Lent 2—March 8, 1998
John 20:31 "...and that believing ye may have life through (Jesus') name!"
Last year a group of 34 students from two state universities in Washington State took a study trip into the Amazon jungles of South America. They were led on the last part of their journey by Stephen E. Saint, who happens to be the son of Nate Saint, one of the five Auca martyrs, (Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCulley, Roger Youderian, and Nate Saint,) killed 40 years ago as they tried to make contact with the Aucas, properly now called 'Huaorani'. What has happened since that first day has been a miracle story. This last fascinating glimpse into the miracle was reported in just this week's Christianity Today (3/2/98).
This group of 34 had come to study what they thought would be Stone Age people. Steve Saint has a home among the Huaorani. Some of the very men that speared his father and the others have become like adopted grandfathers to his own children. He has been helping the Huaorani develop ways of raising money for self-sufficiency, and he met this group himself.
The 34 students were taken by jungle bus deep into the forests as far as roads would go, where they were met by three Huaorani men, who led them on a 14-hour hike through jungle trails, followed by a journey in large dugout canoes to a campsite along a jungle river, where they were joined by other members of the Huaorani tribe.
The students quickly learned to respect and enjoy the warmth of the men who guided them. They were welcomed at the camp site, and were so comfortable with their new friends that they asked Steve when they would meet the Stone Age savages they had travelled so far to meet. Steve told them that they had been traveling with them— and they were now surrounded by them. The students did not believe him. So Steve Saint suggested that they ask any of the older people where their fathers might be.
One student took the challenge and nodded to one woman. Steve translated her reply something like: "My father is already dead a long time ago; having been speared he died." Four other Huaorani told the same story. One woman that had really "charmed" the students with her kindness, a very warm and friendly mother of ten, pointed to an old man in the circle: "He hated my family and killed all of them!"
The students were stunned. They had second thoughts about their own safety.
Then Dawa, one of the quietest women spoke up. Pointing at the grandfatherly old man sitting next to Steve Saint she told the students: "He is Kimo. He hating my family speared my father and mother and brothers and sisters and took me for his wife." That really stunned the students. They were deep in the jungle. They had to depend on these people to get them out again. Steve Saint said he thought of what they must be thinking right about then. It occurred to him they didn't know the story we have heard so many times in Christian circles.
Steve put his arm around the old man Kimo's shoulders and told the students, "He killed my father, too." Then there was stunned silence.
At last someone found courage to ask: "What changed these people?"
Steve Saint repeated the question in the language of the Huaorani. The Stone Age people tried to tell the students how it used to be before they changed. They threw babies away when they were a trouble. They buried people alive so their spirits would not be able to return to torment them. Some had strangled their own children with their own hands. But then they tried to explain WHAT THEY BELIEVE about a God they knew as the Man-Maker the missionaries told them about, who had sent his Son to die for people who were full of fear and hate and revenge.
Then Dawa, the wife of Kimo spoke. I quote from Steve Saint's article: "Badly, badly we lived back then," Dawa said. "Now, walking God's trail which he has marked for us on paper (meaning the Bible,) we live well. All people will die, but if living you follow God's trail, then dying will lead you to heaven. But only one trail leads there. All other trails lead to where God will never be after death."
The students were silent. But then Dawa went on to give her own version of an altar call: "Have you heard me well? Which one of you wants to follow God's trail, living well?" The students were silent again— and then one hand was raised.
Steve said that Dawa understood what that raised hand meant, and clapped her hands and said, "Now I see you well. Leaving we will see each other again in God's place some day!" Then she looked at the other 33 and said "Dying I will never see you again if you don't follow God's trail. Think well on what I have spoken so that dying we can live happily together in heaven."
Thirty-four students of anthropology, from Washington State, had traveled thousands of miles into a South American rain-forest to hear from primitive people about the most powerful life changing force in the Universe. They had heard how believing in the God of love and grace can release life-changing power that can only be called miraculous.
The emphasis this week in our intentional and intensive journey into fellowship with Jesus is summed up in this word "believing." The great text is outside our lectionary scriptures (John 20:31) but this is not an isolated, proof-text thing. This "believing" is at the very heart of our faith.
'BELIEVING' IS A STRONG WORD
In our English language "believe" can be a rather weak word. To say "I believe so" sounds a lot weaker than "I know so!" But the word translated "to believe" in both Old and New Testaments, in Hebrew and in Greek, has a much stronger meaning. It is not simply to "think" something, or even to be convinced of propositional truth— but rather it is to trust, to have confidence in, to put a complete reliance in the thing believed.
In Genesis 15:6 we read "Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." the word there (aw-man) means 'to trust,' and is also interchangeable with a word that means 'to turn to the right hand.' Trusting means a willingness to change directions
In the New Testament the word is always, 'to commit one's trust to, to have confidence in the thing believed.
BELIEVING IS NOT trying with all your might to make yourself deny the obvious.
Believing is NOT saying "black is white" simply because someone has told you that is what Christians believe. Believing has a lot less to do with analysis and explanations and dogmatic statements about things nobody knows for sure than a lot of Christians feel comfortable admitting. There are people on all sides trying to explain away mysteries who simply have never fully surrendered to Jesus Christ. His loving Spirit is foreign to them.
BELIEVING IS DARING to say to the Christ of the Bible: "I believe You are who You say you are! I hear you say, 'Come unto Me!' Here I am! I believe YOU! I will follow You! If You will be my Lord and Savior, I will be Your man! Your woman! Your boy! Your girl! You be my Savior and my God!" THAT is what believing is about!
BELIEVING IS THE DOORWAY
Trusting Jesus brings us into the real world! In Acts 16 the Roman jailer came to the end of himself— and asked Paul and Silas, "What must I do to be saved?" They showed him the only way: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved along with your household!"
You can't wait to figure out all the mystery, or explain all the ways a great and holy God 'connects' with finite and sinful you and me. You CAN respond directly to the living Christ as God's gift of faith makes Him real to you.
BELIEVING IS MORE— IT IS THE PATHWAY (THE TRAIL) WHERE WE LIVE
Believing is dynamic. It is never static. It is relational. It contacts and keeps contact. (Genesis 15:6) "In the middle of things" Abraham believed God. He had started out— he had been blessed— but he needed to obey and keep on obeying! We are never saved by "works." But believing enables us TO LIVE differently from the way we were "before." The Huaorani peoples' change was dramatic— they quit killing and feuding. But OUR CHANGE is just as needful— and needs just as much a miracle! We can quit gossiping and hating and being jealous and become "Ephesians 4:32" but only through the power of BELIEVING!
James (chapter 2) comments on this text (from "The Message" by Eugene Peterson):
Isn't it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the "works" are "works of faith"? The full meaning of "believe" in the scripture sentence, 'Abraham believed God and was set right with Go,' includes his action. It's that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named "God's friend." Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by a faith fruitful in works?"
BELIEVING IS STAYING POWER
Psalm 27 closes by saying, "I would have fainted unless I had believed to see the hand of God in the land of the living!" When Abraham was ready to give up he came with his complaint right back to God! Whenever we are in danger of being overwhelmed we can COME BACK TO GOD HIMSELF!
Wherever you are on your spiritual journey— wherever I am— we have the CHOICE to 'TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL OUR HEARTS" or to 'LEAN UNTO OUR OWN UNDERSTANDING!" We can BELIEVE the God who sent His Son to show us the way— OR We can waffle by using some lesser definition of what it means to BELIEVE.
Those thirty-four anthropology students from Washington State traveled thousands of miles to the Amazon rain-forest to hear about the miracle of God's love. They saw fear and hatred and revenge that had been exchanged for love and forgiveness and fellowship.
You and I know that same life-changing power is needed just as much right here where we live! Do you think it is easier to be Christ-like in our society? Where we LOVE THINGS and we USE PEOPLE— where we don't kill (usually) with spears— but we do kill with gossip and uncaring and selfishness.
The power of BELIEVING— in the full sense of trusting, relying on God— can work just that kind of miracle for us, here, as well as the Huaorani people. I Challenge you! This week— In your 'faith' go deeper than simply 'what' you believe (important as that is!) Go directly to God, through Jesus Christ! By faith look him in the face. Say simply, "I will trust you with all I am, now and for ever!"
437 Trust and Obey
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Dr. Russell Metcalfe is Pastor Emeritus of the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene. Permission to reprint or publish this material is GRANTED as long as the reprinting or republishing is not-for-profit.
You can access more of Dr. Metcalfe’s sermons at his scripturally indexed sermon archives web site. Now with MP3 audio sermons and audio bonus material. http://russellmetcalfesermons.nazarene.nl/Sermons/Sermons.htm
