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May 28, 2006
What is it to Believe in Jesus?
Psalm 24 / Isaiah 51: 1-6
John 3: 17-21
May 28th, 2006
Maybe you noticed yesterday’s New York Times editorial headline: “God and Man on Screen: Big Questions as Entertainment.” The media keeps trumpeting the Da Vinci Code and has created a market for this novel that a lot of people believe portrays facts not fiction. But this fascination is possible because matters of faith are very interesting to people. See Newsweek articles, May 22nd, “Belief watch…” Indeed, matters of faith today are like pictures in an art gallery that people love to look at. When the Art Institute in Chicago advertised that it had a special exhibit of van Gogh and Monet paintings, you had to make reservations to go and look. Bonnie and I flew up there with the Thompson’s to see this. You only have to go to the theater or bookstore to look at matters of faith.
Christianity Today devoted the cover story of the last issue to Dan Brown’s book, followed up by an article on the interest in Bart Ehrman’s books, Misquoting Jesus, and Lost Scriptures that call into question the Christianity represented in the New Testament—and a piece on the second-century work from which our Prayer of Consecration comes after taking the Lord’s Supper together, the Didache. There were other wrinkles in the developing religious world before and after Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again—all in one small corner of the world. And some of these old wrinkles are finding new interest.
I am tempted to get into the issue of why our New Testament survived and the many other responses to Jesus faded away—but won’t just now.
Equally interesting is why belief itself has faded away from much of Europe’s heartland while it seems to be thriving on our shores. Pope Benedict XVI wrote for his fellow Europeans Introduction to Christianity before he became pope that begins with exploring the crisis of belief in Europe. The first major section of his remarkable book tries to explain what belief is to his country people. They have forgotten.
And I wonder if part of the reason for this is that in the centuries since Jesus awoke faith in God and in Himself as the Son of God something happened like what He described in the Parable of the Sower. You remember it.
When the farmer went to plant seed some of the seed fell on the road and the birds ate it or it got crushed. Some fell among the rocks at the side of the road and initially sprouted but then since there was no dirt the fledgling plants burned up. Other seed fell among the weeds and the roots got choked by the weed-roots that got tangled with the roots of the good seed so that though these seeds grew, they remained bare stalks. They produced no grain. But some seed fell on good ground, grew, and produced a harvest.
This has how it has been in many places where the good seed of the Gospel has been heard. Some people hear the Gospel and it has no effect, like seed on the sidewalk. Other people hear the Gospel, respond quickly, but tough times come and it never takes root, so that their response is short-lived. Others hear the Gospel, respond for a while, but then the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of money, and other distractions come along so they become what we call “nominal Christians,” Christians in name but not in fruitfulness.
Then there are those who hear and the seed grows in their hearts so that they produce results. Their lives change. Other people see and hear them and catch on too. Some in whom the Gospel takes effect produce thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, and some a hundred-fold.
The reason why we still have the Bible, and the reason why there is that gnawing sense of most of us that there is something enormously powerful for good in the Gospel is that there have been those along the way in whom the seed of the Gospel took root and produced a harvest. These people passed along to us the Gospel and in our generation we who hear it respond in the ways Jesus told in His parable. Only some who hear it respond in a fruitful way.
We may reasonably wonder if the reason why the Gnostic Gospels and other books that were not accepted into the Bible faded away was because they were not the kind of seed that is of any use. Every spring Bonnie and I plant a garden and every spring some seeds simply don’t germinate. You see spots in the rows of beans where nothing comes up. These dead seeds are like the lost books newly being found. They are of interest, but only as a witness to what did not rightly reflect the truth of God in Jesus Christ—not because they were suppressed, because the New Testament books too were the target of many enemies, but because they had no life in them.
I have spoken of these things because they bear upon the theme that Jesus taught in the few verses we read from John’s Gospel this morning. The passage actually begins with John 3: 16, that glorious announcement of God’s love for the world shown in sending His only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him has eternal life. The next verse tells us God’s Son did not come here to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. Jesus did not come to condemn the world because sin brings with it its own condemnation. We reap what we sow. Jesus came to interrupt this principle, so that we may reap what we did not sow.
But there was a hitch. Something did not take, not because God’s Son was not effective in providing a cure for the desperate problem of reaping what we sow, but because God does not impose on people this solution to the problem of sin. God will not impose something so precious as eternal life. Some who saw Jesus did not believe in Him. Why? Because when Jesus came it was like a ray of light shining into a room in which all sorts of things were happening in the dark.
It reminds me of how so many places where people go for entertainment the lights are dim. And it’s not just the “romantic” kind of dimness as some nice restaurants provide with soft candle glow and pleasing music that stirs the heart, but a darkness with flashing strobe lighting stabbing the dark from many angles, that hides your face; keeps you from recognizing people and that distracts others from what you might be doing. If the lights were turned on and cameras were to flash in some of these places, the next day there would be a lot of embarrassed people. The media loves to print embarrassing pictures.
Jesus was like this bright light that flooded the world. People could see themselves in this light. People could see Him. And they could see themselves. And they turned away from Him, hating the light, preferring the darkness, because their deeds were evil but familiar and appealing. Not all “evil deeds” are glaringly wicked—the kind described in kinky magazines and movies glamorizing evil. Some evil deeds are like those being exposed in the trials of some corporation executives these days. How minutely courts are now looking for evil in the windfalls of rich CEO’s. This evil lurks behind in the shadows, with respectability bought by the glamour of wealth, “success,” and the glow of celebrity status. This glamorous sin make impossible any serious regard of the Gospel, while claiming the veneer of the Gospel as suggesting an appearance of goodness.
John tells us it is because their deeds are evil that some did not come to that light and sunbathe in His glow. But all who do, the truth come to the light in order that their works might reveal that their works are the works of God.
Here we find a snapshot photograph of faith from one angle. Here we see the word “works” brought in, in a way that may confuse us. It almost seems as though John is telling us that Jesus is a light that reveals some peoples’ works as already the works of God. This is why they come to the light because they are not ashamed of their works.
How can this be when Paul tells us we are saved by grace, through faith, and it is not of works, lest anyone should brag, “I pleased God on my own by my own good deeds?” I remind you this is one snapshot of faith. We read on in the New Testament and we see faith exposed in a more rounded way. We will see in John 3: 36 two phrases in parallel: “Those who believe in the Son have eternal life; those who do not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests on them.” Faith is not something that happens only in our heads, or hearts; it occupies the energy of the whole body.
The Apostle Paul took many photographs of faith. His letters are like a photo-album of faith. His letters in the New Testament illustrate how faith and obedience are two sides of the same thing. In Romans 1: 8, for example he tells the Christians in the empire’s great capital, “Your faith is proclaimed in all the world.” Then in 16: 19 as he wraps up this letter he writes, “Your obedience is known to all.” In Romans 15: 18 he writes, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles.” To the Corinthians he describes faith as “obedience in acknowledging the Gospel of Christ.”
Looking more broadly at the glimpses of faith that we see in the New Testament we discover that faith, though essentially seen in obedience, is not an accomplishment in which a person who has faith would want to boast. Because the good works done by a person who has faith in Jesus are the result of a will that has been submitted to Him. But this surrendered will asserts itself. James wrote, “Faith without works is dead.” Faith loves to live vibrantly. We are all sensitive to the principle of walk the walk or don’t talk the talk. But walking the walk, doing the works of faith does not earn God’s favor. Rather, if we are doing the works of faith it is because we have been lured into life with God.
One thoughtful Christian put it this way, “Faith is the experience of being rightwised, fellowship with Christ.” And when we have been rightwised in step with Jesus Christ, our faith produces hope, and peace, and patience, and self-control, and many other characteristics that you and I notice when we inspect closely the life of someone in whom the Gospel has really taken root.
What Paul calls the “fruit of the Spirit” does not get harvested in a Christian automatically. But it is remarkable how across the range of personality types of people who come to Jesus, across the spectrum of backgrounds from which we come, when people have come to the light of the Gospel and bask in its brightness rather than running from it—there is similarity in the Gospel’s effects.
I get the feeling when I think of Jesus’ parable of the sower in light of how the Gospel is popular today, it’s as though there is a great bin full of seed that is fascinating as a museum piece is fascinating. You go to the Art Institute in Chicago and you are expected to look, and certainly NOT to touch. But when you go to a restaurant, if you only look, and do not only touch but also take into your mouth and into your tummy the good-looking food you see, you would be thought very odd.
I get the feeling that the Gospel, if received by faith, by true faith, by what faith really is, is like eating good food. Indeed, when we take the Lord’s Super we illustrate this. We eat the bread and drink the cup. Then what happens to what we eat?
What one of us who eats good food would brag at the good health we enjoy as a result of eating good food rather than junk food? Great crowds will flock to hear the Gospel, and it can be presented with entertaining accoutrements that can compete with a rock concert. But it is when that Gospel finds a place in your heart and mine, and is allowed to germinate, that faith has happened. Because faith is not just interest in the Gospel. Faith is the result of taking the Gospel into our hearts as we take food into our bodies—with this difference.
What happens in our bodies with food happens without needing us to say, “Stomach, digest that food, or kidneys, process what I drink, or intestines, absorb the nutrition the stomach has made available in a form we can absorb.” But when we have received the Gospel by faith, though God will do something beyond what we will and choose, we must choose to do something motivated by the faith we claim.
In good times such as these it seems that faith may operate without our having to make many life-interrupting decisions. But when we only believe in our minds or hearts and do not then choose to apply to our lives what we say we believe, the belief does us no good. If because you believe in, that is, want to obey Jesus Christ you cultivate your thoughts toward knowing God, and if you take assessment of the gifts God has given you to use, and choose to use them for the good of others, then you are doing what faith does.
On Wednesday evenings a number of folk have been gathering in our family room to discuss Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, The Cost of Discipleship. We have been stirred as we think of how many Christians in Germany in the 1930s, Hitler’s era, were satisfied with cheap grace, that is, receiving the good news of God’s grace in Christ with no cost to themselves. They thought they could bask in the glow of God’s unmerited favor while great evils incubated in their land. Indeed, the church in Germany in those days did nothing to impede the growing evil and sometimes furthered Hitler’s cause—prying God’s blessing on it!
So an underground church developed where Christians realized that following Jesus must cost them something, perhaps even their lives. Because what they did and what they believed had to agree. Bonhoeffer was hanged, a young man of 39, for his role in this movement of costly grace.
You and I don’t seem to be caught in a situation quite like Germany’s in those days, though one of the insidious things about deep evil is that it is often not recognized as evil. But in our prosperity and safety we are lured into cheap reception of grace as though all that mattered was that we say we believe the right ideas. We may become piously defensive of the New Testament against the challenges of the Da Vinci Code and Bart Ehrman’s books, while all along our lives continue to be lived by principles of convenience and self-centered values.
What difference has believing in Jesus made in your life?
Here is the challenge. The one who believes in the Son of God has eternal life. Those who do not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on them. Faith is obedience. Obedience is faith.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we bless you for the Gospel of Your Holy Son, Jesus. Grant that we may believe it with all our hearts, and that the fruit of our belief may be beautiful in your sight. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at May 28, 2006 09:30 AM