Ask A Pastor
Is Jesus the Only Way?
By Pastor Mark McNees
This message was originally given at Element3 Church in Tallahassee FL. To download this message’s corresponding PowerPoint, audio, and artistic elements for free please visit www.element3.org.
Alright, so, we are on the tail end of our series ask a pastor and I hope it has been challenging and hopefully it has opened your mind to some different ideas and hopefully expanded your idea or understanding of who God is.
After last week we had a lot of feedback and a lot of people wanting more information and we have a growth group that is going to be starting and it is called the path to sexual healing. If you desire to be healed by Christ and start on a pathway to healing, we have 3 ways you can sign up, you can go to the pathways booth, you can just write sexual healing on your connect card or you can email healing@element3.org so you can get more information. I want to really challenge you to seek out healing in Christ and to do it in community.
This is our fourth week in this series, the first week we looked at is the Bible reliable. The second week we looked at why if there is a God, why is there so much bad in the world and does God really care. And obviously last week we looked at sex and what is God’s plan for sex.
Here are some of the questions we’ve received:
1. How much grace is too much, is there a point where you can give or show too much grace to those in your life to those who have wronged you? To where do you put yourself in danger? Does God have a grace threshold?
2. If God knows every hair on our head before we are born and he knows what we are going to do, why does he give us free will? Does this mean that God is not certain what we are doing or going to do and is hoping that we make the right decisions
3. If I am hanging out with people who don’t believe and I don’t feel comfortable telling them not to talk bad about my religion, should I stop hanging out with them or should I tell them how I feel and hope it makes them change?
4. If a person is living in sin but do not believe, have not been taught, and are totally unaware that they are living in sin, will grace cover them on this? They will go to heaven when they die by believing that Jesus died for their sins, right? Can we just talk about this?
5. How should Christians relate to their close friends of many years who still refuse to be Christians?
6. How do I get to heaven?
7. Christians throughout history have brutally killed others in the name of God. Most of the world’s cultures believes in God, how do we know whether we serve the one true God? Does this make their belief in God invalid?
8. How did people in the Old Testament go to Heaven?
9. Why did Jesus have to be crucified?
10. If a man lives in the middle of a jungle away from all civilization, living a Christian life and serving others will he go to heaven when he dies even if he hasn’t heard of Jesus Christ?
How concerned we are about that person living away from all civilization. It seems that it takes a lot of mind time. As we are looking at all these questions, it really comes down to: Are all religions the same? That is a big theme in a lot of these questions. The other thing is, is Jesus the only way? These questions are great and it hurts my brain to think about them and the reality is it hurts my soul more not to think about them. I just really pray that as we go forward on them we can bring some healing to our souls that have been hurt and put aside some of the craziness that people have speculated about and be able to turn to the Word of God and get some clarity on this.
Let’s Pray:
Dear God there has been so much said and done in your name and a lot of those things couldn’t be farther from you. God I just pray as we just turn to this subject: different religions, different gods, is Jesus the only way, that we can just be open to views other than our own and we can see what you communicate about this to us. We love you Lord, in Jesus Name, Amen.
I think a lot of us don’t realize that a lot of times when people ask this question, that a lot of times Christians feel backed into a corner and we get really defensive and we don’t understand how that is being received. I think that as we look at this we need to look at scripture like when Jesus says, “I am the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Farther except through me.” We can see what Jesus is communicating to us about this. As we look at these questions, they are all asking an important question. It is more about God and the question is does God care about people more than we care about people? Does God care about the guy in the forest if he has never heard about Christ and he is serving others and doing his best to live a good life? Does God care about him more than we do? It is almost a statement that says if God doesn’t care more about that guy in the forest than I do, than I don’t want to give my life to that God. If God doesn’t care more about others than me, maybe God should be worshipping me. I think it is important in this journey that we strip away the different types of questions and get to the core and it is: Does God care about others more than I do?
There is a statement that a lot of people say all religions are the same. Just chose one, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, it doesn’t matter. There are bumper stickers like coexist and on an emotional level we think that would be really nice to just coexist. The problem is that when you look at the core and what this idea is expressing is that all religions are the same and it really doesn’t matter which one you follow. This kind of mindset dishonors and disrespects the intellect and intelligence of those who follow all the different religions. The truth is they are not all the same, they are not all compatible. There are teachings in each and every one of them that are extremely opposite of one another. It is like saying all colors are the same, we all pick our favorite colors, we pick all these different colors but in the end, they aren’t different, they are all just fuchsia. Isn’t this great, there is just an ugly color fuchsia, it is not intellectually honest and it dishonors the intelligence of each and every one who follows these different religions. We have to look and say that maybe they are not compatible and maybe they do have significant differences. Every single religious system is either legalistic or fatalistic. If it’s legalistic, their god is aloof and you have to follow all these different kinds of rules and in the end the god doesn’t care and it doesn’t matter. Or the religion can be fatalistic and you can do everything your religion tells you to do, but in the end, it is up to your god to decide if you are in or out. If you boil them all down, in the end the religion is either legalistic or fatalistic. We are looking at these and saying there are some significant differences. What about that guy in the forest? Does he have to follow the rules or does it not matter and God will just chose him or not choose him in the end?
We need to turn to scripture and start with Genesis. Try to tune in and try to follow this because God is really speaking loudly about this so we can get an understanding about religions.
Message Point #1: The only reason for freewill to exist is for love to exist.
Genesis 2:16-17: But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
Now, what’s God doing here? He is coming and giving Adam and Eve a choice. He is giving them a choice of either eating of all these fruits or to choose not to eat of this one fruit that leads to death. This fruit leads to separation from having a relationship with Him. I used to really love Corvettes. In fact, I loved them ever since I was a little kid and I would read Corvette books and when I got into high school, there was this girl who was really infatuated with me. She was infatuated to the point of boiling rabbit infatuation. She was always trying to get me to date her. One day I was at a party and this beautiful Corvette drove up. I went out and this Corvette was awesome and guess who gets out of it, the girl that was infatuated with me. She asked me if I liked her new corvette and she asked me if I wanted to drive it. So, I wanted to get in and I got in fired it up and she jumps in with me. I was like alright, whatever, but there was no joy. She was talking to me so much and I just wanted to drive the car, I didn’t want the relationship part and I felt trapped and there was no joy. This is important, because have you ever had someone who latches onto you and they think they love you and they are trying to do nice things for you but when you are around them you are miserable? We think, why did God give us free will? God gave us free will in order for love to exist. It is always interesting to me that people get upset when you say Jesus is the only way to God and to Heaven and people think you are narrow minded for that. The biblical understanding of Heaven is a place of worship of God. If you forced someone against their will to go to Heaven, it would much like my experience in that Corvette. It was everything I dreamed it would be but I was absolutely miserable because I was forced to experience it with someone I didn’t want to experience it with. Thank God that He doesn’t force us to come and worship Him. He doesn’t force us to go and spend eternity with Him unless we chose to take that path. If He forced us against our will that wouldn’t be Heaven, that would be hell.
Message Point #2: We are asking the wrong question!
Deuteronomy 30:11-14: “This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand, and it is not beyond your reach. It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, ‘Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’ It is not kept beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear it and obey?’ No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it. There is more here but it is not on the handout.
We hear two recurring themes; we hear choice and choosing and we hear life. I think when we read this, it comes out that maybe we are asking the wrong questions. It is not what religion is right or wrong but the question is, who gives life? The question is not why isn’t there other paths, it is whose path leads to God? It is interesting to me that sometimes we are wondering why there is only one path to God. We should be happy there is a path to God. How many paths does one person need? The truth is there are lots of paths, they just lead to different places. Going back to the Corvette, God is not going to trick you and throw you into his heavenly Corvette and lock the doors and make you stay there. There could be no love if that’s the way He did things. There is only one path that leads to God. Why would you go on that path if you didn’t want to be led to God? Why is it narrow minded to say if you were lost and trying to get some place, and you are sitting there looking at all these different paths and you are wondering which one leads to your destination and finally someone else comes and says, “Hey, I just came from the place you are looking for and follow me this is the path to this place.” You might say, well, that’s narrow minded, what about all these other paths? Well, that path leads to a lion, that path leads to a cliff, that path leads to Arkansas, etc. If you want to go where this person just came from, take that path, it is not narrow minded, it is just common sense. God allows you to choose the path you want. We hear God is love and we wonder where that love starts and what does it look like? The nature of love is someone going outside their comfort zone to sacrifice in order to bring someone else up.
Message Point #3: Love is not a limited commodity.
1 John 4:7-12: Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
Our love, the very fact that we are able to show love, differentiates us from every other creature. We have the ability to sacrifice for others. And the human soul has a limitless ability to love. I didn’t used to love a whole lot of people besides my family. I really didn’t understand the nature of love. I have only told three women that I love them, my mother, my wife, and my daughter. I never told anyone I loved them. I remember the first time I told Shannon I loved her and it was almost like the shell around my heart broke a little bit and that love grew and grew. It is interesting that love isn’t a limited commodity. This became clear when Madison was born, I was thinking I only have so much love and I am going to have to give half to Shannon and half to Madison, but that is not how it worked at all. When Madison was born, my love doubled, and my love expanded. God brought other people into my life and showed me what love was and the sacrifice you have to make to love others. Then Shannon got pregnant again and I looked at Madison and I was really afraid about having a second kid. I was wondering how I could love anymore. When Eric was born, my capacity for love just grew that much more. As people have come into my life and as we built this church together I have grown to love them and the capacity has been exponentially growing. When we love we identify with God’s very nature. When we do that, it gives us a better understanding of why He sent His Son for us because He loved us.
Message Point #4: God is not impersonal or aloof.
John 15:9-15: “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
God is not impersonal, or aloof. God is personal and we can actually have a relationship with the Creator of the universe. Now don’t get me wrong, I started out saying all religions are either legalistic or fatalistic. There is a religion out there called Christianity and it has very little to do with love. It is more about doctrine, appearances, and getting the answers right than it is about sacrifice and love and relationship. But God sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for us so that we can have a relationship with Him. So He can call us friend. I encourage you to look at every other world religion. Is Jesus the only way, is He the only path? Yahweh is the only One that has come, Allah didn’t come, Buddha didn’t come, God is the only one that sent someone for us. The thing that separates followers of Christ from all the other world religions is that our God pursued us to make a path so that we could have a relationship with Him. What about the guy in the forest serving the squirrels, loving them, sacrificing for them, and living a good Christian life even though he has never heard of Jesus? Does God care about the guy in the forest? Scripture tells us that God is always speaking. You know what phrase I hate, “We are taking Jesus to the nations.” That’s ridiculous, Jesus has been there a long time, He is waiting for us to show up!! We are not the pioneers.
Message Point #5: What about the guy in the forest?
CREATION
Romans 1:20: For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. All of creation shouts of God’s glory.
So the guy in the forest, he has nature to speak to him about God. What else?
CONSCIENCE
Romans 2:15: They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.
God is continuously speaking into our heart and that is not just the Christian’s heart, it is everyone’s hearts. God is speaking to everyone and calling to them. He speaks into the Muslims, the Hindus, Gator fans, calling to them. God is calling them and lets them know when they are doing right or wrong and to seek Him out. Also, God speaks to us through our conviction.
CONVICTION
John 16:5-15: “But now I am going away to the One who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. There is more hear but it wasn’t on the handout.
The advocate is the Holy Spirit. He will convict the world of its sin, not just Christians. Christ sent the Holy Spirit. One thing that God really spoke to me about is about being baptized. If you haven’t been baptized, you should sign up after service to take the class. If you are a follower of Christ, it is a wonderful way for you to expand following Him. You hear these stories and you realize that God speaks to people in many different circumstances. There is one girl that said that as a little girl, she was abused physically and they would tie her up and beat her. She said even though she didn’t know anything of Jesus there was a voice and a presence in her whispering to her, “I love you and you are worthy and the things they are saying aren’t true”. Later she said she was able to put a name to who was there and she said that was Jesus. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to reach into circumstances. We have the opportunity to express our love and joy to people, but God also speaks to people outside of us all the time.
CONVERSATION
Romans 10:8-15: In fact, it says, “The message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart.” And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. There is more hear but it is not on the handout.
So, finally, God uses us to speak to people. God has been working all through history. All you have to do is flip on the history channel and sit and be in amazement of the events God has orchestrated to bring people to Him. He moves people. So what about the guy in the forest? That’s where we started, right? We all care about the guy in the forest. God does love that guy in the forest more than we do. We may call him the guy in the forest or in the jungle but Jesus knows his name, his hurts, his loneliness, and He has reached out to him through creation, his conscience and through the Holy Spirit. But one of the biggest things is this thing called conversation. God has called us to Him so that our hearts will break for the things that break His heart. So that we will care about the things He cares about. That’s why a lot of times when people come to Christ their hearts explode and they want to tell everyone about Jesus and what He’s done for them. That’s why people leave everything they’ve ever known to tell people about Jesus. Why is that? It is because when we come to Him, God’s concerns become our concerns. God loves people more than we could ever imagine or hope to.
Message Point #6: Does God love people more than me?
Acts 17:22-25: I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about. There is more but it isn’t on the handout.
Choosing God is choosing life. In order to choose that life, the path that God has sent for us is Jesus Christ. And you know what, when we come to Christ, our hearts should care about what God cares about. If your heart doesn’t care about what God cares about, if your love isn’t expanded and you are not willing to sacrifice your pleasure or your time or your comforts or your money to do the things God cares about, maybe it is time for serious reflection. God has called us to Him. Someone asked, “How do I become a follower of Christ?” It is one of the easiest and hardest things you will ever have to do. We have to confess that Jesus is our Savior, and ask Him to pay the price for all of the rotten things I’ve done. He says yes, I’ll do that. But also, we need to call upon Him as our Lord, we all want a Savior but we want to continue doing the things that we want to do. In order for us to truly be about what God is doing, and to go on that path, we have to ask for forgiveness and believe that Christ died for our sins but we also need to make Him our Lord and to do the things He has called us to do and care about what He cares about. When we do those things then we know that we are firmly on the path and that our salvation is assured and we will spend eternity with our Father in Heaven.
Let’s Pray:
Dear God, I just hope that You’ve expanded our minds this morning and that You have expanded our souls. That we understand that You call us to You and that we have the opportunity to be about the things that You care about. God, we know that You care about people more than we could every imagine. You care about us and the very fact that we are here today is because you orchestrated somehow that someone was obedient to tell us about you. God I pray that we will do the same. If there is anyone here that wants to give their life to You I just pray that You will give them the courage to say Lord, I have fallen short of Your standard and I have sinned and there is brokenness and mess in my life and I need to rely on what You did on the cross and You died for all these things and I believe that. Now here comes the hard part, God I also want to make You the leader and the Lord of my life, I want to be about Your business and I want to put aside my personal preferences to be about what You are about. I want to love and expand my capacity to love like You love. In Jesus Name, amen.
