Main Idea: Believing God for what is ultimate guides us to believe God when our faith is uncertain.

It’s not hard for anyone to understand that spring is a season of rebirth. Those things that winter causes to die are wonderfully reborn because of the season of spring. Each of us has our own "winters" of our souls as well, times where that which has given us a sense of vitality and energy has grown cold by the chill of living life. Everyone has them but to stay in a "winter" of our soul isn’t where we need to be. Eventually we need "spring" to come. We need a rebirth, a return to life, faith and strength. That’s why I’m calling this series "A Season of Rebirth." Last week we talked about a rebirth of life and today we are going to talk about a rebirth of faith.

Previously I used a quote by Christian writer Philip Yancey that asked, "Is the visible world around us all there is?" Is faith in an unseen world wishful thinking? "Does faith delude us into seeing a world that doesn’t exist or does it reveal the existence of a world we cannot see without it?" (Rumors, p. 10). As Christians we would answer that our faith reveals the existence of a world that we cannot see without believing. We believe as the writer of Hebrews says, "So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. (Heb. 11:6)

Yet won’t you agree with me that sometimes life just makes you wonder: "Is this just wishful thinking?" Life has a way of challenging things that we have believed and believed especially about God. Events of life come our way and we say in the shadows, "I didn’t think it was supposed to be this way." Persons fail us, institutions—like the church—fail us and we find that the things we once believed were concrete are now nothing more than sand. When those life events occur faith can enter a "winter" of our soul and it waits to be reborn. Until it does, faith and doubt coexist in the same soul.

This morning I want us to look at two examples of faith: the Old Testament figure of Abraham and the New Testament character of Thomas, the disciple of Jesus. Both believed yet both had their times of doubt. Abraham teaches us how to believe God for what is ultimate—our eternal destiny. Thomas shows us how to believe God when our faith is uncertain. Together they show us that our believing God for what is ultimate guides us to believe God when our faith is uncertain.

Let’s talk first about Abraham. To do that I want us to hear how Paul uses the example of Abraham’s faith to prove that Christians obtain eternal life through faith in God, not through their own human efforts. Paul’s main point in Rom. 4:18-25 is found in verses 23-24. "Now this wonderful truth—that God declared him to be righteous—wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was for us, too, assuring us that God will also declare us to be righteous if we believe in God, who brought Jesus our Lord back from the dead." He says that our ultimate destiny is secured by our belief, our faith, in the same God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Christians are those who have believed God for what is ultimately most important—our eternal destiny. How does he get there? Well, let’s go back to verse 18 and follow Paul’s thinking.

What Paul is referring to in Romans 4 is the time when Abraham was told by God that he would bless him with unbelievable blessings through his children. There was only one problem: Abraham didn’t have any children! Abraham by this time was so old and his wife was so old that biologically it was impossible. Yet, in spite of the biological impossibilities, he believed what God said. Because of his believing what God said, God said about Abraham that he was right in his relationship with God. (Gen. 15:1-6) The fulfillment of the promise wasn’t accomplished immediately for it was at least twenty-five years from the time God made his promise to Abraham and his son Isaac was born. There were times that Abraham struggled; yet he believed that what God said he would do.

Paul reminds us in verse 18 that Abraham believed God when it was hopeless—when there was no human way for he and Sarah to have a child. He chose not to base his belief on what he saw but on what God said. Romans 4:19 says that Abraham believed in spite of his circumstances. He didn’t focus on his own inabilities to produce a child or his wife’s years of inability to conceive a child. He was just absorbed with the promise of God. Paul continues in verses 20-21 by saying that through all this Abraham’s faith grew stronger, not weaker. When most would have given up, Abraham didn’t. He was just certain that God would keep his word. As a result of Abraham’s believing God for something temporary, a son, he was rewarded with something eternal—being declared right in his relationship with God. (Rom 4:22).

But this is not just some dusty story that has nothing to do with you. In fact it has everything to do with you. Paul says that in the same way, when you believed that Jesus Christ was the only way for you to experience God’s ultimate plan for your life God said about you: "They are right with me." Abraham believed in a God who was able to cause dead elements of his body to be alive. We believe in a God who caused Jesus Christ to rise again from the dead and because we believe in a God who did that, we have no reason to worry about the security of our eternal destiny. Spiritually you and I were dead to a relationship with God, just as dead as Jesus’ body. Yet by God giving us the ability to believe we are now alive spiritually and will be alive for all time. We have believed God for what is ultimate! The only thing is can we believe him when things are uncertain?

It’s one thing to believe God for what is ultimately most important—our eternal destiny. It’s a whole other deal to believe God when things are uncertain. Just as Abraham showed us how to believe God for what is ultimate, Thomas shows us how to believe God when things are uncertain.

John tells us the story of Thomas meeting Jesus in John 20:24-29. The verses before this story tell us that Jesus has appeared to at least ten disciples on the evening of the day of his resurrection. Verse 24 lets us know that Thomas wasn’t there when this happened. Why wasn’t Thomas there? There may be many reasons but I believe one reason was because Thomas’ faith was devastated by the events of Jesus’ death. There’s no question that the others were as well but Thomas seems to have become especially distraught because he separates himself from the other disciples. Thomas heard about the appearing of Jesus but the tragedy of the cross had rendered his faith hopeless and uncertain. John 20:25 shows us that the uncertainty that this crisis created literally overwhelmed any sense of security he may have had. He states that he will need absolute verifiable proof or he will not believe.

Jesus, however, is eager to prove his reality to anyone who honestly is seeking. Eight days go by after Thomas has made his bold statement. The disciples are still waiting for further directions from Jesus himself. Maybe they are waiting for Thomas to believe. Regardless when both doors again are locked Jesus appears to the disciples and this time Thomas wasn’t missing. Jesus invites Thomas to do exactly what he has said it would require for him to believe. The uncertainty of Thomas was confronted by the certainty of Jesus’ resurrected presence.

Now what is interesting is that when Thomas has the chance to actually do what he said, he really isn’t the doubter he assumed because he doesn’t touch his hands or his side. When he sees Jesus and hears Jesus, it’s enough for Thomas and he cries out, "My Lord and my God." The commentators say that Thomas’ expression here puts together words about Jesus that had never before been spoken. He combines both the absolute ability of Christ to rule with the absolute divinity of Christ—he is both Lord and God! Thomas’ confrontation with the Risen Christ resulted in a certainty about Jesus that he had not had previously.

I believe that there are a lot of us who can identify with Thomas. We have confessed that we can believe God for what is ultimate—our eternal destiny—but we struggle in the meantime to believe God when things are uncertain. It’s interesting to remember that in the same way Thomas was so certain he couldn’t believe he had been just as certain he would never leave the one in whom he believed! John 11:16 records Thomas as saying, "Let's go, too—and die with Jesus." We are the same way—we have no trouble believing God for things like our salvation but when the temporary life we live becomes uncertain we become paralyzed in our faith. I’ve done and you’ve done it.

How does this happen? How does our faith go from such great confidence to suddenly being shattered? Very simply, life happens. Someone dies. You lose your job. Someone breaks a promise. You become sick. Someone else becomes sick. Life happens and when it does it has a way of eroding the certainties of our faith and we find ourselves asking, "Is God who I thought God to be?"

Now the challenge at this point is whether or not our uncertainty about life will overwhelm our security about God. It did for Thomas and it can for us as well. Where once security seemed stronger, now the uncertainty and doubt are greater. Things that were underground in our soul suddenly take over and begin to choke out our faith. Now it’s one thing for life to happen in one area but it often happens in multiple areas—at the same time. Faith begins to weaken to the point that it seems that while you believe in the ultimate, it doesn’t seem to make a difference for what is uncertain. While the example of Abraham is great and he believed God without wavering, you don’t have a specific promise. You are not promised the job, the health, the security, the desire that you long for. Faith is there but it is uncertain.

What needs to happen? Essentially you and God need to meet. While you do not have a promise like Abraham, you do have the relationship that both Abraham and Thomas had: You know God. You have a relationship with God through the person of the Risen Christ. That means that God has conquered the ultimate barrier to your relationship with him—death. Therefore he can meet you at any level of your faith. Even as Jesus said, faith as small as a "mustard seed," he is able to use. When your uncertainty of doubt is confronted personally by the certainty of the relationship God has with you faith finds rebirth.

Spanish writer Carmen Corde tells in a short story of a young woman who gives birth to a blind son. "I do not want my child to know that he is blind!" she informs family and neighbors, forbidding anyone to use telltale words such as ‘light,’ ‘color,’ and ‘sight.’ The boy grows up unaware of his disability until one day a strange girl jumps over the fence of the garden and spoils everything by using all the forbidden words. His world shatters in the face of this unimagined new reality." (Rumors, p. 43) In the same way Jesus comes to our uncertainty, not physically but with his words and invites us to believe—again.

He uses words like "believe," "trust," "see" and "faith." We discover, like Thomas, that the God we once thought we knew suddenly we know differently. The proofs we once thought we had to have are no longer essential. The truths we once demanded to be verified are not even important. All because Jesus has dared to use the words we once prohibited our minds from accepting. The "forbidden" words have suddenly become words of life. We become not like Thomas but like those Jesus promised would have a faith deeper than Thomas. We are those who are blessed because we believed in the certainty of God when things were uncertain.

When life overwhelms us, doubt and faith coexist almost like two worlds. Doubt seems to be in charge but somewhere we know faith is there waiting to come alive again.

"Bill Broyles, former editor of Texas Monthly magazine, tells a story of two worlds coexisting, a story that is a kind of parable for doubt and faith. During the Vietnam War, Broyles served the U.S. military near Danang, one of the finest air bases in the world and the pride of the American Air Force. No matter how well the Americans protected it with guards and barbed wire, however, the enemy still managed to infiltrate and destroy valuable airplanes. Broyles could never understand how they did it.

"Yeas later he returned to Vietnam as the guest of a Vietnamese officer, once an enemy, now a friendly host. He got a different view of Danang as the officer escorted him through tunnels no more than three feet high that wound in a labyrinthine network around and under the air base. Broyles reflected on the ironic contrast. Beneath the airmen at Danang, North Vietnamese soldiers were living in muddy tunnels, which they shared with rats, snakes, and slimy creatures of the night. They slept in pools of water and crawled from place to place along dimly lit passageways. They had pitifully inadequate supplies of food, ammunition, and medicines.

"Meanwhile, above them, American GIs lounged in air-conditioned rooms, watching the latest movies available through the USO. The GIs kept away boredom by playing cards, smoking dope, and fathering a new race of Amerasians. Many American soldiers got shipped home early for disciplinary reasons; many still suffer from Vietnam syndrome.

"The underground army endured temporary sacrifices because they fervently believed they would one day retake the world above ground. They staked their hopes on a future victory, and when that victory arrived the Vietnamese emerged into the daylight and claimed their territory." (Rumors, p. 173)

Doubt may appear to be lounging in the sunshine of your circumstances but faith is there waiting, waiting to believe once again. What it needs is to simply remember: If you can believe God for the ultimate security, you can believe him when you are faced with immediate uncertainty. "Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway" (John 20:29).

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org