Levor has just finished preaching through a series on 'Faith'at College. I guess you would call it a series, though the first sermon was on Genesis 15, then Romans 4 and today's was just on 'faith'. The first two were exegetical; today's was topical. I think it was a very good series for a number of reasons:
1. It was good to stop and think about faith. It's easy to come up with different definitions which capture elements of faith, but which don't cover the complexity. So, 'believing God's promises' leaves out the fact that when we have faith in God we genuinely engage with God; it isn't just a cognitive exercise. It was good to realise the insufficiencies of most of my definitions and hopefully to do more justice to faith whenever I speak about it.
2. Being reminded about the central place of faith, while being reminded that the fact that faith is central actually makes God central was great. Faith isn't an end in itself, but a look of desperation at one's own resources which calls out of us a cry to God. I guess in that sense faith is foundational for prayer. Not that faith makes God do things, but that prayer is the practical outworking of seeing oneself clearly and knowing the need for God.
3. I really enjoyed the insight that unbelief is not just a mere rejection of 'facts about God', or God's promises, etc. But unbelief is also a rejection of the goodness of what God promises. So when we have faith in God, we both believe God, and also see great value in what he is giving us or promising us (like the guy who sold his stuff to get the pearl of great price).
4. Faith is Christ-shaped. It pivots around the work and promises of Christ, and is based on union with him. So Christian faith is unique, because it is intimately related to Christ and his death for our sins, and for all he gives us when we trust him.
There is more I haven't captured, and this is mostly from this morning's sermon, which rounded out the exegetical sermons nicely and was uniquely Levorian. I really enjoyed the series, and I think it was well worth doing.
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A log of meanderings and musings through the adventure of life.
About Me
- Wistwaveral
- I'm a Christian woman, married to a kind and groovy husband (L). This blog was an experiment in writing honestly without being self-absorbed, but has morphed into little thoughts about our little boy, and seems to be about to become something else!
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