J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“What Do I Believe?”
Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:8-12
August 12, 2007
One of the great deceptions of this present age that we call “postmodern” is that the substance of one’s belief is really not that important. Since, as that philosophy goes, truth is relative and no one has the corner on it, it doesn’t matter “what” a person believes; it only matters that a person believe “something.” You can believe in Jesus or Buddha. You can believe in astrology or animism. You can believe in the power of crystals or in the power of free markets. One of the great deceptions of this present age is that what really matters is that you have some system of belief by which you order your life and whatever works for you is just as good as whatever works for your neighbor.
What makes that way of thinking absurd to me is that the substance of our belief is important. What a person believes does matter. And the reason that it matters is because behavior always follows belief. How a person lives cannot be separated from what that person believes. Belief and behavior are two sides of the same coin, and to try to scratch one of those sides off only serves to make life counterfeit and bogus.
How did we get to this place in our thinking? One explanation that makes sense to me is that we have seen our world get harder to figure out. We have seen our world multiply in its complexity. At one time life seemed so simple, but it seems that as time has gone by, our world has grown more convoluted and difficult. How do we win a “war on terror?” How do we manage an aging infrastructure? How do we keep up with the latest technology? How do we live in a world without real borders? These are tough questions that cannot be answered simplistically or superficially.
I was watching one of the presidential debates the other night, and as I listened to people pouring out their hearts to the candidates, I thought to myself, “Why would anybody ever want the job of President?” “Who in the world would think himself (or herself) smart enough or strong enough to tackle all of the challenges facing our country?” I guess, as the saying goes, “It is a tough job, and somebody’s got to do it.” And I’m grateful for all the people who have thrown their hats into that ring. But as I listened to those candidates, I began to notice something about many of their answers – how some of the candidates answered wasn’t necessarily in response to the questions. In other words, a person would answer one question, and a candidate would give a response that was only marginally connected to it. Have you noticed how politicians do that, regardless of their party affiliation? I don’t think it’s because they’re trying to be evasive. I think many times it’s because they really don’t have a good answer, and Americans don’t want a leader who is honest enough to look into the camera and say, “I don’t know.” As I heard someone once say, “Most people embrace expert advice, even when it’s wrong.” Just give us something we can believe.
Well, what are we to believe? How can we live with certainty in an uncertain world? I hope you can see what a big question the matter of belief really is, and always has been.
It certainly was to the Apostle Paul, especially toward the end of his life as he was facing the prospects of death because of his belief in Jesus Christ. Paul’s second letter to Timothy was in all likelihood written from a Roman prison. Paul calls himself “the Lord’s prisoner” and speaks plainly about “the chains” he bears and the suffering he has endured because of his conviction that Jesus was indeed Savior and Lord. The letter is addressed to a young preacher by the name of Timothy, a man of great potential in whom Paul has invested so much. Faith is fraying in Timothy’s church. People are beginning to slip away back into the safety of Roman culture as following Jesus becomes more and more unpopular. And while Paul knows that Timothy, having been reared by a godly mother and grandmother, has never known a time in his life when he wasn’t surrounded by a godly witness, Paul just wants to make sure that Timothy continues to show faith in the face of all the challenges that are coming his way. Paul just wants to make sure that there is sufficient belief to sustain bold behavior.
“Don’t be ashamed,” Paul pleads with his gifted protégée. “Don’t be ashamed to testify about Jesus or of me who is his prisoner.” Paul is showing us in this passage that the greatest barrier to belief is an unwillingness to stand apart from the crowd as a follower of Jesus. I remember how I heard the modern day prophet Tony Campolo put it: “Until a person can stand up to the culture and say, ‘I don’t care,’ he cannot be a disciple of Jesus. As long as a person has the mind to follow Jesus and the world, he cannot be the disciple that Jesus has called him to be.” Paul would no doubt have given a hearty “amen” to that belief.
So, how do we get there? How do we overcome our reluctance and our timidity, our shyness and our shame? The answer is two-fold.
In the first place, we must be certain about “what” we believe. In other words, there must be a substance to our faith that enables us to stand up to the many viewpoints and perspectives of our pluralistic culture. At one time, the person living or working next to you had a way of looking at the world that for all intents and purposes wasn’t that much different from yours. I don’t think I have to work hard to convince you of how that day has long since passed. We now rub elbows on a regular basis with people who have a vastly different way of looking at the world, and the challenge we face is one of being bold in our testimony, but being bold in a way that is kind and generous and civil and respectful. It doesn’t do any good for us to be jerks about our faith in Jesus. When that happens, the cause of Christ is not strengthened; we’re only exposed for what we really are. The most steadfast and secure Christians are those who show humility in their faith, defining clearly what they believe without downgrading or denigrating those around them.
Notice how Paul lays out the “what” of his belief in verses 9 and 10. It is the power of God that has saved us and called us to a holy life, a life of divine distinction. It has all come about not by anything that we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. In other words, God’s grace in Jesus is beyond the reach and the ruin of time. It has no shelf life and never has. It’s been revealed in the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Again, eternal life is not just a plank in some abstract philosophy; it is grounded in the Resurrection of Jesus, which was a concrete, historical event.
Here, then, is Paul’s “creed.” We are set right with God, both now and forever, by the grace of the Crucified and Risen Jesus. In fact, many students of the New Testament view verses 9 and 10 as an early confession of faith used at either baptism or ordination so that Paul’s reference to it is a gentile reminder to Timothy (and to us) that herein lies the substance of our belief – God’s power and grace in the Crucified and Risen Jesus.
What if that belief really guided our behavior? That’s the question that Donald Miller poses in his challenging little book, Blue Like Jazz. Miller, a non-conformist believer in every sense of that word, challenges fellow Christians not just to believe their faith, but to believe it meaningfully – to believe it to the point that it actually guides their behavior. For example, he asks the question: “Can you imagine if Christians really believed that God was trying to (save) us from the pit of our own self-addiction. Would we change the way we live, the products we purchase, the politicians we elect? (But) the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside of me that doesn’t want the responsibility, (because) if I actually believe these things (about Jesus); I have to do something about them” (Blue Like Jazz, pp.106-107).
What do you “have” to do because of your Christian conviction? If you struggle to find an answer, you may need to revisit what it is you really believe.
“What” is the first part to being unashamedly Christian. The second part is equally substantial, but more relational. It’s the “who” part. It’s not just “what” you know that makes you a Christian. Equally important is the matter of “who” you know. As Paul says in verse 12: “I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed.” Jesus is more than just a person he knows “about”; Jesus is someone to whom he has entrusted his very life. “I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him.”
In my life I have known people who stashed money away in what they considered to be safe locations. In my first pastorate, a member took me out on his farm and showed me where some of his money was hidden. He didn’t trust the bank, but he trusted me in the event that something happened and his family needed to recover that part of his savings. It’s been 20 years since we had that conversation, and I hope he’s entrusted that knowledge to someone else by now, because I’m not around any more. I wouldn’t know where to begin looking.
But that’s precisely the image Paul uses in this passage. He has deposited every aspect of his life with Jesus, and he doesn’t lie awake at night worrying if Jesus can sustain him. Even though he’s in prison, Paul is still confident that he is being kept by the power of God and that he can do more for the cause of Christ in prison than others are able to do on the outside.
I remember some years ago, reading something that a pastor of a hopelessly dysfunctional church wrote. (But then aren’t all churches somewhat that way?) Weary of the stress and toll and sleepless nights that came from trying to move that particular church in a Christ-honoring direction, he wrote about a prayer he had started praying each night that brought him immeasurable peace. The prayer went: “Lord, it’s your church; I’m going to bed now.”
How much more peace might you experience in your life if you came to entrust stressful aspects of your life to the Lordship of Christ? “Jesus, it’s your office. It’s your money. They’re your children. They’re your parents. It’s your schedule. It’s your business.” I’m not talking about evading the responsibility of faithfulness in a particular area of life. After all, as Paul says, ours is a “holy calling.” There is the expectation of responsibility on our part. Rather, it’s simply recognizing that if our faith is in Jesus, we are trusting in the power and grace of his abiding presence to see us through the tough times that will be coming our way. We know “whom” we have believed and the real difference that he can make.
The late Cardinal John Cushing, who was Archbishop of Boston, told of a time when he was administering last rites to a man who had collapsed in a general store. Following his usual custom, he knelt by the man and began asking him the questions of the sacrament. “Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?” As the Cardinal relayed it, the man roused at the question, opened one eye, and said, “Here I am dying, and you ask me a riddle.”
It wasn’t really a riddle, just a question that hints at the “what” and points to the “who” of life as well as death. “Do you believe in God as He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ?” And while you don’t need a priest to ask it, you do need to answer it in order to live confidently and securely in a world that can get awfully complicated.
I can’t think of a better time to answer it than right now. Too much stands to be gained. Too much stands to be lost. What then will your answer be? “Do you really believe in Jesus?” No one can answer for you. You really must at some point answer for yourself.