"... On this rock I will build ..." - Matthew 16:18
The disciples of Jesus had been with him for quite a long time, a couple of years probably. Then one day he asked them, "Who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15). I doubt if he asked that question because he was concerned about his reputation. He asked it, I rather think, because he was concerned about his disciples.
He had come into the world as the Savior, the Messiah, and he knew this. Nothing the disciples could say, nothing the whole world could say, could ever change this fact. His role among humanity would not be altered by any opinion poll; his saviorhood, his messiahship, did not depend upon a vote - a vote of his disciples, or of anyone else.
It is apparent, however, that who his disciples believed him to be was a matter of immense importance to him. What they believed was important to him because they were, and because the whole world of personhood was. What they believed concerning him would make a difference to them and to the world, and Jesus was concerned about that difference. Their beliefs would not change him, but those beliefs could change them. What those people believed was important to Jesus, not for his sake, but for theirs, and for others.
What Jesus knew about the importance of our beliefs is a lesson we need to learn and learn well. And we need to understand this also: The importance of our beliefs varies in direct relationship to the potential consequences of what we believe. If you start out to walk across a room, it normally doesn't matter much whether you believe you should put forth your right foot first or your left one. But if you are driving your automobile along an American road at fifty-five miles per hour, and are meeting another coming at the same speed, you'd better believe in turning to the right rather than the left. What we believe does have consequences, does produce results.
And when it comes down to the matter of what we believe concerning Jesus Christ the Savior, then the importance of our believing rises to a level which strains the imagination and confounds the mind. As we read in John 3:16, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son ..." But, as we also read in John 3:16, it is by believing in him that we have the everlasting life he comes to offer. As we think about that, it may seem at first that too much turns upon too little, that a great result depends upon a very small thing. Not so. For believing is not a small thing. It is the very stuff life is made of. By our believing, we are always opening doors, or closing them. And apparently the very door of life everlasting turns on hinges of our belief.
Each of us has a set of beliefs. We believe this or that about something or other, and we believe something concerning almost everything. We are not born with our belief ready-made within us, and nobody forces them upon us along the way. We start at the youth end of a long smorgasbord, and as we pass we make our selections. Consciously or unconsciously, we pick up this or that, here or there. And what we accumulate as we make our way toward the end of the line usually turns out to be a rather intricate complex of beliefs. Most commonly, we do not select these by deliberate intellectual process; rather we sort of absorb them by osmosis, sort of catch them like chickenpox. But we do pick them up, we do incorporate them into our lives, and they do become very decisive for our living.
Our beliefs are important to us because they do things to us and cause us to do things. Most of the time it is what we believe that directs our choices and controls our actions. Christopher Morley, in the novel Kitty Foyle, has a sentence which says, "Nobody knows what he really believes; you've got to guess at it by how you find yourself acting." This may slightly overstate the matter, but not by much. Whether or not we are conscious of our beliefs, and whether or not our beliefs conform to our confessions, there is a profound relationship between what we believe and what we do. And, tragically, erroneous beliefs can produce disastrous consequences; believing in the worn things can propel us in wrong directions.
For example, if we have only a biological view of human life, we believe ourselves to be animals and nothing more, if we have no belief in soul or spirit or moral quality, then we are strongly inclined to act like the animals we believe we are. If we believe other people are out to do us in, then we tend to live defensively, always on guard, our actions of the pugnacious and belligerent kind. And what we believe concerning God wields a mighty influence over the way we behave.
Are you familiar with the story of John Brown? Along about Civil War time in America they were singing a song about "hanging his body on a sour apple tree!" A very religious man he was, but with some strange beliefs concerning God. An impassioned foe of slavery, in Kansas he deliberately and systematically murdered five pro-slavery men. Then, to obtain weapons for his crusade, he led an attack on the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Finally, in 1859, he managed to get himself hanged. And here is what John Brown said: "I was not responsible for these events; I had no control over them; they were foreordained by almighty God even before the world began."
Well, if a man believes, as John Brown did, that God predetermines everything that happens in the world, then, of course, that man can excuse himself for whatever he does and feel no compunctions for anything he has done.
So - what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about other people, what we believe about God - these beliefs are of paramount importance in the way we live and how we act.
And we risk making a real mess of our lives unless we make pretty sure that our beliefs have some reasonable relationship with reality. Every once in a while I hear someone say, "It doesn't matter what we believe, so long as we are sincere." This is just not true. You may sincerely believe that cyanide is not poison, but if you swallow a quantity of it, you will discover that your mistaken belief does matter - that is, if you live long enough to make the discovery!
When behavior is not in conformity with what is good, we call it "misbehavior." When belief does not conform with what is true, it is "misbelief." There is such a thing as misbelieving as well as misbehaving, and the one usually leads to the other. It not only matters that we believe something; it also matters what we believe.
You see, belief has an obligation to truth; it has a responsibility for lining up with reality; it needs to conform with what is or what has been or what may be. Imagine the predicament of the mathematician who does his calculations stubbornly, believing that two plus two equals five. You don't get far in mathematics unless you believe the right things. Your believing must coincide with what is real. The equation 2$2(5)4 is an expression of what is. It is not a conclusion arrived at by consensus or authorized by a majority vote. It was not arranged and decided at some convention or conference. It was not put into force by a legislature or by decree of some mighty monarch, ancient or modern. It is not an invention conceived in the mind of man. it is, rather, a discovery. It is something we have found out, learned. It is something we heard when reality first spoke and something we hear anew every time reality speaks again.
Nor can we argue with it, not successfully, at any rate. We may try, but our argument is one we can never win. The last rebuttal will be spoken by truth itself.
Hold two blocks in your right hand and two in your left, and then put them down on a table. How many are there altogether? Do it again. And again, and again, and again. Do it a thousand times a day for your entire lifetime. Do it in summer, in winter. Do it by day or by night. Do it at the north pole or the south pole or the equator. Do it anywhere on the face of the earth or in outer space. Wherever, whenever, and under whatever circumstances, two blocks and two blocks are always four blocks. And there is nothing you can do about that. You may wish it to change, but it doesn't. You may try to change it, but you can't. Why? Because this is the way things are. It is an obligatory truth. He who would deal with the world of things and material substance is obliged to reckon with it.
You understand, in dealing with space and substance, there are some beliefs which are mandatory. If we are to live compatibly with the physical universe, there are some things we must believe; we have no choice. In some areas, belief is essentially a matter of acceptance: we must accept the reality before us or utterly demolish ourselves as we smash up against it.
But let us move now out of the physical realm into another. As in the physical realm, things are as they are and work the way they do, so likewise there are realities to be reckoned with in the realm of mind and spirit and moral quality.
Jesus has reason to be concerned as to what we believe about him. "Who do you say that I am?" It is a critical question. He comes. He says, "I am ... truth." (John 14:6) I am realism, he says, I am the way it is. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." This is who I am, he says. But what do YOU say? It is this he is asking. Will you, by your believing, relate yourself to the truth of him? Will you, by your believing, anchor yourself into the everlasting Fact?
It should be clear to everyone that belief has a unique function in our living, a critical and essential role in the drama of human life. The realisms that impinge upon our lives are many times beyond the reach of our knowledge; they are too intricate for us to comprehend. Beyond what we can clearly see and certainly know are spaces we can enter only by believing our way into them. The only way we can relate to much of life's circumstance is to believe, and our beliefs are our ways of reaching out to connect with what is real. They are the kites we send up hoping to catch a lifting wind. They are the anchors we let down hoping to catch hold of solid bottom somewhere. To misbelieve is to miss the target of truth, but to believe rightly puts us in touch with the whole spectrum of the vast reality in which we live.
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." This is an oft-repeated refrain of our New Testament. In the Greek original, the word for "believe" is usually coupled with the Greek preposition eis, which, with the accusative case, implies "action into." Thus, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ means literally to believe INTO him. Believing is not passive, it is active. Believing DOES something. And truly it is a fantastic thing which happens when our believing takes us into the Lord Jesus Christ, puts us into relationship with him.
When Jesus asked his question, "Who do you say that I am?" it was Simon who answered. He said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16) And Jesus replied, "And I tell you, you are a rock, petros, Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." The Apostle Simon got his new name that day, Peter. By his believing, he had reached out and touched truth, had made connection with an anchor stone. As belief always puts us into relationship with that in which we believe, so Simon Peter was now related in a profound way to this One in whom he believed, the Christ.
On this kind of relationship Christ, indeed, can build. People who have thus believed in Christ, these are foundation people. For moral guidance, they have locked in on a distant star. For spiritual power, they have connected to a source unexcelled. For the time of storm, they have found an anchor, for the time of darkness, they have a light. If turbulence swirls around them, peace abides within. If tomorrow is uncertain, eternity is sure. When things close in, they can look up. When sorrow overtakes them, they know that joy is somewhere ahead. Sensitized for feeling, their capacities expanded, they can experience at the same time the joy of the Lord and the heartache of a world; in one heart they can hold a passionate hatred of all that is evil and a loving compassion for all who hurt. These are foundation people, the kind you and I can count on and the kind upon whom Christ can build.
Thank God for people like these, people of the foundation kind. And they are as they are because Christ is who he is and they have believed into him.
So you see, my friend, our beliefs are important not only because of the terrible things the wrong ones may do to us, but also because of the wonderful things the right ones can do for us. If the wrong kind of believing can break us, the reverse is also true: the right kind can make us. To believe in distant goals can give us courage for the long hard pull. To believe in the wonder and grandeur of life can fire within us a zest for its living. To believe in the ultimate triumph of love and beauty can help us through the dark places and on beyond them into the light again. To believe in the eventual victory of right over wrong can make us strong in the struggle against evil. To believe in a good and loving God can give us incentive for good and noble living. And to believe in the Savior can mean the salvation of our souls.
"Who do you say that I am?" asks Jesus. Your answer to that question, my friend, will make for you all the difference in the world - two worlds, in fact: this one and the next.