"Will The Real Christianity Please Stand Up?"

“Will the real Christianity please stand up?“

Misconceptions

Does not matter who you meet these days you can be guaranteed that people will have their own ideas and opinions about Christianity, many of these ideas will be from a sincere belief imbibed from tradition and the culture around them which so often leaving people duped and misinformed .

In our pluralistic culture who is right? Will the real Christianity please stand up?

Today we will endeavour to answer some of those misconceptions and put the record straight.

Misconception: 1.Surly Jesus was just a good man, a political revolutionary who wanted to over throw the Romans.

The Identity of Jesus Christ?

This is the view sadly portrayed in the media today only last year there was a programme by Jeremy Bowen the middle east correspondent and they were going to unearth the truth in regard to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was shown as a product of politics and his culture they refereed to Bible manuscripts to unearth His birth details of his life his death and resurrection, but when they came to the Bible picking and choosing and brining their own presuppositions upon the Word of God that is their no such thing as God the miracles could not have taken place and the supernatural is not possible in that we live in a closed system. Statements upon his incarnation his perfect life hie death and resurrection were supposedly explained away in the category of myth. Sadly this showed a deep rooted bias towards the historical Jesus portrayed in the Bible. (Ex 3.14. Jn 8.58. I Am ! ) Jhn.14.9. Rev1.8 God combined with Rev22.13. Jesus, Titus 2;13. Heb 1.3. col In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives. 2.9.Phil 2.6 who being in very nature God. Isa. 7.14. 9.12.

C.S. Lewis said, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the sort of things that people often say about Him”!. I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God. “That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg- or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else as a madman or something worse . You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God . But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about him being a good teacher he has not left that open to us”

Mk 8.29. Who do you say I am ? You are the Christ ! Greek or Hebrew the Messiah the anointed one. The Jews awaited a Messiah called the Son of man. Dan 7. 13-14. Matt 26.63-64.

Misconception 2.Surley all people born in GB/USA are Christians for we are a Christian nation as much as the Arab nations are Muslim ? Family connections

This sort of statement is a very common one you will here today. I suppose this one is really based upon ignorance of Biblical truth and liberal teaching within the Church itself.

How long have you been a Christian ? Well I was born one.

Of course no one is born a Christian. How can any one of use make a conscious decision at our birth to become a Christian.

(The only thing I could do was cry for milk as a baby !)

The Lord Jesus himself made it very clear to Nicodemus in Jhn 3. You must be born again ! to see the kingdom of God We must be born again because the Bible clearly teaches we are all born in sin Rom 3.23. Psalm 51. 1- 5. Sin came into human nature from the fall in creation Gen.3. Hence we are born in Adam as our ancestor and into SIN its like a faulty mutant genetically passed on . Hence the need to be born again in Christ

1cor15. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Can I ask you are you born again its imperative to deal with the sin problem ?

Misconception 3.Well Christianity is full of laws and its boring life who would ever want to become a Christian ?

I suppose from the outside this can easily be perceived that it is all about laws and ritual and very boring indeed . Even I myself perceived it as such. But again its not until experienced for ones self one is really not in a position to form an opinion. 10 years ago I got great satisfaction out of taking a cocktail of drugs and let me tell you at times the feelings were good and sometimes bad but the problem with drugs it kills you ! Now if you’ve never experienced drugs you will not really know what I am talking about. (Illustration child and sprouts.) Psalm 34 v8 Read. Jhn 10.v10 Jesus said life to the full. The law is the Drill sergeant ! Christians are not governed by law but by Gods grace and that is a wonderful thing ! Matt 5.17. Jesus fulfilled the law so that we might be justified through faith in Jesus Gal3v v23.