's going to heal you you will be healed and if you have faith you're gonna be prosperous you will be prosperous that that it's all about getting that magical level of certainty and bam it's got to happen which means that if if you're not healed it's because you lack faith or if you're not prosperous it's because of lack faith so talking to Gary and what he said to me is I am gonna get it I'm gonna walk out of here in perfect health I'm gonna walk out of here in perfect health as soon as I get my faith in order I'm just good I must still be wavering because I'm not healed yet but I am and I have faith I know I know I know I know that I'm gonna walk out of here in perfect health and people who visit him would support him in that view Kurt in fact when his pastor said to him yeah you're state of paralysis is just an illusion created by the devil you really already are are healed and soon as you have enough faith to receive that healing then you'll be then you walk out of here comes to the same thing basically have enough faith and you will be healed and the picture of God I get in Miami buying I got my mind was and I get this whenever I talked with people who have this sort of theology is that your God is up in heaven and God is holding out healing this guy until he gets enough psychological certainty can do this little psychological trick in your head make yourself certain that I will heal you and I will heal you and it's sort of like a form of psychological torture you got to do this trick for me and then then I'll give you a healing and you can get on with your life but that's how you do this trick convince yourself that it will be so it not always that's a form of psychological torture it's it's impossible if you're honest with yourself how can you be certain that you will be healed I suppose there could be a divine word of knowledge of something but apparently God didn't give him that because see here's the thing people a faith of strong faith like the Apostles they had terrible stuff happen to them throughout history people of faith have had accidents and weren't healed from them and and they were burned alive at the stake or fed to lions or came down with an illness and died that happens all throughout history and so if it happens the people of faith throughout history how do you know for sure that you being a person of faith if this it's not gonna happen like that how can it be certain I don't think you can be so here God is up in heaven saying do a psychological trick and I'll heal you and by the way the second like a psychological trick is impossible for humans if God were to download a word of knowledge that work but apparently he won't do that either so it seems to me that this picture of God is more like Al Capone than it is of Jesus Christ frankly and and I don't recall Jesus ever playing second logical tricks with people or asking people to believe something in the face of all the evidence to the contrary how are you supposed to believe that that you're healed when you're laying and you can't move your toe I mean that is that's impossible and Jesus never does stuff like that remember the time in mark 9 when he was I pray for this blind man it's a really odd story because the guy was blind and so Jesus he spit on the ground and made some mud out of it and puts it in his eye sockets and then he prays for the guy and and and then then he says can you see and the I says well that's so good I see like people but they like tree stumps that's probably cuz Jesus would put a bunch of mud in his eyes I mean you wash your eyes they can see better but what Jesus did though he didn't rebuke the guys saying where's her faith you should be believing with certainty that you helped and healed them and you'll be healed he doesn't do that he says okay well then let's pray again and he goes into the second time in the second time's the charm even the Son of God had to persevere in prayer sometime to come against stuff you had to come against and so it's just that consistent with the character of God or the minister of Jesus to have this idea that if you just do the psychological trick then you and move that puck up the the strength tester enough well then what you get your salvation then you'll get your healing and then you'll get your weather or whatever and why is why is by the way the psychological certainty virtue what is virtuous about that why would God leverage everything heaven in hell in healing on how second lot to be certain you can make yourself why is that virtuous to be able to do that seems to me that the people who are good at that are very simple people or delusional people they're really good at convincing themselves of things that aren't real you know but why is that a virtue and the ones who are bad at it tend to be rational people who are balanced and why would God be prejudiced against rational balanced people what's he why does he stack the deck against rational man balanced people he's the one who made him rational and balanced and why throughout the Bible does God treat people as rational people he tell us he says use your mind had come latest reason he wants us to think he's not against thinking and and so what is this thing with psychological certainty that God delivers is everything on that it just it just doesn't fit the character of God that were found it's found in Jesus so here's the second thing this view can cause people have a learning phobia and here's why if Heaven and Hell and everything else hangs on your second logical certainty and doubt is evil and of the devil well then you're gonna avoid doubt like the plague so you can avoid anything that might it cause you doubt and reading books that are not from the perspective that you hold that might cause you doubt reading books that object to Christianity that might cause you doubt becoming close friends with people who are Christians that might cause you doubt you don't want to be in curious about other positions and other views and find out what other people genuinely think because it might cause you to doubt so if you have to be in dialogue with somebody who has a different opinion of yours or have to read a book that has a different opinion yours you're not going to be genuinely empathetic as you talk with the person or read the book really trying to find out what's their perspective and why don't they believe the way I believe and you're not gonna really be trying to genuinely get on the inside of them because you'll be too busy refuting them you're you're just hearing for the sake of refuting because you have to protect you have to protect this that this faith no matter any kind of doctor come in though in a way this may be one reason why it is true that conservative Christians tend to have a reputation for being narrow-minded and not being able to appreciate other perspectives it tends to be insulated this kind of view I've seen parents who inflict this on their children where they too want to protect their children from anything that could possibly cause the kids to ever question their faith so the only get their beliefs reinforced and in this world folks maybe a hundred years ago it was in this way but in this world today that's a dangerous way to raise children because sooner or later the complex ambiguous world of questions and objections is going to find them out which this is my third point this view sets people up for a fall and I've seen this happen way too many times especially with young people what happens is that that having a certainty seeking faith where you see certainty as a virtue in doubt as evil well it doesn't prepare you to deal with the real world that we live in day where you are gonna a unless you are an ostrich on steroids with your head in the ground you are gonna bump into people who have different opinions than you and and have never religion than you and and and sometimes the virtue of their life will call into question the authenticity of your own and if you're in dialog with people that you're gonna find objections or you get on the internet you're gonna find people who have you know raised problems that you're gonna have to deal with we live in a complex pluralistic globalized Internet a world that's filled with ambiguity and questions and that's just the way this world is but see this certainly seeking faith doesn't do anything to prepare people to deal with that in fact it motivates them to run away from it and that's why they got a learning phobia then this world that can only last so long and once we have to face the ambiguity of the world the faith and compression down on them what usually happens is is is and I've seen this happen a number of times where a person they lock you in on their faith say in seventh grade could happen any time in life but now they're gonna try to remain certain about those beliefs here's the here are the saving doctrines that you need to be certain of in order to or at least closest certain in order to be saved so had salvation is at stake here so people then live out their life trying to remain certain of these beliefs and they don't let the questions and the problems and ejections in or anything modify those beliefs because that would require them to doubt and so they can be very intelligent otherwise I've met people with PhDs and in different fields but when you talk to them about theology they're virtually in seventh grade they haven't thought it through they give the same answers they've been given seventh grade nothing's been modified because it's been insulated out of fear but then what can happen is sooner or later they have to face this ambiguous world and because they're not prepared for it and I think certainty is the goal that as soon as they start to doubt the whole thing goes out the window and I this is one major reasons why I think Millennials are leaving the faith they find this world that has got all sorts of questions and ambiguity whatever and their seventh grade faith faith it's just too small for the big world so why so important to always be growing in your faith thinking through issues dealing with the issues so so that you don't have this you trying to pour the the wine of the world the wine skin of a South Korean theology and that's going to burst it apart it just doesn't work and finally the fourth objection is probably the most serious fact for sure it's the most serious and that is that surgery seeking faith is idolatrous and I'm not saying anything about the people who have certainly seeking faith I'm sure they're godly and have sincere motives but it doesn't change the fact that this way of doing faith is idolatrous it's not godly now here's why an idol is anything that plays a role that only God should play in our life and the major role that got supposed to play in our life is to be our source of life and by that I mean he's a source of our core identity our sense of worth our corsets of well being our corsets of security our core sense of being fully alive everyone hungers for that that's life and God created us with that hunger because he wants to be he wants to fill it and he's the only one who really can fill it but see if we're not getting our life from God as he's revealed in Christ we've got to get it from some other source and secular folks know they get their life and security and Worth and significance by what people think about them I have sex in the air about how smart they are by how successful the arms money they earn I'll bake the houses I'll baby the boat is I'm gonna get from football whatever a million ways of getting that need attempt you that need met but religious people who aren't in the secular stuff the main way they have always done it got their Worth and security is by being right we are the ones who believe the right things and we're sure of it trouble is soils are so a lot of religious people and that's why they go to war we're sure that you know and so what gives us life as we know we do believe we do believe we do we do it do believe that we are the people of God because we believe the right things as opposed to those heretics over there who believe the wrong things are going hell they're not getting life out of their love relationship with God they're getting life from what they think about God and the fact that they think they're right about God that is an idol that is an idol they're getting life from a full source of life this is why you may have noticed that when you get into debates or dialogues with people certain religious people who are certain to write very quickly it can get acrimonious they can get very nasty they very angry it's hard to have a calm rational over coffee with some kinds of religious people because it's not just about their opinion it's about their source of life and whenever you start poking at someone's idle they're from prefrontal cortex that does all the rational reasoning it shuts down and what gets activated is their amygdala which is their fight-or-flight reflex you protect your God at all costs now this is everything to you and so they get very very angry when if you start especially if you're poking legitimate objections against their view the the more plausible you are the more angry they get because it's starting to shake them and they've got to protect their idle remaining certain is is all-important this is also why certain conservative Christian leaders or the guardians of the flock they it's so aggressive and acrimonious going after heresy anything it just agrees with their view is heresy and and they'll go out of their way and do whatever it takes to try to bury you because they they don't watch other people finding out about your view because that might infect them and they know they're right so they want to be the ones that affect everybody no one else is allowed to influence people back in the good old days use Burma live now you can't do that so we're not in this country anyway so you gotta use other means of going after them but this is why it's not just about opinion there okay just say hey let's just discuss as openly and truth will will rise to the surface your rational people can come to their own conclusions no way they want to if they have to enforce it Kerry people are too stupid to think for themselves we must protect them from these heretics and so it goes and so goes it is idolatry it ought to be the case folks that we get life from one source and that is the God who revealed on the cross reveals his character reveals what he thinks about us and that should be the source of everything and and it shouldn't require us to be certain about that or trying to make ourselves certain about that no I see the God who was revealed on the cross I don't get life from my belief about the cross I believe in the cross and therefore I get life from the cross it's not about the rightness in my view it's uh it's I don't need to be certain of this I just need to be confident enough to commit to living this way and live and entering into a relationship and trusting in the character of God and by His grace walking trustworthy with God and that then the wholeness of life that comes out of the relationship gives you life and gives you Worth and gives you significance and transforms you but don't get life about what you think about God get life from God the real thing and it's so much more refreshing than having to protect an idol of rightness okay so where did this certainty seeking faith go wrong and I got to speed up a little bit here because I'm getting over where did this go wrong let's first deal with the James passage it is the one most quoted in support of this view let's read it again when you ask you must believe in that doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind those new doubts and I think that they will receive anything from the Lord they are double minded and unstable and all they do believe and do not doubt and if somebody was sitting there saying well pastor Boyd how you gonna handle that that's pretty clear seems to me God said it I believe it that settles it how are you gonna get out of this one mister wiggle okay it's it's a food allergy talking just ignore me okay now we said this throughout the series the the main way the Scriptures get twisted is by being taken out of context always always whenever anyone's trying to persuade you of a belief based on this proof text or that proof text never buy it until you check out the context context context context because the meaning of any sentence is found in the paragraph and the meaning of every paragraph is found in the whole section of the paragraph as part of its you can't isolate it so in this case if you look at the verse just prior to these two it reframes the whole thing because here's what James says verse 5 if any of you lacks wisdom oh that's what he's talking about oh you should ask God no one else who gives generously to all without fighting fault and it will be given to you James is talking about wisdom is that talking about asking for a Mercedes Benz or a new house or a new way for better health or or anything are you talking specifically about wisdom and saying when when you if you lack wisdom well then go only to God for wisdom and don't waver in your trust that he will give it to you he wants to give it to you all right so it's specifically about wisdom I can't be generalized to apply to everything whatsoever it does not support certainty seeking faith but not only that no that should be enough but you don't do that there's more weight the word for doubt here is dire crinum and it means to separate distinguish to judge or to evaluate something diachrony when when is applied to ideas in your head it can mean to doubt because you're it's saying your ideas are separate and you're evaluating them you have you have a duplicity of ideas and so your vacillating between them you're evaluating them your wavering it can mean that and so if that's the meaning that James intends what he's saying is when you asked specifically for wisdom don't be wavering in your mind about whether God wants to give it to you or not no trust him and it will be given to you but if you're not trusting him if you're just gonna wait everyone well then it's not going to be given to you but it can't be applied to everything and so it doesn't it doesn't support certainty seeking faith in general but here's what's really interesting diet criminal when a while it means that why applied the ideas in your head in this context it could mean I think it's much more likely that means don't waver in terms of who you go to to get wisdom and this fits the whole context of James much better than the doubt interpretation because in James there's this theme about wisdom seeking wisdom that comes from God in fact in Chapter three he makes a strong contrast between the doubt that comes from above I mean the doubt oh yeah the NLT translates it this way where it applies to Accra no not to the ideas but to who you go to for to get wisdom who you're loyal to is what it comes down to so it says when you ask him be sure that your faith isn't God alone do not waver for a person with divided loyalty they're seeking different sources of wisdom is as unsettle as the wave of the seed that is blown and tossed by the wind and it's another very plausible I think more likely translation of this passage because in James there's a concern for where you go to get wisdom he distinguishes in chapter 3 between the wisdom that comes from above that is pure or a peace loving and considerate and then on the other hand there's this wisdom that come that does not come from heaven but his earthly unspiritual and demonic and he's telling people if you want wisdom don't go to the earthly wisdom the human wisdom the the unspiritual and demonic wisdom go to the wisdom that comes from above there wasn't that comes from God that's the only reason that's considered in peace-loving and so given this theme in the book of James it makes perfect sense that he would open up the book by naming this motif folks if you lack wisdom go to God alone and don't be vacillating in terms of where you're gonna get your wisdom don't try to fuse the wisdom of God with the wisdom from this world now only rely on the wisdom that comes from God and stay clear of the wisdom that comes from the world don't mishmash the two together stay loyal to God he alone is to be our source of wisdom so on that translation if you have no support whatsoever for this idea that faith is about seeking certainty so here's a second thing I'll say about that's problematic with this psychological concept of faith the certainly seeking favor and as this and I mentioned it last week that in the Bible the concept of faith is not about sight in your psychology it's not a psychological concept it's the Covenant or concept you know ancient people in general we're just not into their heads the way we are today in Western culture we live in this therapeutic culture psychological psychoanalytic psychotherapy utak psychobabble culture where everybody's trying to figure out what makes them tick and why they're so screwed up and who are they to blame and why you know who put this trigger in my brain and we're very introspective about that going into the labyrinth of our brains trying to find ourselves and all the cast up working we're into our heads so we instinctively think faith I saw something in her head ancient people were like that they didn't have therapy back then when they talked about faith there with answer you have faith they're not asking how psychologically certain are you like they want to inspect what's going on between your ears that wasn't their concern all when they say do you have faith they're asking are you willing to commit a biblical faith isn't about seeking psychological certainty try to attain certainty it's about committing to a course of action in the face of uncertainty that's why it's called faith right are you willing to commit are you at least confident enough to commit to moving in this direction how certain you are or not is totally irrelevant as long as you're willing to come in it's what you do with your life that that affects biblical faith not what's going on between your ears you could be certain of all the things in the world that if you're not committed it's not faith hey James tells us that that the demons they believe all the right stuff they've got an insight on all of that but doesn't do me any good because they won't commit to following they won't act on it faith is about acting it's a pledge to be trucked to trust and to be trustworthy even though there's uncertainty involved in this just like when you get married and that's the one covenant we have left when you say I do that's an act of faith because you don't know you can't know if you're gonna get married next week you might have close your ears right now because this could be a spoiler you want to keep on living in your lala land go ahead but look at for the rest of us you can't be certain you're gonna be happy ever after you can't be certain you may feel certain right now that's your hormones talking yeah it's oh you so you know but here's the thing people do change sometimes for the worse it's sad but it happens they it can happen it takes to to make this thing work and you can't control the other person you can't be certain oh my suppose would never do that well forty eight percent they got divorced said the same thing once upon a time sorry you can't be certain any of them beyond that tragedies can happen that mean it may make your life together rather miserable but for all you know on your honeymoon your wife response will have a brain aneurysm it totally changes their personality and they become mean and nasty and violin whatever you know and now you're stuck with that so much for happy ever after if you would have known that was gonna happen ahead of time with that have been a fact that you could get it on you wouldn't have gotten married but that's why marriage is a risk it is a risk but to most would say it's worth it and and involves risk and off commitments involved risk is risk that God took when he created us there's a risk involved in this but it's worth it so you love the person enough to say I'm willing to take this risk and that's why it's faith you commit to a course of action you can believe all the right things in the world about this person but you're not acting in faith until you you pledge to be committed to them and to trust them and now that's what difficult faith is all about not what's going on in between your ears what you're doing with your life and the thing about this if faith is necessary because there's uncertainty right definition of faith presupposes uncertainty then what are we to make of certainty seeking faith faith that seeks certainty it is by definition faith that's seeking to not be faith faith that's trying to be faithless what they call strong faith is a lack of faith so some certainty seeking faith is a contradiction in terms which is one more reason to conclude it is twisted it's twisted and it's unbiblical and it's contradictory and it's not what we're supposed to be doing and so many people are in bondage to this trying to make themselves certain of things that they'd only be concerned with no it's it's acting in the face of uncertainty and so care to know that I'm not certain but I I'm not sort of anything but I'm willing to bet my life on things and that's what I'm doing up here right now I'm betting my life that Jesus Christ is Lord rose from the dead all that it's a rational belief God never asked us to shoot our brains I got good reasons for believing this I'm gonna live this way I'll live in it if it's true because I believe it's true I've got good reasons for it but certain eat enough certainty so here's here's the thing I'll leave with two admonitions number one I leverage everything on Jesus Christ and him crucified i encouraging know why you believe that and it's very good compelling reasons for that we've got some books out there that will help you if you're questioning that then then you investigate it God doesn't ask us to shoot our brains he says come let us reason Jesus gave people it says accident chapter 1 many proves that he was in fact raised from the dead and he was the son of God no there's good reasons for this it's not an irrational thing it's a very rational thing it's just that you've got to go beyond the evidence in order to embrace it and commit to it know why you believe that make that the center of everything because see if that's the center of everything well that's your only source of life which means you could be wrong about every other opinion you have and you're still gonna be okay so if you have doubts about other things it's not that big of a deal I get so greed when people reject their faith in Christ because of the took a course and they found out that one story in the Bible is not historical or something that be taken literally they can't integrate Genesis 1 with evolutionary theory or whatever and then they get rid of the whole thing I found planes and moles I mean people tell me that so I used to be a Christian but then I found out there's a contradiction or that and my response is why would you give up a venire relationship with Christ because of that now there are I think I found usually answers to those kind of questions not with traditional answers but they're good answers Mapei tient with it but even more importantly I can give you a ton of reasons for believing Jesus Christ as Lord and died and that was a revelation of God's character and that's what he thinks about you that have nothing to do with that stuff and aren't affected by that so settle the center get your Center down and the rest is kind of like gravy which leads to the second point of admonition and that is be okay with questions and ambiguities you know just deal with stuff but they get your life from Christ and and and be calm about it you know it's okay it's the thing as certainty sticking faith is tight he likes everything clean and obvious and tidy that's one way you can be certain that's obvious which means if you don't agree with me you obviously are immoral or something because any rational terms you could see this so they impose and clarity on a world that is actually very ambiguous certainly seeking faith is always clean and clear and obvious biblical faith never is read the Bible it's messy it's messy it deals a lot of ambiguity have you ever noticed how many questions there are raised by people in the Bible that don't get answered ton of them which means God must really like them because they're in the Bible they're part of God's Word he's okay with questions folks he's okay with doubts he's not like some theology prop up in heaven on steroids who is just trying to cram us full of all the right answers to theological questions and then gonna grade us and set us to heaven a hell based on how many we get right no he's our heavenly bridegroom who will do and has done everything he could possibly do to enter into a loving relationship with us he doesn't mind he doesn't mind questions he just wants our heart says in the midst of your questions and out will you give me your heart well you just pledged yourself to me for just thought about them either way I've worked myself up for you that's what's about folks we don't have to have all the answers we're not called to be the people who have all the right answers to everything let alone who are certainly have all the right answers everything that is folks the people are sincere and wonderful but they don't realize it but that is so arrogant oh you're the one person who was taught all the right truth nothing about the truth in seventh grade Wow nice for you which is what the other 10 million people think as well and that's where they go to ward kill each other you know it can all be correct know it we're human beings we don't know much but but we've got reason to be confident of this one thing Jesus Christ him crucified Paul said I resolved to know nothing is Jesus Christ crucified if we've got that I got my life I got I don't need to be getting life from all these other beliefs I could be wrong about them all so I don't need to defend and get angry if I'm proven wrong or someone challenges me no or if I don't have an answer to something and for a long time I didn't have any answers the question how do you reconcile they got an old testament with to God the vial of God you find in some the Old Testament with the nonviolent God revealed on the cross I didn't know I thought he had answers and so I started to write a book on and then discovered I don't they don't work halfway through the book it's like this is so unconvincing it's not so much better II for I started writing it so I had to scrap the thing seven years ago I had to scrap the whole thing but I resolved it trust that God looks like Jesus Christ dying on the cross and it was when I resolved to trust the god I said Jesus Christ died on the cross even when portraits of him in the Bible don't don't go here with that that I begin to see a very different way of interpreting them as I read the Bible through the lens of the cross it's just kind of a rolls out of the Bible I get one of those magic eye books you know you're looking a certain way often there's a three-dimensional pictures like whoa whoa check out that now is a revelation or delusion I don't know am i certain Abadi absolutely not no of course I'm not certain I'm a human but it strikes me as the most plausible godly christ-centered way of reading the Old Testament that there isn't they'll be the watchdog's that will call me a heretic for no bars you inherit already said it but it's ridiculous and I don't get life for what they think about me anyways so do I care but if something comes along it's better and more plausible I'll Chuck what I've done now and I'll grab on to that and that would be bugged me that I spent eight years on this thing but it won't affect me as a person because I don't get light from that I could be wrong about that I just I'm gonna get off from Jesus Christ and crucified so be okay with the questions and ambiguities that's why we have q and a's around here all the time we think they're good because God thinks are good use your mind it's the act of worship to think just as worship God with all your spirit soul and mind spirit ins in mind if we do that the mind thinks and thinking about this stuff is an act of worship even once we come to wrong answers if it's benefits driven by a godly motivation it's something that glorifies God because it's working the way it was made to be worked all right would you stand and I wanna ask the pro teams to come up here if you have any that could use prayer whether it's a faith struggle or something in a financial struggle relationship struggle come up and pray with these folks they'd love to spend some time with you if you want to surrender your life to Christ you cannot be certain of this but are you confident enough to make a commitment and want to start that walk come over here and tell these folks and they'd be glad to help you get started on that it's like saying I do in in a marriage as we leave here I pray Holy Spirit you empower us to be a people of faith in a biblical sense of the word a people who walk in trust of your character and a pledge to be trustworthy before you in the midst of all the questions and all the ambiguity and all done clarity and all the puzzles Lord we we look to you we trust in you keep our eyes above the water as we sang hold us firmly and let us rest in your loving embrace in Jesus name and all of God's people said and I god bless you guys going live in the world

Channel: The Narrow Gate

Views: 17,616

Rating: 4.6559138 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Satan, Sin, God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, Bible, Christian, The Gospel, Truth, Lord, Salvation, The Word, Preaching, Study, Sermon, The Father, Faith, Hope, Love, Apostle, Disciples, Heaven, Hell, Demons, Angels, Prophets, Saints, The Cross, Calvary, Crucified, Born Again, Scripture, Prophecy, Holy, Justification, Sanctification, Regeneration, Soul, Church, The Blood, Prayer, New Covenant, Grace, Christianity, Martyr, Pastor, Messiah, Savior, Atonement, PRAYER, repent, Greg Boyd, James

Id: tiRSojR1Vjs

Length: 44min 5sec (2645 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 18 2014