"I Believe"

 The Apostle’s creed begins with the words “I believe.” Those words are joined by other familiar words like faith and trust.  These words are words that we can’t live without.  They imply certain unavoidable realities about life in this world.  First of all everyone lives every day by faith.  We look at the evidence around us and make choices that are faith choices based on our beliefs about how the world works, what reality is like, and how we can best navigate the realities and forces within this world and our life experience.  We believe in objective realities that prove themselves reliable and orderly for human existence.  To put this in a more clear perspective we believe that the sun will rise and set each day and based on that reality we order our lives around it.  We look both ways when we cross the street because we know it can be either the bus or us but not both of us.  We believe that there exists certain truths in the physical realm that must be adhered to or there is disintegration.  This is also true in the world of relationships.  We often have to discern which people in our lives are trust worthy and which aren’t.  That essentially means which ones we can put our faith in and who we cannot.  Someone has observed that “marriage is really a faith bond between a man and a woman who have come to know, trust, and believe in each other.”  Furthermore, if this is true in the physical reality, and true within relationships it would stand to reason that the same principle holds true in the spiritual realm.  As I’ve already said, everyone lives by faith in something.  We cannot avoid it.  It is our nature.  We are worship creatures and therefore we put our faith in something that we think will best satisfy our inner longings.  We put our faith in those things that we think answer the questions of life and death.  The question is not have faith or don’t have faith, the question is what explanations best explain our existence, purpose, inner hopes and longings.  The apostles creed represents a faith story.  A story line that seeks to explain what life is about, what it means and what its purpose is. 

There are several things we ought to keep in mind as we think about belief, faith and trust.  The apostles creed is faith built on fact.  Historical happenings.  I John begins this way, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”  At the heart of the gospel and the apostolic witness is the flesh and blood incarnation.  Something and someone in time and space.  The apostles creed is the apostolic testimony of a historical happening and the teaching concerning that event.  Second, faith is believing what you have heard.  Faith is not only being convinced of the facts of the gospel and its reliability but then ordering and shaping your life around its truth.  It means beginning to live in accordance with the truth.  Hebrews says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (11:1) … And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (11:6).  Third, faith is obedience.  It’s helpful to remember that faith is not something we just do in our heads, something that we merely assent to, rather it is a total way of orienting life.  Because I believe this to be true I live in this way.  As Michael Bird has said, “Faith permeates and empowers our effort to obey God’s commands, however imperfectly we might do it.  Faith leads to conviction and conviction cultivates action … faith expresses itself in love (Gal 5:6), faith prompts us toward good deeds, (Eph 2:20, James 2:14ff), faith grows and increases (2 Thess 1:3).  Faith produces a harvest of good fruit (Gal 5:22ff). 

Lastly, the apostles creed gives to us a summary of the essential things we must believe and adhere to if we desire to walk by faith and not by sight.  I believe.