Northside Church - Sydney
Roadblocks Week 2: EXCLUSIVITY – Is there really only one way to God?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. You know, guys, the religious scene in Australia has changed so much in my lifetime. When I was here in Sydney growing up in the Lequemba Punchbowl area, I went to Lequemba Primary, Punchbowl High. We knew there were religions elsewhere. We knew that in India there were Hindus. We knew that in parts of Asia people worship Buddha. We knew that in the Middle East there were people who in those days were called Mohammedans. I don't think I heard the term Muslim till I was in my very late teens, maybe 20, early 20s. And like I'm not going back to when the earth was cooling. I can think of that. It's a fair way back, but it's not that far back. And in those days the big controversial issue was Catholic versus Protestant. And it was considered, well in fact in some circles it was forbidden to even date. Is that a term? To even like go out, hang, call up. Somebody who was of the Catholic faith if you were a Protestant and vice versa, and absolutely forbidden to marry, to sort of intermarry like that. They were the big issues. Now there were a number of reasons for this and our immigration policy in Australia at the time was a big factor. How things have changed? Today, 3% but it means a lot. Only 3% of Australians are either Hindus or Muslim. But you'd have to agree with me and certainly somebody from my age range sees the vast difference there is in the religious complexity of our country today. Where it's very common for us to be in touch with people who are of the Hindu faith. Many of you might even have friends who are Hindus. We have some mosques in Australia that would rival some of the mosques of the Middle East in terms of their size and so on. Now here's a guy who grew up in Punchbolt, Lakemba and it was just Catholic Protestant. So in just a relatively small number of decades that whole scene has just changed so dramatically but it's against this backdrop that Christians today continue to preach and promote the uniqueness, the exclusivity of Jesus Christ. We continue to declare him as the one and only savior of the world in our holy book, the Bible. We read this in Colossians 1. Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the firstborn son superior to all created things for through him God created everything in heaven and on earth. Now that's a startling, pretty full-on statement. One of many in the Scriptures but in our pluralistic, postmodern, multicultural, multi-faith society, people are inclined to ask fairly assertively, even aggressively, well what's so special about Jesus Christ? In the midst of all these different religious options, what's so special about him? And guys here's the point, the Christian Church, not through its hierarchy, not through its denominational leaders, not through its press releases, but through its rank and file members like you and me, we'd better be ready to give an answer to that because that question, I believe, is going to become increasingly prominent in our multicultural, multi-faith society. Why is Jesus Christ so unique? What gives you the right to even think that Australia may be a nominally Christian country? That's going to have all sorts of issues for us as Christians. You see Jesus Christ doing what we call the Last Supper. He made this assertion, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. It's controversial. It appears very exclusivist. It raises the question, well where do we stand in relation to other religions?" What do we really think about other religions? I want to say tonight, I think over the years, again in my lifetime, I think Christians, well meaning but overzealous Christians, have made the mistake of denying that there's any value or any truth in any other religion. And I think that's been a big mistake. I think that's been the case with a lot of well meaning Christians, but it's been a mistake to sort of say that there is nothing of value and worth in any other religion. I don't believe you can really say that with any sort of integrity because let's face that other religions emphasize some of the key themes that we emphasize in the Christian faith. Things like love, peace, justice, forgiveness. We don't have exclusive rights to these great themes and people who follow some of these other religions can be as moral and as ethical and as devout as any Christian you like to name. So the difference between Christianity and other religions does not come down to morality. It doesn't even come down to some specific teachings necessarily. There are differences, big differences, but some of the factors are different of what we may have always considered. The factors that are there, I'm going to highlight some tonight, they do provide a point of difference that really at the bottom line is like comparing night and day. It really is. Tonight I want to drop on to three of them in this early part of the message. The first one of course is the whole topic of resurrection. There is a point of difference which is stunning. It's stunningly different to other religions. The followers of the Muslim faith will take you to a place in Saudi Arabia, Medina, and they can point to the resting place of Muhammad. Buddha was cremated. The Hindus have many gods represented all kinds of exotic images and so on. They're all dead and that's understood. Whereas Jesus Christ talks about an empty tomb. We don't know exactly where that empty tomb is. You can go to Israel and they'll point the places they think it is, but we do know this that the whole, the heart of the teaching of Jesus Christ is that he's alive. He was raised to life. Major world religions emphasize what a person must do to engage the deity, to appease his wrath, to earn his favor. In some cases you've got to go through a whole series of hoops to do that. You might be certain times for prayer in the case of the, like say, Harry Christian, before dawn, chanting and so on. All kinds of mantras. Christianity talks about what's been done, not what you must do. It talks about what's been done on the cross by Jesus Christ for the sins of the world. Major world religions represent the attempts of humankind to find God, to encounter God, to seek God. That's the basic premise of most of the major world religions. The big difference with Christianity, it's about God's initiatives. He's relentless pursuit of us. There's no other way to look at the Christian story other than to see it as a relentless pursuit on the part of God of us, his creation. So therein lies a huge difference between us and most of the world's religions. These are some of the assertions we can make about the uniqueness and the exclusivity of Jesus. But many people still wince, even Christians, sort of wince at the thought of Jesus being the way, the truth, any life. But when you're a Bible believing Christian, you can't dilute the claims of Christ. You can't sort of water them down and dress them up to be more inclusive and acceptable without severely eroding the very foundation of our faith. It's very hard to do that, impossible to do that if we're going to stay true to the faith. But here's what we can do. I want you to follow me on this just in the remaining moments. What we can do is go on what I call the positive offensive, the positive offensive and point to the fact that there's a universal appeal about Christianity. There's a universal appeal about the claims of Christ which, if examined objectively and examined carefully, can transcend cultures and nationalities and ethnicities, there's just something about the basic tenets of the Christian faith that have that level of appeal. They can reach deep into the heart and the soul and the mind of all humanity. Let's take a closer look. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." Now, several things we need to highlight. Number one, it's clear. Am I right? I mean, that is pretty clear. It's specific. It's unequivocal. There's one way Jesus is it. No confusion, no guesswork, no uncertainty. When we're trying to find something, when we're trying to get somewhere, what's needed more than anything else? Clarity. Would you agree? Clarity. Guys, you know how hard it is to admit that you're lost. I mean, no guy likes to say, "You know what? I think we're a bit of pull-over here because I just think we're lost. Guys, you with me? No, no, it's around here somewhere. We'll find it, don't you worry?" Of course, the ladies are wanting to get into the maps and the guys don't like to admit that we need Clarity. I remember, a number of years ago, my wife and I were touring up in the northeastern part of America. On the final day, we had to make a journey to JFK International Airport. We dialed in the route in the GPS and we were coming from somewhere in Pennsylvania, wherever. I thought we were going to go a certain way. We got forced into a thing which, if you've ever driven this stretch of road, you'll know what I mean when I say it's an awful stretch of road. I think called the Lincoln Tunnel in New York. If you've driven the Lincoln Tunnel, no need for further explanation. It is a shocking stretch of road and we were forced out into the center of midday maddening Manhattan traffic. Now, I'm a fairly confident driver. I'm telling you, I'm a very good driver actually. But very little traffic phases me, but I found myself just absolutely freaking out because our GPS went into a freefall because of the high-rise, like the skyscrapers. The GPS is dead. It's gone. Every road that we wanted to go off to keep in that same direction, there was a traffic cop saying, "No, come on through. Come on, come on, come on." So it was just crazy. I would have loved one of those traffic cops to put on his light and say, "You, come with me, JFK." Right, not a problem. I'll take you straight there. It would have been great. Needless to say, it didn't happen. We're going to look panicky because time was ticking and we were on a bit of a time limit to get this flight. Fortunately, we made it. See, guys, the problem with saying, "Look, oh, there are many ways to God." The problem with saying that is it can be confusing. There's not enough information. When talking about the pathway to true spirituality, some people say, "Look, you've just got to be good, you know? You've got to do your best and be as good as you can, but like how good, you know? Which commandments are we going to focus on? Who is my neighbour? Jesus in his teachings provides clear guidelines to these and a stack of moral and ethical issues. Some people say, "Well, look, just be sincere. It doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you're sincere." Guys, the religious fundamentalists who flew those planes into the Twin Towers were very sincere. Very sincere. The guys who faced the firing squad in Indonesia in 2008 for the Bali bombings, very sincere, really sincere, very passionate, but very sincerely wrong in their particular understanding of their faith. One way. One way. It's clear. It's not confusing. When Jesus talked about sincerity and devotion, he talked about surrender, not violence. When he talked about… Rather, he talked about servanthood, not domination. He talked about discipleship, not dictatorship. It's not a matter of sincerely trying to be good, but it's a matter of opening ourselves to the infilling of God's Holy Spirit. He does the work in that sense as we allow him to do his transformational work in our lives. The focus is on him. It's not on us. That's a revelation that comes when we step into his world by faith. It's not a matter of trying to be good. That's not possible. Bible says that. It's a matter of allowing him to begin the work of transformation in us, making us into his likeness. Jesus talked about himself as the vine. He talked about his followers as the branches. He talked about us drawing strength and nourishment from him. It's a beautiful image. It's so clear. It's understood by people of all levels of intelligence. His claim is clear. He's another source of universal appeal. It delivers. The assertions Jesus made about himself, these deliver. Jesus is able to bring about dramatic changes in the lives of people who open their hearts to receive his power, who embrace his grace and forgiveness. He is able to do amazing things. I would offer this church as an example of that. Jesus Christ is able to comfort those who mourn, strengthen the weak, forgive the guilt ridden, bring home the loss, restore the broken, heal the sick. As I say, evidence of that is Northside Community Church and every other church I've had association with. Here's the living, breathing evidence of people whose lives to a greater or lesser extent are being transformed by a person, by a living presence. I see it every day in my ministry. It's not fake. You couldn't sustain this in a fake sense for more than a few months, maybe a year. There are people here who have been journeying with Jesus the whole lives are in their 90s. I've seen over the years these people are in their death beds and there's no fear, there's no apprehension. It's just a beautiful transition which they believe all their lives that they will go to be with him in eternity. It's powerful. Well, there's another feature with universal appeal and it's this. The Gospel of Jesus is all inclusive. It's for everyone. Some religions are associated with certain cultures. Some religions require elaborate initiation rituals. Some have purification ceremonies and periods of qualification and special codes of dress and behavior. Jesus Christ says, "Follow me." How's that for simplicity? How's that for inclusiveness? Follow me. No matter where you've been, no matter who you are, follow me. Come to me as Kieran reminded us earlier. Come to me, all of you are tired of carrying heavy burdens. I'll give you rest. I'll lift you up. I'll restore you. I'll give you strength for the journey no matter how tough that journey might be. It's simple. It's uncomplicated. It's an invitation to all. This message of Jesus is enhanced and highlighted by some of his parables, like the one found in Luke 14. It's the parable of the great feast and it's one of the most beautiful of all Jesus parables. A guy, the size of this great feast, this great banquet, he was a very wealthy man. Jesus had no hang-ups at all about talking about wealthy people. He didn't say, "Oh, sorry, apology." A guy had a lot of money beside a big banquet. Some people could do that. And he invited certain people, invited a whole host of people, and in came the excuses, "Oh, sorry. I've just bought land. Not convenient. I've just bought some livestock. Sorry. Can't come. Just married. Fair enough. Can't come." And the masters, kind of like infuriated, he said, "Look, this is a party I want people to celebrate. You go out and you tell everybody, I don't care who they are, where they're living, where they've been. You just bring everybody in. We are going to have a party and it's going to be for everybody." This is, this is, you can't get more inclusive than that. And I never cease to marvel at the ability of the gospel to touch the lives of people right across the full spectrum of humanity. I never cease to marvel about that. In my years of ministry, I have met some brilliant thinkers. I'm pleased and proud of a number among my friends, some high level theologians, academics, guys who run huge churches in the United States who I believe, in my humble opinion, could qualify to run the country. They could be president of the United States. They had just brilliant strategists, brilliant men and women of God. But at the other end of the spectrum, I can remember as a boy of 10 or 12, sitting in my little church in Wiley Park, which is now a block of flats on King George's Road, and being stunned, just sitting back and going, "Wow!" There were three men on the platform. They were the blackest men I had ever seen. I can still remember their smiles, just like dazzling you. These men were in suits, tithe, white shirts. They were from what we called in those days the New Hebrides, what we call today Vanuatu. These men were on a mission tour of Australia without denomination. Our churches had gone into the New Hebrides with the gospel some years before and converted stacks and stacks of villages. These men told that congregation that night that their fathers, that's how recent it was, their fathers had been involved in heavy cannibalism. And if as long as those villages could remember decades and decades, it had just been all about tribal warfare, raids into villages, boiling each other, eating each other. And in one generation with the gospel, they had learned to embrace love, peace, forgiveness, and they're standing before me. And I can clearly remember as a young boy, "Wow! Wow!" Isn't that what the preach is talking about? The ability of the good news of Jesus to transform lives. Carl Bart, one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, a man who just a marvellous theologian was once asked by a reporter, "Dr Bart, you've wrestled with some great concepts, some huge theological truths in your time. Could you give us an insight? What is the greatest theological truth you've wrestled with? Can you sum it up? Just give us a little insight into the biggest topic or issue you've wrestled with." And he thought for a moment in the great Carl Bart, after a short pause, he said, "Well, I think it'd be Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." I think that'd be it. That's as big as I've dealt with, he said. The good news of Jesus is exclusive only in so far as it is specific. Beyond that, it is in fact anything but exclusive, because it's for everyone. In light of all this, what should the Christian response be to other religions? We should respond to other religions as Jesus Christ responded to people who were different. He always responded with grace, with compassion, with understanding. And there is no other way that we as Christians should respond to people of other faiths. There's been too much of the sort of thing I was talking about earlier, this high horse, judgmentalism. It's got to be about bridge building, finding common ground, building bridges of friendship, that kind of thing. Based on the example of Jesus, we ought to be doing that with other faiths. But when it's all said and done, here's the bottom line guys, when it's all said and done, the difference Jesus makes has to be believed to be seen. No, I didn't get that wrong. We talk about if there has to be seen to be believed, no, no. In the case of the faith, it has to be believed to be seen. Yes, Christians believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, because the Bible says so. But ultimately, it's our choice to accept by faith these truths. It's a choice thing. Ultimately, Jesus reveals Himself to us through His Holy Spirit. Look, I believe in the exclusivity of Jesus. Of course I do. I've committed my life to promoting His message. I believe that He is the way, the truth and the life. I believe the Bible when it says He is the visible likeness of the invisible God. I've chosen to believe. It's been a choice on my part and a choice on the part of so many here tonight. The uniqueness of Jesus Christ is not communicated through aggressive argument and dogmatic debate. That's the least effective way. To bring somebody to faith. People are drawn when they see the difference in you and me. That's what starts conversations. That's what prompts people to say, what is it about you? I saw the way you came through the death of your dad. I've seen the way you've handled that huge disappointment. Seen the way you've recovered after that massive loss. What is it about you? I've seen the way you talk about prayer in a very natural way. Where are you coming from? That's what makes the death. They're the sort of conversations. I had a great experience recently at the Bill Hybel's conference, which some of you know I attended a couple of weeks ago. They had all the name tags set out on the tables. I knew where I sat in the schema, things like a barely see Bill's table down there somewhere. Actually, I had a reasonable view. My heart skipped a beat when I saw I got there early and I saw that next to me was the name tag Dale Stevenson and I thought, wow, I'm sitting next to Dale Stevenson. Dale Stevenson has stood on this platform. He has preached here at a conference. Dale Stevenson's story really touched me and I was able to recall it with him when he finally arrived. Dale Stevenson told of how the Monash University, when he was a law student, he was king of the atheists. He used to rubbish Christianity like you wouldn't believe. He was a formidable foe. Even Christians would go, who would be Dale Stevenson? He's so articulate. He's got all the arguments. He's very good. And he took great pride in the fact that he could just whittle any Christian into a quivering mess pretty quickly because he just had all the arguments that demolished the Christian faith. So he thought. And then he got a Christian assigned to a room with him for one year and he thought, oh my gosh, this will be interesting. So he started to take this guy on, started to needle him, started to get under his skin. And one night this fairly shy, apparently Christian, asked a life-changing question. He said to Dale Stevenson, " Dale, you're so proud of the fact that you can cut Christians down, you know, all the arguments. You're pretty cool. You're pretty hip with all your, with the way you go about that. Let me ask you, have you ever read the Bible? And Dale Stevenson laughed at you. What? Read the Bible. What are you kidding? He said, "Well, I'm asking you, have you ever read it?" He said, "Well, of course I haven't read it, but you know, everybody knows about dinner. Fables and myths and..." He said, "Wait a minute, hang on, hang on. Whoa, you're telling me, as an aspiring academic, you have rubbished something, torn into shreds without even reading the evidence? Are you kidding me?" And Dale Stevenson said it just stopped him in his tracks. Nobody had ever, ever challenged him like that. He picked up the Bible. He started to read it. These words backed up with the, just the authenticity of this other, his roommates witness. Dale Stevenson was converted to Christ. Today, he is the minister of Crossroads Baptist Church in Melbourne, which is the largest Baptist church in the nation with about 5,000 people every Sunday. Now, guys, you wonder, you know, where do I fit in? That meant, through one question, a beautifully timed, carefully worded question, put a guy in touch with Jesus Christ. That's the power of the gospel. We talk about the exclusivity of Jesus, the uniqueness of Jesus. It's not there to be pushed onto people. It's just there to be, to be considered as a statement of clarity, as a statement of inclusion, as a statement that can transform lives. I'm coming to a close. What's the reason for the exclusivity of God through Jesus? Is it because God can't stand to have anybody else on the stage with him? Is he that threatened? Is he that precious? Sorry, it's just me only. No. It's not that at all. He has a plan. God has a plan. That's why it's exclusive. Look at Colossians 1.20, last verse of the night, "Through the sun then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his son's death on the cross, and so brought back to himself all things, both on heaven and in earth." Guys, God's got a plan. Why is this world in such a mess? Because we've lost our way. We've moved away from the blueprint. We've gone so far from the way it was in the garden, or those eons ago, that we've just lost our way. God's plan is to bring us back. Why are there people who are who are finding what real life is all about? Why are there people in this church and right across the planet finding out new life in Christ, new ways of relating, new ways of handling crises, new ways of doing life, because they've linked up with God's plan. Guys, if God's got a plan, I want to be part of it. I want to be in the center of that plan. That's why I'm a Christian. That's why I'm a Christian. If God's got a plan, I want to be part of that plan. What about you? Is that a new thought for you? God's got a plan, and it's for you personally. It is for you, personally, who wants to bring you back to himself. Therein lies, true life. Therein lies true forgiveness. Therein lies true ability to handle life no matter what it throws at you. I am the way, the truth, the life. You find your way, you find the truth, you find life with abundance. "Wow, where are you tonight? Let's bear in prayer."