“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 one 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. What really matters is WHO you believe and WHAT you believe.
“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 $6.00 – 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, 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 our town, 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 fellow in our town!
God said, “Abe, I’m going to bless the whole world through you. I’m going to accomplish it through your descendants 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 descendants…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 descendants. 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 descendants. 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?
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