Manoa Valley Church
June 4, 2006

Dr. Kent Keith

Faith and Beliefs

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 2006

 

This is the second in a series of five sermons that I will be giving every other week through July 16. My hope is that these sermons will help us to think about our faith, our beliefs, and our actions as we prepare to welcome a new senior pastor.

Last time, we did a quick review of our core beliefs, starting with the early days of Christianity, reviewing two historic creeds, and then our own Statement of Faith. I quoted a document from the United Church of Christ that says that our journey as a Christian community is not over, and we can still learn and grow and increase in understanding. That means that our beliefs can change. That should be a blessing, not a threat. The reason is that faith and beliefs are not the same thing.

That is what I would like to talk about this morning-the difference between faith and beliefs. We use the two words interchangeably in our daily conversation, but I think it is helpful to distinguish them. The reason is that our faith can be unshakeable, even as our beliefs change with new knowledge and spiritual growth. A change in our beliefs should not affect our faith.

The dictionary says that faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing. Our religious faith is about our confidence and trust in God. That faith can come from many sources-from the Bible, from the lives and teachings of people of faith, and from the wonders of the natural world around us. Faith can come from any experience that reveals to us that there is something more-something beyond the materialistic world, something spiritual and transcendent and inspiring. We may experience our own revelations in moments of joy, and peace, and love. We may experience revelations in moments of despair, when we call upon God to be with us in our pain. Whatever happens, we know that God exists, and we have faith-we have confidence and trust in him.

When we have faith, we know that God doesn't cease to exist just because times are tough, or we don't understand what he's doing, or somebody else says he doesn't exist. We know that our own actions can make God happy or sad, but nothing that we do, and nothing that anybody else does, can change the fact that he exists. He is there, loving us, and inviting us to have a relationship with him.

And that's what it means to live by faith: It means having a trusting relationship with God. When we have a trusting relationship with God, we can live with a sense of God's presence. We can sense his presence in our daily lives and work. Sensing his presence makes life sacred.

Without faith, we will have no relationship with God; we will be cut off from God's presence. So our faith needs to be unshakeable. We will have good days and bad days, and things will go well and not so well. But even when we experience sorrow and calamities, our faith can be strong. No matter what the world does to us, we can still have faith in God. We can still be confident of him; we can still trust him, we can still have a relationship with him; we can still sense his presence in our lives.

A couple of months ago, Pastor Don Asman pointed out to me the last three verses of the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. This is a wonderful affirmation of faith. Let me read to you Habakkuk 3: 17-19:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
He enables me to go on the heights.

The faith of Habakkuk is an unshakeable faith. Even as he faces disaster, he rejoices in the Lord. Habakkuk has given us a wonderful example of the kind of faith that we need to have to continue our relationship with God, no matter what happens to us or to the world around us.

Now, let's talk about beliefs. In the religious context, a belief is a religious creed or doctrine or statement of faith. Our beliefs are about God. Our beliefs attempt to describe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So you might say that we have faith in God, and we have beliefs about God.

Two weeks ago, we briefly reviewed the long history of our core beliefs-the centuries of debating, praying, and defining what Christians believe. Historic creeds and doctrines were developed that still guide and inspire Christians today.

The danger, of course, is that we may put our faith in our creeds and doctrines, not in the God whom the creeds and doctrines attempt to describe. In other words, the danger is that our confidence and trust will be in our beliefs about God, not in our God.

When that happens-when our beliefs or descriptions of God become the object of our faith, we may find ourselves clinging to our beliefs. We may not be open to any new religious insights that might result in new beliefs. We may not be willing to grow spiritually.

Another thing that may happen when our beliefs become the object of our faith is that when we realize that we can no longer accept a certain belief, we may feel as though we are losing our faith. But that shouldn't be a problem. We just need to remember that our beliefs are not our faith. Old beliefs may fall away, and new beliefs may replace them, but God is still God. We can still have faith-we can still have confidence and trust in God- even when we change our descriptions of him.

Let me try a hypothetical example from daily life. Let's say that I have a friend named Joe. Joe is a good human being. Joe and I work together in the same organization. I have learned over the years that Joe is honest and hardworking and wise and friendly. It would be very natural for me to say that I have a lot of faith in Joe-I have confidence in him, and I trust him. I know that he consistently does the right thing.

I also have some beliefs about Joe. I picked up these beliefs as a result of conversations or comments made by others at the office. As a result, I believe that Joe was raised in New York, majored in English at college, served in the Marine Corps, and was once a Social Studies teacher at an intermediate school. I also believe he played basketball, and is six foot one.

Now suppose that one day a lifelong friend of Joe's comes to town, and I find out from him that Joe was raised in New Mexico, not New York, and he majored in history, not English. I learn that Joe served in the Peace Corps, not the Marine Corps. Also, Joe didn't teach Social Studies at an intermediate school, he worked with kids in the special education program at an elementary school. Finally, I learn that Joe did indeed play basketball in college, but he is not six foot one, he is 5 feet 11 inches tall. So I learn that a lot of my beliefs about Joe were not true.

That's a little unsettling. I probably misunderstood some of the comments that people made about Joe. Maybe I just made some assumptions on my own that weren't correct. So now I am going to have to adjust some of my beliefs about Joe, and that feels a little awkward.

But the real question is: So what? Joe hasn't changed, only some of my beliefs about Joe have changed. And the most important thing is that my faith in Joe has not changed at all. I still have a lot of confidence and trust in Joe. None of the new information about him changes the fact that he is a good human being, honest and hardworking and wise and friendly. I still know that he will do the right thing. My faith in Joe is not affected at all by a change in my beliefs about him.

This can happen regarding our religious beliefs. We know that our beliefs can change as we grow and mature spiritually. The simplest way to prove this is to study the same chapter of the Bible every five years. Each time you read it, you will see things that you did not see before. The Bible did not change-you changed. As a result, you may have new beliefs about that chapter of the Bible. That's why we continue to study the Bible, and listen to sermons, and go on retreats, and try to live our faith in daily life.

By the way, I don't think there is anything to fear in this process of spiritual growth and new beliefs. Changing a belief about God does not change God. It just means that we have a new way of describing or understanding him.

When we know that our faith is unshakeable, but our beliefs about God can change with new spiritual insights, we don't have to feel threatened by other people's beliefs. There are doctrinal differences between the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and approximately 200 different Protestant denominations. But these differences in beliefs should not prevent us from joining together as members of the body of Christ. In fact, we can enrich each other with our different spiritual and religious insights.

I said that I do not feel threatened by other people's beliefs. I also do not feel threatened by such things as The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Since the book is one of the biggest all-time bestsellers, and the movie was released recently, it has been getting a lot of attention in the press and at many churches.

The first reason I don't feel threatened by the The Da Vinci Code is that it is a work of fiction. Dan Brown mixed fact and fiction to create an exciting tale that has been incredibly successful in the commercial marketplace. Personally, I enjoyed both the book and the movie. And I am sure that discussing The Da Vinci Code can be an interesting opportunity to identify what we believe and what we don't believe.

As you know, the story told in The Da Vinci Code is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child; that the child survived; and that the blood line of Jesus has continued down to the present day. Supposedly, the Roman Catholic Church has desperately tried to kill off the descendants of Jesus, so in each generation, the descendants have had to be protected by an ancient secret society in order to survive.

I don't believe that the story is true. But even if it were true, it would not affect either my faith in God or my most important beliefs about Christ. It wouldn't change the fact that Jesus is the Son of God, that he taught us and died for us, and that he was resurrected and has reconciled us to God. It wouldn't change his message, or the miracles he performed.

For me, it is like somebody telling me that Jesus was of medium height instead of being tall, had black hair instead of brown hair, had a thick beard instead of a wispy one, spoke Greek instead of Aramaic, enjoyed swimming as well as walking on water, and built tables as well as overturning them. I find all things about Jesus to be interesting, but information about his personal attributes doesn't come within ten galaxies of affecting my faith in God or my most important beliefs about Christ.

What I find odd is that Dan Brown-or perhaps the person who wrote the screenplay for the movie-seems to assume that if the word got out that Jesus was married and had a child, that would be the end of Christianity or at least the end of the Christian church. The reason, supposedly, is that his marriage would make it clear that Jesus was human, and that would somehow destroy the idea that Christ was divine.

But this is a very odd assumption, because Christians for the past 1,500 years have been affirming that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. And we have been affirming that fully human means fully human. We have been affirming that except for sinful behavior, Jesus did what humans do. His human activities might have included marriage and fatherhood. After all, marriage is considered sacred, not a sin, and children are a gift from God, not a sin. So it might have happened. But if it happened, it would only add to our understanding of the human experiences of Jesus. It would not affect any of our beliefs about the divinity of Jesus. We don't believe that a Jesus who is more human is therefore less divine. He is still the Christ. Perhaps Dan Brown and his screenwriter ignored this, because to recognize it would have ruined their story. There would have been no bad guys, and nothing would have been at stake.

I have talked about being open to changes in our beliefs. Where might we see some change in our beliefs in years to come? Here are my own preferences. I would like to see more attention given to God the Creator and to the Holy Spirit. We have spent 2000 years learning about Jesus, and we need to continue that learning. But I think we need to renew our understanding of God as Creator, to remind ourselves that the natural world is sacred, and is currently being degraded. All natural environmental systems are in decline, and it is hard to believe that that is what God wants.

I also think that there is much more we can learn about the Holy Spirit. Millions of people throughout the world are dispirited. They need the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we could be of more help to them if we more fully understood the Holy Spirit and could share our beliefs with others.

This is a good day to think about the Holy Spirit, because today is the day we celebrate Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. This is how it is described in Acts 2: 1-4:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

What an extraordinary experience! This was a new kind of incarnation, the incarnation of God in a new church, a church called to continue the work of Jesus with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The church became the body of Christ. That is what we should remember on Pentecost, that we are called to be the body of Christ. We are called to do his work. We are called to go forth, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Let us go forth, then, sharing and living our faith and our beliefs, as we love and care for others.

Let us pray.

Lord, we have complete confidence and trust in you. Our faith is unshakeable. We ask your blessing as we continue on our journey as members of the body of Christ, seeking to understand you as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

 

Manoa Valley Church