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Christianity
Explored – Week 1
Christianity is Christ
You’ve been discussing some very big issues on
your table groups.
I don’t know what all your questions are: some
may be real matters of the heart – others may be tricky issues for the
head. Whatever they are, I hope
you make some progress with them over the next 8 weeks. Obviously in 15 minutes we can barely
even raise these questions. But we
hope that asking these questions now gives you the opportunity to put
your issues on the agenda, and we hope over the next 8 weeks we can address
those issues.
Let me say a few things about those
questions. One is – WE TAKE THEM
SERIOUSLY. If they're important to
you, they're important to us. Americans
have a phrase – they say ‘Don’t give a 50 cent answer to a million dollar
question.’ You have million dollar
questions. We don’t want to give
you 50 cent answers. If it sounds
like we’re giving a 50 cent answer, pipe up and let’s keep wrestling with
them.
Because another thing to say about your
questions is – WE DON’T WANT TO RUN FROM THEM. We don’t need to flinch from tough
questions. God is big enough to
take questions. And I hope you’ll
get to see over the 8 weeks that you don’t check your brain in at the
door when you come to church.
Christianity is for thinking people. You will need all your grey matter to
think through these big issues.
Questions are welcome – they help us go deeper.
Perhaps a third thing to say about those
questions is: CHRISTIANS ALSO HAVE QUESTIONS. I hope you noticed, as we went around
that your table leaders have questions too. Big ones. Christians are not those who have all
the answers. Christians are people
who trust their questions to Jesus – because we’ve been persuaded that He has the answers – even if we
don’t. But Christians still have
questions.
It’s a bit like marriage. When you stand at the front of church
and make marriage vows to each other, do you know everything about the
other person?
No. Which
is what makes the first year of marriage so very interesting. In fact in every year of marriage you
have big questions you want to ask: “Why on earth do you keep doing
that?!”, “How can you possibly live like that?!”, “What goes through your
head that you would say that?!”
Big, big questions. And
we’ll never get all the answers.
But here’s the thing, at some point when you
were first going out with that person you said ‘I don’t know everything
about them, but I know enough to trust them.’ I don’t know everything, but I know
enough to trust them.
It’s the same with Christianity. A Christian is
not someone who has all the answers.
But a Christian is someone who – after asking a lot of questions
– now knows Jesus enough to trust
Him. And we go on asking questions
– but this time we ask them the way a married couple does – we ask them
from inside the relationship.
Ok so a few things to remember about these
questions: We take your questions seriously. We don’t need to run from them because
God is big enough to handle them.
But becoming a Christian is not about getting all the answers, but
it’s about knowing enough to trust your questions to Jesus.
Ok well then where do we begin? Have you ever had a discussion with
somebody about God and half an hour into the discussion you realize that
you’re talking about very different things. When you say ‘God’ you mean one thing, when they say ‘God’ they
mean something quite different.
Very often when ‘God’ is brought up as a topic of conversation, I
want to say ‘Sorry, WHICH GOD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?’
When people use the word ‘God’
· sometimes god is outside the universe
· sometimes he is universe
· sometimes he's a personal god
· sometimes an impersonal god
· sometimes he is three persons
· sometimes he is one person
· sometimes he tells you to sacrifice your children for him
· sometimes he tells you ‘please don’t do that’
· sometimes he is many gods
· sometimes he is me
· sometimes "he" is a "she".
Which God are you talking about?
My parents had the inspired thought to name me
after my father. Glen isn't my
real name –my real name is John Glenfield Scrivener. Apparently my parents thought that John
Glenfield was such a great name they wanted to inflict it on yet another
generation of Scrivener. Which is
a nice gesture. But because of
this, I have my father's name, which, you know is a nice gesture. But I reckon, adding it up, I've spent
6 months solidly in my life explaining to people the deal with my
name. I'll go somewhere and say my
name is Glen, and they'll say "Oh but your name on the form is
John", and I'll say "Yes, but that's my dad's name so I just
call myself Glen." So they
say, "Why did you parents give you your dad's name?" And I say
"It's a nice gesture."
And they say "Well why don't you just call yourself John
Glenfield junior?" And I say,
"Well technically that's my dad because, guess what, my
grandfather's name is also John Glenfield Scrivener." As you can see- creativity runs in my
family. Anyway it's all…. A very
nice gesture. But it's also very
confusing. People say a thousand
things about John Glenfield Scrivener, some of them might be true of me,
but actually those words might well be describing another person
entirely.
And the same thing happens when people discuss
God. You can have hours of
discussion about ‘God’ and be talking about entirely different gods.
And it can just be very confusing. There are all these gods out there on
the market. Which to choose?
I think Spike Milligan said it best. Do you know Spike Milligan? One of my comedy heroes. He always said on his gravestone he
wanted the words “See I told you I was ill!”. Anyway, Spike was once asked, ‘Spike,
do you ever pray?’ and he answered, ‘Yes, I do pray desperately all the
time, but I’ve no idea who I’m praying to.’
Is that you?
I think that is where millions of people are when it comes to God. Something’s up there, I send up a
prayer – but I have no idea who I’m praying to.
The bible says, We can know. We can know the God of the
universe. In fact it is the very
highest, the very best, the very greatest thing you can ever do in life
to know – really know – your Maker.
That is really a stunning claim.
But it’s written on every page of the bible.
Why don’t we turn to our bibles now and just
read one verse from it.
If you are not familiar with the bible. This book is actually 66 little books,
written by different people in different places, but all of them KNEW God
and they all wrote about how you can know God too. The book of the bible we are going to
read is Mark’s Gospel. Page
___. Now a gospel is a biography
of Jesus. And there are four of
them: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
They were written either by Jesus’ own followers (Matthew and John
were followers of Jesus, called disciples). Or, like Luke and Mark, they were
written by people who collected together the first-hand eye-witness
accounts of the disciples. Mark’s
gospel is written down from the recollections of Jesus’ chief follower,
called Peter. So Mark is writing
down what Peter experienced of his time with Jesus. We are going to spend our time in the
next 8 weeks going through Mark’s gospel.
But here is how this gospel begins:
Mark chapter 1, verse 1 says: ‘The beginning of
the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’
The word gospel there just means "good
news"- Mark wants to tell us that the coming of Jesus Christ into
the world is good news. The
message of Christianity is good news.
It’s an announcement of things that have happened that are good
for us. FREE CARIBBEAN HOLIDAYS
FOR EVERYONE – that would be good news.
It’s an announcement that gladdens your heart when you hear
it. It’s gospel like that. Mark has written a whole book
announcing good news. And we’re
going to unpack why it’s good news over the course of 8 weeks. But in verse 1, Mark boils down the
essence of the good news. The good
news is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The good news is Jesus has come.
That’s good news.
Because the whole Bible is clear – Jesus Christ
is our Maker, our Saviour, our Judge.
Jesus Christ was there at the beginning – creating all things with
His Father and the Holy Spirit. He
came in the middle of history 2000 years ago. And He’ll come again at the end. Jesus is the beginning, middle and end
of this world – and Mark says Good News: He has come.
Why is that good news? Well we shoot our prayers
up to God-knows-where – but He has come down. We guess about who is God and what’s He
like – Jesus turns up and says look at me. I am the beginning and the end of your
quest for God. There’s good news –
we don’t have to think our way up to heaven (we can’t do it anyway). The good news is – He has come down.
Last year I was involved in an internet
discussion about the meaning of a particular song. I thought it meant one thing, other
people thought it meant something else.
And we all thought we knew the mind of the author. We all presumed
to know what motivated him, what was in his head as he wrote. And so the discussion raged on for days
as internet discussions often do.
And you can guess what happened next. The author of the song showed up on the
internet discussion and he said ‘This is why I wrote the song, this is
what I was thinking, this is what it means.’ I have to say it really spoiled our
fun. He ruined everything. We all wish he hadn’t commented. We were having a great time speculating
and he comes along and blows our speculation out of the water. But now I know what the song
means. Now I really know.
Mark chapter 1 verse 1 says: Your Maker has
broken into this world, His name is Jesus and He shows you what God and life
and everything is about. All our
great questions about life and meaning find a meeting place in the Person of Jesus. He is the
absolute centre.
Mark boils down the good news to its bare
minimum and says the good news is Jesus.
Jesus IS good news. If
there’s one phrase I’d like you to take away from tonight it’s this:
CHRISTIANITY IS CHRIST.
Christianity is not
· church services
· men wearing funny frocks and chanting;
· rules
· rituals
· being nice
· beautiful buildings.
CHRISTIANITY IS CHRIST
That’s how Mark 1:1 boils down the good
news. Christianity is Christ. At the heart of it all is a Person –
Jesus.
It’s a personal thing. Therefore to be a Christian is to be in
a personal relationship with Jesus.
It is to know Him and be known by Him. Christianity is therefore not about
rules or rituals or religious philosophy – it’s a relationship with Jesus
because Christianity IS Christ.
So really the question, ‘Are you a Christian?’
is the same as the question ‘Do you know Jesus?’ Do you see how personal it is? But if Christianity IS Christ – then
that’s absolutely central. It’s
Personal
But if it’s Personal, if Christianity is Christ,
if it’s all about a relationship with Jesus, then let me give you three
quick implications as we close.
First – because it’s personal, all your
questions that you’ve been discussing on tables, all those questions and
thousands more, find their answer in Jesus Himself. If you’ve asked about what God’s like? Look to Jesus. If you want to know what heaven’s like? Look to Jesus, He ought to know, He’s
come from there. If you want to
know about suffering – Look to Jesus, He knows all about suffering. If you’ve got questions about the bible
– Look to Jesus, He wrote the thing and then He shows us how to read it. Whatever your questions are – there is
an answer in Jesus. And that’s
where we are going to look for our answers.
Jesus is our explanation. The bible calls Him the Word of God –
He is the explanation of God. And
He’s the explanation we want.
At heart we want an explanation for life that is
personal. Some people try to
explain life by pointing to an ancient explosion – as though that
is the EXPLANATION for all things.
Or they point to an equation or some abstract truth. Some people want to tell you that there
is no explanation – everything in your life is just meaningless stuff
that happens. But the bible
insists that if you put your finger on the pulse of reality you’d find a
Person. A Person of love, a Person
of faithfulness, a Person you can trust and know – a Person called
Jesus.
So that’s the first implication – if
Christianity is Christ, if it’s about a relationship with Jesus, then we
know where to look to find our answers.
We know that at the bottom of all things we won’t find meaninglessness,
we will find a Person who loves us.
The second implication – if Christianity is
about a personal relationship – then at some point Jesus is going to
contradict you. I want you to be
ready for that. In the next 8 weeks,
Jesus is going to contradict you – and He’s going to contradict me. As we study His life and teaching, He’s
going to do and say things that all of us in this room will go – ‘Wait,
wait, wait – you can’t do that!
You can’t say that!’ But I
tell you – He has to contradict us, or it’s not a real relationship.
Do you ever hear those married couples who get
to their 40th wedding anniversary and as they’re cutting the
cake they say ‘We’ve never once had an argument.’ Have you ever heard liars like
that? Lying through their teeth –
never had an argument. That could
only be true if they’d never spoken.
But if they had a real relationship then they had arguments, they
contradicted each other. It just
has to be that way.
Some of you may have seen the film ‘The Stepford
Wives’. It was a film in 1975
remade in 2004 about a couple who move into the town of Stepford and are
amazed that all the wives in this town are impossibly blond and
impossibly subservient – at their husband’s beck and call 24/7. And of course it’s actually very
sinister because it turns out these Stepford Wives have a computer
microchip fitted in their heads that makes them a slave. These husbands have decided they never
want to be contradicted by their wives, and so they make them robots
really. What’s the price they pay
– well they don’t have a relationship anymore. But do you see the trade-off. If you want a real relationship –
you’re going to be contradicted.
If you don’t want to be contradicted – then what you’re saying is,
I don’t want a real relationship.
But, here’s the thing. Jesus is offering us a real
relationship. The thing is – we
want to make Him into a Stepford Jesus.
We are all tempted to say to Jesus – Jesus I’m happy for you to do
and say this, but I won’t allow you to do or say this. We decide that Jesus is allowed to say
anything we already agree with.
But we tell Him – You’re not allowed to contradict me. But if we do that – we kiss goodbye to
the relationship.
You will read things in Mark’s gospel and that will
contradict how you normally think.
But if the God we are seeking is only big enough to fit into the
box we have for him – then we’re clearly not seeking after the true
God. If God is GOD then He’s going
to be way outside our puny boxes.
But don’t be afraid of that.
Think to yourself – this is what a relationship is made of. Relationships are made of
contradictions, disagreements, struggles.
And you accept that those disagreements are going to come. And in the end you move through them
because you trust the other person.
So Christianity is a real relationship with
Jesus – but that means you should be ready to be contradicted – that’s
part of a healthy relationship.
And finally, if Christianity is Christ – if it’s
about a relationship with Jesus, then it’s going to take time. Relationships take time don’t they?
So as I finish, I just want to encourage you to
make time to investigate Jesus.
Will you carve out the next 7 Tuesday nights to think about these
things? Relationships are worth
investing in – will you make time?
And in between our Tuesday nights we’re going to ask you to read
small portions from Mark’s gospel so that Mark can introduce Jesus to
you. It’s our prayer that as you read Mark, Jesus will show Himself to
you in a powerful and personal way.
He’s certainly done that in my life, and He longs to do it in
yours. But will you make some time
to open the bible. Relationships
take time, but this one is very worth it.
Ok – so Christianity IS CHRIST. Seek your answers in Him, don’t be
surprised when He contradicts you and make time for this, because a
relationship with Jesus is the heart of all things.
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