Mars Hill Fellowship

MESSAGE |

In Whom Do You Put Your Trust?

SERIES |

Special Service - Easter Sunday 2011

SCRIPTURE |

1 Corinthians 15:1-7; John 20:1-29

SPEAKER |

Pastor Joseph Ardayfio

KEY THEME |

While hope and reason are vital components in determining in whom to put our trust, we ultimately have to respond in faith to the evidence that is presented to us by God.

1) Hope, Reason and Faith work together in the life of a believer.

a.  Hope is a confident expectation.  Biblical hope is not giving our hope to the wind but placing our hope in the author and the finisher of our faith.

b.  To reason is to form conclusions, judgments, or inferences from facts or premises and to give a rational ground or motive to believe and trust.  For a Christian, reason is a good thing when used properly, but can limit us when God is doing something bigger/greater than our ability to comprehend.

c.  Faith is what catapults us to a place of trust.  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence [reasoning] of things not yet seen. If we are ever going to experience anything greater than our past encounters, we will have to exercise a level of faith in things not yet seen.

2) Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, the beloved disciple and other disciples used hope, reason + faith to determine in whom they would put their trust.

a.  While each of the resurrection witnesses needed various levels of evidence to believe, they all had a hope that Christ was the Messiah, reasons to trust that Christ had risen from the dead and faith to make Christ their refuge and Savior.

3) The disciple Thomas needed reason in order to believe + trust in the risen Savior but eventually he had to respond in faith to that belief.

a. Desiring a reasonable basis for our faith is not a problem but we must respond in faith to the evidence/reason that God presents to us.

b. We need to examine if there are areas in our lives in which, like Thomas, we need to stop doubting and believe.

c. Just because we don’t have a complete understanding of everything in this world, doesn’t mean that we can’t have a meaningful understanding of the world and put our faith in what Christ has revealed about His creation.

Scripture Index:

Psalms 33:11-22

John 20:1-29

Hebrews 11:1

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

thoughts for further study

1)     What role does hope, reason and faith play in determining in whom do we put our trust?

2)     How is faith a vital component of human reasoning? 

3)     In what areas of your life have you limited God's ability only to the experiences that you can comprehend?