Acts 13:36-41
If you go to church, you learn that there are several names that can get hung around your neck. Most famous is the name of Christian. Lately the word has been Jesus-follower. There's disciple and brother/sister in the Lord. Some might throw in holy-roller and hypocrite! Another common one is believer. It's a crucial one, even a central one. At a very deep level, it's the core.
It's one thing to say you believe in God, it's another thing to say you believe in God. I didn't just write the same thing twice. The first statement focuses on God's existence: do I believe God exists? Yes - you and 80% of other Americans. The second statement is about trustworthiness, credibility, reliablity - do I believe in God, that he will prove himself capable and true?
But what about those people that believe in God, those who believe in God's ability to overcome evil with good? They believe that love is the greatest of all, that death of the seed leads to birth of the flower? What about those people who believe in God's existence, but even deeper than that, believe in God's great capacity to heal, restore, inspire and welcome? You rarely see what God is able to do if you don't first believe in him.
For the first century citizens of Israel, those loyal Jews in exile under the Roman Empire, they were having a very difficult time believing in God. They accepted the existence of God, but they were stumbling - they just couldn't believe in God resurrecting Jesus from the grave. If Jesus was crucified, why would God resurrect him? Jesus died under a curse, how could God vindicate him? Unless...unless what Jesus said about life and love, about God and goodness was true...
Here's how Paul puts it in one of his speeches to some Jewish thinkers wrestling with their belief in God:
King David, of course, having completed the work God set out for him, has been in the grave, dust and ashes, a long time now. But the One God raised up—no dust and ashes for him!
I want you to know, my very dear friends, that it is on account of this resurrected Jesus that the forgiveness of your sins can be promised. He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on.
But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God.
Don't take this lightly. You don't want the prophet's sermon to describe you:
'Watch out, cynics;
Look hard—watch your world fall to pieces.
I'm doing something right before your eyes
That you won't believe, though it's staring you in the face.'
~ Acts 13v36-41
There are many people I care about who really, profoundly wrestle with believing in God. At some level, they are unsure of God's existence. Science is such a powerful force for discerning reality, and God just can't seem to be seen through the telescope or the microscope. But again, for these men and women I care about, they have too few people in their life who really believe in God. How can these agnostic and atheist friends of mine believe in the credibility and capability of God if they are devoid of anyone who bears the fruit of that kind of faith?
I know too many Christians who confess Christ as Lord with their lips, but then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. The most common denial is not just the abuse of chemicals, emotions, bodies, possessions; but the quiet, disturbing despair of fumbling their problems and sorrows. They drown in worry, they agonize over their unhealable, unseeable wounds. You doubt that God is good, that he will be with you and lead you through the ache. We believe in God, but we won't believe in God.
You believe in God?
Why won't you believe in God?
O Lord, I believe! Help me in my unbelief...
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