Trusting Jesus: The Development of Faith
Reflections
The setting in which this is happening to this man is a setting of suffering. The reason this man is willing to believe and able to believe and moving toward Jesus is because tremendous suffering has come into his life. What would possess a man of his stature and royalty to walk 25 miles to see an illiterate Carpenter? The only thing that moves us toward Jesus, in most cases, is suffering. I think we need to be honest about that.
— Tim Keller
from a sermon on John 4
- Word Given
- Place Faith in it
- Superior complex – seeing faith as crutch
- Inferior complex – seeing faith as skill/talent
- Obedience to Instructions
- Faith starts from suffering
- We find out how religious we are when suffering comes
- Greatest suffering is when you see a child suffering
- Different Reactions to Suffering
- Angry at God
- Abandon slowly, having smaller and smaller circle of influencing friends
- Trust even more; to cope with suffering, slow down by going day by day, or even hour by hour
- The man in the scripture believes two times
- The second time is reward of his faith
- Spread your faith after (v53)
