What is Faith?

Introduction

Has anyone heard of ‘schizophrenia’? Schizophrenia is a really interesting disease of the brain. And one of the key symptoms of schizophrenia is delusions. Delusions are belief that are not based on reality at all. For example, you might have a delusion that you are the most handsome person in the world. Or you might be extremely paranoid because have a delusion that the FBI is after you.

Story about patient who had delusions about being God/Buddha, time traveling, red clothing, painting.

Richard Dawkins essentially describes Christianity as a delusion. Anyone know Richard Dawkins?

He is one of the ‘4 horsemen of religion’: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.

4 horsemen -> creatures of the apocalypse in Revelation 6.

This is what Dawkins says about faith: ‘Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief despite, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.’

Richard Dawkins here is criticising faith. He is suggesting that faith is something that is not based on evidence; faith to Dawkins is not based on reality at all. That is like believing in a fairy tale, a made up story, like believing in flying elephants. Dawkins is saying that faith is like a delusion.

But our faith, believing in Jesus as the Christ, as the Son of God, is not a delusion at all. It is quite far from being a delusion. And that’s shown really well in the passage today.

Read John 20:24-31

The Struggle of Faith

Now, just because faith is not a delusion doesn’t mean that there isn’t a struggle. It is so natural for us to doubt things, so often there is a struggle to believe. And we see this with Thomas today.

Thomas had seen Jesus die on the cross. But he had never seen anyone come back from the dead. So when the other disciples say to him that they have seen Jesus come back from the dead, Thomas says this:

Read John 20:25 ‘So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”’

Thomas refused to believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, unless he saw it himself. So often, faith is a struggle.

And just like Thomas, faith can be a struggle for us as well. It can be difficult to believe in something that happened so long ago, something that seems so distant to us, something that seems so irrelevant to us.

There are so many reasons we might find Christianity hard to believe:

We are taught in the world we live in today that science and scientific evidence is the most important source of knowledge. Evidence that you can see, hear, touch, is valued much more highly for giving us knowledge, so something that Christianity which is based on faith rather than concrete evidence is looked down upon.

Christianity may also be hard to believe when life is comfortable, and you don’t see a need for God in your life.

And this is also true when life is hard, because in your struggles, you question whether God truly exists.

Whatever the reason may be, many people find Christianity hard to believe.

But there is good news. To those who seek it, to those who may be struggling but still want to know more about Jesus and more about Christianity, Jesus promises us that he will give us the answers, he will meet us and he will help us believe in him. Read Matthew 7:7–8 “7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” To the one who seeks Jesus, Jesus will show himself to him. How does he do this?

The Evidence for Faith

One of the ways Jesus helps us believe in him is that he actually does give us evidence. Jesus does give us reason to believe in him.

Read John 20:27 “Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.””

Thomas was seeking evidence that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, so Jesus gives is to him. He suddenly appears in the room that the disciples were in, and he shows him the very holes in his hands and the side of his chest from the crucifixion.

And what happens afterwards? Read John 20:28 “Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”” Thomas believes that Jesus not only was resurrected from the dead, but that Jesus is God himself. This is the very heart of Christianity, that Jesus, the Son of God, who is God himself, died on the cross for us and was raised from the dead.

So we see this remarkable, amazing, transformation of Thomas. He refused to believe, but Jesus provided him all the evidence he needed to believe. Jesus answered his request.

And it’s the same with us: Jesus doesn’t expect you to believe blindly, and if we ask, Jesus helps us and gives us what we need to believe, just like Thomas. This is why Christianity is not a delusion - a delusion is a belief not based on reality, with no evidence at all; Christianity, faith, is a belief very much based on reality. Not only is it based on a very real historical fact of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but God helps us to believe by giving us evidence.

Sometimes this is through various events in our lives that help us conclude that God must exist. Or sometimes we may look at the church and the Christians around us, and see how they are different, holy, and then we can’t help but conclude that God exists.

But the greatest evidence of all is the Bible. Read John 20:31 “31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

The Bible is not a story book. These were written by real people in history. And for John writing this book, he was writing as an eye-witness testimony, things that he actually saw, heard, and felt. It was not his imagination, he didn’t have schizophrenia, he wrote down the events as he saw them, so that we have an accurate historical record of what happened, which has been preserved and passed down 2000 yeras, so that we can still read them today. Just like how the events of World war 1 and 2 were written down for us to read today, so that we can know and believe what happened during the wars, John has written down this precious piece of history for us so that we can also know and believe what happened 2000 years ago.

And what does John want us to know and believe? That Jesus was not just a man, but he was the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus truly was God in the flesh. And the reason John wants us to believe that is because through this belief, we can have true eternal life.

The Blindness of Faith

But then Jesus also says something quite interesting. Read John 20:29 “Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.””

After giving Thomas the evidence so that he can believe, Jesus says ‘blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’. After having given the visual evidence to Thomas, Jesus is saying it’s actually better to believe after not seeing. It’s quite a strange thing to say after having given all the evidence that Thomas needed.

What Jesus is saying through this statement is that faith is something that is quite different to something like science. Scientific facts is something that must have evidence. Evidence is everything to science; without evidence, science completely falls apart. Faith, as we already saw, also has evidence and facts behind it, but unlike science, evidence is not everything for faith.

There is something about faith that goes above and beyond the evidence. Faith is not just believing in the historical facts and the evidence you see in your life; it doesn’t just stop at the facts. Faith goes above and beyond the facts and evidence, and looks up and forward to a greater and glorious hope.

It believes in God, sometimes despite the evidence, especially as this world, people like Richard Dawkins, presents us facts that seems to contradict God.

It trusts in God despite the circumstances in our lives that may make us question his existence.

It puts hope in a future and the promises of God written in the Bible that is not yet in our reach.

Faith has evidence and facts behind it. But faith must transcend, go above, and beyond the facts.

Conclusion

We’ve spent almost the last year looking at this wonderful book of John. I know it’s been quite a long journey, and I know I haven’t done the greatest job at explaining things at times, but even if you don’t remember anything else, I really hope you take away this one thing. When John wrote this book, he was writing down all the things he saw about this one man, Jesus of Nazareth. And John is very desperately trying to tell you that this man really did die on the cross, and really did come back to life, and really did ascend into heaven - these are the things that he saw with his own two eyes. This is eye-witness testimony that John wrote down, this is historical fact.

So now the ball is in your court. Now it’s up to you. What are you going to do with this information? I just want you to think about that these holidays. Think about what that means. If Jesus truly came back from the dead, what does that mean about who He is? Doesn’t that make Him someone special? John says that it proves that Jesus was God. And if Jesus was God, what does the Bible mean for me? In the face of all that is written in the Bible, can I just go on living like I always have? Just the same old routine every single day, not thinking about the greater meaning, purposes, and spiritual realities of life? If what John is saying about Jesus is really true, shouldn’t we take what the Bible says more seriously, and truly live our lives differently?

So until I see you guys next time next year, I really want you to think about that question, because if you truly grasp who Jesus really is, there is no possible way we can continue living our lives the same way as before.

Ending song: O Praise the Name