IT DOES MATER WHAT YOU BELIEVE

#1 · April 27, 2006, 11:59 am

Quote from Forum Archives on April 27, 2006, 11:59 am
Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>
IT DOES MATER WHAT YOU BELIEVE

Act 4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders of Israel,

Act 4:9 if we are examined today on a good work for an infirm man, by what this one has been healed,

Act 4:10 be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in this name does this man stand before you whole.

Act 4:11 This is the Stone which you builders have counted worthless, and He has become the Head of the Corner.

Act 4:12 And there is salvation in no other One; for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

     I'd like to start off today with a story from the Old West -- an old trapper was being chased by a grizzly bear. He had dropped his gun, his pack, everything he could to lighten the load so he could run faster, but the bear was still gaining on him. Finally he was forced to make a stand. He ran into a small clearing and faced about with his back to a stump, taking out his knife as he did so. The bear also stopped: about a foot away from him, with its teeth bared and claws forward.

     The trapper, though not generally a religious man, offered up a quick prayer:

     "O God, if you're on my side, let my knife git 'im quick in 'is vitals, an' if you're on 'is side let 'im finish me first off. But, O God, if you're neutral, you just sit there on that stump, an' you'll see the darndest bear fight you ever heard tell of!"

     I think that trapper showed a lot of humility by conceding that, in a fight between him and a bear, the Lord might have been neutral. That's kind of refreshing. Almost every warrior I have ever heard about was convinced that God was on his side. Abraham Lincoln was one of the few leaders who was ever wise enough to see that the question is not, "Is God on our side?" but, "Are we on God's side?"

     I pose that question to you today because of our text. Speaking of the name of Jesus Christ, Peter declares, "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

     Peter definitely doesn't leave much room for debate here. "There is none other name. . ." None. Not Mohammed, or Moses, or Buddha, or Darwin, or Marx, or Confucius, or anybody. There is no other name by which people can be saved than the name of Jesus.

     That is a powerful statement. That's the kind of declaration that crusades are made of. You have read about the Crusades, haven't you? They happened 800 or so years ago when Christians took up the sword in the name of Jesus in order to convert Jews and Moslems to Christianity. When we are tempted to point a finger at the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, the Muslims in Bosnia, or the Palestinians and Jews in the Middle East, we must remind ourselves of the tragic intolerance and hatred in our own history.

     I must make this point to show you how easy it is to take today's text and warp it into a horrible justification to kill and make war. Still, there are some things that Jesus stood for that cause him to stand alone among the holy men of the world--things that were often distorted and even discarded by his own followers. What are some of these teachings?

THE FIRST WAS HIS REVELATION OF GOD.

The kind of God you have will determine the kind of man or woman you become. Jesus said, "When ye have seen me, ye have seen my father."   That is true of all of us. The lives we live are a reflection of the gods we worship. Some of us worship money. We might as well admit it. Some of us worship physical beauty. Others of us worship the esteem of our fellow man. The gods we worship will be reflected in the life we lead.

     There is a startling example of this truth in James Michener's book, THE SOURCE. The story centers around a hulk of a man named Urbaal, about 2200 B.C., who was a farmer and a devotee of the local religion which worshipped two deities, a god of death and goddess of fertility. One day the temple priests told Urbaal to bring his young son to the temple for sacrifice if he wanted to have good crops. Urbaal obeyed, and on the appointed day he dragged his wife and boy to the scene of the "religious execution," where the boy was to be burned alive and given to the god of death. After the sacrifice of Urbaal's boy and several others, the priests announced that one of the fathers would have spend the next week in the temple with a new temple prostitute. Urbaal's wife was stunned when she noticed a desire written across her husband's face which was more intense than she had ever seen before. And she was even more horrified to see him lunge eagerly forward when his name was called. When the ceremony was over, she walked out of the temple with her head swimming, concluding that "if he [had] had different gods, he would have been a different man." (George G. Hunter, AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS, (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1983).)

     But that is true of all of us. And it is also true of the world. All people conduct their lives according to the gods that they worship. For those who worship money, their drive is to always get more. For those who worship only themselves, their natural philosophy is one of self-indulgence.

     Lyman Abbot once rewrote the Lord's Prayer to reflect how a person without God might pray. This is what he wrote:

     "Our brethren who are on the earth, Hallowed be our name, Our Kingdom come, Our will be done, for there is no heaven. We must get this day our daily bread; We neither forgive nor are forgiven. We fear not temptation, for we deliver ourselves from evil. For ours is the kingdom and the power, for there is no glory and no forever."

     Can you see what such a philosophy could do to a person's life? And what would life be like for a person who believed in a war-like god of vengeance? Or those for whom God is a very passive god, uncaring and unmovable?

     The good news about God that Jesus revealed to us is that God is a loving and purposeful God who is involved in his creation--who notices when the smallest sparrow falls from the sky--who cares about the least and the lowest. Saints and sinners, landed gentry and outcast leper, no-one is outside his love. Indeed, God's very nature is love. Can you see what a difference that makes? If Mohammed taught that, fine. If Buddha taught that, great. If that truth is found in the Old Testament, wonderful. But nobody taught love and lived love like Jesus of Nazareth. And the world needs to know about that love because it is the hope of the world. Which is to say that Christ is the hope of the world. The world needs to know about Jesus because he reveals the nature of God.

     BUT EQUALLY IMPORTANT IS WHAT JESUS SHOWED US ABOUT MAN. IT CAN BE SUMMED UP IN TWO WORDS: "PEOPLE MATTER."

     After World War I, the American government had the bodies of four unknown soldiers brought to Washington, D.C.. Edward Younger, who was at that time a sergeant, arbitrarily selected one of these four to be buried where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier would be built. On the tomb are inscribed these words: "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."

     And those last four words are crucial: "known but to God." He is known by God because he matters. People do matter. That is what Jesus' whole life was about. That is what the cross is about. Jesus gave his life because people matter. You matter--I matter.

     Now that ought to make us feel pretty good. It helps me to feel about myself the way a young girl who delivered groceries felt about herself. One day she delivered an order to the home of a new customer, who asked her name. "Vanna White" she answered proudly. "Well," returned the woman, "that's a pretty well-known name." And the girl said, "It should be. I've been delivering groceries around here for four years."

     We do matter. But listen, my friends, so do the children of Bosnia, and the Jews and the Palestinians on the West Bank, and the blacks of South Africa. People matter. All people matter. If other religions teach the same truth, so much the better. But nobody taught it and lived it like Jesus.

     Jesus taught us that God is love. He taught us that people matter, and he gave us a commission--that we should bring all people into the family of God. Is that not what he meant when he said to make disciples of all men? I don't think he meant that we should put a gun in someone's back and get them to say "I believe in Jesus." That is simply a gross perversion of the Gospel! No, our job is to tell the world that the God who created them is a God of love. Our job is to reach out in love to all people in every religion, of every race, of every nation, because that's what he did for us.

     There is no other name by which men can be saved. I believe that Jesus reveals the nature of God, the worth of man, and our mission in the world. That is why, without apology, and without any ill-feeling towards any other person in this world, I can say that I long for the day when every child in this world can grow up singing, "Jesus loves me!"

http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod

…
  ************************************  Weekly messages of hope and comfort for those who want to learn more about Jesus and His glorious plan for our lives.  To find out more about our ministry go to : worldoutreach.ca/sotn.htm  visit our "Cartoon Site"  www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod/  *************************************                                                                            --  To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: sermonsonthenet-unsubscribe@welovegod.org  

Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>

IT DOES MATER WHAT YOU BELIEVE

Act 4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders of Israel,

Act 4:9 if we are examined today on a good work for an infirm man, by what this one has been healed,

Act 4:10 be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in this name does this man stand before you whole.

Act 4:11 This is the Stone which you builders have counted worthless, and He has become the Head of the Corner.

Act 4:12 And there is salvation in no other One; for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

I'd like to start off today with a story from the Old West -- an old trapper was being chased by a grizzly bear. He had dropped his gun, his pack, everything he could to lighten the load so he could run faster, but the bear was still gaining on him. Finally he was forced to make a stand. He ran into a small clearing and faced about with his back to a stump, taking out his knife as he did so. The bear also stopped: about a foot away from him, with its teeth bared and claws forward.

The trapper, though not generally a religious man, offered up a quick prayer:

"O God, if you're on my side, let my knife git 'im quick in 'is vitals, an' if you're on 'is side let 'im finish me first off. But, O God, if you're neutral, you just sit there on that stump, an' you'll see the darndest bear fight you ever heard tell of!"

I think that trapper showed a lot of humility by conceding that, in a fight between him and a bear, the Lord might have been neutral. That's kind of refreshing. Almost every warrior I have ever heard about was convinced that God was on his side. Abraham Lincoln was one of the few leaders who was ever wise enough to see that the question is not, "Is God on our side?" but, "Are we on God's side?"

I pose that question to you today because of our text. Speaking of the name of Jesus Christ, Peter declares, "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

Peter definitely doesn't leave much room for debate here. "There is none other name. . ." None. Not Mohammed, or Moses, or Buddha, or Darwin, or Marx, or Confucius, or anybody. There is no other name by which people can be saved than the name of Jesus.

That is a powerful statement. That's the kind of declaration that crusades are made of. You have read about the Crusades, haven't you? They happened 800 or so years ago when Christians took up the sword in the name of Jesus in order to convert Jews and Moslems to Christianity. When we are tempted to point a finger at the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, the Muslims in Bosnia, or the Palestinians and Jews in the Middle East, we must remind ourselves of the tragic intolerance and hatred in our own history.

I must make this point to show you how easy it is to take today's text and warp it into a horrible justification to kill and make war. Still, there are some things that Jesus stood for that cause him to stand alone among the holy men of the world--things that were often distorted and even discarded by his own followers. What are some of these teachings?

THE FIRST WAS HIS REVELATION OF GOD.

The kind of God you have will determine the kind of man or woman you become. Jesus said, "When ye have seen me, ye have seen my father." That is true of all of us. The lives we live are a reflection of the gods we worship. Some of us worship money. We might as well admit it. Some of us worship physical beauty. Others of us worship the esteem of our fellow man. The gods we worship will be reflected in the life we lead.

There is a startling example of this truth in James Michener's book, THE SOURCE. The story centers around a hulk of a man named Urbaal, about 2200 B.C., who was a farmer and a devotee of the local religion which worshipped two deities, a god of death and goddess of fertility. One day the temple priests told Urbaal to bring his young son to the temple for sacrifice if he wanted to have good crops. Urbaal obeyed, and on the appointed day he dragged his wife and boy to the scene of the "religious execution," where the boy was to be burned alive and given to the god of death. After the sacrifice of Urbaal's boy and several others, the priests announced that one of the fathers would have spend the next week in the temple with a new temple prostitute. Urbaal's wife was stunned when she noticed a desire written across her husband's face which was more intense than she had ever seen before. And she was even more horrified to see him lunge eagerly forward when his name was called. When the ceremony was over, she walked out of the temple with her head swimming, concluding that "if he [had] had different gods, he would have been a different man." (George G. Hunter, AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS, (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1983).)

But that is true of all of us. And it is also true of the world. All people conduct their lives according to the gods that they worship. For those who worship money, their drive is to always get more. For those who worship only themselves, their natural philosophy is one of self-indulgence.

Lyman Abbot once rewrote the Lord's Prayer to reflect how a person without God might pray. This is what he wrote:

"Our brethren who are on the earth, Hallowed be our name, Our Kingdom come, Our will be done, for there is no heaven. We must get this day our daily bread; We neither forgive nor are forgiven. We fear not temptation, for we deliver ourselves from evil. For ours is the kingdom and the power, for there is no glory and no forever."

Can you see what such a philosophy could do to a person's life? And what would life be like for a person who believed in a war-like god of vengeance? Or those for whom God is a very passive god, uncaring and unmovable?

The good news about God that Jesus revealed to us is that God is a loving and purposeful God who is involved in his creation--who notices when the smallest sparrow falls from the sky--who cares about the least and the lowest. Saints and sinners, landed gentry and outcast leper, no-one is outside his love. Indeed, God's very nature is love. Can you see what a difference that makes? If Mohammed taught that, fine. If Buddha taught that, great. If that truth is found in the Old Testament, wonderful. But nobody taught love and lived love like Jesus of Nazareth. And the world needs to know about that love because it is the hope of the world. Which is to say that Christ is the hope of the world. The world needs to know about Jesus because he reveals the nature of God.

BUT EQUALLY IMPORTANT IS WHAT JESUS SHOWED US ABOUT MAN. IT CAN BE SUMMED UP IN TWO WORDS: "PEOPLE MATTER."

After World War I, the American government had the bodies of four unknown soldiers brought to Washington, D.C.. Edward Younger, who was at that time a sergeant, arbitrarily selected one of these four to be buried where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier would be built. On the tomb are inscribed these words: "Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."

And those last four words are crucial: "known but to God." He is known by God because he matters. People do matter. That is what Jesus' whole life was about. That is what the cross is about. Jesus gave his life because people matter. You matter--I matter.

Now that ought to make us feel pretty good. It helps me to feel about myself the way a young girl who delivered groceries felt about herself. One day she delivered an order to the home of a new customer, who asked her name. "Vanna White" she answered proudly. "Well," returned the woman, "that's a pretty well-known name." And the girl said, "It should be. I've been delivering groceries around here for four years."

We do matter. But listen, my friends, so do the children of Bosnia, and the Jews and the Palestinians on the West Bank, and the blacks of South Africa. People matter. All people matter. If other religions teach the same truth, so much the better. But nobody taught it and lived it like Jesus.

Jesus taught us that God is love. He taught us that people matter, and he gave us a commission--that we should bring all people into the family of God. Is that not what he meant when he said to make disciples of all men? I don't think he meant that we should put a gun in someone's back and get them to say "I believe in Jesus." That is simply a gross perversion of the Gospel! No, our job is to tell the world that the God who created them is a God of love. Our job is to reach out in love to all people in every religion, of every race, of every nation, because that's what he did for us.

There is no other name by which men can be saved. I believe that Jesus reveals the nature of God, the worth of man, and our mission in the world. That is why, without apology, and without any ill-feeling towards any other person in this world, I can say that I long for the day when every child in this world can grow up singing, "Jesus loves me!"

http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod

…

  ************************************  Weekly messages of hope and comfort for those who want to learn more about Jesus and His glorious plan for our lives.  To find out more about our ministry go to : worldoutreach.ca/sotn.htm  visit our "Cartoon Site"  www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod/  *************************************                                                                            --  To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: sermonsonthenet-unsubscribe@welovegod.org

We Love God!

We Love God!

IT DOES MATER WHAT YOU BELIEVE