Sermon Cloud

Welcome- Kelli

Meditation on doubt and belief: Bob- Here are two very true and very short and simple statements Scripture makes about Belief- I’d like us to spend a minute meditating on them quietly, I’ll pray for us, and we’ll move on with the morning…

VS Prov 14:15- 45 seconds

VS John 6:29- 45 seconds

Song: Enough

Prayer: glad

Song: When Words Won’t Do

Last week we explored a bit around the topic of doubt: what did you all take away from that time- what were the main points?

This morning, to augment last week’s topic of doubt, I want us to talk about “belief.” The problem is, the minute you begin talking about belief, there’s a mechanism deep within the human psyche that instantly begins to object, right?

As you’ve talked to people, or even as you yourself have moved from along the continuum from doubt to faith, what have been some of the objections?

Here’s the thing: Every culture has its own built in objections to God, to the Gospel. And what people rarely realize is how culturally conditioned their objections to belief in God or to following Jesus are. For example- here in the North America, and in Europe- the big objection is “exclusivism.” The idea that no one religion or system of thought could possibly be right, so...

But no matter who we are, or where we are, or what our objections to faith, culturally conditioned as they are might be, at the intersection of doubt and belief lay one of two things: Proof or faith. Those are really the only two ways one gets from doubt about anything to faith in anything- doesn’t matter if we’re talking about science, about interpersonal relationships or about our spiritual life.

Have you ever heard this one: “if God would just prove to me He exists, I’d believe”? Yeah? The desire for signs, for proof is nothing new. The impulse is very human- and even showed itself in some interactions Jesus had with people. If you have a Bible, look at John 6. And while you’re looking that up let me summarize the beginning of the chapter.

So… Jesus had been traveling around the countryside, teaching, healing people of serious deformities and sickness, having a lot of debates with the religious leaders and scholars, and at one point, he got into a boat with his disciples and crossed the sea of Galilee. A huge crowd of people, 5,000 men, probably at least that many women and children, followed Him along the side of the shore, and so He sits down to teach them, and He asks His disciples: “Where can we buy enough bread to feed all these people?” And one of them answers- “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough.”

And many of you probably know the rest of the story- they find a boy with five barley loaves (which was the Wonder Bread of the day- what the poorer people ate) and two fish. And so Jesus tells them to have every one sit down, He prays/says thanks, and begins handing out the bread and the fish- and not only is there enough for everyone, there are 12 baskets left over. 

The cool part about episodes like this in the Gospels is that not only are they true, I believe, but they are full of meaning. Moses had fed the people with bread called Manna, and told the people to expect someone like him who would come. So when the people see this, they say (VS 14). In 2 Kings, Elisha, the prophet, had taken a few loaves of barley bread and fed 100 people- and there’s both a comparison and a contrast here: Jesus didn’t just feed 100, He fed thousands. With 12 baskets left over- the number of tribes in Israel… this is God’s way of saying to the people- not only is this the one you’ve been looking for, but He’s greater even than Moses and the Prophets- ad what He’s going to give you is enough- enough left over for everyone.

But… I’m not sure that the people really saw it that way. Look at

VS 6:22-26

See, this is interesting- right away, Jesus just lays it out- I did something miraculous- a sign- proof, if you will… But you aren’t following Me because you understood what that sign meant- who it told you I was. You just like free bread!

VS 27-28

That’s another way of saying: Okay- if you aren’t going to do the bread thing again, at least tell us how you did it so we can make some for ourselves- and Jesus says:

VS 29-30

These guys are obsessed. And while it seems like they are asking for a sign, what they are really asking for is… bread.

VS 31

Why do we want signs? Why do we want PROOF? We say it's so we can believe- but really, I think there are often other reasons.

For instance- when someone says “Well, if God really wanted me to believe in Him, He’d give me positive proof of His existence. And since I don’t have that…”

Which sounds reasonable, but really, when you scratch below the surface of that one, what you are often actually dealing with is “Take away any possibility for me NOT to believe, and I’ll believe.” In other words- take the responsibility out of my hands- don’t make me do the hard work of seeking God, of thinking through issues, of wrestling with doubt and belief… just give me the magic bullet. I think often the “Show me God” thing isn’t so much looking for proof, as it is looking for a release from responsibility. And Jesus knows these guys aren’t really asking for sign- they aren’t so much seeking Him as they are just looking for another free meal. And so He says:

VS 6:32-36

In other words- you say the issue is signs, proof- but you’ve gotten that and you still don’t believe, it’s still not enough.

VS 37-40

 This is the heart of the Christian story- that God Himself has come to rescue and renew creation- to save us. That death isn’t the end and the broken condition of our lives and of this world isn’t the final word… But that Christ came to give us what we desperately want and need, but never seem to be able to find- peace, forgiveness, freedom… 

And in the telling of that story we see that there’s an already-but-not-yet aspect to things. Jesus talks both about the here and now and the then and ever-after… These people were expecting a Messiah who would do it all, right then, immediately- It says back in VS 15 of this chapter that they were ready to make Jesus King by force. But that wasn’t His way. He wasn’t going to force Himself on anyone… and He certainly wasn’t going to be forced into anything by anyone else.

He draws them this picture of following Him that says- life changes now, but I’m about more than just quality of life improvements now- I’m about setting this whole broken system straight- and that’s a long-term project. A long-term project with a timeline we can’t see. And in drawing that picture, and in calling them out on their constant desire for proof, He calls them to the only alternative left between doubt and belief. Faith. 

Faith, in a sense, is nonsense- it's a non-sense. We have five sense that we experience things through- touch, taste, hearing, seeing, smelling. But we also know that we experience things, feel things, interact with things through non-sensical means. My senses are good- they tell me things exist and are real- And I experience much of the world through them. My senses help me know. But we know other ways as well…

Have you ever had an intuition about things? Ever been thinking of someone and your phone rings and it’s them? How do I know I love my wife and my kids? With my eyes? Ears? Other senses? No- I just know it. I just do. There are things I know without having valid, empirical, sensical evidence for them… I just know.

The book of Hebrews puts it this way: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"

There's more going on in this word than meets the eye. In fact, there's more going on than meets the eye, the ear, the touch, the smell... 

The Christian story says this: When our relationship with God was severed, way back when, our capacity to experience God was broken. Like someone who can't hear the music that's playing around them, or can't see the person standing right in front of them... It's still there- that person just can't quite access it.  And what faith does is it brings us back to life, awakening a sense we didn't even know we had.

Jesus is saying signs, proof is good... But this isn't just about believing, signing on and waving the flag of some religion... it's about coming to life. It's about waking up. And when we come to life, we begin to see what we could not see when we were dead.

What faith does is it moves us from just seeing the problems: the hatred, the anger, the suffering, to seeing, knowing the solution- God's plan to rescue and renew all of creation through the work of Jesus on our behalf. That Jesus Himself is the answer to the questions we ask…

VS 41-50

What is sin? Some people call it breaking a moral law- you know- doing the things on the naughty list, failing to the things on the approved list. Others say it's missing the mark- not living up to an expectation of character or virtue...

There are true elements in both of those, but... I like the way Kierkegaard spoke about sin- he said sin is "sickness unto death."   It's doing that which eventually, taken to its logical extreme will kill you and kill those around you. He fleshed that out by saying that sin, sickness unto death is 'building your identity on anything but God.' And the reason why that leads to death, for you and others, is it leads to internal slavery and hatred of others. See, building your identity on any finite created thing (like money, possessions, job, relationships), anything besides God leads to the idolization of that thing and slavery to it. I mean seriously- why do people actually kill other people for money- for $20 in a cash register, a pair of $100 sneakers? Why do we kill for oil and natural resources? Why do we stab people at work in the back and do whatever it takes to get that promotion and that raise?

Because we're slaves- slaves to our desires, slaves to our idols. And Kierkegaard said that's just the natural result of sin- it's a sickness that leads to death. 

So when God told Adam and Eve that to sin was to die, He was just telling them the truth- just diagnosing the problem.

And when Jesus says "Yes- I am the bread of Life. Anyone who eats this bread will live" He's also just telling us the truth, and offering us the solution, the cure for our sickness unto death.

VS 51

Jesus is using a metaphor here, but the people still have their heads stuck on physical bread.

VS 52-60

Indeed.  

When our minds are stuck on the literal, physical- bread, signs, proof… often we can’t see what’s standing right in front of us. Jesus was telling them that belief in, trust in Him was the nourishment, the sign that they needed. That in the same way God had fed their ancestors physically with bread, and miraculously made enough, so now God was at work through Christ to give everyone what they needed on an even deeper level than just physical hunger- at the level of our souls… where we struggle with guilt and shame, with alienation from God and from others and with the deepest questions of who we are, why we are and where we are going. There’s an interesting coda here:

VS 61-69

Doubt is good. It challenges us to rethink our beliefs and separate out those that are merely default settings for us and those we really, truly believe. Doubt, at its best, forces us to work hard at the most important things. But at its worst, it can be an excuse. An excuse not to ask questions, an excuse to opt out when things get hard, when Jesus asks something of us, or calls us to sacrifice, to giving ourselves to others… When it comes down to it, your doubts are really beliefs, and you can't avoid betting your life and destiny on some kind of belief in God and the universe. Non-commitment is impossible. Some kind of faith, and acting on it is inevitable.

People today, here in the West, here in Portland come to Christ through process, through relationships, though mini-decisions, through “trying Christianity on.” If you are in that place, I want to encourage you to keep exploring the Christian life in community- ask questions, kick the tires, but don’t do it alone.

This is the only work that God wants from you: Believe in the One He has sent.

On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took the Passover meal with His disciples, and he radically reimagined it for them- it was no longer just a remembrance of how God had acted to save them from slavery in Egypt, now it was to be a remembrance of how God had acted in Jesus to free all who wanted it from sin and death.

This table is a visual representation of everything that Jesus talked about in John 6- When we take communion we are saying: I accept- I accept who Jesus is and what He has done. I believe.

COMMUNION

2 songs: Come Thou Fount, Shepherd of My Soul

Report and prayer: jubilee, Sarah

Song: You Alone

Wrap up: bob

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