Understanding the Roots and Legacy of Our Faith

As I have been preparing for an upcoming speaking engagement, I have returned to consideration of a question that has been on my mind for a few years. I knew that my grandparents had been Christians for many years and had raised my mother as a Christian, but I did not know how my grandparents became Christians.

My sister earlier this year found that Grandma’s parents had become members of a Christian church in Indiana in my Grandma’s hometown. Then this week, I discovered that both of my grandparents were baptized in 1924 in the church in which my mother was raised. One of them was a member of that church for 48 years and the other for 52 years. Mom was baptized in the same church in 1932.

Within my family, that is where my faith in Christ develops from, but the roots of your faith and mine goes much deeper than the influence of a family member, friend, or church. Perhaps the best person in the Bible to demonstrate this to us is Abraham, the father of faith. His faith is set out as an example for us at some length twice in the New Testament.

First, in Romans 4, Abraham shows us the roots of our faith. Paul spent the first three chapters of Romans arguing that we have all sinned and are declared righteous only through faith in Christ. Then he sets Abraham out as the great example of faith, stating four times that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.

Our faith, quite simply, has its roots in Jesus — his life, death, burial, and resurrection. Through his son, God has pursued us so that we will put our faith in him.

John Stott, the great English preacher of the last century, described this about his own life: “[My faith is] due to Jesus Christ himself, who pursued me relentlessly even when I was running away from him in order to go my own way. And if it were not for the gracious pursuit of the hound of heaven I would today be on the scrap-heap of wasted and discarded lives. “

Second, in Hebrews 11, Abraham shows us the legacy of our faith. Hebrews 11 gives us three startling facts about Abraham’s faith: (1) when God called him to leave home and go to a place where God would show him, he obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going; (2) he lived the rest of his life in tents as a foreigner, believing God would grant his promise, even though he did not know when he would do so; (3) he accepted God’s promise of a son who would become his heir, even though he did not know how it could possibly happen.

With that type of faith, Abraham built a legacy of faith — an entire nation would come from the son God promised him. In addition, Abraham’s legacy includes all those who put their faith in Christ, from the very first Christian believers up to and including all believers who will be alive when Jesus comes again.

Adoniram Judson went as a missionary to Burma in 1812. By 1834 had translated the Bible into the language of Burma although he would die with few converts. One hundred and fifty years later, all 600,000 Burmese Christians would trace their spiritual heritage to Judson.

We also live by faith in Christ, and he calls us to pass on our faith to others.

“I don’t go to church. I am the church.”

Those who attend Tri-County Church in DuBois, Pennsylvania, wear purple t-shirts for various church activities that have emblazoned across them the phrase: “I don’t go to church. I am the church.” When the people in a church adopt such an attitude, they create ownership.

In their book Move, Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson comment on the difference between “belonging” to the church and “being” the church: “Too many churches are satisfied to have congregations filled with people who say they ‘belong’ to their church— who attend faithfully and are willing to serve or make a donation now and then. But that belonging bar is not high enough; simply belonging doesn’t get the job done for Jesus. The people who get the job done are those willing to embrace a value— and maybe even wear t-shirts stating I am the church.”

Hawkins and Parkinson say that churches in which people have this sense of “being” the church “are living breathing organisms. They are filled with people who gather together and then disperse into their communities to live out the commitment to Christ that binds them together.”

The early disciples of Jesus learned this sense of “being” the church from Jesus himself and then they lived it out as can be seen in the Book of Acts as they literally changed the world. If we will “be” the church, we too can change the world around us — one person at a time as we bring people in touch with Jesus, our Savior, the Son of God. Can you say, “I am the church”?