Do You See Faith?

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE
DO YOU SEE FAITH?
DR. JIM DIXON
SCRIPTURE: JOHN 1:9-14
DECEMBER 13, 2009

On January the 8th in the year 1815 Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans and that victory gave Andrew Jackson fame. That victory catapulted Andrew Jackson into the White House. Catapulted Andrew Jackson into the Presidency of the United States. But the strange thing is that the Battle of New Orleans should never have been fought. It should never have been fought because 15 days earlier, on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Gent was signed in Belgium and Britain, and the United States of America agreed to peace: a peace treaty. But in those days, messages were slow in getting around the world. In those days communication was a little slower, so the message never reached Andrew Jackson in time. Now there are historians who believe that it really doesn’t matter. The historians believed that if the message had reached Andrew Jackson before the battle of New Orleans, the battle would still have taken place and he wouldn’t have believed the message.

Now, we’re here today, in part, because of a message: a message delivered by angels to Joseph, and a message delivered by angels to Mary, a message delivered by angels to shepherds at a Judean hillside and the question is, “Do you believe? Do you believe it? Do you see faith?” That’s the question that’s before us today and I would like to, this morning, pose two questions, and the first question is this: “Do you believe when others don’t?” Do you believe when others around you do not? Now, each week we look at a different Christmas movie and have a little fun with it.

Today our movie is Polar Express. This was really a fun movie and very well done. I don’t know how many of you saw this movie, maybe in 3D or maybe in the regular format. The movie was well done and it was a lot of fun and I don’t want to overstate the case for deeper meaning in the movie. But many people have seen, and I agree, that this movie seems to have almost a deeper meaning that the North Pole is like the heavenly city New Jerusalem and when you see it from a distance, it just radiates light over the earth. And Santa Claus, when he first reveals himself, when he first comes out, he radiates light like divine light and he’s like a type of Christ or an image of God. And then, of course, you have all the elves that surround his platform and they’re like angels that surround the throne of God. And you have the bell, which is like the voice of God which some people can hear and which some people can’t.

So, you come to the end of the movie and you come to the scene near the end of the movie where the little boy is with his family. He’s lost the bell, but the bell is gift-wrapped under the tree… “Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.” Maybe Mr. C is more than Santa. Maybe Mr. C is Christ. It certainly is true that many in the world cannot see him, do not believe in him and cannot hear his music. They can’t hear the beautiful sound of his voice. And the Bible tells us this. The Bible tells us we live in a world where some people believe and some people don’t believe. Some have eyes to see and cannot see, ears to hear and cannot hear. Jesus told us these things. And so, in our passage of Scripture today, in John chapter 1, we see these words, “The true light, which enlightens every man, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made by him, and yet the world knew him not. He came from his own home, to his own home and his own people received him not. He came as a Jewish man amongst the Jews and they received him not. He came as a human being and human beings received him not. But as to many who have received him, to as many who have believed in his name, to them he gave power to them to become children of God.”

So, who are the children of God? Who are sons and daughters of God? They are those who believe, those who hear the bell, those who see his face. Then you come to John 3 and everybody knows John 3:16. Everybody knows this verse, but a lot of people don’t read on. They don’t read verse 17. They don’t read verse 18. John 3:16 says, God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Then John 17, For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved. Then verse 18, He who believes is not condemned. He who does not believe is condemned already for he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So, it’s all about belief. Come to John 20 and Jesus is resurrected and he’s alive and he appears to his disciples in the Upper Room, in the city of Jerusalem. And this time Thomas is with them, Thomas the doubter, and he said, “I will not believe.” So, Jesus appeared yet again to them and he showed Thomas his hands and his side and Thomas touched him and fell down before him and said, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus said, You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” And then the Apostle John goes on and in the next three verses said Many other things did Jesus, and many other signs, many other miracles did Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, that are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing, you might have life in his name.

So, how do we find life? How do we find eternal life thru faith, through belief? Do you see what I see? Do you see faith? Now the incarnation is hard for some people to believe. The incarnation, the fact that God became flesh, the fact that the Son of God came to earth, born in a manger and took our humanity upon himself is hard to believe. We can look at world history. We can see a lot of examples of royalty who for a period of time went incognito amongst their people. It was rumored that this was true of Peter the Great, Peter the First, who died in 1725. It was said that from time to time he would don average, normal, common clothing. He would leave his royal palace. He would walk amongst his people to see what life was like for them to enter their world for a time.

The same thing was said of Queen Victoria, Victoria the Great, who ruled Great Britain for 63 years. It was said that from time to time she would do the same. She would put on common clothing and go amongst the people, enter their world, see what life was like for them. Of course, there have in history been people of one race who have disguised themselves as members of another race in order to enter their world. This was true of John Howard Griffin. Some of you have, I think, read John Howard Griffin’s book Black Like Me, a powerful book written in 1961. It was in 1959 when John Howard Griffin went to his dermatologist and he received medicine and chemicals that enabled him to appear to be a Black man. Though he was Anglo, he appeared to be an African-American. Then he went to Louisiana. He went to Mississippi. He went to Alabama. He went to Georgia and he went all through the south as a Black man, claiming to be an African­ American, and he entered their world. And the book is so powerful as he experiences prejudices and hate. This book is compassionate, but amazingly powerful: Black Like Me, a man who for a period of time entered the world of other people.

But you see the incarnation as greater than all of that. I mean this is God. This is the Son of God come to earth. This is Jesus, leaving his eternal throne of glory and coming to earth and taking on our form, taking on our nature, becoming human, wearing our flesh, living amongst us. Dying amongst us. This is the greatest story ever told, and do you believe? The church of Jesus Christ has struggled with the incarnation and that’s why in 325 there was the Council of Nicaea. That’s why in 381 the Council of Constantinople, 431 the Council of Ephesus, the Ecclesiastical Councils all dealt with the incarnation and the mysteries of it. But everybody knew you have to believe if you’re a Christian. If you say you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe. He’s God come to earth. The Son of God come among us.

Of course, we live in a world where faith is dying. We live in a world where more and more people doubt. We live in a world that is increasingly secular and lot of people have placed their faith not in God, but in man. A lot of people have placed their faith in man. Now at home I have a lot of books written by theoretical physicists. I have some at the church written by theoretical physicists and I love to read such books. Now before the year 2000, before the dawn of this new millennium, many of these theoretical physicists wrote books that dreamed dreams about the great things that mankind would accomplish: books like Hyperspace, books like Visions, and since the year 2000, other books like The Singularity do the same thing. They dream dreams about what might happen because of the greatness of man. And so, in these books you really see mention of the computer revolution and what the computer revolution is going to bring to us. And then you see mention of the biogenetic revolution and what the biogenetic revolution is going to bring to mankind and then you see mention of the quantum revolution and what the quantum revolution is going to bring to mankind.

Now in the computer revolution, they dream dreams that mankind will ultimately build artificial intelligence capable of highly complex abstract thought, that they will be able to create robotic life and this will be robotic life where the robot is capable of extremely complex, abstract thoughts and where the robot has a conscience and where the robot has soul and where the robot has freedom and autonomy and therefore culpability. All of this dreamed of in computer technology and in the computer revolution. And with regard to man, that there would be a kind of bio-tech revolution and that bio-tech revolution would combine computer technology with human biology and enhance the powers of the brain so that through this computer revolution, the brain would be enhanced with nanotechnology and nanotechnology would be combined with the workings with the synapses of your own brain and you will have capacities of intellect unheard of or undreamed of. Hope in man.

Now I don’t know about you. I love this stuff, I read this stuff and I love science. I hope you understand I’m not anti-science, but it takes a huge leap of faith to believe that they’re going to do all this stuff. I don’t believe for a second that they’re ever going to create robotic life with a soul. I believe that God alone can impart a soul. I don’t believe that they will ever create conscience. I don’t believe that they will create moral autonomy with subsequent culpability. I don’t believe that.

You know many scientists have concluded that the average person uses maybe 2% to 10% of the brain, and scientists have not understood that. They’ve debated why that may be the case and there’s many opinions why the average person uses 2 to 10% of their brain. Why not more? What could you do if you used more? And, of course, the Bible tells us that when God breathed on man, when God imparted the Imago Dei, when God breathed on man and imparted his image and likeness, God looked at that original couple and God said, “It is good.” And God viewed man as the crown of his creation, just a little bit lower than the angels, and who knew what our capabilities would be?

But now we are fallen and that is what Genesis 3 is all about. Sin has entered the world and mankind has fallen and we are diminished and it says in Romans 8 and in Romans 1 that our minds have become futile in their thinking. And our minds have been darkened. The word futility is “mataiotes,” and in the Greek it means failure to obtain created potential. So, this is the state of man biblically. Our minds have failed to obtain created potential by the will of God because we are fallen and we are dangerous. But I place my hope in Christ, not in man. So, I look to the future and all my hope is in Christ and his promise of a new body, a resurrected body that is indestructible and not subject to decay. And I really believe that we will be glorious in that day, and perhaps some of what is in the world of parapsychology, mental telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis will be within our capabilities in that day when God remakes us and we are given our new bodies, for our hope is in Christ. It is not in man.

You look at the biogenetic revolution. You read these books, and the biogenetic revolution believes that through biogenetics and through the decoding of the human genome, they will eradicate disease on the earth and conquer death. You read these books and this is the hope: that they will eradicate disease on the earth and conquer death. The greatness of man: I don’t know whether you are capable of taking that leap of faith, but I am not. I don’t know if you noticed that disease is pandemic on the earth. Despite all of our science, despite all of our advancements, disease is pandemic on the earth. We’re actually in danger of losing the potency of certain drugs. We have a hard time even keeping up with disease. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but the death rate is still 100%. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed that the maximum life span of human beings is not changing. When you look at the outer boundary, it’s about 120 years. That was true a thousand years ago. That was true 2,000 years ago. It was true 3,000 years ago and it’s true today despite all our medicines. You don’t see anyone live beyond 120 years and that’s very, very, very, very, rare. Now I place my faith in Christ who said, I am the resurrection and the life. Who believes in me though he die, yet shall he live and who lives and believes in me will never truly die. I place my hope in Jesus and I believe that the day will come when he will wipe every tear away from our eyes and death will be no more. A lot of people in the world, though, just find that hard to believe. Would rather trust in man.

So, you also have the quantum revolution. It’s all pretty exciting. It’s a lot of fun. But do you believe it? The quantum revolution states that as mankind in the future harnesses cosmic energy, we will be able to journey to the farthest stars and the farthest reaches of the galaxy and beyond to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, to the farthest galaxies. We’re going to do this through the quantum revolution and through the harnessing of cosmic energy.

Do you believe that? I have my doubts. I have my doubts. You understand we’re not even able to go to another planet within our own solar system. Do you realize that? Within this little solar system, we’re not even able to go to another planet, and of course our solar system only has one star and we call that star the sun. And you know the nearest star to us is Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri and then Alpha Centauri, 4.1 and 4.2 light years away. You know how fast light travels: 186,000 miles a second. Now we can’t travel that fast, you understand. We can’t travel at 186,000 miles a second. We can’t travel at 186,000 miles a minute. We can’t travel at 186,000 miles an hour. But if we could travel at 186,000 miles a second, we could reach the nearest star in 4.1 years, Proxima Centauri in 4.1 years. That’s just the nearest star moving at the speed of light and of course, if you wanted to travel to the nearest galaxy, you’d want to travel across our galaxy moving at that great speed of 186,000 miles a second. It would still take 100,000 years moving at the speed of light just to go across this galaxy we call the Milky Way.

You want to travel to the nearest galaxy that is like ours? The nearest spiral galaxy is called Andromeda. Do you know how long it would take to get there, if we could move at 186,000 miles per second, if we could move at the speed of light? 2.1 million light years. If you could move at 186,000 miles a second, it would still take you 2.1 million years to reach the nearest spiral galaxy and there are galaxies 15 billion light years out there. Do you really believe that we’re going to do that? You really believe that man is going to do that? I got my doubts.

I put my faith in Christ. I believe the Bible. I believe that God is going to create a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. I believe that in that day he says that we will rejoice and be glad in all that he has created and he once gave dominion man over this planet. We’ve abused that dominion by the way. He will one day give his people dominion over all the works of his hands, the cosmos itself. You say, “Well, maybe through wormholes, maybe through folding space, maybe through parallel universes we can reach that by the power of man.” No. I mean it’s unlikely. It’s fun stuff.

I think it unlikely, but oh, I have my faith in Christ. Someday he’ll create a new heavens and a new earth and it will be ours in which to serve him and it will be glorious. Place your faith in man. Are you going trust man to bring about global peace? You think we’re going do it? Think we’re going to bring peace on earth? More people were killed in the 20th century by war than any prior century in the history of the earth. We’ve got wars going on today all over the earth and our weapons of mass destruction are far more deadly. I don’t put my faith in man. I put my faith in God. Put my faith in Christ. Do you see what I see? He is the Prince of Peace. He will beat our spears and our plowshares and our pruning hooks into garden tools. Nation will not lift up sword against nation. Neither will they learn war anymore for he is the Prince of Peace.

Well, I hope you understand what faith is. I hope you understand what faith is because I think there’s this huge misunderstanding in the world today and I think a huge misunderstanding in the churches. This word in the Bible for faith, this word in the Bible for belief, the word is “pisteos.” And this word doesn’t simply refer to intellectual assent. It refers to relinquishment of life. It refers to commitment to life. That’s what it means to believe. I hope you understand that. It’s not mere intellectual sense. This word is so noble. It is so great and we have so cheapened it. I mean people ask questions about what you believe in.

I mean do you believe in the Loch Ness monster, do you believe in Nessy, or do you not? Do you believe in Big Foot? Do you believe in Sasquatch? Do you believe in the Yeti, or do you not? And, of course, the word belief is not even appropriate biblically because it means to commit your life. It doesn’t just refer to intellectual assent. I mean no one’s going to commit their life to Yeti, or to Big Foot, or to Nessy. It doesn’t even make any sense.

You know the Broncos play Indianapolis today. I guess they’re playing now. Do you believe they’re going to win? I don’t. Some do. I hope they win, but you see the word belief isn’t appropriate anyway, not biblically. Not that noble word. It’s too lofty. It’s too great. I don’t commit my life to the Broncos. Not going trust my life to the Broncos. I mean this word is just so deep you can’t apply it to the mundane things of life.

Do you believe in Jesus with the biblical meaning? To understand this, you’ve got to understand the early church. The first century church called baptism the Sacramentum. That’s in the first century in the Roman world. In the Latin-speaking world, Christians called baptism sacramentum. What was the sacramentum? The sacramentum was the sacred oath. The word sacramentum means sacred oath. It was a sacred oath that a Roman citizen made when joining the Roman Legion. They took the sacramentum, which was to pledge yourself unto death to the emperor and the empire. The sacramentum. The moment you took that sacramentum, the day you took that sacramentum, from that day forth you were a Roman soldier, a member of the Roman Legion. The sacramentum: the sacred oath, the commitment unto death to the emperor and empire.

Now the early church took the word and applied it to baptism. How strange. Why would they do that? Why would they take the word sacramentum from which we get sacrament, why do they take sacramentum and apply it to baptism? They viewed baptism as the sacred oath, the commitment to kingdom unto death. What does it mean to believe? It’s not mere intellectual assent. You believe that Jesus arose from the dead. Well so does the devil. Faith, belief, means you committed your life to king and kingdom. From that day forth it’s all different. From that day forth you’re a child of God. From that day forward you are a son or daughter of God. From that day forth, by his grace, you are a member of the family of God. From that day forth you are a disciple of Jesus Christ and you’ve committed yourself unto death to king and kingdom. So, do you believe?

You know Barb reads a lot of books and so do I. Sometimes Barb likes to read to me. The problem is I don’t always like to be read to. And sometimes I’m reading something or doing something and Barb wants to read something she’s excited about to me and I’ve discovered through the years that usually when she wants to read something to me, it’s worth listening. She’s reading a book now called The Kennedy Men, and this book called The Kennedy Men by Lawrence Lerner, who also wrote The Kennedy Women, describes the Kennedy family through their history in America. It begins with Joe and Rose Kennedy because Joe Kennedy is the patriarch of the family and there is this passage that Barb was reading and it’s about Joe and Rose when they would go to church, and I just want just read this little paragraph to you. “Rose went to mass practically every day and with a faith both deep and true, she was making obeisance to God, a God who gave her solace and peace. Her faith was true. Joe sat in church with much the same reverential cast to his faith, the very picture of the very perfect Catholic layman, yet he slept with countless actresses and chorus girls around the world. He manipulated stocks so as to exploit widows, pensioners, and other less shrewd manipulators. He set up bootlegging deals with mobsters from Cleveland to Palm Beach, but they sat in church.” Now here you sit in church. But see, God knows our hearts. Do you see what I see? Do you see faith? Do you believe? God knows. But I do think it is important to understand what belief means and that’s why I have said the words I have.

Now I want to conclude with one other question, and that simply is, “Do you believe today?” What I want to know is, I think what God wants to know, it’s not, “Did you once go forward at an alter call,” the question is, “Do you believe today?” It’s not do you plan on believing someday, maybe kind of a deathbed sort of a confession. Want to sow your oats a little while longer and maybe down the road someday you plan on believing. No, the question is, “Do you believe today?” And it’s not, “Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead 2,000 years ago,” or “Do you believe that Jesus is one day going come again at the consummation, at the Eschaton, that he’s going to descend from heaven in power and great glory?” No, it’s, “Do you believe today? Do you believe that he’s working today? Do you believe that he just worked 2,000 years ago and he’s going to come again, or do you really believe he’s doing stuff today?”

Now I went through Christian history looking at all the incredible things God did on December 13th. I was going to ask you, after going through some of these things, “Do you believe that God is still doing stuff today? Do you think he’s still doing stuff today?”

You know last week was December 6th. On December 6th a man was born that was named Phillip Brooks. In fact, today, you can go to Boston and outside the Trinity Church you can see this great statue, giant statue, of Phillip Brooks. You see people walking round Trinity Church and they look at that statue and you see people saying, “Well, who is Phillip Brooks?” Well, he was an Anglican Episcopalian priest, a great Christian leader. It was Phillip Brooks who wrote Oh Little Town of Bethlehem. He was born December 6th with the plan of God that he would write such songs—God at work in Phillip Brooks. Now you look at the second verse of Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, and you see these words. “Oh, Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend on us we pray. Cast out our sins and enter in, be born in us today.”

Now, Phillip Brooks was a great theologian. He knew that Christ can only be born in you once. He knew that. He knew that Christ could be born in you once and that’s the day you take sacramentum. The day you take the sacramentum, the day you trust him to be your savior from sin and pledge yourself unto death to King and Kingdom, that is the day that you’re born anew. That is the day that he is born in you. But Phillip Brooks also understood that there is a sense in which every day you recommit to the oath. There is a sense in which every day you acknowledge his birth in you and recommit to the oath.

So, I’m saying, I believe that’s what God wants from us this day. We recommit to the oath. We understand what it means to serve King and Kingdom, the cost of discipleship, the rest of our lives because Christians are oftentimes wusses. Cowards. We’re so afraid, so intimidated, so fearful. I don’t know how many of you have ever read the Manhattan Declaration. How many of you have actually heard of or seen the Manhattan Declaration? A few of you. A few of you have signed it. You know, I want to ask you to do something. I want you to go home today and take your computer and download the Manhattan Declaration. This is an awesome document and it’s been crafted by Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Evangelicals together.

The actual document is written by a professor from Princeton University, another professor from Stanford University and then Chuck Colson who founded Prison Fellowship, which ministers to prisoners all over our country and around the world. And, of course, he was a member of the Nixon cabinet, or Nixon staff. But this document is amazing and it’s Christians, Orthodox, Evangelical, all coming together and I don’t want you to just read the introduction. I don’t want you to just read the summary statement. I’d like you to read the whole thing. I want to ask you to do that. It is beautiful. I think it’s powerful and I would ask you to sign it. They are seeking signatures. They have, maybe, 300,000 signatures thus far. There should be at least 300 million. I mean there should be a billion Christians around the world sign this thing. I want to just read you the introduction, a call to Christian Conscience, and hopefully we can have this on the screen. The first paragraph,

“Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable, worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family. We are Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife and the rights of conscience in religious liberty. In as much as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the wellbeing of society, therein they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter no pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment, not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ the crucified and risen Lord who is the way, the truth and the life.

So, this is Orthodox Catholic and Evangelical Christians coming together and there’s a whole section in there on the sanctity of human life. I would love for you to read it. It’s just beautifully crafted, and it’s loving, and it doesn’t seek to define when the soul is given. It doesn’t seek to define whether the soul is passed on through the sperm or the egg or from the mother and father, or whether the soul is implanted by God after conception in the first trimester or in the second trimester, or the third. It doesn’t seek to answer those questions. It’s just saying human life is sanctified and the fact that all of this is mystery as to when God places the soul that means, boy, we shouldn’t tamper. It’s risky business. Human life is sanctified and it discusses the beauty of human life all the way into the elderly years and how the sanctity of human life even in the elderly years is now being rejected in our culture and our time.

It talks about the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. Read the section. It’s compassionate. But it talks about how the marriage between a man and a woman is foundational to society and to families and we live in a culture and a time when everything is being redefined and reshaped and it’s scary business and the rights of conscience and religious liberty. It’s a beautiful section that describes so clearly how we live in a time now where people of faith, institutions of faith, communities of faith are being pushed to the fringes and there’s this effort to silence people of faith, and the problem is so many Christians just crater. It’s hard to even get people to sign something, hard to get Christians to stand together. Hard to get Christians to teach a Sunday School class, hard to get Christians to mentor inner city kids, an inner-city child, hard to get Christians to sing in a choir, and hard to get Christians to do much. I mean we’re all exhausted, we want a little comfort, want to have a little fun. I understand that, God understands that, but wow, have you taken the sacramentum? Have you pledged yourself unto death to King and Kingdom? Do you believe?