In Jesus Holy Name May 3, 2009
Text: Acts 4:12 Easter IV - Redeemer
“Morphing Jesus in America”
(Begin with a “transformer” as an illustration of how one thing changes into another…. An example of “morphing”.)
Michael Jackson is a great example of one who has chosen to morph his personal identity. He is the poster boy for body morphing as he takes his body as far as it can go through plastic surgery. Body modification is popularized through the aerobic gym culture, or more radical examples with the popularization of body tattooing and body piercing. Our personal identity emerges from the choices we make. We create and display our personal identity on Face Book, or My Space.com, a social network where we can talk to friends while creating a fictitious identity. You can upload personal photos, talk with your friends.
“Some say U.S. America is a morphing nation, a country without a name, the United States of America. USA depends on an influx of diverse populations, a rich mix of cultures has kept the country with no name one of the most creative places on the globe, continually able to reinvent itself and produce dynamic markets. No other nation has made it so easy for aliens from vastly different cultures to become citizens.
Over 40% of new students at New York University in 1996-1999 did not grow up with English as their first language. 13% of USAmericans (higher in California) speak another language at home besides English. USAmerica is a colorful place!
Temple United Methodist Church in San Francisco befriended a Ukrainian refugee woman who works in the most traditional German restaurant, which is owned by an Arab who is married to a Chinese woman who runs a pizza restaurant managed by a Russian. If Big Mac is sold overseas, most likely the onions are from the U.S., the beef patties from Hungary, lettuce from the Ukraine, the bun from Russia, the pickles from Germany, the cheese from Poland and sesame seeds from Mexico. This is the globalization of economic and cultural life in which we live” (Soul Tsunami – Leonard Sweet p. 368)
In the Midwest where I grew up, Lutherans couldn’t date Roman Catholics and dating a Baptist was sort of OK if you didn’t get too serious. The concern today…. Is the person a Christian….. And bi racial marriages are a common occurrence. Our world has changed. In this, the 21st century, Islam is expected to replace Judaism as USAmerican’s second largest religious group. There are already more Buddhists in America than Episcopalians or Presbyterians.
New Age spirituality states that all truths are equal. I heard about a church that refuses to speak against hell. They deny its reality. One of our former members recently moved to a new community along the coast. She has been searching for a new church, family, a place to worship. She has visited countless denominations, the most recent was St. Timothy’s. The people were warm and friendly, activities looked good. In last Sunday’s sermon, the Pastor said, “There is no such thing as sin; the real problem with Jesus was cultural – Gentiles and Jews couldn’t get along. She told me “I wanted to get up and walk out and as I looked around not an eyebrow twitched and no one even shook their head “no”.
TRUTH: SIN is a 3-letter word that is politically incorrect. We’d rather talk about disease or dysfunction. “It’s not my fault.”
A plague was ravaging a tiny village in the outermost bush of a remote African province. A lone missionary, a doctor who had given his life to fighting this particular disease, had gone in with the only cure available. It was made from plants indigenous to the region and could quite easily be reproduced by the villagers themselves just by taking some of the leaves and mixing it with some herbs and spices. When he went in, he found that there wasn’t a single person in the village who was free of the disease.
They all had it and were dying at an alarming rate. Characteristic of the disease was a rash on the back of the neck. All he had to do was treat the rash with the medication and the people could be healed…. But he couldn’t get anybody to let him give them the medication. Despite the fact that people were dying….nobody realized that they were sick. They all had the same rash. There wasn’t anything unusual about it. Since everybody had the same markings on their necks, they just assumed it was normal and nobody realized any different. Nobody realized it was killing them. Sermon Central Acts 4:8-12 Jim Black # 82293
Isn’t that the way it is here. We look around at the world and think, “well, that’s just the way it is.” People either deny the reality of sin or pretend not to deal with “that old biblical theology of ages past…. “
Our post modern American culture wants to accept all things as true without offending anyone. The post modern world wants tolerance of all believers, however controversial because the most important thing is that you believe something. Americans love cooking shows. Emeril, Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, Giada, Rachel Ray, Paula Dean – who loves to use butter. We have BBQ cook-offs, salsa contests. It’s all about variety.
One of the realities of post modern America is that we are cooking up designer spirituality, cooking up your own religion to taste. Examples already exist in the form of New Age spirituality which morphs different faith traditions into one giant stew. Morphing can easily move into syncretism. Syncretism is the splicing of Jesus into Hinduism or Buddhism. There are now Zen Buddhist Christians, Muslim Christians, Adventist Islamicists. Shirley McLain has proclaimed that we need to imitate Jesus… the greatest person who ever lived. We know that like him we all have “god” within us…. Then she took Hinduism with it’s re incarnation but dropped the teaching that we can be re incarnated into animals…or humans as we move up and down the chain depending our behavior…. That would not sell too well in America… so her point was that we have been recreated into previous lives…. She even used to do a Visa commercial that stated her previous life was as a wife of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Morphing can easily move into syncretism. We can not surrender Jesus.
[story of Peter and John] One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at 3 in the afternoon. There was a man crippled from birth who was at the temple gate begging from those going into the temple courts. Peter said…. “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth…. Walk!”
Taking the right hand Peter helped him up… instantly he was healed… he went walking and jumping and praising God.
When the crowds gathered…. Peter said, “Why are you surprised. This is not by our power….we are not magicians…. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has glorified his servant Jesus…. You handed him over to be killed. You disowned him before Pilate. But God raised him from the dead.”
The Jewish leaders…the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees “ were greatly disturbed. They even had Peter and John thrown into prison. Why? Was it because they healed a lame man? No. Was it because Peter and John were preaching and teaching in Solomon’s Colonnade on the temple square? They were upset because the number of Jewish people who became Jewish Christians grew by 2000 in that very day. (v4)
The next day the elders and teachers of the law, Annas and Caiaphas (the same group who had just months before arrested Jesus and had him crucified….who told the soldiers to spread false stories about the resurrection…) hauled Peter and John before the council and questioned them. “By what power or in what name did you do this?”
Peter: “are we being questioned because of an act of kindness? Do you really want to know how he was healed…. It was by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead … that this man stands healed before you. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
God did not send a statement but a Savior. God did not send us a principle but the person of Jesus. Ultimately, there is only one truth to tell and that truth is untellable without the person of Jesus. Truth is a person.
What does truth look like? How does truth act? The Christian says “look at Jesus on the cross.” Jesus did not say “I tell the truth.” Nor “I point to the truth” nor as Buddhism proclaims “truth is elusive”. Jesus said, “I am the truth”.
Jesus is the bread of life that feeds the hungry soul
Jesus is the light that shines on this blue marble planet
Jesus is the good shepherd that lay down his life for the sheep
Jesus is the life, the resurrection and the life.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God
`Leonard Sweet, in his book Soul Tsunami writes: “Post moderns are hungry, spiritually malnourished. People want to grow spiritually above all else …. USAmerica is one of the most religious nations in the developed world and also one of the most secular. We are living in a secular society but a spiritual culture.” (ibid. 408)
New Age books sold 5.6 million copies in 1992, 9.7 million in 1995. Jars of Clay, a Christian music group, was named top billboard 200 artists of the year in 1996. Madonna has repudiated “the material girl” image and has morphed into the “spiritual girl.”
Syndicated evangelical columnist Cal Thomas appears in over 410 newspapers, 2nd only to George Will.
The Christian message is not a timeless set of moral principles
The Christian message is a story, the greatest story ever told of love come down from heaven to each – a love that removed our guilt. A love that promises eternal life and feeds the spiritual hungry. The Christian message is clear… the words of Peter were clear… Jesus is the only way, into the presence of the Father. Jesus is the only way human guilt is removed from our soul. It is exclusive… and unacceptable to a culture that wants to tolerate all beliefs even if they do not agree in their theological positions. There is salvation in no one else…
You know who pictures this truth in a marvelous way? Rural America. Farmers. Let me explain. Most of us live in the city. There are different roads you can travel to reach your home. You can drive to your house from the east, from the west, north or south, depending on the streets you take. No so in the country side.
Most of you know that I grew up in the country in the Mid West. In the rural country side of the mid west most farmers have set their home a ways off the road. While attending the Seminary our house was a great example. We rented a little farm house… the only way to arrive was to drive down a mile long lane surrounded on all sides by corn fields. It was the only way to reach our front door.
The farm house is a lot like our heavenly Father’s house. There is only one way to get to the house. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me.” There is only one cure for human sin. There is only one cure for your sin, your guilt. The death of Jesus on the cross was the perfect, acceptable sacrifice. He is our substitute. For “we all like sheep have gone astray but God has laid upon Jesus the sin of all.” He was pierced for our transgressions and the punishment that was upon him brought us peace with God the Father.” (Is. 53) “for God made him who had no sin to be sin for us…. So that every believer might become righteous in His sight….”
Don’t let the culture cause you to morph Jesus into something he is not.
