"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?...But if you do not believe (Moses) writings, how will you believe my words?"

Introduction

Almost 70 per cent of Britons identify themselves as Christian, according to the latest official figures. But I wonder just what these people mean when they declare that they want to be identified as Christian.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis drew attention to the way in which the word Christian had come to be used simply as a word for describing someone as a good man. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the 70% of that survey – after all who doesn't want to call themselves a "good person"?

Others may consider themselves Christians for what we might call cultural reasons, a certain sense of shared values and a shared heritage. Such folk might think of themselves simply because they go to church or because they live in a “Christian” nation.

If I were to ask you the question this evening "What does it mean to be a Christian?" I wonder what you would think about as you considered your answer.

Perhaps your thoughts will turn to religion and religious practice: a Christian is a person who is interested by religion and religious matters, he likes religious things or at least religious behaviour. He is someone who likes ceremonies and certain types of behaviour eg. he likes singing and meetings.

But going to church, serving the needy or disadvantaged, or being a 'good person' does not make anybody a Christian in the Bible sense. Being associated with a church in itself doesn't make anyone a Christian nor does giving regularly to the work of the church or serving the church in some way.

I hope as you think about your answer to the question "What is a Christian?" that you would include at least two things: the importance of Jesus Christ and the importance of personal faith in Him. The Bible makes is very clear to us that this is crucial.

The Importance of believing in Jesus Christ

Just take a quick look at what the NT has to say about believing in (not about) Jesus Christ.

Purpose of the ministry of all the prophets

Acts 10:43 "To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”"

Purpose of John the Baptist's ministry

Acts 19:4 "And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.”"

Purpose of John's gospel

Jn.20:31 "but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

Eternal life is for those who believe

Jn.3:15-16 "whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ”"

And with eternal life resurrection life

Jn.6:40 "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”"

Freedom and forgiveness of sins for all who will believe

Acts 13:38-39 "Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses."

Not forgiveness only but righteousness too

Rom.3:22 "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe."

Summary words to a desperate man

Acts 16:31 "And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”"

The work of God – to believe

Jn.6:29 "Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

The commandment of God – to believe

1Jn.3:23 "And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us."

Evidence of new birth

1Jn.5:1 "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him."

Small wonder then that Jesus should speak to a man born blind who has received his sight about his faith:

Jn.9:35-38 "Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him."

Is Jesus significant enough to warrant all of this?

In the passage that we read earlier from Jn.5:19 onwards Jesus was very concerned to defend His authority and His equality with God. Surely if what He had to say about Himself was true then belief in Him would be only natural, indeed unbelief would be the unnatural thing!

Jesus made a long list of claims:

· Jesus does what the Father does

· Jesus is loved by the Father

· Jesus has life in Himself and gives life to others

· Jesus has been entrusted with the responsibility of judging

· Jesus is to be honoured in exactly the same way as the Father is

· To hear Jesus' word is to be set on the path to eternal life

· Jesus' voice is such that even the dead will hear it

· Jesus does what the Father wants Him to do

· The Father bears witness to the Son

· John the Baptist testified about Jesus

· Jesus' own works attest His proper authority

· The Holy Scriptures themselves bear witness to Jesus

· Jesus had come in the name of His Father

With all this being the case it really is extraordinary that those to whom Jesus was speaking refused to go to Him to avail themselves of the life that He not only offered but could also supply.

If all this is true then it would also be an extraordinary thing for us not to apply to Him. Have I done this? Have you done this? And if not, why not?

Reasons for unbelief

As Jesus pursues His discussion with those who are somewhat hostile towards Him and who seem to be settled in that opposition He moves on to highlight some of the reasons just why they do not exercise faith in Him.

He does this by asking a couple of questions – the questions that form our text this evening. Let me remind you of them.

1. "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" v.44

2. "But if you do not believe (Moses) writings, how will you believe my words?" v.47

We might be tempted to explain unbelief in a variety of ways and I'm sure we've heard plenty of folk trying to justify their lack of faith in Christ.

When our unbelieving friends try to explain their unbelief they will usually try to explain their behaviour as being of the rational kind:

û They may argue that there isn't sufficient evidence or that they haven't yet had time to consider it all just yet.

û They may argue that the evidence is unconvincing or that is contradicted by other "facts" that they claim to know and of which they are convinced.

û They may well try to advance some argument such as 'science has disproved the Bible' or 'nobody believes that anymore'.

û They may suggest that it's fine for you if that is your thing but they are different and they don't need faith to see them through.

û They may even wistfully say they wish you had your faith but then go on their own sweet way making no effort whatsoever to try to discover a like faith for themselves.

Interestingly Jesus doesn't give a hint that such are the real reasons for unbelief. Unbelief as far as Jesus was concerned was a moral matter and not an intellectual one.

Firstly, He linked unbelief or lack of faith with a person's attitude and priorities.

How can you believe when all the time you are not seeking the approval of God but of men?

It is clear from the question Jesus put that He believed His hearers to be concerned with their reputation before men. They liked to well-thought of by others and they liked the praise of others. They were, in fact, far more concerned with what others thought about them than what God thought about them!

I wonder does this affect us more than we might care to admit?

In today's world it is no longer fashionable to be considered a Christian in the Bible's terms. We don't want others to think of us as fanatics or as extremists – in former times other words were the ones we wanted to avoid such as fundamentalists or as enthusiasts, Methodists or puritans.

But it is surely in relation to God that it is important indeed essential that we become Christians. If one day we will have to give an account to Him for the way we have responded to Him in both the way we have lived and for the way in which we have believed (or otherwise) His truth then surely it is incumbent upon us to care about what He thinks about us and to seek the real glory that comes from His approval than the ephemeral praise we might receive from men.

Jesus says to His hearers that they don't believe not because of faulty evidence but because they don't value God's approval sufficiently highly enough to seek to secure it!

The greatest commandment was well known to His hearers. They knew that the most important thing of all was to love the LORD their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength – in short, with everything they'd got. Oh, yes they knew that but they didn't pursue this path. They longed for the approval of others.

Just as teenagers with all their teenage angst and longing for acceptance will dress like other teenagers, will listen to same music as other teenagers and seek so often to be part of the in-crowd, so do more sophisticated men and women seek the approval of their peers rather than be prepared to come out and be separate as they seek the approval of God above all else in life.

But it really isn't enough either simply not to be bothered about what others think if you don't positively go on to consider what God thinks of you!

Perhaps we are in danger of becoming in practice indistinguishable from "unbelievers" because although we say we believe we live our lives relatively unconcerned as to whether or not we have the Lord's approval. Were we to die tonight would we be sure to hear the Lord say to us:

"Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." (Mt.25:21)?

But the Lord brings forward a second reason why a person may not exercise faith in Jesus Christ: a more general refusal to believe the testimony of Scripture!

Jesus specifically refers to the writings of Moses as the ones to which they refused to listen even thought they probably would have vehemently denied this criticism. Perhaps what Jesus has in mind is a settled mindset that simply will not countenance any development in its thinking – perhaps they were so set in their ways that nothing was going to be allowed to alter their preconceived prejudices.

I wonder whether a refusal to accept some of the truths of the writings is actually holding you back in committing yourself to faith in Jesus-Christ or of going on and growing in your trust relationship with Him.

These books of Moses contain some very significant truths that many in the world like to pour scorn upon today. Moses speaks of a creation ex nihilo, he writes of original sin and human accountability/responsibility before a Creator God who punishes sin in severely non-politically correct ways, he speaks of the Ten Commandments widely recognised as being a wonderfully concise moral code the clarity of which is remarkable and far from being the slightest bit out-dated in our own day and yet which is more honoured in the breach rather than the following of its clear instructions. Moses was a leader who served a real, powerful, moral, pure, and holy God.

I wonder if a refusal to accept some or all of these truths is holding you back in exercising faith in Christ.

And then of course Moses also looked away down the centuries and spoke of another who would come to accomplish God's remarkable plan of salvation. He would be another Moses type figure but far greater. And of course He has come – it is Jesus Christ!

Moses words had been around for some 1400-1500 years as Jesus spoke to His contemporaries. How what he had written had stood the test of time! How the laws he had drawn up had proved beneficial down through the centuries! How the sacrificial system enacted under his leadership had served the people so well! How the prophets had laboured to bring a wayward and disobedient people back to the respect and application of these divine truths revealed to and through Moses!

But these contemporaries of Jesus were happy to put what he had written to one side trapped by their own preconceived interpretations – small wonder then that they were ready to reject everything that Jesus had to say!

There are many ways at arriving at unbelief and of remaining in it – Jesus basically points the finger and says despite all your fine sounding arguments that you are in unbelief because that is precisely where you want to be! With you ungodly attitudes and priorities belief not unbelief would be the extraordinary thing!

Concluding words

But oh it need not be so! It is foolish to remain in unbelief and it is unsafe to do so. We have already considered something of the importance that the Bible attributes to having faith in Jesus Christ, real vital life-transforming faith.

You surely don't want to go on in unbelief and you Christian surely don't want to go limping along because you too are behaving in some ways and maintaining some of the same attitudes as the those in the world!

Listen in closing to some words of the apostle Peter: How simply he puts it – a declaration, an instruction and a promise

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."

To God Be the Glory.

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