FOUNDATION OF FAITH

#1 · January 21, 2008, 9:19 am

Quote from Forum Archives on January 21, 2008, 9:19 am
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
FOUNDATION OF FAITH

January 13, 2008

Text: John 14:5-21

Last Sunday evening, I shared what I knew about a meeting being held in Atlanta at the end of this month called the New Baptist Covenant. The organizer for this event is former President Jimmy Carter. Im not going to go into the details I did last week, but I want to share a couple of portions of his letter that was published in the Atlanta Journal: On Jan. 30, as many as 20,000 Baptists are expected to gather in Atlanta for a three-day meeting. These Baptists will look for common ground under the theme Unity in Christ as they celebrate a New Baptist Covenant. One of the basic premises will be that the doors will be open to all Baptists who choose to share this long-awaited experience. Later in his letter, Jimmy Carter writes, We meet at a time when the global Christian church is numerically strong and changing rapidly, but is sadly afflicted with unnecessary divisions that sap away the strength of our collective ministry Our most notable competitors are Muslims, who comprise 20 percent of the total, growing at about the same annual rate. Jimmy Carter, Global divisions faced as Baptists plan to convene, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 12/11/07)

In contrast to what Jimmy Carter portrays as Christianitys main competitor, and other religions do compete, Dr. David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, recently described a different competitor of Christianity. We are awash with spiritualities of every conceivable kind. In America, six out of ten people say that in lifes crises, they depend on the power within. They are thinking about the natural connection with the sacred. More than half say that the only truth is the truth of private experience, in contrast with the external truth in Scripture. That is why many say they are spiritual and not religious religious, meaning accepting doctrines that someone else has determined, rules that someone else has devised or institutions such as church where expectations fall upon them. I believe that this spirituality which is emerging throughout the West is the major competitor of Christianity. (Jeff Robinson, Differing Spiritualities Compete for Souls, Pulpit Helps, November 2007, p. 1)

I think that Dr. Wells makes an excellent case. We have taken to turning our God-given freedoms away from glorifying and serving the Creator and turn them into another method of self-help. This type of spirituality, which Dr. Wells speaks of as spirituality from below, seeks God on the sinners terms. In other words, each believer gets to define Biblical terms such as sin, obedience, and discipleship in his or her own way. To demonstrate his point, Dr. Wells cites that eight in ten Americans do not believe in original sin as taught in Scripture. This denial of Scriptural truth is not the domain of secularists alone; the denial is shared by fifty percent of Christians! An attribute of spirituality from below is that its practitioners come to God on their own terms seeking to take from God only what they desire or believe they need. While someone may feel the need to call upon God to see them safely through rising flood waters, for instance, this same person may feel no need at all to seek Gods strength in overcoming a temptation to commit adultery. Indeed, this person is likely to be angry at the believer who even hints that he or she is not living in a manner pleasing to God. After all, who are you to tell me how to believe?

In stark contrast to the error of spirituality from below, Scripture is filled with the truth of spirituality from above. This spirituality is centered in the gospel truth of the sovereign God reaching down to love and redeem unlovely and unworthy sinners. Spirituality as properly comprehended from Scripture is not about me or anyone else seeking a God for the purpose of scratching my immediate itch; it is, instead, my recognition that my human spirit has no sufficiency in itself, that I am born dead in sin, that God alone lifts me from my desperate predicament, and that my faith in God is made complete by Gods terms, not by my terms.

The Christian faith has only one foundation, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. John 14 sets this before us in no uncertain terms: I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. These two sentences alone in verse 6 set Christians distinctly apart from every other religion and errant Christian doctrine. Christianity is the only faith which teaches that our salvation comes not from our personal works of righteousness, but from the personal sacrifice of God incarnate. It is only through this particular sacrifice that we can see the Father. Even though we can accurately call this a relationship with Jesus, do not be fooled into thinking that religion, as truth testified from Scripture, does not play a role.

You have probably heard protests to the particularity of Jesus as savior in terms similar to this: Well, it doesnt matter what we believe as long as were trying to get to the same place. This is characteristic of spirituality from below. It is also characteristic of a faith without a foundation. I believe that Hinduism has used the illustration of mountain climbers scaling a mountain to verbalize this concept. It is an illustration that has been adopted pretty much by everyone practicing spirituality from below. No matter from which side the climbers start to scale the peak, they all arrive at the same point. So it is with religion. No matter what religion is used to get there, all people sincere to their faith arrive at the same destination.

It is, of course, a terrible analogy. Consider, for instance, that most climbers use one particular face of a mountain to scale it. They comprehend completely that their chance of success is greatly enhanced by scaling the face that provides the best features for climbing. Likewise, they comprehend completely that their chance of success is greatly diminished if they choose a face that poses every obstacle imaginable to the climb. Additionally, even if there exists more than one face that is suitable to climb, they still follow the same foundational basics of mountain climbing regardless of which side is chosen. Someone may choose a south face over a north face, but they are still going to make the same preparation and use the same equipment. In other words, there are foundational principles in mountain climbing that need to be taken seriously if the climber expects to achieve success.

This is not to imply or say that we are to try to isolate ourselves from everyone else and every other belief. People with differing doctrines and beliefs can and should work together for common goals. For instance, a community might want to improve the literacy of their children by starting a volunteer reading program with them. There is nothing that prohibits a Christian from working on this goal with an atheist or a pagan. We are called to be witnesses, not hermits. But this is not the same as sharing an act of worship with someone who rejects the foundation of the Christian faith and spirituality from above. Unfortunately, some pastors who minister as Christians feel differently on this matter. In the name of unity, they believe it proper to share in religious services of worship and even communion with pagans, Muslims, Buddhists, and many other incompatible beliefs. The house of Christ can have but one foundation: Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.

With our footing on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ, we seek God on His terms and not on ours. Jesus instructs his disciples here, If you love me, you will obey what I command. This is not self-centered spirituality; this is Christ-centered spirituality. This is foundational spirituality, or spirituality from above. God is not the topic of some pollster; He is the Creator, the Living God who comes to judge the living and the dead. God has demonstrated His divine love for us, make no mistake about that. But we make a fatal mistake if we believe that Gods love has no room for judgment or for correction if we stray from His truth. Gods love for His people Israel never disappeared, but I would have hated to have been in their shoes when they were punished for going astray.

Nowhere in Scripture are we told that after believing in Christ, we can go our own way. In fact, Scripture tells us just the opposite. Jesus tells us just the opposite. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. This is not difficult to comprehend, is it? How can we expect otherwise? We can talk of love all we want, but if our actions break faith or harm the one we say we love, then we do not love. I have spoken of my love for America on a variety of occasions. No matter how passionate I was in speech, who here would believe that I had any love for America if I had sold secrets to Soviet KGB agents during the time I served on submarines and had access to classified material? It would be ludicrous for me to claim any kind of love for country under those circumstances, and it would be equally ludicrous for you to believe that I love my country if I committed that treason. Which, for the record, I did not. Just want you to be sure of that.

So how much love for Jesus does a person have who calls upon God to keep him safe during rising floodwaters, but reject the need to repent from sinful behavior? Or even recognize that there is such a thing as sin? My answer is that such a person does not have much love at all for Jesus, no matter how much he says he does. Jesus makes it clear: If you love me, you will obey what I command. Love and obedience go hand in hand.

This does not mean that Christians are supposed to act like legalistic Pharisees. Jesus made that perfectly clear as well. So how does all this work then? I wish I could provide you the definitive answer, but better Bible scholars and theologians than me have been struggling with this for centuries. So Ill give you my take, which I believe is compatible with Scripture, and we can all struggle together.

Arriving at any kind of answer goes back to my topic for this sermon: our faith the Christian faith is built upon a foundation. If we stray from that foundation, our faith building is bound to be error-filled. If we remain on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, our faith building is going to be true and exhibit our love for him. One of the truths about the miracle of salvation is that Gods Son paid the price for our sin. We can never stray from that foundational truth. I know full well that all of us want everyone else to see us as good guys, and I hope everyone here wants to be a good guy or gal, but God does not judge us from anyone elses perspective. He judges us from His perspective alone, which is holy, righteous, and perfect. And from His perspective, we are sinners, not good guys and gals. We are disobedient, rebellious, sinful children. Foundational truth.

At the same time, God still has compassion for His created. He loves us, even when we do not love Him. You know His solution: He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. God, and God alone, provides the way out of our sinful quagmire. This is what the disciples call good news the gospel. Because Jesus bore our sin even to the pain of crucifixion on a cross, we have been given a new lease on life. Even though we could not in any way, shape, or form remove the stain of sin from our life, God did it for us by accepting the sacrifice of His beloved Son as payment for the penalty of our sin. So it is through Jesus the Christ that we are saved. This is what he meant by saying, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. This is the foundation of faith.

Now then, those who know, believe, and accept this as the foundation for his or her life commits himself or herself to a loving relationship with Jesus. When we accept Jesus saving love for us, then we also commit our love to him in return. This is both duty and volition. Duty, in that we either strive to live in Gods will, or we strive to rebel against Gods will. Volition, in that our normal response to someone who so overwhelmingly loves us is to love him in return. The New Testament makes plain John 14 being one of those places that to love is to obey. Therefore, obedience to Christ is not a code to be legalistically carried out; it is our act of love. We are always caught in the tension of judging others or letting sin rage, but we can deal with this when we remember our great foundation of faith. Just like Jesus story of the unjust steward, it is not up to me to be pardoned by the Lord and then go prancing around everyone else with a holier-than-thou attitude. Anyone needing a lesson in humility before God can try repeating this: No one is more sinful than I am. No matter what my sin or your sin might have been, they all sent Jesus to the cross. No one is more sinful than I am. Now the antidote to the other extreme, false self-pity, is another brief sentence you can repeat: No one is more forgiven than I am. No matter what my sin or your sin might have been, Jesus covered them all on the cross.

This is my inadequate attempt to put into balance the twin truths of Scripture that only Jesus saves us and that we are to live obediently for Christ. They are not separate doctrines; neither are they doctrines from which we pick and choose at our own whim. The only proper spirituality we can accept and display is spirituality from above which is placed firmly upon the foundation of faith. Says Dr. Wells, In the contemporary spiritualities, people talk because there is no one who has spoken. In Christian spirituality, we listen because the living God has spoken to us in His Word and His Son. It is all about Christ to the exclusion of all contemporary spiritualities. It is not about the sinner. God will not be had on the sinners terms. God is had only on His own terms, and that is through Christ and His grace. This is a glorious message of freedom, because now [in the gospel of grace] we finally have been released from all our striving which ended up empty. (Jeff Robinson, Differing Spiritualities Compete for Souls, Pulpit Helps, November 2007, p. 6) As Jesus puts it, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

170 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com
-- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: abesermons-unsubscribe@welovegod.org   

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

FOUNDATION OF FAITH

January 13, 2008

Text: John 14:5-21

Last Sunday evening, I shared what I knew about a meeting being held in Atlanta at the end of this month called the New Baptist Covenant. The organizer for this event is former President Jimmy Carter. Im not going to go into the details I did last week, but I want to share a couple of portions of his letter that was published in the Atlanta Journal: On Jan. 30, as many as 20,000 Baptists are expected to gather in Atlanta for a three-day meeting. These Baptists will look for common ground under the theme Unity in Christ as they celebrate a New Baptist Covenant. One of the basic premises will be that the doors will be open to all Baptists who choose to share this long-awaited experience. Later in his letter, Jimmy Carter writes, We meet at a time when the global Christian church is numerically strong and changing rapidly, but is sadly afflicted with unnecessary divisions that sap away the strength of our collective ministry Our most notable competitors are Muslims, who comprise 20 percent of the total, growing at about the same annual rate. Jimmy Carter, Global divisions faced as Baptists plan to convene, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 12/11/07)

In contrast to what Jimmy Carter portrays as Christianitys main competitor, and other religions do compete, Dr. David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, recently described a different competitor of Christianity. We are awash with spiritualities of every conceivable kind. In America, six out of ten people say that in lifes crises, they depend on the power within. They are thinking about the natural connection with the sacred. More than half say that the only truth is the truth of private experience, in contrast with the external truth in Scripture. That is why many say they are spiritual and not religious religious, meaning accepting doctrines that someone else has determined, rules that someone else has devised or institutions such as church where expectations fall upon them. I believe that this spirituality which is emerging throughout the West is the major competitor of Christianity. (Jeff Robinson, Differing Spiritualities Compete for Souls, Pulpit Helps, November 2007, p. 1)

I think that Dr. Wells makes an excellent case. We have taken to turning our God-given freedoms away from glorifying and serving the Creator and turn them into another method of self-help. This type of spirituality, which Dr. Wells speaks of as spirituality from below, seeks God on the sinners terms. In other words, each believer gets to define Biblical terms such as sin, obedience, and discipleship in his or her own way. To demonstrate his point, Dr. Wells cites that eight in ten Americans do not believe in original sin as taught in Scripture. This denial of Scriptural truth is not the domain of secularists alone; the denial is shared by fifty percent of Christians! An attribute of spirituality from below is that its practitioners come to God on their own terms seeking to take from God only what they desire or believe they need. While someone may feel the need to call upon God to see them safely through rising flood waters, for instance, this same person may feel no need at all to seek Gods strength in overcoming a temptation to commit adultery. Indeed, this person is likely to be angry at the believer who even hints that he or she is not living in a manner pleasing to God. After all, who are you to tell me how to believe?

In stark contrast to the error of spirituality from below, Scripture is filled with the truth of spirituality from above. This spirituality is centered in the gospel truth of the sovereign God reaching down to love and redeem unlovely and unworthy sinners. Spirituality as properly comprehended from Scripture is not about me or anyone else seeking a God for the purpose of scratching my immediate itch; it is, instead, my recognition that my human spirit has no sufficiency in itself, that I am born dead in sin, that God alone lifts me from my desperate predicament, and that my faith in God is made complete by Gods terms, not by my terms.

The Christian faith has only one foundation, and that foundation is Jesus Christ. John 14 sets this before us in no uncertain terms: I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. These two sentences alone in verse 6 set Christians distinctly apart from every other religion and errant Christian doctrine. Christianity is the only faith which teaches that our salvation comes not from our personal works of righteousness, but from the personal sacrifice of God incarnate. It is only through this particular sacrifice that we can see the Father. Even though we can accurately call this a relationship with Jesus, do not be fooled into thinking that religion, as truth testified from Scripture, does not play a role.

You have probably heard protests to the particularity of Jesus as savior in terms similar to this: Well, it doesnt matter what we believe as long as were trying to get to the same place. This is characteristic of spirituality from below. It is also characteristic of a faith without a foundation. I believe that Hinduism has used the illustration of mountain climbers scaling a mountain to verbalize this concept. It is an illustration that has been adopted pretty much by everyone practicing spirituality from below. No matter from which side the climbers start to scale the peak, they all arrive at the same point. So it is with religion. No matter what religion is used to get there, all people sincere to their faith arrive at the same destination.

It is, of course, a terrible analogy. Consider, for instance, that most climbers use one particular face of a mountain to scale it. They comprehend completely that their chance of success is greatly enhanced by scaling the face that provides the best features for climbing. Likewise, they comprehend completely that their chance of success is greatly diminished if they choose a face that poses every obstacle imaginable to the climb. Additionally, even if there exists more than one face that is suitable to climb, they still follow the same foundational basics of mountain climbing regardless of which side is chosen. Someone may choose a south face over a north face, but they are still going to make the same preparation and use the same equipment. In other words, there are foundational principles in mountain climbing that need to be taken seriously if the climber expects to achieve success.

This is not to imply or say that we are to try to isolate ourselves from everyone else and every other belief. People with differing doctrines and beliefs can and should work together for common goals. For instance, a community might want to improve the literacy of their children by starting a volunteer reading program with them. There is nothing that prohibits a Christian from working on this goal with an atheist or a pagan. We are called to be witnesses, not hermits. But this is not the same as sharing an act of worship with someone who rejects the foundation of the Christian faith and spirituality from above. Unfortunately, some pastors who minister as Christians feel differently on this matter. In the name of unity, they believe it proper to share in religious services of worship and even communion with pagans, Muslims, Buddhists, and many other incompatible beliefs. The house of Christ can have but one foundation: Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.

With our footing on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ, we seek God on His terms and not on ours. Jesus instructs his disciples here, If you love me, you will obey what I command. This is not self-centered spirituality; this is Christ-centered spirituality. This is foundational spirituality, or spirituality from above. God is not the topic of some pollster; He is the Creator, the Living God who comes to judge the living and the dead. God has demonstrated His divine love for us, make no mistake about that. But we make a fatal mistake if we believe that Gods love has no room for judgment or for correction if we stray from His truth. Gods love for His people Israel never disappeared, but I would have hated to have been in their shoes when they were punished for going astray.

Nowhere in Scripture are we told that after believing in Christ, we can go our own way. In fact, Scripture tells us just the opposite. Jesus tells us just the opposite. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. This is not difficult to comprehend, is it? How can we expect otherwise? We can talk of love all we want, but if our actions break faith or harm the one we say we love, then we do not love. I have spoken of my love for America on a variety of occasions. No matter how passionate I was in speech, who here would believe that I had any love for America if I had sold secrets to Soviet KGB agents during the time I served on submarines and had access to classified material? It would be ludicrous for me to claim any kind of love for country under those circumstances, and it would be equally ludicrous for you to believe that I love my country if I committed that treason. Which, for the record, I did not. Just want you to be sure of that.

So how much love for Jesus does a person have who calls upon God to keep him safe during rising floodwaters, but reject the need to repent from sinful behavior? Or even recognize that there is such a thing as sin? My answer is that such a person does not have much love at all for Jesus, no matter how much he says he does. Jesus makes it clear: If you love me, you will obey what I command. Love and obedience go hand in hand.

This does not mean that Christians are supposed to act like legalistic Pharisees. Jesus made that perfectly clear as well. So how does all this work then? I wish I could provide you the definitive answer, but better Bible scholars and theologians than me have been struggling with this for centuries. So Ill give you my take, which I believe is compatible with Scripture, and we can all struggle together.

Arriving at any kind of answer goes back to my topic for this sermon: our faith the Christian faith is built upon a foundation. If we stray from that foundation, our faith building is bound to be error-filled. If we remain on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, our faith building is going to be true and exhibit our love for him. One of the truths about the miracle of salvation is that Gods Son paid the price for our sin. We can never stray from that foundational truth. I know full well that all of us want everyone else to see us as good guys, and I hope everyone here wants to be a good guy or gal, but God does not judge us from anyone elses perspective. He judges us from His perspective alone, which is holy, righteous, and perfect. And from His perspective, we are sinners, not good guys and gals. We are disobedient, rebellious, sinful children. Foundational truth.

At the same time, God still has compassion for His created. He loves us, even when we do not love Him. You know His solution: He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. God, and God alone, provides the way out of our sinful quagmire. This is what the disciples call good news the gospel. Because Jesus bore our sin even to the pain of crucifixion on a cross, we have been given a new lease on life. Even though we could not in any way, shape, or form remove the stain of sin from our life, God did it for us by accepting the sacrifice of His beloved Son as payment for the penalty of our sin. So it is through Jesus the Christ that we are saved. This is what he meant by saying, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. This is the foundation of faith.

Now then, those who know, believe, and accept this as the foundation for his or her life commits himself or herself to a loving relationship with Jesus. When we accept Jesus saving love for us, then we also commit our love to him in return. This is both duty and volition. Duty, in that we either strive to live in Gods will, or we strive to rebel against Gods will. Volition, in that our normal response to someone who so overwhelmingly loves us is to love him in return. The New Testament makes plain John 14 being one of those places that to love is to obey. Therefore, obedience to Christ is not a code to be legalistically carried out; it is our act of love. We are always caught in the tension of judging others or letting sin rage, but we can deal with this when we remember our great foundation of faith. Just like Jesus story of the unjust steward, it is not up to me to be pardoned by the Lord and then go prancing around everyone else with a holier-than-thou attitude. Anyone needing a lesson in humility before God can try repeating this: No one is more sinful than I am. No matter what my sin or your sin might have been, they all sent Jesus to the cross. No one is more sinful than I am. Now the antidote to the other extreme, false self-pity, is another brief sentence you can repeat: No one is more forgiven than I am. No matter what my sin or your sin might have been, Jesus covered them all on the cross.

This is my inadequate attempt to put into balance the twin truths of Scripture that only Jesus saves us and that we are to live obediently for Christ. They are not separate doctrines; neither are they doctrines from which we pick and choose at our own whim. The only proper spirituality we can accept and display is spirituality from above which is placed firmly upon the foundation of faith. Says Dr. Wells, In the contemporary spiritualities, people talk because there is no one who has spoken. In Christian spirituality, we listen because the living God has spoken to us in His Word and His Son. It is all about Christ to the exclusion of all contemporary spiritualities. It is not about the sinner. God will not be had on the sinners terms. God is had only on His own terms, and that is through Christ and His grace. This is a glorious message of freedom, because now [in the gospel of grace] we finally have been released from all our striving which ended up empty. (Jeff Robinson, Differing Spiritualities Compete for Souls, Pulpit Helps, November 2007, p. 6) As Jesus puts it, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

170 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

http://www.bhfirstbaptist.com

-- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: abesermons-unsubscribe@welovegod.org