Sermon for Sunday August 26th, 2007

WHICH WAY? by Bruce Ball

Ephesians 2:8-2:9


I want you to picture something in your mind this morning. Imagine yourself going up a hill, and you know that on the other side of that hill is a cliff that drops off hundreds of feet below into a lake of burning sulpher and volcanic lava.

You know you have to get to the other side of that lake, but you do not know how you are going to do it. Then, you notice 20 different paths in front of you, all seeming to lead in the same general direction. At the beginning of each path is a person who seems very friendly, and that person is urging you to take his path.

They all seem so nice and inviting, and you just don’t know which one to take. So, which path would you take?

That symbolizes the dilemma humanity is in today. We know that our future is either going to be falling headlong into that lake of burning sulpher or finding true peace on the other side of the lake where it is safe. But, just how do we know which path to take? How do we know which is the only path to safety when all of them claim to be the one? The truth can only be found if we are willing to search for it.

There is the story of a man who took his wife and mother-in-law on a trip to visit the Holy Land. Unfortunately, while they were there, the mother-in-law suffered a heart attack and passed away. He now faced the decision to spend about ten thousand dollars to ship her back to America to be buried, or to pay less than $200.00 and have her buried in Israel.

After much consideration on his part, he decided to have her shipped back home. One of the local rabbis asked him if he was sure he wanted to spend so much money when he could have the same thing done so much cheaper over there.

The man told the rabbi that 2,000 years ago, they buried Jesus in Israel, too, but he arose on the third day, and with his mother-in-law, well, he just couldn’t take that chance.

That man knew something about the resurrection, but he didn’t know the truth, did he? That is like many people in today’s churches. They know something about Jesus, but they don’t really know Jesus.

We all seem to have an interest in the subject of life after death, and at the same time, many of us have a fear of it, too. The whole subject of life after death makes many people skittish. They feel very uncomfortable with it. That leads us into our first point of observation this morning.

1. HOW DO WE HANDLE UNCOMFORTABLE THINGS?

Have you ever noticed that when a person is very uncomfortable, or afraid of a situation, they will either make fun of it or just flatly deny it? That is what many of us do with the topic of eternity.

We are afraid of it because we do not fully understand the precepts of the afterlife, and that makes us very uncomfortable with it, so instead of trying to find out more about it, many people just deny that it exists. Or, they admit it exists, and then they make up some kind of comfortable story about how they want their personal eternity to be like.

For instance, some say that as long as you really care for others and try to do good things in your life, you will go to Heaven. Still others say that it doesn’t really matter what you do or how you are in this life, everyone will eventually find their way to Heaven.

Let me say that if you are a good person, that is fine, and if you love everyone you meet, that is fantastic – BUT – trying to rely upon either one of these to buy yourself into Heaven will not work. Heaven is not for sale. There is only one way in and you must abide by the rules or you don’t get in – it’s that simple.

And, as far as everyone getting there, let me just say, “AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN”. That is a scenario that might make someone feel comfortable and secure, but it is just a fantasy that takes the focus off Jesus.

Okay, then if we don’t get to Heaven by being loving and good to those around us, and if we are not all going to go to Heaven, just how do we get there? In other words, how do we know which path to take? The answer is actually so simple that an innocent child can understand it.

EPHESIANS 2:5, says –

‘Even when we were dead in our transgressions, we were made alive together with Christ.’

That simply means that, without Christ, we are guaranteed to take the wrong path. Now, we seem to get all upset over this and either deny it, or we get all indignant and start blaming God for it, like it is His fault we made the decision we made.

Why would we do that? If you go out and stand in the middle of the freeway at rush hour, it will not matter if you close your eyes and deny that cars are coming towards you. One of them is bound to run you down. Deny it all day long, but as soon as you feel the thump, you will become a mighty strong believer in traffic, won’t you? Of course, by then, it will be too late to avoid the consequences of your decision.

Also, once you are hit, why would you blame somebody else for letting that happen to you? I have news for you. If you make a decision to go stand in traffic; if you make a personal decision to deny that there are any cars coming toward you; you have nobody to blame but yourself when you get hit by one of them! Whose fault is it that you are there in the first place? It’s yours. So, if you choose to live without Jesus as your Savior, and you choose to live like being a Christian is against the law, how can you blame God if you suffer the consequences of that decision?

Let me ask you one question. If being a devout Christian were against the law, would there be enough evidence in your life to convict you? Think about that one.

Verse 5 also says something that is more important than I think most of us realize. It says that we have been made alive with Christ. That means that as soon as we humbly receive Christ as the Savior and Lord of our lives, we become alive with Christ. We will then live forevermore and spend our own personal eternity in Heaven – sitting at the Table of Grace with God our Father.

If we go down to vs. 8,9 it says,

‘For by grace you have been saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.’

That tells us the only way we can be saved is through the grace of God. Now, to understand what that means, we must know what the accurate definition of ‘grace’ is.

‘God giving us what we do not deserve.’

When we drop all the worldly pretenses, and just humble our hearts enough to have Jesus as or Savior, we show God that we are having faith in Him. And, when we show God that we have faith, God gives us the wonderful gift of grace. And we do not deserve His grace. We cannot buy it and we certainly cannot earn it. It is a gift. It is a gift of true love. All we can do is accept or reject it.

When we love somebody, we try to give them some kind of gift that will show just how much we love them, don’t we? That is what God does. He offers us a gift that will prove His love for us. What better gift than a gift consisting of eternal life – with Him?

Verse 9 goes on to say that this is not given to us by anything we have done, so that none of us would be able to take the credit for getting to Heaven. If we took the credit, it would be like denying that God had anything to do with it! The very simple truth is: You cannot get there without faith in Jesus.

Some years ago, a Canadian scientist by the name of Hardy wrote a book. He was not a believer in Christ, and his purpose in writing his book was actually to dispel the myth of Christ, saying nobody could have ever defeated death.

His book dealt with the destiny of mankind and the philosophy of life. At the end of the book, he asked two simple questions.

· Has anyone ever defeated physical death, and if so;
· Could it be duplicated by others?

Dr. Hardy found the answers to those two questions by reading about the resurrection, and that led him to find his own personal eternity as a believer in Christ Jesus. Dr. Hardy became a believer as he was trying to prove the story of Christ was a myth.

God is good, isn’t He? Just when you think you have it made, He does an end-run around you and pulls you into His plan of salvation. Why would He do that if He didn’t love you?

2. LIES ABOUND IN OUR LIVES

Two fishermen met up at the local coffee shop. Very quickly, as all fishermen do, they began to swap stories. The one man said he had caught a fish up at the lake that weighed 400 pounds.

The other man, not to be outdone, said he had gone fishing over on the coast in California, and his line hooked something, and when he brought her in, there was a very muddy lantern on the hook. He said it was from an old ship down below that they had been looking for, since the 1800’s. He said the lantern was all muddy, but when they cleaned it up, it had the date of 1467 engraved on the bottom.

He said that wasn’t all - - he said the light was still on! At that point, the first man said he would be willing to shave 150 pounds off the fish if the other man would douse the light.

It seems that small lies, commonly known as fibs, are a natural, and daily, part of our lives.

Turn with me to MATTHEW 28:1

We see that it was the first day of the week and Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.

All of a sudden, there was an earthquake and an angel rolled back the stone and his appearance was snow. At this point, the guards, being the hardened warriors that they were, fainted dead away because they were so scared.

The angel said that Jesus had arisen and let the women see the inside of the tomb. The Scripture says that the women then left to go tell the others that Jesus had arisen, and starting in verse 11, we see that while they were on their way, some of the guards got together with the local elders and told them what had happened.

Well, the religious leaders sure didn’t want people to fine out about this, because this would have proved that Jesus was the Son of God, so they devised this sneaky little plan to keep the truth away from everybody. This plan called for bribing the guards who were at the tomb to lie and say that the disciples came and stole the body during the night.

Why would someone be willing to do that? The answer is painfully simple. They thought it was a win-win situation for everybody. The guards got some extra money, and the religious leaders kept the status quo.

I think the reason most people lie today is to either cover something up so they do not get into trouble, or to impress someone as the two fishermen did. But, no matter "why" people lie, it always turns out to be the worst thing we can do.

If the guards had told the truth, all the people would have then realized that Jesus was, in fact, God. But they lied, didn’t they? They lied, and in so doing, they denied God by denying His Son.

In 1 JOHN 2:23, we are cautioned,

‘Whoever denies the Son, does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father, also.’

Getting back to Dr. Hardy. To answer his original questions; Yes, somebody did defeat death, and He did it in such a way as to make it duplicatible for each of us, too. Because Christ has risen, we have the hope of Heaven.

There is something that bugs me, though, because I just cannot understand it. We have what is known as a ‘survival instinct.’ Now, it would seem to me that, because of this instinct, we should always be focused on those things that will offer us life instead of death.

We read in ECCLESIASTES 3:11, that God put a yearning for eternity in the heart of man. We have the instinct, but because of the hardness of our hearts, we cannot understand it. And, what do we do with everything we cannot understand? We tend to either ignore it or deny it. And then we try to blame others for the consequences of doing so!

We have an instinct that is ingrained in our hearts; an instinct to believe, but the lie that was told so many years ago by the Roman guards is still being told today. The lie that says Jesus wasn’t resurrected. That Jesus just died. And the lie that says Jesus wasn’t the Messiah. And that leads us to conjure up another story to believe in – because above everything else, man needs some kind of hope.

In PROVERBS, we read where there is a way that seems right to man, but in the end will lead to death. The many ways we come up with to take the place of Jesus will only lead to our spiritual death.

The core of Christianity is based upon the resurrection of Jesus. Without that, Christianity is nothing but a false hope. But, with the resurrection, Christianity becomes our eternal hope and offers each of us eternal salvation through the shed blood of Christ.

The Gnostics claimed that the “Christ” came upon the “man” named Jesus, and then moments before the “man” named Jesus died, the “Christ” in him left him.

Now, if the “Christ” left Jesus, where did it go? Did it ever show up again? If it never showed up again, how do we have evidence that it even happened? See, this belief leaves many questions that just remain unanswered.

The Judaizers believed that there was no “Christ.” They believed that man, through his own good works, and if he had a really, really good heart, could get to Heaven without any other help. Again, what is the standard of good works?

And, if we get to Heaven by our good works, then we need to know what works are good enough. Where is the line between doing enough good works and almost doing enough good works? Again, too many questions remain unanswered.

There is one theory called the “swoon-theory”. That is a belief that Jesus never really died in the first place. Those that follow this theory believe that due to the loss of blood and the shock that Jesus was in, He was only thought to be dead. And, with some unknown healing, Jesus woke up on the third day and, as ill and feeble as He was, managed to roll that large rock away and walk out. This also leaves too many questions, such as, where did He go? Did He die later or what? Of course, this theory didn’t begin until a man named Vintorini made it up in the 1600’s.

In reality, Jesus was dead before they took Him from the cross. The Romans were quite efficient in doing their jobs, and they would have known very easily if He had remained alive. In short, mankind has thought of every possible scenario as to what may have happened, just to keep from acknowledging what actually did happen.

Let’s get back again to the original lie that some of Jesus’ friends stole the body while the guards were asleep. I see two problems with this right off the bat. First of all, guards were posted to guard, not sleep, and so at least one of them would have been awake at all times. Even if they were asleep, a huge stone being rolled out of the way surely would have wakened them. And, any person in the military would never admit to being asleep on watch. The lie does not hold up under scrutiny.

Secondly, if someone had stolen the body, the Romans would have put out an arrest warrant; had those people arrested and, at the least, flogged if not killed. But, no records mention any desire to arrest anyone. So, here again, we have more unanswered questions. So, by the lack of any common sense reactions, we can see that none of what happened actually made sense.

A nurse worked in the children’s ward, and she would always let the little children listen on the stethoscope to their own hearts before the doctor came in, and this would always cause the children to be amazed. One day, she put the plugs in little Jimmy’s ears and then let him put the stethoscope over his own heart. She asked Jimmy what he thought that noise was, and the boy quickly answered, with excitement in his voice, “That’s Jesus, knocking on my heart!”

That little boy knew the truth. He was innocent of the lies of the world, and therefore, he was in tune with God’s imprint on his heart. We should all be so innocent and truthful.

If we remain totally objective, and look at the entire resurrection story, the only scenario that makes sense is the truth. Jesus is the Christ, sent from Heaven as He said He was, because He did arise from the tomb of death and that right there makes the hope of man come alive.

This belief only has one unanswered question, and that is this: How did this happen? That is of God, and we are not meant to know all the technical things of God. The need to know the technicalities before we believe precludes any faith we could possibly have.

That question will remain unanswered until the day we join Jesus in the clouds. At that point, we shall understand everything that is meant or done in and through Jesus, the Christ.

3. HOW CAN WE BE SURE OF THE TRUTH?

First of all, Jesus walked the walk of truth. Truth, by its very nature, will be a confrontational type of walk. The world has its own theories as to how a person should live their life, and that theory is to be the “don’t make waves” theory. The problem with that is that by living this way, you are living a direct lie unto God. Of course, any time you decide to dispute one of the world’s lies, you are labeled a confrontationalist.

Jesus confronted a lie. He drove the merchants out of the Temple when the lie they lived came before worshiping or loving God. They found out very quickly that when one puts their profit margin above God, there would be a huge cost to pay.

In MATTHEW 23:1-3, we see where Jesus was teaching a crowd of people, and He told them that the religious rulers of that day were to be obeyed, but He warned them not to do everything they said to do, because they didn’t practice what they preached. In affect, they were living a lie. Jesus confronted that lie.

As Christians, if we are to follow the steps of Jesus (which is what every Christians is supposed to do), then we must be willing to confront any situation, or any person, that hinders the truth of Jesus Christ.

Not long ago, I ran across a woman who I knew from years ago. I used to work with her husband and they were both friends of mine. They were also avid Christians. I asked about him and she said that another man in their church had lured him into gambling at the casinos. She said that her husband got addicted to gambling and had ended up losing his job, their house, and finally their marriage.

I asked her if she had ever confronted this man before all the damage had been done, and she said that she didn’t want to make matters worse, so she didn’t. By her not confronting, the matters did they get better or worse? Let me say this again: As Christians, we have an obligation to confront anything and everything we encounter that hinders the belief in Jesus Christ. If we do not do it, we are not fulfilling our duties as Christians.

Now, I don’t mean that you have to be mean and nasty. There is an old expression that says: "It’s hard for someone to hit you when you are shaking their hand in kindness."

We do not confront with anger. We confront by offering the truth in love. But, we do offer the truth. We do not opt to be quiet and let a lie go by, since that would be offending Jesus.

MATTHEW 19:19 say to love our neighbors as ourselves. It doesn’t say love them if they are Christians. It just says to love them.

And, in ROMANS 12:9, it tells us that our love must be a sincere love. So, as we try our best to live like Christ lived, we must show the same type of love He had for others, not impatience, hatred, or intolerance.

But how can we always do this? We can’t – unless we have such a close personal relationship with Jesus that we are able to let His desires become our desires. Here is how I do it.

Every day, I ask myself this question: "Do I have a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus, or do I have a RELIGION about Jesus?"

Religion always focuses on how things “look” to others, while a relationship will always focus on how things "relate" to others.

Religion always deals with pride and how great ’I’ think ’I’ am while ’I’ am doing something. It makes me want others to notice what ’I’ am doing and to look up to me for doing it. In short, a religion will keep you from seeing the truth because your “I’s” will be too close together.

A relationship will always focus on the other person. It will always try to leave “me” out of it and put "them" in the glory seat for God to notice. There will be no pride in a relationship.

In MATTHEW 23:25,26, Jesus says that trying to impress others with how good of a Christian we are, is like cleaning the outside of the cup, but leaving the inside filthy. He tells us to clean the inside and then the outside will also be clean.

The Lord has given Christians a time – not a lot of time – but a time to get it together. The American church has gone from preaching sin and the consequences of sin, to preaching about how to relax and have an easy life. We need to get back to preaching what the old prophets did; repentance and salvation. The only other choice is being prideful and condemned.

There is the story of a man who wanted to get rid of all the mice in his house, so he bought a mousetrap. He did not have any cheese, though, so he cut out a picture of some cheese out of a magazine and put it on the mousetrap before he went to bed. The next morning, he was shocked to see a picture of a mouse where the picture of the cheese had been.

A counterfeit truth only produces counterfeit results. And if we rely upon a lie about Jesus being the Christ, we are going to end up with nothing but a lie for our spiritual lives.

The lie of yesterday is still being told today. That lie may be that people you know will emotionally persecute you if you stand up for Jesus in your life. The truth is, most people you know will never truly reject you because of your commitment to Jesus. They may not adopt the desire you have for them, but they will not reject you.

The lie may take another form. It might be that you don’t have to rush in making a decision for Jesus; that you have plenty of time to take care of that somewhere later down the road. Let me remind you that you have no idea what is going to happen to you today or tomorrow, so don’t think you can be safe and still put the most important decision of your life off until some more convenient day. That day may not come, and you know it.

You cannot get on a bus without a ticket; you cannot get on a train without a ticket; and you cannot get into Heaven without a ticket. The ticket you need is none other than Jesus Christ as your Savior. Do you have your ticket yet, or do you still think you have plenty of time to think about it later?

I encourage you to realize the differences between the lie and the truth. Have you been living the lie rather than living the truth of Jesus? You know if you have been. And you know it is time, right now, to do something about that.

You need to “fess up” to the truth about you. You need to understand that you are but one small heartbeat away from your eternity.

If you were to die right now, just how sure are you that you would go to Heaven? If you have any doubts at all, you probably won’t go. It is you who I am talking to right now.

Won’t you come to me right now? Won’t you choose to take Jesus into your heart this morning? If you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t be here, would you? So, since you have that desire, act on it. Trust your heart and act on it.