I read something interesting this week in Presbyterian
Outlook. One of the commentators wrote:
For the past few months, I have been conducting a very
unscientific survey among PWPAs (Persons With a
Presbyterian Affiliation). I think I've talked with
around a hundred folks. I asked: "What does it mean to
be a Presbyterian today?" The most frequent response
is a glazing over of the eyes, a couple of mumbles,
followed by, "Gee, I wish I knew." I often have
followed this up by asking, "Then why do you stay?"
The most frequent response? "I don't know. (Sigh) I
just don't know."
Lately, I've been asking a third question of people who
seem receptive: "How would you describe being a
Christian these days?" Puzzled looks and slow, rueful
head shakes are very common. "You got me. I don't know
how to describe that. (Pause.) Y'know, I don't think
about it all that much."
Admittedly it is an unscientific sample, but thinking
back over the years it rings way too true. Folks like
this are not simply missing a denominational identity,
they are missing a core Christian identity as well.
For these folks, "faith" is a series of very blurry,
abstract concepts that have nothing to do with "real
life." (1)
I wonder if Paul or Silas ever puzzled over questions like
that. Perhaps, but no longer by the time of our story. That
familiar account of the conversion of the Philippian jailer
begins with Paul and Silas curing the madness of a young woman of
the city whose insanity had been used by some unscrupulous men
for their own personal gain. There was the belief in those days
that insanity was a strangely special gift from the gods, a tool
which they used to convey their messages to mere mortals; it was
based on the idea that since the insane girl had no mind of her
own, the gods could put their own divine thoughts out on earth
through her. Thus, she was thought to have a gift for
soothsaying or fortune-telling, a most marketable commodity in
that era and indeed in ANY era. Obviously, since she was insane,
she was not the one to do the marketing, nor was she the one to
profit from it. So when she was healed, those wonderfully SANE
people who had taken advantage of her were suddenly out of
business. They did not like it, trumped up some charges against
Paul and Silas, had them beaten and thrown into jail.
Needless to say, the missionaries were not all that happy
about that, but they made the best of the bad situation, even to
the extent of spending half the night singing hymns and praising
God, despite being locked up in the deepest part of the dungeon,
in stocks, chained in an upright sitting position with a chain
around the neck as well - if you nodded off to sleep, you would
begin to choke. The song? Who knows? Something from the
psalms, no doubt. We can read the minds of their fellow
prisoners who listened to the midnight concert: "The looneyness
of that lady must have been contagious."
Suddenly, an earthquake...a not uncommon occurrence in that
part of the world...that shook the prison so much as to let door
locks come undone and chains become unfettered. When the tremor
was over, the jailer, who had been asleep when the quake hit,
came rushing in expecting to see the prisoners gone and ready to
run himself through with his own sword; after all, a jailer was
responsible for keeping prisoners in prison, and the punishment
which was scheduled for anyone who might escape would then be
brought down on the warden. Death was the easier way out. But
Paul shouted to him that there was no necessity for that: the
prisoners were all present and accounted for.
You can imagine the sense of relief that the jailer must
have felt, but apparently, he felt something more. His response
might have been to dash around and put all the chains back in
place and lock all the doors, but instead he came up with a
question: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" No, this was no
theological inquiry; his concern was not salvation from sin but
salvation from his situation, and who could blame him. But
Paul's answer was not temporal; it was eternal: "Believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." And ever since that
night, it is the answer we have all heard when we finally
acknowledge our need.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."
The question raised at the beginning of this comes again. What
does that mean? You can be sure that the jailer wondered about
it. What is this BELIEF, this FAITH, that can SAVE?
First of all, it is rational. Someone once asked a
youngster for a definition of faith and got the response, "Faith
is believing something even when you know it isn't true." Cute
answer...but wrong. That is not faith; that is stupidity.
Actually, exactly the opposite is true.
If you drive up to a busy intersection in your car, see that
the light is green, and proceed on through, you exercise a
certain faith based on reason that another car coming in your
direction from the right or left will stop on the red and let you
through. You have a certain faith in the system that tells you
that only those who would drive responsibly to the extent of
honoring reds and greens would be given a license. To be sure,
that faith is not always vindicated, but most often it is. In
effect, you are willing to put your life on the line because you
have that kind of faith.
One thing should be noted here: faith does NOT require 100%
understanding. A young gentleman of profound intellect and high
culture announced to a group of friends one day that he would not
believe anything he could not understand. An old farmer chanced
to overhear the remark and, turning to the young man, he said "As
I was riding into town today, I passed a common on which some
sheep were feeding. Do you believe it?"
The young man nodded that he did.
"Not far from the sheep," said the farmer, "some calves were
feeding. Do you believe it?"
"Why not," said the young man.
"Not far from the calves, some pigs were feeding," the
farmer went on. "Do you believe it?"
"Of course," the young man replied.
"Not far from the pigs, some geese were feeding. Do you
believe it?"
"Yes."
"Well," said the farmer, the grass that the sheep ate will
turn to wool; the grass that the calves ate will turn to hair;
the grass that the pigs ate will turn to bristles; and the grass
that the geese ate will turn to feathers. Do you believe that?"
"Yes," the young man answered promptly.
"Do you understand it though?"
"No," the young man replied.
"My friend," said the farmer, "if you live long enough, you
will find that there are a great many things you will believe
without understanding." (2)
To put that into the context of our adventure into traffic,
there is no need for us to understand the workings of the
computer that changes the lights from red to green to let those
lights govern the way we travel. To immerse ourselves in the
details of the electronic operation might be an interesting
intellectual exercise but not much other than that, at least as
regards the way we drive.
And that brings to mind something else about faith: it is
more than merely an intellectual exercise. You might say to
yourself that the rules of the road demand obedience to reds and
greens and that such an order is good for all of society. But
upon coming up to a red light yourself, if you decided to ignore
it and dash on through, your agreement to the concept would be
totally worthless. Your agreement has to mean something.
Which says one more thing about faith: it makes a difference
in the way you live. If you did NOT believe that people will
routinely obey the rules of the road, you would not dare to cross
another intersection ever again - it would be suicide. And if
you believed that strongly enough, you probably would never leave
your house, much less go out on the road. What you believe makes
a difference.
Now, move all that up to a higher plane. Faith in Jesus
Christ must also be rational even if we do not have 100%
understanding. How could Christ's sacrifice take care of all the
sins of humanity past and present? How does one win victory over
death by dying? Why could not God have just said to the whole
world, "I FORGIVE YOU," and let it go at that without having to
go through the cross? Why would a God who loves us so much as to
send Jesus to die for us let ANYONE perish? Big questions...and
lots more where they came from. There ARE answers to them, and
it is a stimulating study to search them out, but the answers are
not really necessary to our faith.
But faith in Jesus Christ is more than just an intellectual
exercise. Faith in Christ will make a difference in the way we
live. What happened to that Philippian jailer when he came to
faith? Scripture says, "he took [Paul and Silas] and washed
their wounds; then...The jailer brought them into his house and
set a meal before them;" This same man who, only hours before,
had been content to let these missionaries languish in the worst
filth his prison could offer now was treating them as honored
guests. Faith made a difference to him...as it must for anyone.
To be sure, an understanding of what faith is can be helpful
to us, but it can also be frustrating if, for all our knowledge
about it, we do not know how to go about getting it. The
glorious message of the scripture is that we do NOT go about
getting it; it is a gift that is given to us by God. "For it is
by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from
yourselves, it is the GIFT of God." (3) And God gives us that gift
through the circumstances of our lives.
See how it works. The Philippian jailer came by his faith
through a particular series of events:
- Had it not been for the fact that there were those in the
city making money by taking advantage of a girl who was
insane,
- had it not been for the fact the Paul and Silas had been
traveling there,
- had it not been for the fact that they had healed the girl
by God's power,
- had it not been for the fact that they were arrested because
of it,
- had it not been for the fact that this man had accepted the
job as local jailer,
- had it not been for the fact that there was an earthquake
that night...
this man might have never come to the faith that he did. EVENTS!
God uses the events of our lives to bring us to faith.
How about you? Was it at a particular church or camp or
conference or meeting? Or might it have been in the home where
you grew up - Christ was the head of the house and his Lordship
was a part of everyday life; coming to faith was a natural as
having breakfast. Or might your faith have come through the
witness of a friend? God uses the circumstances of our lives to
give us the gift of faith.
Note something else. The Philippian jailer did not come by
his faith by himself. He had Paul to help him. For all his
willingness to trust Jesus Christ as Lord of his life, he would
never have been able to do it until someone first TOLD him about
Jesus. There is every likelihood that until Paul and Silas came
along, this jailer had never heard the name of Jesus mentioned.
The point of it all is simply this: NO ONE comes to faith all
alone.
What a challenge that is to us! If we realize that there
are friends out there who would respond to the Gospel IF WE BUT
TOLD THEM, how can we keep quiet? Paul and Silas could have kept
quiet; they had every reason to sit in sullen silence after what
had happened to them. But they did NOT, and that jailer was
changed for all eternity.
Has your faith changed you? I hope. We will think about
that in depth this summer as we spend some sermon time on the
details of our Christian faith. I hope you will be a part of it.
Our goal will be that when someone, somewhere, someday asks YOU
what does faith mean, you have an answer. And it will be a faith
that makes a difference.
Amen!
1. Ross Jackson, "What Presbyterians Need to Read," Presbyterian Outlook, 5/14/07, p. 13
2. Walter B. Knight, ed., Knight's Master Book of New Illustrations, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1956), pp. 185-186
3. Ephesians 2:8
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