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by mattrose » Mon Dec 10, 2012 12:50 pm
Chapter 5 BELIEVES
We’ve considered the words GOD, LOVED, WORLD, and SON. God is real and relational… lovingly active. His love is not fickle or frail, but sacrificial in nature. The world is defeated, guilty, broken, lost, and disconnected. God the Father sent the Son into this world. He dealt with all that ailed us. He returned to the Father, leaving a way paved behind him. But until we believe, none of that matters for us.
I remember when I got my first crush. I was a very shy kid, not having nearly enough courage to actually talk to the young girl. Instead, I tried to create a way to get to spend time with her. I befriended her little brother. As time went on, I spent more and more time with her brother and thus her. The plan had worked!
Except for one thing… ever the coward, I still never talked to the girl! The plan had been successful… the way had been cleared. There was nothing preventing me from connecting with her except myself. I even think she liked me back! But opportunity after opportunity passed me by. Epic fail.
We’ve already talked about our problem and God’s plan. The problem is clear. The plan is in place. What’s left is our willingness to let the plan succeed... to walk the beautifully paved path. That’s what the word ‘believes’ is all about. Unfortunately, not everyone recognizes the meaning of the word ‘believes’ in this passage. Too often it is misunderstood or misinterpreted resulting in a mess of doctrinal confusion. So let’s first clear up some debris.
#1 It does NOT mean head knowledge
We are to believe IN Jesus, not THAT Jesus. Christianity is more a way of life and less and set of beliefs. It has more to do with having a warm heart than a cold set of doctrines.
I’m from Western New York State, within an hour of Niagara Falls. As I write this, Niagara Falls has spent some time in the news as of late. A tightrope walker made it from the United States to Canada. His walk was shown on a major television network and was viewed by many, due to its entertainment value.
But even more entertaining, at least to me, are the stories of Charles Blondin, a 19th century man who also wowed the crowds along the Niagara River. The Great Blondin is said to have gone across the gorge in a variety of amusing ways: blindfolded, on stilts, with a wheelbarrow, with breakfast in hand (which he proceeded to cook half-way across!).
Once, Blondin is said to have asked the awe-inspired crowd if they believed he could carry a man across the gorge. Convinced by his previous performances, they all conveyed their confidence. Then he asked for a volunteer. The sound of silence was deafening.
It’s one thing to say you believe. It’s another to actually believe. Actually believing takes action.
Even the demons believe in God, but what good does it do them? Many people claim to believe in God, but there’s little to no actual evidence to support their claim. In John 3:16, ‘believes’ is not merely mental.
#2 It does NOT mean a 1 time decision
The word in John 3:16 is ‘believes.’ It is a present tense term. The idea conveyed by the original Greek is that we are to go on believing. This verse is not primarily about someone believing at a particular moment (for instance, when they say the sinner’s prayer). It is about ongoing believing in Jesus.
One of my major concerns with the church in America is how infatuated we are with getting people to ‘pray the prayer.’ It’s not so much the emphasis on a crisis of conversion that I am worried about, but the fact that discipleship is often not emphasized (or is even de-emphasized). Too many people have been led in the sinner’s prayer only to be left alone to continue in their sinful lifestyles. In a sense, they are actually worse off because now they’re sinners who think they’re saved.
We’re not saved by a prayer, we’re saved by a person. That person is Jesus Christ and that salvation involves a right relationship to Him. The Gospel is not the availability of Jesus to save you at any moment you so choose. The Gospel is the fact that Jesus Christ is savior AND Lord whether you choose to recognize it or not.
If someone prays a prayer to have Jesus save them, but does not go on to submit to Jesus as Lord, are they really saved? Are we allowed to divide Jesus in half, take the Savior part, but throw the LORD part away?
The people who will inherit eternal life are those who go on believing in Jesus Christ.
#3 It does NOT mean a blind leap of faith
There’s a lot one could say about this point, but let me get right to it. In our culture, faith and reason are treated as opposites. Faith is thought of as believing something despite a lack of evidence (or even against the evidence) and reason is thought of as believing something because of the evidence.
If this were the correct way of looking at things, I would surely abandon my Christianity without pause! What good would it do me to believe in a God I was just imagining? What value would there be in trying to base my life around something that was contradicted by everything around and in my life?
In reality (and this was recognized throughout most of history), faith and reason are not enemies, but friends. Christians have reasons for believing in Jesus. We are called to be believing in Jesus, a historical character. Jesus walked the earth at a real time (1st century) and place (the Middle East). He did real miracles (even non-Christian historians remarked about them) and died on a real cross (his enemies gladly verified this). He really rose from the dead and appeared to many (we have eye-witness accounts of those appearances).
Granted, people living today don’t see Jesus walking the earth like he did in the early 1st century, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t evidence that he did just that. There is more evidence for Jesus than for most any other major historical figure. If we insist on absolute proof, we wouldn’t be able to believe anything at all. But if we look at the evidence, we see plenty of reasons to believe in Jesus.
Now that we’ve cleared up the debris (what ‘believes’ does NOT mean), we’re ready to ask a far more important question. It’s the favorite question of my 2 year old daughter… WHY? Why does God want us to believe? Why is it important to God that we presently and continually go on believing? Why did God design salvation to include this component? I offer 3 reasons why believing makes sense.
#1 Believing is Accessible
First, believing is accessible. Suppose God made the human component of salvation skin color. Would that be fair? How about gender? Such criteria would exclude huge portions of humanity from salvation. Believing is something that we may all do with the help of God… and God is the sort of God that loves to help all of us!
People often get confused about the nature of Christianity. They come to the conclusion that it is an exclusive religion and they consider this a point against faith in Christ. Unfortunately, people have often gotten this impression from Christians themselves who make it sound as if they are more special than their non-Christian peers. Jesus was smart to pick them for salvation!
In reality, Christianity is an inclusive faith. Everyone is invited! It is only exclusive in the simple sense that the only way to the Father is through Jesus. But that’s not exclusive in a negative way since God’s desire is that all will be included in ultimate salvation. And since believing is the required response to God’s grace, no one is necessarily excluded.
#2 Believing is Normal
Second, believing is normal. We do ‘faith’ every day whether we realize it or not. Don’t tell them (it may make them mad), but even those people who pit reason against faith utilize faith every day. We have no choice but to live by faith in our daily lives.
Anytime we get behind the wheel we express faith. We believe that the car was built well and won’t spontaneously explode in the street. We believe our mechanic knew what he was doing when he installed our brakes. We believe the roads won’t turn into sinkholes as we drive over them. We believe the other drivers won’t swerve at us just before passing by in the opposite direction (I could go on).
If we didn’t believe these things we wouldn’t go out driving. We’d stay home (though, that just transfers us to a whole new set of things to believe in). We obviously do believe we’ll make it home safely when we leave our driveways or we wouldn’t leave at all.
All of this despite the fact that we can’t be absolutely certain all of our beliefs are true. We simply have good reasons to believe them to be true and that’s enough. We consider driving to be worth the risk.
Christianity is not so different from this. We have good reasons to believe it is true. We can’t absolutely prove it, but we consider living it out to be worth the risk. We haven’t made it home quite yet, so we don’t speak with absolute certainty. We believe. I actually think that I have better reasons to believe in Jesus than to believe I’ll make it home from work.
#3 Believing is Better
Third, believing is better. Sorry about that last page. I didn’t mean to scare you. Noting everything that could go wrong on the road was simply a way of saying that we live by faith every day. Actually, if we think a little bit more about the nature of believing, we’ll realize that it’s better that God set the world up in this way.
To make this point, let’s switch to a marriage illustration. I married my wife Katie on the very last day of 2008. In the wedding ceremony, we made promises to each other. We promised to love each other through thick and thin… no matter what. As I write this, we’ve been doing just that for almost 4 years now.
Of course, we haven’t always agreed with each other. But I still prefer the real Katie to a robot version of her that would always agree with me about everything. Why? The reason is obvious. Freedom and spontaneity… risk and response-ability… are pivotal to a real relationship. Our promises would mean nothing if it turned out that she had no choice but to keep them. If you’re going to have a genuine and loving relationship with your spouse, both of you need to freely choose that relationship.
When we’re thinking clearly, we would have it no other way. Having a free and faith-full relationship is way better than having a pre-programmed robot, even though the former includes more risk than the latter.
Believing in someone is actually better than absolute certainty about them if the cost of that certainty is the possibility of real relationship.
Believing in John 3:16
So the plan is in place. A messed-up world has been loved by God. In Jesus, our heavenly father has gracefully made a way for us to be re-connected to Him. Our part is simply to believe in Jesus.
Believing is not about agreeing with your head that Jesus is the way, it is about agreeing with your feet. Believing is about following Jesus wherever he leads you.
Believing is not about praying a prayer and then getting back to life as usual. It’s not just a way to avoid going to hell when you die. Praying the prayer to become a Christian is just the beginning.
Believing is not the opposite of thinking reasonably. There are reasons to believe in the Christian faith. Believing is going beyond mere intellectual thought toward the realm of relationship.
Because God is so gracious, we have opportunity to believe in Jesus and be re-connected to the very source of life. John 3:16 says that any and all who believe and go on believing in Jesus Christ will not perish. They have eternal life. The relationship will not die out. It will only grow.
If you’re not yet a Christian, what is preventing you from believing in Jesus Christ right now? It’s just a matter of starting a relationship. God’s plan is in place. The way has been paved. The only hurdle left is you. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by. To do so would be to remain cut off from your only hope.
