Sunday, February 8, 2009

Faith of Christ

I recently heard John Ortberg talk about Michael Novak's categories of the types of convictions that people have. He pointed out that there are three types of convictions. The first type is our public convictions that are characterized by what we say that we believe when we are around other people. They sometimes indicate what we really believe and many times we don't mean them at all. For example, I may ask my wife if I have started to gain weight. She may answer, "You look great." Deep down she may really think that I have put on weight and look a lot different (my wife would never do this because she is brutally honest!). We say things many times that we really are not convicted about. The second type of conviction that Novak points out is our private convictions. Private convictions are ones that we believe but can be convinced otherwise. I at one time thought I could play professional football. After my college football career was over I attended a rookie tryout camp. At that camp I came to the conclusion that my belief of my ability was a false belief. It was made painfully obvious that I was not good enough to continue my football career. Lastly, Novak points out that many people have core convictions. These are convictions that will not change. My belief of gravity does not need to be re-verified every day of my life. My love for my children does not need to be re-committed to each day. These are unchanging beliefs. Ortberg points out that Jesus had no incongruencies in any of these beliefs. His public, private, and core convictions were all in alignment.

My question is, "How do we come to the type of faith of Jesus?"
We many times talk about having faith 'IN' Jesus but I would purpose that the faith 'OF' Jesus is what we should be shooting for.
Many of the earliest followers of Jesus had faith in Jesus and trusted in Jesus but it was not until they came face to face with the risen Christ that those convictions became CORE convictions. In other words, their trust 'IN' Jesus changed to the faith 'OF' Jesus.

Mary Magdalene came face to face with Jesus in the Garden and thought He was the gardener. Her faith was transformed into action when she realized that Jesus had risen from the dead. She quickly became the apostle to the apostles.

Thomas at one point in the gospel narrative proclaimed that he was ready to go to Jerusalem and die with Jesus. It wasn't long after that he was telling the other followers that Jesus would have to prove to him that He had risen from the dead. In the account that John gives us we see Thomas face to face with the risen Jesus and he proclaims, "My Lord and and my God".

Peter is a great example of this transformation. Peter proclaims faith in Jesus but later denies Him. We see Peter go through his crisis of faith and later be told by Jesus to "Feed My sheep". After this we witness Peter acting with the type of faith that Jesus had. Peter goes from having faith in Jesus to having the faith of Jesus.

How do we accomplish this?

We trust in Jesus but we also live like Jesus lived. When we live a cross formed life of self sacrifice we will be introduced to the resurrection. The message of the Scripture is that New Creation began at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As a sign post of what is to come in the New Heavens and the New Earth, God has established a kingdom of NEW people. We are the advanced sign of the resurrection to come by our changed lives in the shape of Jesus Christ.