Just Believe?

Just Believe?

John 14:1-11[1]

John 3:16 may be one of the most widely known Bible verses of all time. I remember watching pro football games back in the 1970’s, and there was always someone in the endzone, usually squarely in the middle of the camera when it came to the extra point, with a sign that simply read “John 3:16.” I don’t know how effective that method may have been for directing anyone to faith in Jesus Christ, but it was always there. Perhaps less effective than you might imagine, but more effective than you might think. I’m not sure how many people ever took the time to even look up John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” But John 3:16 was everywhere. It seemed like the assumption was that if people would just read that verse, and just believe it, they would be “saved.”

One problem with that approach is that whenever you take any verse out of its context, you can make it say whatever you want. I would certainly say that’s what’s happened to one of the verses from our Gospel lesson for today, John 14:6. At least in the modern history of the church, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” has been treated a lot like John 3:16. Again, I think the assumption is that if people would just read this verse, profess their faith in Jesus (like we do), go to church (like we do), and conform to certain expectations about how they live (like we do), then they can have eternal life. But then we tend to take it further and assume that if people don’t do this, they’re rejecting Jesus and they’ve condemned themselves to an eternity in “hell.” In my mind, that turns this verse on its head. Instead of focusing on Jesus being “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that the life he brings is for “all people” (Jn 1:4), we shift the focus to “no one can come to the Father except through me.” And the result is that a verse that was meant to reassure Jesus’ disciples gets turned into something that excludes people who don’t believe (like we do).

Part of the problem is that it misses the whole point of what Jesus was trying to accomplish. When we look at this verse in the context of the chapter, and even in the context of John’s Gospel as a whole, some things should stand out. First, we should recognize the opening verses. They’re used in most memorial services. Especially Jn 14:3, “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” The whole extended dialogue in John 13-16 is set during Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. And it’s clear that he’s preparing them for the fact that he was about to die on the cross, perhaps literally the next day! I think Jesus knew that would shatter their faith. So he sets about giving them assurance that would see them through that crisis. He tells them things like “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (Jn 14:27) and “I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (Jn 16:22).

One of the central themes of this dialogue is that all of this was necessary to complete the work of opening the way for us all to come to the Father. In the process of giving his disciples this assurance, we see Jesus engaging with them on some pretty serious questions they had about it all. When Jesus assures them that they all knew the way to where he was going, Thomas says, “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5). And when Jesus tries to assure them that they have already come to know the Father through him, Philip seems to miss the point altogether! He says, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied” (Jn 14:8)! These are Jesus’ closest followers. The ones he would commission to take the good news to the whole world. And they don’t seem to understand the first thing about any of it. And Jesus responds to their struggles by meeting them where they are and helping them work through their questions. 

That’s quite different from what passes for evangelism in too many cases these days. The standard approach is to throw a few isolated Bible verses at someone and then pressure them into “just believing” like we do. I know, because I had to learn that approach for a class on evangelism in seminary. That phrase, “just believe” reminds me of what Jesus said in response to Philip: “Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Jn 14:11, NLT). But that can be a tall order! Just taking what that verse says as an example, I’m not sure any of us really understands how it is that Jesus of Nazareth could be “fully human” and “fully God” at the same time. Perhaps that can help us recognize that much of our faith will always remain a mystery that defies explanation. That may be one reason why some people are slower to believe than we may think they should be. They may just have a hard time wrapping their heads around the message of the gospel.

It seems to me that we should be a lot more hesitant about making assumptions regard the faith of those who are “outside” the church (or their lack thereof)! If we can’t wrap our heads around this basic affirmation, that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him, how can we judge anyone for their so-called “lack of faith” in what we may think is the simple “truth” of the Gospel? It’s so easy for us to assume that everyone “should” believe like we do. But you may have heard that phrase that I used earlier: “like we do.” I used that phrase on purpose. It’s easy for us to assume that everyone “should” believe “like we do.” But people come from all kinds of backgrounds. And those experiences shape how they view faith. I’ve known people who’ve been deeply hurt by their own church family, and they never returned to church because of that. Others simply approach faith differently, and the “just believe” line doesn’t work for them. Some people can’t get past childhood trauma they may have experienced. When you dig deeply enough, you can usually find that someone who doesn’t believe (like we do) has some pretty big reasons for their struggle with faith.

Beyond that, it seems to me that it’s not our business to judge other people based on what we perceive to be their “lack of faith.” It strikes me as really quite unkind and disrespectful to assume that we know the condition of another person’s relationship with God because we think that they “lack” faith. At least that’s the way it felt to me back in the day when I was the one trying to “fix” someone’s “lack of faith” by “throwing” Bible verses at them and expecting them to “just believe”! More than that, if as Paul reminds us (Eph 2:8-9), faith comes to all of us as a gift from God, then perhaps we should be more empathetic with those who may struggle to believe. Perhaps we should follow Jesus’ lead in dealing with his own disciples and try to meet people where they are. When we take the time to actually listen to their story, to really hear their questions, and to understand their challenges with faith, we can demonstrate God’s love for them by the way we treat them. That’s not a very quick method for “winning souls for Christ.” But building a caring relationship with them can become the foundation for sharing our faith in a way that they might just be able to hear and take to heart. Different people respond to different approaches to faith. Maybe this is one we should consider when dealing with some who have a hard time coming to faith.

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 5/3/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Doing Good

Doing Good

1 Peter 2:13-25[1]

Many of us know the Scripture verse that says, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Rom 12:19). But I would say that we can be obsessed with taking our own vengeance. In some segments of our society, “getting even” is just what you do. If you doubt that revenge is something that infects our culture, I would challenge you to take a look at how many of the most popular movies are based on the premise of someone taking revenge. It’s always justified, of course, but it’s still revenge. And do we enjoy watching those movies because we like to see the “bad guys” get what’s coming to them at the hands of the “good guys” who’ve been wronged. Somehow it reinforces our ideas about the way life “ought” to be.

But life doesn’t always work the way it “ought” to. There are all kinds of ways in which we can find ourselves wronged. More than that, in our violent world, there is no shortage of harm that gets inflicted on people who don’t deserve it. But revenge never solves anything. Those movies we like to watch always end with the one who is wronged walking away from vengeance that’s completed. And that’s the end of the story. All’s right with the world again, supposedly. But what they don’t show is what happens in real life. Revenge, especially when it involves violence, only breeds more violence. Revenge only leads to more revenge. As many have said it, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”!

In our Scripture lesson for today, Peter calls believers to “follow Christ” by enduring the wrongful suffering they may have to face in the same way that Jesus did. Peter calls them to entrust their lives to God’s care. He says it this way: “For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 1:21, NLT). And Peter illustrates what that looks like, especially when someone does you wrong, by the way Jesus responded when he was wronged. He says that Jesus “did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

Now, there are some other things Peter says in this Scripture lesson that may sound confusing to us. He talks about submitting to “human authority” in a way that may not work for us. We know that we’re all responsible to obey the rule of law, but in a Democracy we all have the privilege and the responsibility of voicing our disagreement with the authorities when their actions seem unjust. Perhaps more troubling is the way Peter talks about slaves obeying their masters even if those masters are “cruel,” even if they’re beaten by their masters! I would say that we believe it’s never acceptable for anyone to undergo mistreatment for any reason. And we certainly don’t believe people should be “beaten for doing wrong.” So some of Peter’s language may sound confusing, if not offensive.

What we have to remember is that there really was no such thing as “human rights” in those days. Those first Christians lived in an empire, not a democracy. They were subject to the “powers that be”, and those powers exercised their rule absolutely and with violence. The believers Peter was addressing really had no choice but to submit to those who held power over them. That applies even and especially to those who were slaves. Slavery was a long-established feature of the ancient world. Many have wondered why Jesus and the early Christian leaders like Peter didn’t do more to overturn slavery. But we have to remember that the church was a fledgling movement on the margins of society. Their power to effect that kind of social change was limited.

Rather than risk the violence that would be the inevitable response of any empire to those who resisted, apostles like Peter encouraged Christians to endure whatever mistreatment they had to face with patience, looking to Jesus’ example. That brings us back to our focal verse for today: “God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21, NLT). And Peter specifically refers to the example Jesus set by dying for us on the cross! When Jesus bore that undeserved suffering, he did it because that’s the way God brings wholeness and new life to this world. And so the cross was not just Jesus’ path; it’s the path that he marked out for all of us. When we respond to the wrongs and hardships of our lives with patience, our suffering “joins with and continues the sufferings of Christ” (Col 1:24). Our willingness to follow Jesus’ example and suffer patiently without taking revenge contributes to the healing work God is doing in the whole world to this day!

But equally, how we respond when someone provokes us or attacks us unjustly also shapes who we are. When we take revenge on others in any form, the bitterness that drives that act takes root in our lives. Taking revenge by attacking someone verbally is especially challenging. Especially when we’re talking about others behind their backs. In all too many cases, we can do it and get away with it without any apparent consequences. But when we give in to the impulse to take revenge in that way, we’re not only harming the one we’re attacking. We’re also harming those who hear and ourselves as well. That’s because we’re reinforcing the pattern of getting even as a habit, both in our lives and in the lives of those who hear us. It just makes revenge and bitterness take root more deeply in our lives. And we’re all more likely to continue taking revenge in that way.

But our Scripture lesson calls us to a different way. It calls us to follow Jesus’ example and to obey God’s call to “do good” and not do harm. When we do that, we not only contribute to the fulfillment of God’s work in the world. We also learn what it means to truly entrust our lives to God’s care. When our lives are in God’s care, we don’t have to take revenge! We show that faith when we learn be grateful for all that we may have to undergo in this life. As one of my heroes in the faith, Henri Nouwen, puts it, when we can “look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God,” then we can find the gift in every experience of our lives.[2]

I know that may sound crazy. How can some of the things we have had to endure ever be a “gift”? It comes back to truly entrusting our lives to Gods’ care, the way Jesus did. When we do that, we can affirm that somehow, someway God takes everything that happens to us and uses it for good in our lives. That can be especially hard when we might believe we’ve been “wronged.” That kind of faith is what gives us the strength to respond to everything in this life, even and especially when we may be wronged in a way we don’t deserve, the way Jesus did. We can not only refrain from taking revenge, which can be so easy and so habitual for us, but maybe we can take a step further and actually learn to forgive as Jesus did. Jesus forgave those who crucified him. That’s a high level of faith. I don’t think we’re going to learn that easily or quickly. But our Scripture lesson calls us to follow Jesus’ example. By entrusting our lives to God’s care we develop the strength to do just that, to “follow in Jesus’ steps” and obey God’s calling to “do good” and not harm in this world.

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/26/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith,  January 12: "The Spiritual Work of Gratitude."

 

A "Living" Hope

 A “Living” Hope

1 Peter 1:1-12[1]

People sometimes make outrageous claims. Social media, podcasts, YouTube, and the internet all makes it very easy to put your message out there, no matter how outrageous it might be. The truth of the matter is that people have made outrageous claims throughout the ages. In previous centuries, they did so in published tracts or books. That made the invention of the printing press a “dangerous” new technology to the institutions that were in power at the time. It was “dangerous” because eventually, printed tracts would lead to the reshaping of the church, politics, society, the family, and our whole view of life. From the invention of the printing press in the 15^th century to the rise of radio and television in the 20th century, the printed word was viewed by some as a dangerous technology that would undermine the conventional norms and practices of both church and state, both society and home. It changed everything!

The rise of radio and television in the 20^th century changed everything as well. It created a whole new means of getting the “word” out. I’m sure there were some who cautioned against the danger they posed. But at the same time, many embraced the new technology and used it for good. Some of us remember Walter Cronkite as a voice you could trust. But there were other voices that made outrageous claims. Of course, the rise of the internet, email, social media, podcasting, and streaming services has led to vastly more ways of getting your message out there. Some of it is very helpful. If you need to fix just about anything, there’s probably a YouTube video for it. And I subscribe to several YouTube channels for insights into playing guitar more effectively. But again, there’s a lot of content out there that continues to be outrageous.

In the days of the first Christians, there were likely many who would have view Peter’s declaration that believers had been “born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3, CEB) as outrageous. For one thing, most people in the Greek and Roman world would have scoffed at the mention of anything like a “resurrection.” They believed that there was no return from death. Death was final, and that was that. Talk of a resurrection would have literally sounded like nonsense to them. It would have been outrageous!

More than that, the whole question of the afterlife was just as confused then as it is now. The prevailing view in those days was that everyone, both good and bad, died and went to “hades.” It wasn’t exactly the same idea as the notion of “hell” that has developed over the centuries. Everyone went there, not just those who “deserved” punishment. It was just the place of the dead. Good and bad, rich and poor alike, all went there at death. But it was a place of fires and ash, a kind of perpetual purgatory where you lived in regret for your mistakes forever. Not something to look forward to at all!

Into that world came the Christian gospel. As our lesson from 1 Peter puts it, “you have been born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). There were several aspects of that claim that would have been viewed as outrageous. First of all, the claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead would have been rejected outright. Because death was final, there was no returning from it. At least that was what most people believed. But that’s precisely the point of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the Christian gospel. As another Christian teacher put it, by dying and rising again, Jesus freed “those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb 2:15). So it is that Peter could call the hope that we have through Jesus a “living” one because it stems from the fact that Jesus is alive to this day. I think the Contemporary English Version does a good job of bringing out this emphasis when it says, “by raising Jesus from death, [God] has given us new life and a hope that lives on” (1 Pet 1:3). Our hope is a “living” one because Jesus “lives on” to this day.

More than that, the hope that God has given us through the death and resurrection of Jesus is a “living” one because it points us to our own future. Peter says that “You have a pure and enduring inheritance that cannot perish—an inheritance that is presently kept safe in heaven for you. Through his faithfulness, you are guarded by God’s power so that you can receive the salvation he is ready to reveal in the last time” (1 Pet 1:4-5, CEB). I like the way the Good News Translation puts it: Jesus’ death and resurrection “fills us with a living hope, and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people. He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away” (1 Pet 1:3-4, GNT). The main idea is that the “new life” that we’ve been given through Jesus’ death and resurrection is one of the “rich blessings” that God is keeping for us for the future. And there’s nothing and no one powerful enough to take that future away from us. As Gene Peterson puts it in The Message translation, “God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole” (1 Pet 1:4, MSG). Our hope is a “living” one because it points us to our future life in the fullness of God’s blessings.

There are still a lot of people in our world who believe that death has the final word. When you die, you just die, and that’s it. Maybe some of you believe that. But the clear message of the Gospel is that Jesus died and rose again to give us something more to hope for than life that ends at death. Jesus died and rose again to give us a “living hope,” as Peter puts it in our lesson for today. That hope is a “living hope” because Jesus lives at God’s right hand and in our hearts and lives. It’s a “living hope” because it points us to the promise of new life with Jesus in the fullness of God’s presence. And I would add that our hope is a “living” one because it gives us a reason to live our lives differently. If life definitively ends at death, there are some who would think you better grab all you can while you’re here. Not everyone believes that, but some do. But if Jesus’ resurrection from the dead points us to our new life with him after death, then we have a unique reason to do all the good we can do while we’re here. At least in part that means, as Peter says later in this chapter, we’re to “Love each other deeply with all your heart” (1 Pet 1:22, NLT).

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/12/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

On This Day

 On This Day

Psalm 118:24[1]

On this day we come together to celebrate the heart of our faith: Jesus who died was raised to life! For those of us who have grown up with it, we accept that Jesus rose again on the third day as the heart of our faith. But none of us has first-hand experience with the resurrection of Jesus. At least not in the same way that his original followers did. They experienced his physical presence after he was raised from the dead. They ate with him. They could touch him. None of us has that kind of first-hand experience with the Easter miracle. But we can experience the risen Lord in our lives “first-hand” in a different way.

We can sense the presence of the Spirit, we can feel Jesus’ call to compassion, and we can enjoy the love of the God who is always with us wherever we go. At the end of the day, I think that’s what our celebration of Easter is about. We may not have the same kind of first-hand experience of Jesus the risen Lord as his disciples did. But we do have Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and in our lives. And we celebrate Easter Sunday because the same Spirit of the risen Christ that the first disciples experienced physically all those years ago lives in you and in me and in all who know his continuing presence.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you may have noticed that I do something different on Palm Sunday. We typically use verses from Psalm 118 for our call to worship. But one of the verses doesn’t sound quite right. It’s the one that usually says, “This is the day that the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That verse has become so much a part of Christian life and worship that some might think it’s going too far for me to tinker with it. But being the student of the Bible that I am, I have to read that verse in the context of Psalm 118 as a whole.

When you do that, when you read the whole of Psalm 118, you find that the Psalm is a celebration of a kind of death-to-life restoration. The psalmsinger speaks of being in distress, of being surrounded on every side (Ps 118:5, 10-11) and being “pushed hard” to the point of falling (Ps 118:13). It sounds like the psalmsinger was engaged in battle and at the point of what must have felt like certain death. It’s in that setting that the psalmsinger affirms, “The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation” (Ps 118:14). He celebrates that the Lord has delivered him from what may have seemed like certain defeat.

Because of that, the psalmsinger rejoices that “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That’s the way most English translations put it. But if we pay attention to the context, it seems like there’s more to this verse than just celebrating God’s hand in every new day. The psalmsinger is celebrating a special day of deliverance. And so that verse that’s so familiar to us probably shouldn’t be read as “this is the day the Lord has made.” It probably should be read as a celebration of “the day of the Lord’s victory” (Ps 118:24, GNT), an act so unexpected, so “marvelous” (Ps 118:23) that all we can do is to “rejoice and be glad in what he has done.” And so, in my humble opinion, we should say, “This is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done.”

I think that’s what Easter is about. It’s a celebration that on this day, all those years ago, God acted decisively to break the power of everything that threatens to oppress or distort or destroy our humanity. It’s a celebration that, on this day, God took all our pain and sorrow and suffering and loss and death and turned it into new life. Easter is the celebration that the new life that came into being on that day will one day transform everything and everyone. It’s a celebration that, on this day, God acted to demonstrate that he is constantly working to restore the whole creation to the place where it is once again “very good,” as it was in the beginning. When that happens, “the Lord’s victory” will be complete.

I know all of that may sound very hard to believe, especially in the light of all that’s going on in the world these days. But I believe it’s part of the Easter miracle that began all those years ago. It may sound hard to believe, but our first-hand experience of the risen Christ alive and present in our lives serves as a basis for our faith in the Easter miracle that continues to “this day.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Christ is alive and present in all our lives. And so “on this day” we “rejoice and are glad in what he has done.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus, we experience the “marvelous” work of the God who is bringing salvation—grace and peace and mercy and love and joy and new life—into every life. And as we celebrate that “This is the day of the Lord’s victory,” we experience that “marvelous” work of God in our own lives. And so we “rejoice are glad in what he has done.”

In one respect what we celebrate happened a long time ago in a land far, far away. But because we know Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and our lives just as the first believers did, just as faithful people throughout the ages have, we do more than remember what happened on that first Easter. For us, every Easter, indeed every Sunday, becomes a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Every Easter, indeed every Sunday, is meant to be a celebration of the new life that God has “injected” into this life to transform us all. It’s a day for us to celebrate that “this is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done!”

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/5/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.