What is the Christian Faith?
3: Knowing God
We can give the impression that being a Christian means learning about God. Christianity becomes something for the intellect, for the head and not the heart. Christianity can degenerate into little more than an intellectual system rather than a relationship with a person. So if the Christian faith isn't about knowing about things what is it? The Christian faith is about ‘encounter,’ meeting with God, rather than knowing about him. Our faith is an answer to our angst, to our lostness, to our seeking. Christian faith provides answers to meaninglessness because it introduces us to God in a real and personal way. The Gospel stories of Jesus in the Bible tell about so many people who met with God in Jesus and how he established relationships with them. These Gospels are not textbooks giving theoretical knowledge about the universe, they are introductions to a God who loves us and who became human, as Jesus of Nazareth.
God doesn't reject us
Christianity;
It's not about what you know, but who you know.
The Gospels tell us that although we may be rejected by people we will never be rejected by God. People like Zacchaeus, a terrible cheating tax collector who climbed a tree to try and see Jesus, thinking himself too sinful to be with ordinary people. Jesus saw him and called him near and said: I'm coming to have tea with you. People like the woman who didn't hardly go near Jesus because she suffered from a physical illness which made her a social outcast, She wanted to touch the clothes he wore, knowing that here was someone with special power, and Jesus knew that she was near and called her to him. Even the great Apostle Paul tortured and killed Christians and was later accepted and welcomed into the Christian Church.
Can God speak to us?
Christians sometimes sing, 'the wise man built his house upon the rock.' But we are not singing about the Christian faith as a good belief structure, or a good set of rules. Neither is God an impersonal objects like a mountain. A mountains something which we can chip bits off, handle, weigh and analyse. It is a passive object, by that I mean it can't talk to you, you can talk to it, but it can't hear or respond. Now for some people God is a bit like a mountain. You learn all about it, you study it, you can give answers such as where it came from. They imagine that God is an object and that if you study hard enough you will understand all that there is to understand about God. And this little exercise is actually quite comfortable and non-threatening. The mountain is not in a position to challenge you in any way. For some people this as far as they want to go, studying God like he is a subject on the National Curriculum. Christian have realised that God is not made of stone. God is not an 'It' God is a 'You.' And so we can speak of a personal God.
God
is not an impersonal object to be studied. He is alive, a personal God we
can talk to.
Experience also teaches us that God doesn't wait for us to take the initiative in getting to know or understanding about him. He may actually decide that he wants to get to know you! God may even be seeking after you now. You probably won't hear any heavenly voices, or see bright lights, but nevertheless you may be conscious that God is there and we are simply to respond to his call.
Each one of us is involved in relationships and we know other people and have interaction with them. The soaps on television captivate millions of people each week because they deal with relationships and relationships are what we are about as people. The Christian faith is a relationship, an encounter with God.
In the Bible, The Apostle Paul uses the same word to describe God drawing near to us, as we might use of a couple getting back together again. It is not something which can be thrashed out by a solicitor, it is about love and commitment. My wife and I were watching ER recently and Susie and Mark had been having this long drawn out ‘will they won't they,’ ‘on/off,’ relationship. He would never tell her that he loved her and she would never say anything to him. Eventually she is about to leave town to start a new life in Philadelphia and she goes off and he hasn't said how he feels. We are left for a few minutes thinking, if only he had told her he loved her she would have fallen into his arms and they would have been happy ever after. Just when we think all is lost he runs half the streets of the city to get to the train station and makes a statement of his love and begs her to stay. At that moment it is all out in the open and she has the opportunity to reciprocate. The train is pulling out of the station, they have been close friends for ages but now here he is asking her to be his for ever, will she won't she? What does she do? She says, - 'no'. (I always knew that this girl was bad news). The poor bloke is on the verge of exhaustion, the least she could do was call for an ambulance. But no, she says ‘we will always be friends’ but that is as far as her love goes and she wants to start a new life somewhere else, then she jumps back on the train. She is in no doubt that he loves her, and she decides that she is not going any further.
Each one of us is in the same type of position with God. He is not an inanimate rock to be studied, not a cold lifeless concept to be explored. God is a real person. Christians believe that in the person of Jesus, God came running after you. The Jesus we see crucified on the cross is God's free and endless commitment of love and you and I are in the position of Susie. We can enter into the experience of that relationship, not knowing all the answers, taking lots of risks, or we can get on the train and say ‘no.’ But be sure today that the loving relationship which is offered in Christ is as solid as a rock. His love is not a passing thing but a costly and eternal promise.