This transcript of a sermon on John 6:66-71 has been lightly edited for ease of reading.
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If you have your Bibles with you today, please turn with me to the Gospel of John. Today we are going to consider briefly John chapter 6, verses 66 through 71. Jesus in this passage has given some hard sayings to his followers and in an act that would make most church growth gurus cringe, he says something really hard that shrinks his following.
And so we pick up after he has given these hard words in verse 66 with a question that he turns to his disciples. And so please follow along as I read from John chapter 6 beginning in verse 66.
“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. You do not want to leave too, do you? Jesus asked the twelve. Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.
Then Jesus replied, Have I not chosen you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil. He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the twelve, was later to betray him.”
Let’s pray.
Lord, as we consider what it means to believe, we ask that you would open our eyes and our hearts. Or if there are any in this room that do not believe, we ask that you would work in their lives to draw them closer to you, to help them to see the truth that you have provided for us in your word. And we ask that for those of us who do believe, that you would help our unbelief as our faith at times is strong or weak.
We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
Many of us toss around the words, I believe, in our day to day conversations with others and even in our own conversations with ourselves.
Sometimes this belief that we speak of is rooted in wishful thinking. Every year as March ends and April rolls around, I say to myself, I believe the Pittsburgh Pirates will finally win the World Series this year.
Other times, our belief is rooted in evidence that can be experienced. I believe that there are plants that produce beautiful and bountiful flowers in Florida that won’t do anything in West Virginia.
We all live believing that things are true or false, consequential or inconsequential. Some beliefs, however, are more important than others.
We are going to be working for the next several months. We will be working through a statement of belief that has great implications for the people who profess those truths and for those who reject them. And each of the three sections of the creed begins with the words, I believe.
Our study today will lead us to look at three parts or aspects of what it means to believe.
First, we will consider the content of belief. We are not called to a blind faith. We are called to faith in statements that are true.
Secondly, we will study the intellectual agreement of belief. We must believe that those statements are true in assent to the truth of those statements.
And third, we will consider the reliant rest of belief. Chapter 14, section 2 of the Westminster Confession teaches that you and I are called to accept, receive, and rest upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.
THE CONTENT OF BELIEF
So first, the content of belief.
Belief has an object. There are claims of truth, truth claims, and propositional truths that are part of our belief. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.
That statement is a proposition or a truth claim. It makes a statement about reality. You are called to believe something.
You are being asked to make an opinion on the statement that claims to be true. Belief does have content. It is not an end in itself.
While I believe is a complete sentence, it is not a complete thought without an object to be believed in. We do not believe in belief. When you recite the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed or you read through the Confession of Faith, you are being asked to make a call on the falseness or truthfulness of the individual statements of those documents.
Since we are looking at the Apostles’ Creed, we must ask, where do the truth claims of the Apostles’ Creed, where did they come from? Well, they come from Scripture. They come from the Bible.
We oftentimes don’t think about the Bible this way, but the Bible gives us statements of truth that are the content of our belief.
Genesis 1:1 opens Scripture with the bold truth claim, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And we will get more into that as we look more at who God is in the first statement of the Apostles’ Creed. But that is a claim to truth.
Our reading from Acts chapter 6 earlier makes an even bolder truth claim when the Philippian jailer asked, “What must I do to be saved?” And Paul and Silas answer him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” The Bible puts forth truth claims sometimes clearly, as we see in Genesis 1:1. Other times we get these truth claims by good and reasonable induction and study.
And the Apostles’ Creed is a grouping of statements that summarize the truth of the Bible. It tells us that there is a God that is powerful and has created all things. Its structure tells us that God exists in three persons.
It goes on to tell us that the second person of the Trinity secured and mediates salvation for sinners who deserve God’s wrath. And the third person of the Trinity applies that salvation to individuals and gathers a community of believers. This is not a complete list of the truth claims found in scripture, but it is the minimum that one must embrace in order to be considered a Christian.
Belief has content. Belief is in truth.
THE INTELLECTUAL AGREEMENT OF BELIEF
Secondly, we want to consider the intellectual agreement of belief.
You might have heard this using the word assent. We intellectually agree with the content of truth. On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon.
Do you know that there are a large number of people in America that don’t believe that happened? They deny that humanity has ever set foot upon the moon. When a truth claim or proposition is put forth, a question must be answered. Is this true or not? And we must agree with the truthfulness of that claim if it is.
Now, there is evidence given that can sway our determination for the truthfulness of the claim. Earlier, I said I believe that the Pirates would win the World Series next year. In all truth, most likely the Pirates management will not have any more money to spend next year than they did this year.
And what money they do spend, they will get rookies and young talent. If they’re any good in August, they’ll trade them off for draft picks in the future. And we’ll end up below 500 just like we have for the last umpteen years. The current evidence does not give hope to my belief that the Pirates will win the World Series. I still believe, though.
On the other hand, my sister who lives in western Illinois has a palm tree in a pot that thrives during the summertime in northwestern Illinois. But if she and her husband don’t drag that palm tree into their basement when fall hits, it will not thrive and it will die. They have evidence that a tree that thrives in Florida suffers north. Truth claims can be backed up by evidence or not.
And we will point to some of the evidences for the biblical truths as we go through this study. But we are not asked to agree with the truthfulness of biblical statements blindly. We are called to reason and to weigh the truthfulness of those statements.
But each one of us must answer a question. Do I agree that the claims of the Bible as summarized in the creed are true? So belief has content. Belief involves intellectual agreement.
THE RELIANT REST OF BELIEF
But it doesn’t start stop there. I was floored when I came across this quote by R.C. Sproul earlier this week. Sproul says,
“To give intellectual assent [or agreement] to the things of God only elevates a person from the status of a pagan to the level of a demon. It advances the soul not a centimeter into the kingdom of God.”
James 2:19 says, “Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God good. Even the demons believe that and shudder.”
We must go beyond just saying, “Yes, God, what you say is true.” And we must move to find our reliant rest in the truthfulness of those statements.
Most authors that I looked at use the word rest to describe this step in belief, this step in faith. Chapter 14 of the Confession, as I read earlier, says that we are to accept, to receive and to rest in the truth presented in Scripture. The Bible teaches that humanity is in turmoil in four different relationships because of sin.
First, our relationship with us and God is broken because of our own rebellion. We are at war with God. Many times because of our own sin and sinfulness, we are at war with ourselves as well.
And so our relationship with ourself is broken. Our relationship with others is broken because of our sinfulness and our relationship with creation as well. To truly believe means to not only intellectually agree with the truth that sin is a problem and the offer of salvation through Jesus is the solution, but to place our eternal hope upon those truths and those truths alone.
Going back to our passage in John, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus has said some hard things throughout the rest of chapter six. He says, I am the bread of life. He is talking to these crowds and they are going back and forth about what is important to know and to believe.
And Jesus says, I am the only thing that is important to believe. He even goes so far in verse 65 to say only those whom the Father has enabled can come and understand who Jesus is. At the end of these hard sayings, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
And he’s left with the 12. He asked the 12, he looks at them and he said, do you want to go also? And Peter, who was the spokesman of the group, continued to be the spokesman of the group even into the book of Acts. I would hope after a little bit of reflection, looked at Jesus and said, “Where else where else can we go? There is not life anywhere else. Our eternal hope rests in you and in you alone. Everything you say is true. But not only is it true, it is our only hope.”
Brothers and sisters, when you say, “I believe,” are you only saying these things are true or are you saying my eternal hope is hooked, is hinged upon these truths and these truths alone? And if they are not true, I am without hope before God. Have you sold out body and soul to the truth that we profess on a weekly basis?
It’s easy to say the Apostles Creed over and over again, and it just become an exercise. But when we profess the Apostles Creed, we are saying this is my hope and I stand nowhere else to help us understand maybe a little better.
On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. To you and I, if we affirm that truth, it doesn’t change our lives very much, does it? But if I was a NASA astronaut and I was having myself strapped onto an explosive that was going to carry me into space, it might be good for me to believe that NASA had succeeded at least once before. Brothers and sisters, when you say, “I believe,” it should change your life, not in a not in a way that obligates God to save you; because he has already done that, but because out of your belief comes a holiness and a righteousness that flows from the grace of God in your life.
CONCLUSION
So belief has content. It is truth claims that we are asked to believe. We are called to intellectually agree with those truth claims, but that is not enough.
We must also find our reliant rest in those truth claims. Now we live our lives as people who believe, and sometimes that belief is strong. Sometimes that belief is weak.
Sometimes that belief is just there, and sometimes we run the entire spectrum of that in the next 10 minutes. But thanks be to God, it is not the strength of our belief that he recognizes and gives salvation for. It is the strength of the Lord Almighty who created heaven and earth that binds us to God, even with the weakest of faiths, the weakest of belief.
So as we move through this, consider what it is that you truly believe, and is that your only hope, both now and in eternity.
Let’s pray. To the glorious and gracious God above, we do thank you for the truth that in you and in you alone is found life. Lord, may our belief grow in its strength, but may we also know that even the weakest of faiths is honored by you. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
As we leave this place, God gives us this blessing.
I pray the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.
He who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming soon.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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