Reasons to Believe: Part 3

Reasons to Believe - Part 3

Helping People to Believe

 Pastor Rollan Fisher

Focus: Jesus came to seek and save the lost - and so should we.  

The Process 

The Problems 

The Perspective that Leads to Jesus 

The Process

Everyone is in process. 

You are part of a line of people helping people to come to faith in Jesus Christ.  

Jesus said that there is spiritual food to eat that you will only taste when you join him in making him known (Philemon 6). 

John‬ ‭4‬:‭32‬-‭38‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

When loving people intentionally with the gospel, you are either doing the hard work or reaping the fruit of the hard work of others - nothing is in vain. 

Without someone doing the hard work, there will be no reaping.  

Engels Scale 

The Problems

When God is in pursuit, he helps address the obstacles that we have keeping us from him with his intentional love, wisdom and grace. 

I had objections to the faith but God was in pursuit. 

Issue #1: 

I had skepticism in a world of options. 

Skepticism works, until it doesn’t. 

“You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.”

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Luke‬ ‭19‬:‭1‬-‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, "He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner." And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."

Intentional friendship matters in helping people meet Jesus.  

It is how Jesus treated Zacchaeus and how we are to treat others. 

Issue #2: 

I had motive for a lack of morality. 

"I had motive for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. … For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political." --Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (London: Chatto & Windus, 1946), pp. 270, 273

John‬ ‭3‬:‭17‬-‭21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

Issue #3: 

I had to allow Jesus to cross my intellect and my will. 

Who’s to say?

(In response to my questions following are Timothy Keller quotes):

“If the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak, then these things are perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust?”

Would God ever cross me?

“To stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible’s teaching is offensive to you assumes that if there is a God he wouldn’t have any views that upset you. Does that belief make sense?”

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

What about suffering?

“The basic premise of religion—that if you live a good life, things will go well for you—is wrong.  Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet he had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.”

-Timothy Keller

The Perspective that Leads to Jesus 

We don’t have to figure out who God is - Jesus is self-revelatory. 

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭ESV

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

‬‬The blind men and the elephant is a wonderful analogy.

Jesus is self-revelatory truth and was the solution. 

John‬ ‭9‬:‭39‬-‭41‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.”

At the end of the day, we need to turn from sin and in repentance and faith, turn to Jesus at the cross (Matthew 3; Galatians 5). 

‭‭Jesus is God who became flesh to live the sinless life that we should have lived.  

He performed signs, wonders and miracles demonstrating his compassion for the hurting and to show his authority over creation. 

Jesus went to the cross sacrificially so that as we turn from our rebellion to put our trust in Christ, we might have forgiveness for our sins and be made new creations in him. 

This is a fresh start where literal times of refreshing come from the Lord (Acts 3:19-21). 

As Christ makes us whole through relationship with himself, he then gives us the privilege to offer his same healing to others whom he loves and who will come to believe as we share the truth of his Word.  

Matthew‬ ‭10‬:‭7‬-‭8‬ ‭ESV

“And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.”

I got baptized at a campus retreat and thereafter in each of the places that I had been searching and contemplating, was in hot pursuit of classmates, friends and family members that they too might know the love of God that had captured me.  

Several of you have been responding to Jesus over the past several weeks.  

Those responding and friends asking what to do next: 

Acts 2:36-47 gives us a picture of what to do thereafter. 

• Get baptized (speak with us)

• Go through the One to One with the friend who brought you, or we can connect you with one of our leaders who will

• Purple Book Class

• Community Group

The ministry team fair is also a practical way that you can serve and help people get exposure to the love and life of God!

Reasons to Believe: Part 2

Reasons to Believe - Part 2

Disciples, Thinkers and Reasons That Helped Me Believe   

 Pastor Rollan Fisher

These are thoughts not my own that helped develop a testimony that I am able to live out today. 

I Peter 3:15 ESV

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”

Focus: We all need reasons to believe and God abounds with both Biblical and extra-Biblical reasons to embrace his hope offered to the world in Jesus.  

I navigated through:

• Philosophies

• Pundits

• Problems with Suffering and supposed

• Promises from God.

I was a pre-med major coming into school, not following God, but open to truth based on where the breadcrumbs lead.  

Thank God that though growing up, I had seen a lot of institutional hypocrisy, I met followers of Jesus as a student who lived like they actually had an authentic faith and relationship with Jesus. 

I determined at university not to have predetermined notions of the world, but allow the facts to lead where they may.  

The facts that I discovered are summarized, not exhaustively, in these categories:

In essence:

(There’s a) Reason  

(For) Suffering (and)

The Bible (tells us)

Our Deepest Need (is)

Christ 

With the short time that we have, I’d like to share with you some of these thoughts. 

1. Reason

There was too much evidence in the arena of physical science for me to think there was not an intelligent catalyst to the material world.  

“We don’t have a single example in the history of science in which information has ever come from anything other than intelligence.  There is no property of physics or chemistry that can account for the information we see in DNA.”

-Cambridge Philosopher of Science, Stephen C. Meyer 

I also found that there are philosophical pitfalls of unbelief. 

“Atheism turns out to be too simple.  If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

C. S. Lewis

Logic led me to think that my arguments against absolute truth were faulty.  

“Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues 'no air exists' but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now intellectually, atheists continue to breathe - they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions [which assumes an orderly universe], to make moral judgments [which assumes absolute values] - but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such 'breathing' impossible. They are breathing God's air all the time they are arguing against him.”

Greg L. Bahnsen

It went further into the idea of epistemology - how do we even know what we know.  

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

C. S. Lewis

1. Suffering 

I acknowledged that much of my and other’s thoughts towards suffering were understandably emotional and not logical. 

“While Western atheists turn from belief in God because a tsunami in another part of the world caused great suffering, many brokenhearted survivors of that same tsunami found faith in God. This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don’t suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.” 

–Randy Alcorn

Pain used to be a puzzle, but the more I heard the good new of Jesus, the more I saw it as providing a new pathway to peace.   

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

C. S. Lewis

The fact that I found in the Bible a God who suffered for me undercut my oppositions and paved the way to my acceptance.  

1. The Bible

My thoughts towards the trustworthiness of the Bible also began to change. 

First about its authority:

“When someone tells me ‘We can’t trust the Bible because it was written by men,’ I like to gently point out that their conclusion doesn’t follow their premise. Just because something was written by men doesn’t mean it’s not trustworthy. If that were the case, we would have to throw out encyclopedias, dictionaries, automobile manuals, et cetera—all written by men. Men are capable of communicating truthfully, especially when they have God’s help, as the Biblical authors did.” 

–Charlie Campbell

Secondly about its contents:

“Despite the horrors the Canaanites were committing, the new atheists complain that God was immoral for stopping them. Yet on nearly every college campus I visit, an atheist declares, “If there is a good God, He would intervene to stop evil in the world.” Well, here is a case where God does intervene, and the atheists are complaining about it!” 

–Frank Turek

Finally, there was the unparalleled testimony of Jesus:

“The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Computations using the science of probability on just 8 of these prophecies show the chance that someone could have fulfilled all 8 prophecies is 10 (to the 17th power), or 1 in 100 quadrillion.” 

–Fritz Ridenour

But even it were true,

Don’t people dislike others trying to impress their views upon them? 

I found that people sharing Jesus with me who was beginning to revolutionize my life, mind and soul was the most loving thing that anyone could do.  

Certain atheists have agreed: 

“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”

- Penn Jillette, self-proclaimed atheist

I was encouraged that even great scientists such as Einstein were impacted by Christ’s life:

In a 2007 Time magazine article, it was reported that in a long ago interview Einstein was asked:

To what extent are you influenced by Christianity? 

“As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.”

You accept the historical existence of Jesus? 

“Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”

On top of all of the historic facts of Christ’s sinless life as recorded in the gospels, sacrificial death at the cross and verified resurrection from the dead, the good news of Jesus became supremely personal to me.  

1. Our Deepest Need

“The deepest reality is personal; the deepest need is spiritual.”

~ Ravi Zacharias

I knew because of the way that I was living that if there was a heaven, I would have no personal basis for entry and if there were a hell, I deserved to be there.  

The difficulty of trying to come to God on my own became pronounced to me once I considered it, but this only further validated the veracity of the gospel’s truths. 

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.” 

–C. S. Lewis

But because of Jesus, there was hope.  

And through his gospel, I was changed. 

I Was Changed 

John 3:1-7 ESV

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'”

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John‬ ‭8‬:‭31‬-‭37‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.”

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John‬ ‭14‬:‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

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Jesus is the only way because of his identity as the incarnate Son of God - meaning he is God in the flesh - and because of the irreplaceable deed that he accomplished for us on the cross.  

“All religions and philosophies say, ‘This is the way.’ Only Jesus says, ‘I am the Way.’” 

–Tim Keller

1. Christ 

There is a uniqueness and liberating reality in Jesus. 

“There are only two kinds of religion in the world…They all say, “Do, do, do.” Only Christianity says, “Done.” Christ has done it all.” 

–J. Vernon McGee

When I found that I couldn’t force it or be the man that I knew I ought to be on my own, that I fell short of God’s standards and glory, the truth of the Scripture came alive to me. 

Galatians‬ ‭3‬:‭24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”

‭‭

God was offering me forgiveness, acceptance and adoption by faith in not my goodness, but Christ’s.  

I was all in but had to deal with the apathy that still permeated my campus, our culture and world.  

People say:

*Religion is for some people, not for others, just like some have an interest in swimming or golfing and others do not. 

The truth is because there is one creator and judge, he makes demands on all of our lives, calling the whole world into a reconciled relationship with himself through Jesus Christ. 

Acts 17:30-31 ESV

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."”

‭‭

When I accepted this reality, the world and my understanding of it came alive in a new way - and I felt like I was finally able to experience what was truly life.  

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

C. S. Lewis

No matter where you find yourself this morning, you can respond to Jesus Christ.  

If you have questions, we are here on Sundays to help you, resource you and help you navigate the questions that have life transforming impact of eternal consequence. 

Book Giveaway

Lee Strobel references 

• Second City Church

Reasons to Believe: Part 1

Reasons to Believe - Part 1

Questions I Asked Myself 

Focus: I realized growing up that I was wanton, left wanting but also wanted by Jesus of Nazareth.  

Wanton

Left Wanting 

Wanted by Jesus of Nazareth

We’ll look at these topics through Questions I Asked Myself as I tried to figure out and give purpose to my existence.  

I want to also introduce you to a man named Timothy Keller, who, through Jesus, helped me answer many of these questions. 

Wanton 

I found that because of my experiences and what I saw in the culture as normal, in much of my early development I was wanton.  

Definition:

Wanton

1. (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked

2. DATED : sexually unrestrained or having many casual sexual relationships

I discovered when I came to college that I was searching for something that only God could provide.  

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. ... If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthy pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. ... I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and help others to do the same.”

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

When I encountered not just church, but Jesus through the Bible, a new world was opened up to me. 

John‬ ‭6‬:‭26‬-‭51‬ ‭ESV‬‬

”Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." 

So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 

They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."“

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Let’s go a little further to see where this wanton life left me and ultimately, leaves us. 

Left Wanting 

Jesus clearly says that we are left wanting in the world without him.  

What do I mean?

What is the common human condition?:

People in the world are searching for positive attention and affirmation. 

TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and selfie culture only affirm this. 

You can see it in the halls of academia where people are determined to prove themselves, you can see it on Greek row, you can see it on the lawn when the weather gets warm and in the bars people frequent with their time and money hoping someone will take them home and make them actually feel alive for a night.  

Everyone is asking the following questions:

Who will tell you that you are desirable, valuable, competent, worthy of love, affection or esteem?

-We all want to feel loved

-We all want to feel valued 

-We all want to feel accepted

-We all want to feel fulfilled 

-We all want to feel desired

-We all want to know we’re not living a lie but are living in what is good and  true - even if it means the pursuit of wanton pleasure. 

What stops us from experiencing this?  

We fear that despite all of our fronts and bold faces that we put on, if people knew how deeply insecure we are, so uncertain about truth, our present or our future, they wouldn’t love or accept us.  

What Jesus said was profound to this point and was echoed by a man named Timothy Keller:

“To be loved but not known is superficial. To be known but not loved is our nightmare. Only Jesus knows us to the bottom and loves us to the sky.”

-Timothy Keller

Yet we try to fill ourselves with superficial love that function as things to prop us up while masking our real condition. 

I found props in the party scene feeling that I was liberated by an unrestrained sexual and philosophical ethic, only to realize that it led me into a greater bondage to sadness, self-loathing, insecurity and fear.  

When I was introduced to the Bible, I found that my props were, against my initial judgment, being turned on their heads for good reason. :

“The Christian sex ethic was understood by the apostles to be a nonnegotiable part of orthodoxy, one of the core beliefs of Christianity. What Christians taught and practiced about sexuality was as much a necessary implication of the gospel and the resurrection as were care for the poor and the equality of the races. This makes it impossible to argue, as many try to do, that what the Bible says about caring for the poor is right but what it says about sex is outmoded and should be discarded.”

-Timothy Keller

This mattered because:

I was hurting and I hurt people along the way. 

I eventually felt guilty about it but couldn’t find a way out.  

“The secular framework . . . has nothing to give the wounded conscience to heal it. It has nothing to say to the self who feels it is unworthy of love and forgiveness. Anyone who has seen the depths of their sin and what they are capable of will never be mollified by the bromide of ‘Be nice to yourself—you deserve it.’”

-Timothy Keller

When Jesus said that he was the bread of life, not only was he making a promise to live the perfect life that we should have lived, die the sacrificial death we should die on the cross, in our place, and rise from the dead, he was also promising to bring us into a life that truly satisfies our souls.  

“[These are] Christianity’s unsurpassed offers—a meaning that suffering cannot remove, a satisfaction not based on circumstances, a freedom that does not hurt but rather enhances love, an identity that does not crush you or exclude others, a moral compass that does not turn you into an oppressor, and a hope that can face anything, even death.”

-Timothy Keller

But is Jesus reliable? 

I found that historically, who I wanted to be had its roots in Jesus. 

“The humanistic moral values of secularism are not the deliverances of scientific reasoning, but have come down to us from older times . . . they have a theological history. And modern people hold them by faith alone.”

-Timothy Keller

“Jesus is one of the very few persons in history who founded a great world religion or who, like Plato or Aristotle, has set the course of human thought and life for centuries. Jesus is in that tiny, select group. On the other hand, there have been a number of persons over the years who have implicitly or explicitly claimed to be divine beings from other worlds. Many of them were demagogues; many more were leaders of small, self-contained sects of true believers. What is unique about Jesus is that he is the only member of the first set of persons who is also a member of the second.”

“Everything in the Hebrew worldview militated against the idea that a human being could be God. Jews would not even pronounce the name ‘Yahweh’ nor spell it. And yet Jesus Christ—by his life, by his claims, and by his resurrection—convinced his closest Jewish followers that he was not just a prophet telling them how to find God, but God himself come to find us.”

-Timothy Keller

Why hadn’t I come to God before?  

It ultimately came down to a lack of developed trust that God intends good for me and for the world.  

“If you want to understand your own behavior, you must understand that all sin against God is grounded in a refusal to believe that God is more dedicated to our good, and more aware of what that is, than we are. We distrust God because we assume he is not truly for us, that if we give him complete control we will be miserable. Adam and Eve did not say, ‘Let’s be evil. Let’s ruin our own lives and everyone else’s too!’ Rather they thought, ‘We just want to be happy. But his commands don’t look like they’ll give us the things we need to thrive. We’ll have to take things into our own hands—we can’t trust him.’”

-Timothy Keller

Wanted by Jesus of Nazareth

The truth is what we are all truly seeking is in Jesus and the good news is that Jesus is seeking us.  

But what if I feel undeserving?

What frees me and encourages my heart in all of this, even when I know that I’ve been undeserving is this? :

Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭6‬-‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

”For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“

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“The gospel is that I am so sinful that Jesus had to die for me, yet so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. I can’t feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone.”

-Timothy Keller

To experience this fulfillment, we must see Jesus in a new way.  

But what if I’ve already been turned off by what I’ve heard?

“Only if your god can outrage and challenge you will you know that you worship the real God and not a figment of your imagination. . . . If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.”

-Timothy Keller

How’s that working for you?

Remember, Jesus said:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." 

We must see him as he is and he must become LORD and SAVIOR of our lives.  

“When you come to Christ, you must drop your conditions. You have to give up the right to say, ‘I will obey you if . . . I will do this if . . .’ As soon as you say, ‘I will obey you if,’ that is not obedience at all. You are saying: ‘You are my adviser, not my Lord. I will be happy to take your recommendations. And I might even do some of them.’ No. If you want Jesus with you, you have to give up the right to self-determination. Self-denial is an act of rebellion against our late-modern culture of self-assertion. But that is what we are called to. Nothing less.”

-Timothy Keller

We invite you this morning to be reconciled to God through the cross of Jesus Christ - turning away from sin and self-determined living that you might find in the Creator the life that is truly life. 

We’d love to walk this out with you in the coming weeks and months as a part of our Community Groups and services!