As we go through our daily lives, we encounter many people. Some of those people we encounter are like the Irishman I met in Rome, Italy. He was a butcher and was from Dublin. He was in the hotel bar – I’d stopped in to get an orange juice, for I was feeling a cold or flu coming on, and Barry the Irish Butcher was there, and he was NOT drinking orange juice. When he found out I was a minister, his question for me was “Do you believe in Him!” pointing to the crucifix around his neck. It was clear that Barry believed, and he wanted to be certain that I believed also.
Then again, we meet other people in our lives. There was a woman Saundra and I knew when we lived in one place, who had some faith and went to church a couple of times a year. A few years later, Saundra got a call from her. It seems that she had gotten pregnant when she was in college and had an abortion. Now, fifteen years later, she was pregnant with the husband she loved, and the impact of what she had done so many years earlier came back to her. She called Saundra, because she could not bear the guilt of what she had done, and she knew that Saundra could advise her on what to do, so she came and visited us for a week while Saundra walked her through how faith in God includes understanding that God will forgive any sin if you are truly repentant – and our friend was truly repentant. She left with a renewed and stronger commitment to her life – and to God.
And then you meet the people who will not believe, like the man I once worked with who beat testicular cancer himself – his words, not mine. He considered a belief in God to be a sign of weakness – and a restriction upon his wild life-style, which consisted of finding a new woman each night we were on the road, spending the night with her, and using all sorts of chemicals to feel good. After six months on the job, I took over his job when he was fired, and years later I heard that his cancer had come back with a vengeance.
Why won’t some people believe in the God of heaven and His Son Jesus Christ? This is what is important. But we often ask the wrong question – we phrase it this way: Why won’t some people come to church?
You see, the reason people won’t come to church is because they are not Christians. It is as simple as that. They don’t come to church because they are not Christians. They do not believe in Jesus the Christ. They do not believe that Jesus is truly God’s Son, part of God in a complex way.
Now saying that these people are not Christians can be offensive to some people, and I realize this. And there are a few people out there who are truly Christians and won’t come to church. But 95% of the time, the root reason people don’t come to church is because they are not Christians. That may be offensive, but there are times when it is important to tell the difference between dogs and cats, and this is one of those times. It is IMPORTANT! For you see, John wrote that Jesus said, talking about Himself: (John 3:18) Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
In our world, we have many people who “believe in God”. But that is not Christianity. The belief in God is the mark of being a “Theist”, a believer in the existence of a god. All Christians are theists, but not all theists are Christians. In fact, far less than half of the theists in the world are Christians. There is a serious difference between believing in a vague god, and believing that Jesus Christ is actually God in a complex way. For most people who “believe in God” believe in one of two different gods.
The first is the kindly grandfather god who will give you whatever you need when you pray to him and who will never do anything which would cause you harm. This is the kindly god that rescues you when you are in trouble and might give you presents. Yet, this is the same god who might also punish you for doing bad things. In the mind of the believers, there is this all powerful human figure that is running the show, and who either loves them or picks on them. But this god is not whom Christians worship.
The other extreme is the vague, distant force that is way up there in the heavens, at a distance that never steps into our lives unless we are in desperate circumstances. There is no real personality to this god, and this distant god mostly ignores us. This is the god that we want to keep its distance from us except when we need to turn it into the kindly grandfather god. This is the god we want to stay somewhere up in the sky away from us, and not get too close to us. But this god is not the God of Christianity, either.
In Christianity, we believe explicitly in a three-in-one God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three personalities, one substance. And we believe that the Son, who is the Word and Wisdom of God, came to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a person who was 100% God and 100% human. God walked upon the earth as Jesus Christ. And it is this person that we call the Christ, the Savior, the Messiah. It is this person that experienced hatred and worship, harsh beatings with whips and a gentle anointing with perfume, a death and a Resurrection.
And it is this person, Jesus Christ, who is carefully ignored by most of the people in America who don’t come to church. It is this person who is, at best, considered to be a good man, a good ethical teacher, perhaps even one who speaks on behalf of God - by those who do not know Him.
You can tell if someone is not a Christian by a simple test. Ask the person if they are a Christian. If they answer something like, “I am. I was born again in 1989 – or received Christ in 1995” or responds with an answer that uses the word “Christ” in it or mentions “Jesus” - then you can be pretty sure your friend is a Christian.
However, if you friend responds with “Yes, I believe in God” or something similar and does not mention the words “Christ” or “Jesus”, then you have met a theist who is not a Christian. He or she may claim to be a Christian – but they have missed a key point – the divine nature of Jesus Christ. And if you ask a few more questions, you will see that this is true.
A few years ago, I taught an adult Sunday School class in a large, fast-growing church. I quickly discovered that about half of the people in the class, some of whom had been attending church for decades, believed that Jesus was simply a wise man who taught good moral lessons. They pushed back at me when I taught that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh, as the leaders of Christianity decided almost two thousand years ago. I guess the people in this class hadn't received the memo!
Do you not see, there is no reason to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ over the teachings of Buddha, of Plato, of Aristotle, of Doctor Phil, or your favorite politician if Jesus Christ is simply a wise man? If Jesus was just another wise man, then today I might believe in Jesus and next year follow Buddha. In a decade I’ll listen to the tapes of Depak Chopra, and then the teachings of Oprah Winfrey. God knows that if you only listen to Jesus because you see Him as just another wise teacher, you will not follow Him through eternity, but will instead develop your own philosophy, your own teachings, your own sayings, and become your own god on day.
And, in addition, since Jesus claimed repeatedly to be God, and was executed for the crime of claiming to be God, who should we follow if Jesus is not God? For why should we listen to a nutcase who claimed to be God and wasn’t? So the question becomes….Was Jesus God or not? The answer to this question is core to our salvation, for it is how God decides whether you will be loyal through the ages … or not.
God saw that this question would come up. This is one reason why Jesus had to suffer and die, as predicted in the Old Testament and by Christ Himself before His death. His death paid the sacrifice price for all of our sins; His Resurrection was how God called attention to the words of Christ, confirmed that Jesus was indeed divine, and said to us, as God had said earlier to Peter, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him!”
Yet many people will not believe. As Christian pollster George Barna says, they prefer to believe in a mildly therapeutic theism. It is therapeutic because it makes people feel good to think that there is a god. It is theism because they believe in a god.
Yet, according to John, Jesus said, “ 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. “
Consider, if you will, that the Church shines forth that light of Christ.
In today’s society, most people like to claim that the character of God is a matter of opinion. They like this idea and are comfortable with it, because it actually allows them to define and manage the character of the god they worship. They are completely in control of their god. And when you talk with them, you will find that their god is rather vague and non-specific.
You see, most people who are theists like to keep their god vague, because a vague god doesn’t have any requirements Most people who are theists like to manage their god’s character well, because a managed god is like a child’s doll who only says the things we want to hear.
Most people who are theists like to stay away from church, because the Word of God is read in church and that Word can be uncomfortable and require a change of behavior to accommodate the living God. You see, the living God isn’t tame and can’t be managed. The living God will not be anyone’s doll. The Word of God shines a light on all those evil deeds, and that is very uncomfortable for most people.
The theists who walk around us and claim to be Christians are much like those people who drive around, occasionally looking up at the electric wires overhead, ignoring the power that flows through those wires, the power that can destroy lives and towns. The people are confident that that electricity is completely under control. But those who have worked with 480 volts, with higher voltages than that, understand that electricity is a wild and dangerous thing, barely under control, and is not to be taken lightly. God is the same and even more – God is never under control, and never can safely be ignored.
And so we find that the real reason people don’t come to church is because they aren’t Christians. Those who aren’t Christians don’t believe in the God-nature of Jesus Christ, because it would mean that they would have to change their actions, their beliefs, and their morals to fit in line with a God who actually has the power to lift them up or destroy them, who created the Universe and can destroy cities, who has most definite ideas of what is right – and what is wrong. They ignore God at their peril.
Now, there are a few Christians who stay home because they are ill or infirm. But what of the man or woman who says, “I can worship at home as well as in church – and there aren’t nearly as many hypocrites at home!”
I have truly met a few Christians like this, who stayed at home and read their Bible and did good works to the people around them. But not many. When pressed, most people who say they worship at home will admit that they almost never read their Bible, and instead just got upset at someone in some church who said something to them they didn’t like. They understand that God can be worshipped everywhere, but yet they have given tremendous power to other people to keep them from deeply worshipping God, experiencing God with others, working together with others to channel the powers of God to do good in their community. They are like a single candle burning by itself, sputtering and ready to flicker out, while a strong church body is like a blowtorch of the Spirit, igniting everything around it and cutting through the hardened steel of the world.
“But Pastor, I come to church almost every week! What does this have to do with me?”
John wrote that Jesus said: 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
As Barry the Irish Butcher said: “Do you believe in Him?” Do you believe in the God-nature of God’s son? If you do, you have eternal life. If you don’t you are condemned.
My friends, once in a while it is my duty to call your attention to the friends, neighbors, and family around you and point out that those who do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God are condemned by God. Eternal life hangs in the balance for our friends, our neighbors, and our family.
Around us, every day, there are people who are dying and will spend eternity apart from God. It is the greatest epidemic in the history of the world – more people experiencing death and misery thereafter than any Ebola outbreak, than any swine flu outbreak, than any epidemic of the Black death. People are dying in their separation from God simply because they think that Jesus was just another wise teacher and no one has told them anything differently. Should this get us upset! Yes!
Last week we saw that Jesus flipped over tables and chased people with a whip because they had merely put a barrier to people coming to God. How much more passionate is He about those who never speak of Him to others? Where is your passion for God?
Tell me – how will the people around us find out about the love of Christ unless we tell them? Shall we trust that they will turn on Trinity Broadcasting and listen to TD Jakes in Dallas or Charles Stanley in Atlanta or Joseph Prince from Singapore? Shall we just assume that one night they’ll listen to a Billy Graham re-run?
Or perhaps, just perhaps, we discover that we believe in the truth of the Gospel so much that one evening over dinner in our home, our friend, our neighbor, our family member hears that we believe that Jesus Christ is actually the Son of God, and we tell them five stories that explain “why” from our own life.
You see, people don’t believe in Jesus Christ because no one they trust, no one they respect, no one who loves them has told them the whole story.
And perhaps you don’t know the story very well. Perhaps you don’t understand how things happened. Perhaps you are like the man Andy met recently, who never understood the Bible because he had an old King James Bible and it was hard to read. This man was in prison, was put in solitary confinement, and someone gave him a new, modern translation. He read the Gospels in the new translation and it was so simple, so straight-forward, so easy that he came to Christ in his jail cell and, now released, is moving into ministry to bring others to Christ.
Get yourself a modern translation and read the Gospels, particularly Mark and John. You might find you will then spend the week reading the rest of the New Testament.
And then, you can begin to tell people what you’ve learned to the people who trust you, who respect you, who know you love them. Who are those people? Who do you love who has not yet accepted that Jesus is God Himself, walking upon this earth, and so His words are the very Words of God?
I have sometimes asked this of a person to start the conversation – “Do you know the real difference between Christianity and other religions such as Islam or Buddhism? Neither Mohammed, nor Buddha claimed to be God. But Jesus Christ claimed to be God. Repeatedly. The Gospel of John is very clear about that. Time after time Jesus uses the phrase “I AM”, which was short for “I am that I am”, the name that God gave Moses when God appeared in the burning bush. And the people around Jesus pick up stones to stone Him for claiming to be God. They understood His claim and eventually Jesus was executed for this crime. His Resurrection was God’s proof that Jesus was exactly who He said He was. And so the difference between Christianity and other religions is that Jesus was God speaking on this earth – and so Jesus’ words are the Word of God. If you don’t believe me, read the Gospel of John.”
To paraphrase C.S.Lewis, Jesus was either God or a liar or a nutcase. Don’t give me any of this idea that He was just a wise teacher, for He did not intend to leave us that option. Read the Gospels – particularly the Gospel of John – and decide: Was Jesus a liar, a nutcase, or the Lord of all creation?
And when you decide He is Lord, as Barry the Irish Butcher knew, as our pregnant friend knew, as over a billion other people agree: all will be well with your Soul.
In today’s society, most people like to claim that the character of God is a matter of opinion. They like this idea and are comfortable with it, because it actually allows them to define and manage the character of the god they worship. They are completely in control of their god. And when you talk with them, you will find that their god is rather vague and non-specific.
You see, most people who are theists like to keep their god vague, because a vague god doesn’t have any requirements Most people who are theists like to manage their god’s character well, because a managed god is like a child’s doll who only says the things we want to hear.
Most people who are theists like to stay away from church, because the Word of God is read in church and that Word can be uncomfortable and require a change of behavior to accommodate the living God. You see, the living God isn’t tame and can’t be managed. The living God will not be anyone’s doll. The Word of God shines a light on all those evil deeds, and that is very uncomfortable for most people.
The theists who walk around us and claim to be Christians are much like those people who drive around, occasionally looking up at the electric wires overhead, ignoring the power that flows through those wires, the power that can destroy lives and towns. The people are confident that that electricity is completely under control. But those who have worked with 480 volts, with higher voltages than that, understand that electricity is a wild and dangerous thing, barely under control, and is not to be taken lightly. God is the same and even more – God is never under control, and never can safely be ignored.
And so we find that the real reason people don’t come to church is because they aren’t Christians. Those who aren’t Christians don’t believe in the God-nature of Jesus Christ, because it would mean that they would have to change their actions, their beliefs, and their morals to fit in line with a God who actually has the power to lift them up or destroy them, who created the Universe and can destroy cities, who has most definite ideas of what is right – and what is wrong. They ignore God at their peril.
Now, there are a few Christians who stay home because they are ill or infirm. But what of the man or woman who says, “I can worship at home as well as in church – and there aren’t nearly as many hypocrites at home!”
I have truly met a few Christians like this, who stayed at home and read their Bible and did good works to the people around them. But not many. When pressed, most people who say they worship at home will admit that they almost never read their Bible, and instead just got upset at someone in some church who said something to them they didn’t like. They understand that God can be worshipped everywhere, but yet they have given tremendous power to other people to keep them from deeply worshipping God, experiencing God with others, working together with others to channel the powers of God to do good in their community. They are like a single candle burning by itself, sputtering and ready to flicker out, while a strong church body is like a blowtorch of the Spirit, igniting everything around it and cutting through the hardened steel of the world.
“But Pastor, I come to church almost every week! What does this have to do with me?”
John wrote that Jesus said: 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
As Barry the Irish Butcher said: “Do you believe in Him?” Do you believe in the God-nature of God’s son? If you do, you have eternal life. If you don’t you are condemned.
My friends, once in a while it is my duty to call your attention to the friends, neighbors, and family around you and point out that those who do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God are condemned by God. Eternal life hangs in the balance for our friends, our neighbors, and our family.
Around us, every day, there are people who are dying and will spend eternity apart from God. It is the greatest epidemic in the history of the world – more people experiencing death and misery thereafter than any Ebola outbreak, than any swine flu outbreak, than any epidemic of the Black death. People are dying in their separation from God simply because they think that Jesus was just another wise teacher and no one has told them anything differently. Should this get us upset! Yes!
Last week we saw that Jesus flipped over tables and chased people with a whip because they had merely put a barrier to people coming to God. How much more passionate is He about those who never speak of Him to others? Where is your passion for God?
Tell me – how will the people around us find out about the love of Christ unless we tell them? Shall we trust that they will turn on Trinity Broadcasting and listen to TD Jakes in Dallas or Charles Stanley in Atlanta or Joseph Prince from Singapore? Shall we just assume that one night they’ll listen to a Billy Graham re-run?
Or perhaps, just perhaps, we discover that we believe in the truth of the Gospel so much that one evening over dinner in our home, our friend, our neighbor, our family member hears that we believe that Jesus Christ is actually the Son of God, and we tell them five stories that explain “why” from our own life.
You see, people don’t believe in Jesus Christ because no one they trust, no one they respect, no one who loves them has told them the whole story.
And perhaps you don’t know the story very well. Perhaps you don’t understand how things happened. Perhaps you are like the man Andy met recently, who never understood the Bible because he had an old King James Bible and it was hard to read. This man was in prison, was put in solitary confinement, and someone gave him a new, modern translation. He read the Gospels in the new translation and it was so simple, so straight-forward, so easy that he came to Christ in his jail cell and, now released, is moving into ministry to bring others to Christ.
Get yourself a modern translation and read the Gospels, particularly Mark and John. You might find you will then spend the week reading the rest of the New Testament.
And then, you can begin to tell people what you’ve learned to the people who trust you, who respect you, who know you love them. Who are those people? Who do you love who has not yet accepted that Jesus is God Himself, walking upon this earth, and so His words are the very Words of God?
I have sometimes asked this of a person to start the conversation – “Do you know the real difference between Christianity and other religions such as Islam or Buddhism? Neither Mohammed, nor Buddha claimed to be God. But Jesus Christ claimed to be God. Repeatedly. The Gospel of John is very clear about that. Time after time Jesus uses the phrase “I AM”, which was short for “I am that I am”, the name that God gave Moses when God appeared in the burning bush. And the people around Jesus pick up stones to stone Him for claiming to be God. They understood His claim and eventually Jesus was executed for this crime. His Resurrection was God’s proof that Jesus was exactly who He said He was. And so the difference between Christianity and other religions is that Jesus was God speaking on this earth – and so Jesus’ words are the Word of God. If you don’t believe me, read the Gospel of John.”
To paraphrase C.S.Lewis, Jesus was either God or a liar or a nutcase. Don’t give me any of this idea that He was just a wise teacher, for He did not intend to leave us that option. Read the Gospels – particularly the Gospel of John – and decide: Was Jesus a liar, a nutcase, or the Lord of all creation?
And when you decide He is Lord, as Barry the Irish Butcher knew, as our pregnant friend knew, as over a billion other people agree: all will be well with your Soul.
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