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WHY> Week 6: Why Jesus?

October 21, 2008

Illustration: I don’t know about you, but I love buffets.  Also, anyone that really knows me, knows that a pizza buffet is the way to my stomach.

When it comes to religion in America there seems to be a buffet mentality. Many people see religion like a buffet. We like a little of what Buddha says over here. I'll take that. It was good. Over here Jesus said that, and it was good. I'm going to take that and believe it. I really don't like what Jesus said there so I'm not taking that, no way. I'm going to take another one of these, right here, because Cosmopolitan said that and it was cool. Then back over here is a little Dr. Phil that I'm going to load up on. Dr. Laura and Oprah said that, and it was a good thought. We sort of build this whole little buffet. Then we say it's like our own personal religion. It's our own personal thing we've created from the buffet of life -- we kind of hang on to that belief.

Now, the only problem with all of that is God really isn't a-buffet kind of God. As I read the

Bible and look at it, God says, “I'm the one. Follow me. Have no other gods before me.

Have no idols before me.” He's really concerned that we worship Him and Him alone. While you can find truth and meaning in a lot of different places, God is pretty specific about how we come to Him. Then Jesus shows up, and Jesus isn't really a buffet kind of Lord.

Over these last several weeks we've been looking at different questions. Why should I trust the Bible? Why should I believe in God in the first place? Why is the world so messed up? What I want to do with you this morning is look at this question: Why Jesus? But I want to do it by looking at three questions that I believe Jesus would ask us. Three questions that He asked His disciples when he gathered around with them in a quiet place.

Read Luke 9:18-25.

1)     He turned to His disciples, and the first thing He asked them was, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

Jesus knew what the crowds were saying about them. He knew the perceptions, but He wanted His disciples, His followers, to think about the public perceptions that people had about him. He says, “Who do the crowds say that I am? What's their perspective?

Well, some say you are John the Baptist. John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin. He had this powerful message that he spoke about turning back to God. He was killed and put to death by Herod.  Some say you've come back as John the Baptist.

Others say you are Elijah, a prophet of the Old Testament, who has come back to lead us and guide us and show us the way. 

There were all these perceptions floating around out there. It's not unlike today. There are a lot of perceptions. The question is still valid. Who do the crowds say that I am? It wasn't too long ago that Jesus made the cover of Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report all on the same week. All of these different articles and perspectives were there on Jesus. Some said He was a magician. Some said He was a wise man. Some say He was a prophet, He was a philosopher, and He was a do-gooder --all these different perspectives were out there. Yet the question still remained. Who is Jesus?

Some people view Jesus as a good old guy, kind of like Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover, someone who isn't going to hurt anyone. He's just a nice guy. Everything is good when Ty is there. Other people of the Science Fiction mentality see Jesus as the Star Trek Vulcan guy who has come to earth to show us the way. Other people see Jesus as the Super Nanny who's come to get on our kids or people who get out of line or maybe off track. Still other people see Jesus kind of like the Green Peace Jesus with long hair and no shoes and protecting the environment. There are all these different perspectives. Marilyn Manson said that Jesus was the first celebrity. He was the first rock star. There are all these different perspectives out there.

I believe it's important that we wrestle with who people say Jesus is. Jesus asked that question so He could get down to another question, a deeper question.

2)    His next question was, “Who do you say that I am?”

He says it in Luke 9:20: “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” You is actually plural and emphasized in the original Greek language.

It's a critical question. What do we do with Jesus? This guy shows up two thousand years ago and basically says, “To know me is to know God. To follow me is to follow God. To love me is to love God. To reject me is to reject God. To hate me is to hate God. To deny me is to deny God.” What do we do with this guy who shows up and says, “I'm the way, I'm the truth and the life.” He says it in John 14:6: “I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” No one comes to the father except through me. Some people read that and think, “Jesus, I really like that. I like a lot of things you say, but I really don't like that one verse. I'm going to put this back in the buffet table right here. I'm not sure I like it. We're going to leave that there and pretend it didn't happen.”

Yet Jesus is asking us to take Him on His terms, not on ours. In fact, if there is an over-arching message in the Bible as you read it, it's this: the Bible is challenging us to take God on God's terms. He's God. It's not on our terms. That's a struggle. That's a challenge. We say, “Jesus, how can you say that? How can you be so narrow-minded? Why is Christianity so exclusive?” Have you heard people say that? Why is Christianity so intolerant? Why does it claim to be the only way?

Some people think that as long as they are sincere, they are okay with God.  This verse eliminates many sincere people who are seeking God through other means. Christianity, in this sense, indeed, is not "tolerant" of any other avenue to salvation. A sincerely held belief of another road to salvation does not necessarily mean it is true. Sincerity does not determine truth. It would be cruel to tell a blind man on the edge of a cliff that it doesn't matter which way he steps, as long as he is sincere. A position can be narrow and wrong, or it can be narrow and right. While tolerance in personal relationships is a virtue, tolerance in truth is a travesty.

One of the things that I think is interesting is that in America with this buffet mentality we sort of believe that all religions basically teach the same thing.

Now, here is what I believe is the fundamental difference between the Christian faith and the religions of the world. It's basic. You study all the religions of the world, and they all come down to one word -- do. What can we do to earn our favor with God? What can we do so that

God will be happy with us? What can we do to make up for all the wrongs that we've done?

All the religions of the world come back to do.

Here is the difference. Christianity is about done. It's about what Jesus Christ has already done for us. It's about God pursuing us in the person of Jesus, and him living and dying on a cross for our sins so that we can enter into his grace and salvation. It's not about earning that salvation. It's about responding by repentance and faith as to what God has already done. That's a huge difference.

For instance, there is a story that is found in Buddhist literature that is similar to the story that Jesus tells in Luke 15. Stories are similar. It's a story about a father who had a son who ran away from his family to live life to the fullest.  He had a great time. He enjoyed himself. Eventually he had no money left. The party ended. It was a done deal.  He goes back home in both stories.

But here is where the story gets radically different. In the Buddhist account the son comes home and the father accepts him back as a slave, and he must work the rest of his life to pay back for all the bad things that he's done.

In Jesus' telling of the story in Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son, the son comes home. The father runs out to greet him, throws his arms around him, accepts him, and says, “Let's celebrate and throw a party because my son who was lost is now found.” He accepts him fully back into the family. That is grace. That is the difference between the Christian faith and the religions of the world. They are all about do and Christianity is about done. It's about what God did for us.

Jesus says, “Who do you say that I am?” Buddha doesn't claim to be God. Muhammad doesn't claim to be God. No other religious system has an individual that claims to be God.

That was Jesus' unique claim. He says, “I'm the way to God. Who do you say that I am?”

When He asked that question, His followers were circled up in this tight place. Luke 9:20 tells us that after He asked the question, Peter said these words: “You are the Christ of God.” You are the Christ of God. That is huge. Christ isn't Jesus' last name. This is a title. This was a concept that was so deeply entrenched in their culture and their time. To say that He was the Christ of God is to say that He was the one that the prophets foretold about for thousands of years. He is the one that the Bible had written about through the inspiration of God. This person would be born, this Messiah would come, and this anointed one would save the people from their sins and would redeem them. He would lead them back to God. When Peter makes this statement it's, like, cataclysmic. He says, “You are the Christ of God.” You are the man, Jesus. You are the one! I believe it.

You know, scholars tell us that there are over 450 prophecies in the Old Testament. The Old

Testament part of the Bible was written thousands of years ago. It foretold the life of one who would come and redeem and save the people. Four hundred and fifty different prophecies that talked about where the Messiah would be born, the kind of ministry He would do, and how He would die. Psalm twenty-two talks about crucifixion and describes it in pretty graphic detail before crucifixion existed. All of this was foretold in the Old Testament scriptures. Peter stands there and says, “You are the one who has fulfilled all the things that was foretold about you.”

Peter Stoner is a professor at Wheaton College. He took a group of twelve different classes, six hundred students total, and went through a rather lengthy estimation of what are the probabilities that one human being on planet Earth would fulfill eight of the prophecies of the Old Testament one human being to just fulfill eight. They came up with this number that the probability of that happening would be ten to the seventeenth power.

Let's put it this way. Let's say you take a silver dollar, let's say you take millions of silver dollars, and you spread them all over the state of Texas, two feet deep. Then you flew over the state of Texas in a plane, and you took one silver dollar, marked it, and threw it out the window. Then you shuffled all the silver dollars across the state of Texas. Then you took a guy and blindfolded him, and you sent him out to walk the state of Texas. At some point, any time, he could stop, (he's blindfolded) reach down into the pile two feet deep of silver dollars, and pull one out. If he pulled out the silver dollar that had been marked, that is about the statistical probability of one human being fulfilling those eight prophecies that Peter Stoner looked at in the Old Testament.

Jesus fulfilled over 450 of them. Peter says, “I don't need to see anymore, Jesus. You are the Christ of God.” Jesus' question is as relevant today as it was then. What about you? Who do you say that I am? When Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life, I don't think He was making the statement out of arrogance. I think He was making the statement out of compassion and out of love. If it's true, then that is a statement of compassion and of love. It doesn't mean that all the great world religions don't make great contributions to our society. It doesn't mean they don't make meaningful impacts on people's lives. But it means that fundamentally Jesus is saying, “I'm the pathway to God.”

We've got to wrestle through that and wrestle through what we do with that. Here is why the question matters so much.

3)    Jesus' third question to His disciples was, “What good is it to gain the world and lose your soul?”

Look at Luke 9:23: “Then he said to them, if anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for me will save it. [25] What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”

Jesus is saying that life is short. What good is it if we gain the whole world, get all this stuff, get to the end of our lives, and we've forfeited our souls in the process?

Reflect on who the crowd says Jesus is, and who do you say Jesus is? Reflect on what

Jesus is asking you to do today. I want to ask you to consider what Jesus is speaking to your heart. Think about what he wants you to do.