Month: February 2017

AIF has been preaching through I Peter on Sundays, and to make I Pet 3:15 practical, we took questions about Christianity last week and answered them. If you want to listen to those answers, go to the media page on this website and click on the sermon for Feb 19^th. On that day, however, we had many more questions than we had time for, and since we will not devote more time in church to those questions, I thought I would take time and address some of them in the blog. Today is the first week of that project. This means that I will be taking a break covering the Christian teachings on the human race.

Q: Why Christianity and not other religions?

A: Wow. That’s a hundred questions all in one. If a Muslim asked that, he would likely mean, “Why Christianity and not Islam?” If a Jew asked it, he would likely mean, “Why Christianity and not Judaism?” If a universalist asked it, he would mean, “Why Christianity and not any religion?” And my answer would be a bit different to each of those situations. Therefore, for the purposes of this blog, I will have to paint with broad brushstrokes, but please understand that I would not normally paint this way in a live situation with a real person. Instead, I would first ask some questions to see where this person is coming from: “Why do you ask the question? Which religion do you think is as good as Christianity? Why?” I would then address my answers to the specifics, but here I can’t do that.

So then, Why Christianity and not other religions? Here are some thoughts:

1.  Let’s turn the question on its head for a minute and ask, “Why other religions and not Christianity?” OR “Why no religion?” OR “Why all religions and not one?” If we are going to ask the question one way, we should be able to ask it any of those other ways as well. Now I’m not saying that a Muslim or a Hindu will give you no reasons to adopt his faith, but I am saying that if you see the question as a sort of criticism of Christianity, then it is equally a criticism of any belief —including the beliefs of the person who asks it.

2.  Why Christianity and not other religions? Let me give a short answer with an explanation. The short answer is Jesus. I know that may sound trite, and I don’t mean it to be. I’m dead serious.  You see, Jesus sets Christianity apart from all other religions. In no other religion will you find anything like the Christian teaching that God visited Earth to save people from themselves. This idea is radical. The Bible teaches that in Jesus, God came to Earth to die, that His death was the payment for sin, that He bodily rose from the grave on the third day, and that all who trust in Him are made new now and will inherit His future later. This death and Resurrection brings you to God, and the One who did the work is Himself your Creator, to whom you will bow.

These teachings are either true or false. If they are false, then Christianity is the biggest hoax ever played upon the human race. But if Christianity is true, then other religions will not lead you to God. If the problem of the human race is that “your sins have separated you from your God” (Is 59:2), and if God came to Earth to remove your sin and called you to trust in what He had done, then you cannot move toward God by praying to idols in your living room, by emptying yourself of desire, or by fasting at Ramadan.

Let me put it simply. If Jesus is risen from the dead, then all these other options are not options. If Jesus is not risen from the dead, then Christianity is not an option. You can’t have Jesus and other religions at the same time.

3.  Why Christianity and not other religions? Let me describe what I said above in reverse. Let’s suppose all religions could get you to God.   Why then would God need to send His Son to die on a Cross? If you were God, would you submit yourself to the pain of Crucifixion for no reason? If the Cross of Christ is not necessary for human salvation, why go through with it?

4.  Why Christianity and not other religions? I find Christianity to be the most realistic to the human condition and the most focused on God. I’m going to make general statements for the sake of space, but here is how most other religions work. In Buddhism, you practice the philosophy and reach nirvana. In Islam, you do good deeds, including the Five Pillars, and maybe Allah takes you to heaven. In Hinduism, you live a good life, worship the gods and goddesses, practice the right rituals, and you escape the cycle of rebirth. The central point of these religions is what you do. Christianity is quite the opposite. The central point of Christianity is what God has done. The Cross and Resurrection are God’s work, not yours. This is immensely freeing. This means that you do not have to perform to perfection in order to attain God. God has attained you. In Christ, God has given you a gift. Himself. In Christianity, our responsibility is not to perform but to say, “thank you.” It takes faith to say “thank you,” but when we do so from the heart, God comes to live inside us. He makes us new creatures, and we then go on to live new lives.   The new life does not bring us to God. God brings us to the new life.

This puts a greater emphasis on the glory of God. In addition, it is the simplest religion on the planet. I don’t mean simplistic, just simple. In Christ, salvation is a gift. This fact makes salvation accessible to everyone on Earth. A three-year-old with a right heart can do this.

5.  Why Christianity and not other religions? If you have been following what I said above, you see that you cannot have Christianity and other religions together. They operate on different principles. Whether it is Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, spirit religions, whatever, you are going to have to perform. You will have to be good in order to achieve the ultimate goal. You will have to perform the prayers or the incense or the rituals or get rid of your sin. But Christianity says that you don’t have to do any of that stuff. God loves you and has died for you while you were yet a sinner (Rm 5:8). Christianity says, “Come as you are. Confess your sin. Believe that Christ has wiped it away, and receive the gift of God.”

Christians call this approach grace, and the reality is that you can’t have a grace-based religion and a performance-based religion at the same time. The moment performance is part of your salvation, grace isn’t. These two approaches can’t both be true. You will have to choose which you think is the better approach. If you pick performance, I hope you perform well because God is holy. If you pick grace, you’re picking Christ.

Those are a few reasons why I would say Christianity and not other religions.

This past week my daughter, Rebekah, made a wreath out of paper roses. She made it for a purpose. She wanted to give it as a gift to my wife, and she wanted it to be pretty. Then on Tuesday, she made an apple pastry. It, too, had a purpose: she wanted us to eat it. The reality is that everything we make we make for a purpose. When Ford makes a car, the car has a purpose. When a construction company builds a home, the home has a purpose. A screw has a purpose. A broom has a purpose. A painting has a purpose. A doorknob has a purpose. Everything we make has a purpose. In fact, if no purpose existed, we wouldn’t make anything. And the purpose doesn’t always have to be physical. Sometimes the purpose is simply to show love, like my daughter’s wreath. Sometimes the purpose may be to learn or to explore. Sometimes the purpose may be to express beauty. But our experience shows that created things have a purpose, and based on what we can see, they have a purpose 100% of the time. When you find something created, you find a purpose. Period.

OK.  What then do we do with this universal human desire for purpose? The desire is certainly not proof that there is a purpose, but it does seem as if, deep down, we humans have yearnings you would expect us to have if we were created. Created things have purpose; we want purpose. Hmm.

Now this desire we have for purpose is not just generic. We do not want merely for life to have meaning in some vague sense; we each desire personal fulfillment in our own lives. Purpose gets personal. You want to reflect the purpose for which you exist. You do. This is what a fulfilling life would be. The pursuit of purpose is a pursuit of fulfillment.

Even the atheist wants this. He wants to be helpful, useful or good. He wants to positively impact people. He does not wish to let life pass by without living it. The pursuit of “the good life” is a pursuit of fulfillment. The grabbing of power, the quest for influence or fame, the indulging of pleasure are all attempts to gain fulfillment and purpose from life. The single woman thinks a husband will fulfill her, so she pursues one. The executive thinks that turning around a flailing corporation will fulfill him, so he pours his life into the project. The young couple think a better home and nicer vacations will fulfill them, so they work toward that end. A father and mother believe that a respectful son will fulfill them, so they live for him. When people pursue whatever they pursue, they are really pursuing fulfillment. They want purpose.

But this pursuit is hopeless apart from God. Without God all the money in the world will not satisfy. Fame, influence, accomplishments, seeing the world, sexual encounters, a husband and wonderful children all fail to deliver what we hope they will. Many of those things are good; but when we try to make them ultimate, they cannot fill the shoes. Ultimacy can be met only through that which is ultimate, and life on earth was never created to be that thing. The good things in life are just pictures. They are not the real thing. I may keep a picture of my wife on my computer and pull it up and look at her and derive some enjoyment from it, but the picture will not hold me, talk to me or care for me. If I want those things, I must leave the picture behind and go home to the reality. The pursuit of earth is an attempt to replace God with His gifts. It is pursuing God in all the wrong places.

You see, in the end, there is no purpose apart from God. Genuine purpose goes beyond a shallow survival of the species or a “let’s all be happy” mindset. Those ideas will give no purpose to your life, and deep down you know it. If you want real purpose, you need a Creator. Because … purpose … flows out of … creation.

“… everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”  (Is 43:7)

Lord, you have made me for your glory.  May I, by your grace, reflect that glory for which I was made.

Last week we talked about the fact that everyone is a moral creature, that we all believe some things to be right and some things wrong. Of course, every now and then, you hear someone say that moral absolutes do not exist, but these people do not believe what they say. If someone were to walk up to them and slap them in the face for no reason, what do you suppose they would do? Would they say, “That’s OK. You could not have done anything wrong since wrong doesn’t exist”? Of course not! Instead, they say, “Hey, you can’t do that!” But if there is no such thing as right and wrong, why can’t you do it? What’s wrong with it? As long as we are talking about vague, general theory, these people can convince themselves that right and wrong do not exist, but once we get specific and wrong them, they contradict their theory. Real life gets in the way. Deep down, they know right and wrong exist because deep down they are human.

Now once you start thinking about morality, you must begin to acknowledge the existence of some other things that go with it, like personality, authority and purpose. Without those things, morality makes no sense. Today, let’s talk only about purpose. Imagine a world that had no purpose. Why would it be wrong to kill my neighbor in such a world? You say, “Because killing your neighbor harms him.”

“But if there is no purpose, what is wrong in harming him? He had no purpose.”

And you may say, “But the human race cannot survive if people were to consistently behave that way.”

“But if there is no purpose, why should the human race survive? We have no purpose. You are still assuming a purpose.”

You could continue this dialogue a long way, but once you assume it is wrong to kill your neighbor, you also assume some kind of purpose that the killing violates. The purpose may be in you, in your neighbor, or in the fabric of the universe, but the existence of right and wrong seems to point to some bigger purpose in life.

Instinctively, we all sense this. We all desire life to have purpose, and most people believe it does. To be sure, there are scientists and philosophers who say we are nothing more than a collection of atoms, but they had to work hard to get their thinking where it is, for they have had to fight constantly a powerful and pervasive sense everywhere they turn that there is more to life than atoms. Such thinkers are in the minority even within their own fields. To think as they do is not natural. As long as humanity shall exist, such thinking shall be paddling upstream, for the stream of human experience flows against it.

Even the atheistic existentialists write of the despair that their thinking produces. It is ironic. They claim that life has no purpose and then despair of that belief. But the despair they write of is a curious phenomenon. It indicates that their very insides feel that their philosophy ought not be. Their despair arises from the fact that they desire meaning in life. They may believe no such meaning exists, but deep down they wish it did. They are human. This universal desire for meaning (held even by those who deny meaning) is difficult to explain if we are just atoms. Why should atoms care that life has purpose?

“You shall not … You shall not … You shall not …” Ex 20:1-17

Lord, we praise you.  You care for what is right because you are good.

Here in America, right now, many people are protesting the actions of Donald Trump.  We’ve seen marches on Washington, protests in many cities, placards, a refusal to cooperate in Congress, even a riot at Cal Berkeley.  Now I mention these actions not to argue for or against Trump but to illustrate a point.  You see, all of these protests, in whatever form they take, occur because the protester believes something is wrong.

Yes, it’s true.  Everybody believes in right and wrong.  Republicans believe Democrats are wrong, and Democrats believe Republicans are wrong.  We believe racists are wrong and that Hitler was wrong.  You believe it is wrong for someone to cheat you or lie to you.

We are a moral people.  I do not mean we are all good. I mean that we all have a sense of what good is like and we all know that we ought to be good. This sense is universal, for you will find it in communist China, Muslim Yemen, and Latin American Peru.  You will find it in ancient Egypt, medieval Europe, and 20th century Africa. You do not have to believe in God to believe in an absolute right and wrong.  The fact that there are laws and rules everywhere you go indicates that you are around people who think something is right and something wrong. Such laws may differ from place to place, but the differences tend to be more on the periphery than the essence of morality.

If you disagree, I challenge you to spin the globe and randomly pick a country. Then go there and steal something from someone’s home. See what the reaction would be. Repeat in a hundred cultures and observe the pattern. Or try taking a man’s wife for a week. Do her no harm. Merely keep her for a week so that her husband does not know where she is. Then return her and observe the reaction. Repeat in a hundred cultures and note the pattern. You will find that punishments will vary from place to place, that certain values will be emphasized more in one region and less in another, and that some cultures will be more amenable to special circumstances. But despite all these differences, you will find a universal condemnation of stealing and kidnapping. No one will tell you what a wonderful soul you must be for taking Abu’s only goat.

Even the atheist who touts the problem of evil as evidence that God does not exist must appeal to a sense of right and wrong which he understands and which he expects you to understand too. The problem of evil is not a problem if evil does not exist.  Nor is it a problem to us if we have no moral sense.

We are moral creatures, and our sense of right and wrong contributes to our understanding of the world. It also helps us know what the Bible means when it says “God is good,” and it gives us a framework with which to understand some of the specific ethical commands of Scripture. We approach Scripture with an inherent ability to comprehend moral right and wrong.  We are wired with a moral sense, and we can’t escape it.  Have you ever thought why?