Belong, Believe, Behave

    There are three things that happen in the life of every Christian that serve as mileposts on their walk with Jesus. Those things are: when did they belong, when did they believe, and when did they start to behave the way Christ asks them to?

    For many of us Lutherans, we might put them in this order: believe, belong, behave.  We were brought to the font of Holy Baptism and received faith in Jesus, family and godparents speaking on our behalf about what we believe. Then, in Confirmation, we expressed our desire to belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church with the promise suffer all, even death, rather than fall away and the promise to live according to the Word of God. We then spend much our life trying to behave the way that God tells us to in the Scriptures. Believe. Belong. Behave.

    This is quite a different path than I’ve experienced in the unbelieving world around us. As I move through communities where people may or may not believe in Jesus as their Savior, I find a different expectation for the pattern to these mileposts. For most of them, they believe that they must first behave the way that God lays out in the Bible. I hear this when people say things like, “If God knew what I have done, He couldn’t forgive me,” or “I’d love to come to your church, but I’m afraid the ceiling may come crashing down when I entered.” Only when they behave in a godly way can they belong to a church and begin to believe what that church has to say.  Behave. Belong. Believe. Lord, have mercy!

    Here's the question for us: how do we reach the second group of people? It’s impossible for them to go back in time and do things the way we did it… to believe through Baptism, belong through Confirmation, and work on how to behave. I say it’s impossible because, in their mind, a failure in their behavior may cause them to think that they don’t belong. They will falsely believe that a moral failure means they can’t be a part of a church anymore.

    Let me share with you my own path of faith because I think shows us a more excellent way. When I was entering 8th grade, I met Pastor Goodsman. As we talked, he invited me to Confirmation Class that fall. I had ZERO desire to learn about the Christian faith, I was more interested in spending time with him. To make sure that I got to class each week, Pastor asked Avis, a layperson on our church, to give me a ride. Avis’s daughter, Tammy, was also in Confirmation class. Throughout the year, I got to be very close to Avis and Tammy; I felt like one of the family. After I was confirmed, Avis’s family continued to pick me up for Sunday morning worship; I sat with their family in worship each week. As I went to Grace Lutheran Church every week, I felt like I belonged. I listened to Pastor’s sermons, attended youth events, and believed more firmly. Eventually, I began to behave like a Christian, although none of us will ever do this perfectly. Nevertheless, for me, the order was Belong, Believe, Behave.                                             

    The people of Grace accepted me just as I was, rough edges and all. They told me and showed me that I was welcome at their church just as I was; I didn’t need to change to be acceptable. I see this all over the Gospels of Jesus. The Samaritan woman at the well has a deep conversation with Jesus even though she’s not married to the man she lives with (John 4:1-42). When the crowds are scolding blind Bartimaeus to be quiet, Jesus instead calls him forward and gives him his sight (Mark 10:46-52). When a woman is caught in adultery, Jesus writes something on the ground that causes the older ones to leave their stones and walk away. Jesus then dismisses the woman saying, “Then neither do I condemn you… Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:1-11). In each of these cases, Jesus communicates to these individuals who are misbehaving that they belong in a relationship with Him. Because He has this kind of compassion, people believe that He is the Son of God. They believe that He has given them grace, taken away their sins, and promised them eternal life. And, realizing the awesomeness of this gift, they work to behave the way He asks them to. Belong. Believe. Behave.

    On Sunday, November 5, we’ll begin a process called “Discovering Jesus.” The time and location are still to be determined, but the purpose is set. It’s an invitation to our community and to you to gather for a time of devotional reading of Scripture and building relationship. It’s an invitation to come belong to a group that listens to Jesus’ words and talks about what they mean to us personally, so that we might believe more fully that Jesus is the Son of God, and with the help of the Holy Spirit we might behave as God asks us to. My prayer is that we’ll get some people from our community to join us and that we might have some members of Mt. Calvary meet them where they are, inviting them to join us in our “Caring Family, Sharing Christ.”

In Christ,

Pastor Tom Vanderbilt