Community Church Sermons
February 17, 2008
The
Second Sunday in Lent
John 3:1-17
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead…”
I believe.
“I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle glows. Every time I hear a newborn baby cry, or touch a leaf, or see the sky, then I know why I believe.”
I believe.
“I believe,” said W.C. Fields, “I’ll have another drink.”
I believe.
“Papa Marty,” my grandson Ryan said last Christmas, “do you know that some kids don’t believe in Santa?” “No, really?” I replied. “What about you, Ryan?” “Papa Marty, I believe!”
I believe.
Everybody believes. Everybody believes something about – well - everything. Turn on your XM satellite radio and listen to the music we have loved over the decades and you just might hear songs that say:
“I believe in a thing called love.”
“I believe in music, I believe in love.”
“I believe the children are
our future.”
“I believe I can fly.”
We human beings BELIEVE.
Sometimes, Christians divide the world into believers and nonbelievers, but there really is no such division. We may believe differently. I may believe the Boston Red Sox are the best team in baseball – which they are - but you Yankee fans, or Chicago Cubs fans – mistakenly - will see it differently. We might disagree about what we believe, but we BELIEVE.
Everybody believes.
So why then – if believing is such a normal part of being human - does the Bible place so much emphasis on BELIEVING?
We hear it in today’s Gospel text: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Although BELIEVING is such
a common, ordinary human activity, the Bible nonetheless holds that activity up
before us in this text as though there is something to be seen here that can
make a profound difference in the ultimate living out of our lives.
It’s almost as if the
Bible is saying, it’s not so much THAT you believe - after all EVERYBODY
believes something - but WHO you believe and WHAT you believe really matters.
“Whosoever believeth in him should not perish… but
have eternal life.”
It’s unfortunate, but many
preachers have done us a disservice by making us think that these words have
only to do with going to heaven when you die. Believe in Jesus and your ticket
to heaven will be punched and you’ll be allowed to board that train bound for
glory. Don’t believe in Jesus…well, that
train leaves from the other side of the platform and goes in another direction.
You know how it goes.
But this passage of
scripture is about so much more than the afterlife. Much more importantly, it
is about THIS life.
You see, the eternal life
John 3:16 speaks about is not the same as everlasting life. Everlasting life in
the Bible is about QUANTITY of life while eternal life in the Bible is about a
certain QUALITY of life. In John 17, eternal life is described as a life that
knows God – that is intimately infused with the life of God - and it tells us
that we can receive this eternal life in this lifetime when we come to know
Jesus. Look at Jesus and you will know God, learn from Jesus and you will learn
about God, follow Jesus and you will be following God. And the most important
words in John 3:16 are the very first words:
“For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son…”
Why did Jesus come into
the world?
To demonstrate God’s LOVE
– for you, and me, and FOR THE WORLD.
So what does it mean to believe in him?
It means to believe that
God loves you. It means to believe God loves your neighbor – and the stranger –
and even your enemy. It means to believe that God loves the world. And we
believe these things because we believe that’s why Jesus came.
You know, in my younger
days – when I was pretty much a religious zealot – I took delight in trying to
convince people just how bad they are. I grew up with the kind of religion that
begins with the premise that God is ticked off at the world because of sin, and
that people deserve to go to hell, and that only by believing in Jesus can you
escape the judgment and go to heaven when you die.
And the most amazing thing
about that approach was how easy it was to get people to believe that.
Getting people to believe the worst about themselves is simple. And it produces
a lot of easy conversions – notches in the belt of zealots like me.
But it also produces some
pretty miserable Christians.
You see, when you believe
the worst about yourself, what then do you believe about others? And how do you
treat them? When you believe God is mad at the world, how do you relate to the
world? When you believe that the point of life is only about “going to heaven
when I die”, what will you contribute to the world while you live? Recently, I
read the results of a congregational self-study done in a church I’m familiar
with and one of the comments made by a member went something like this: “It’s
all well and good that we place so much emphasis on loving our neighbors,
helping the poor and stuff like that, but when are we going to get the real
Gospel about getting ready to go to heaven when we die?”
Here in the Bible Belt -
where there are more Christians than there are people and more churches than
there are houses - we suffer extraordinarily high rates of domestic violence,
of child abuse, of teenage pregnancy, of drug addiction, and worse. How can
that be? How is that someone can go to the altar to accept Jesus as their
personal Lord and Savior, and then go home and beat their wife, or sexually
abuse their little child?
How can that be?
“I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead…”
Believing all that - and
about $3.00 - will get you a cup of Starbucks coffee. But it won’t make the
world the kind of place God wants the world to be.
I don’t think the FACT
that you believe is nearly as important as WHO and WHAT you believe.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”
To believe in Jesus is to
believe in God’s love for the world.
Or, turn those words
around, “God gave his Son because God SO LOVED THE WORLD.”
What do you think would
happen if we started our faith right there at John 3:16?
What would happen if we
lived out of the belief that the coming of Jesus shows us that this broken
world of ours is worth saving – and that the people of this planet are worth
loving – and that you are NOT a miserable, broken, unacceptable person but
rather a cherished child of God whose greatest sin pales in comparison to the
height and depth and breadth of your Father’s love and forgiveness?
What would discipleship look
like if you started your faith there in the truth of God’s love?
I think, first of all, you
would take your faith out of the church every week, and find some cause out
there that you believe will make our community or our world a better place, and
give yourself to it. You would find some way to use your gifts and talents to
care for the earth, or to make right an injustice, or to give someone who’s
down-and-out a hand up. You would practice God’s love for the world every day
in every relationship.
Second, I think you’d stop
badmouthing people, and seeing them for their faults, and being quick to
criticize, judge and condemn. Rather than trying to convince people how bad
they are, you’d try to put others in touch with what is good and right in them,
and try to bring out their best. You would practice God’s love for others.
And third, I think you’d
cut yourself a break, and start thinking of yourself as a good person, loved by
God, made in God’s image, and filled with immeasurable capabilities for doing
good. You would practice God’s love for yourself.
A long, long time ago, God
showed up right here in Tellico Village, on the doorstep of an old retired
couple named Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was 75-years old at the time God came
by, and had two knee replacements, a defibrillating pacemaker and
not-quite-ripe cataracts in both eyes - pretty much your typical Tellico
Villager!
God said, “Abe, I’m going to bless the whole world through you. I’m going to accomplish it through your descendents who will be as numerous as the grains of sand on a beach.”
Abraham laughed and said, “Well,
the joke’s on you, God. Sarah and I are childless, and our retirement plans do
not include having a baby! Besides, Sarah is barren – always has been!”
But God said, “No,
Abe, you and Sarah are going to have a baby!”
And Abraham said, “Oh,
great. Tell you what. How about we settle for a puppy instead?”
But God said, “No.
It’s going to be a baby. You and Sarah will have a child. Your child will have
children. They’ll be fruitful and multiply and have children of their own. And
before you know it, the world will be overrun by your children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and all your descendents…and through
them, I will save the world. So get down to the drug store and get yourself
some Viagra, and then come and follow me to the country I’ll show you.”
And the most amazing thing
about Abraham and Sarah is that they did it! They believed God. They believed
God loved them. They believed God would love their descendents. And they
believed God loved the world enough to save it. So they followed God into the
uncertain future!
And this is what the Bible says, “They believed God, and God accounted it to them as righteousness.”
So Abraham went down to
the local CVS. Sarah packed up the house. And off they went to follow this God
of love in the great enterprise of saving the world. For twenty-five years they
followed God. For twenty-five years they tried to have a baby. And then, when
Abraham was 100-years old, the miracle happened. Sarah gave birth to a baby
boy, and God told them to name him “Isaac” which more or less means, “The
joke’s on you!”
And the children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Sarah and Abraham passed that story of
belief on to all their descendents. And many, many generations later, that was
the story probably remembered by a young couple from Abraham’s line who gave
birth to a baby one night in a little town called Bethlehem.
And they named their baby
Jesus.
“For God SO LOVED THE WORLD that he gave his only Son that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
I believe.
Do you?