One Hope

Well, in case you didn’t know and you haven’t been living in Kansas City, today is a playoff day. And we have been so spoiled that this is Patrick Mahomes’ first road playoff game. Now, I’m going to tell you, when I was a kid, I was a Chiefs fan like everybody else in my school, but you had to have a backup plan because you’d go so far and then you wouldn’t see the Chiefs anymore.

They’d suddenly disappear. And so everybody was either a Cowboys fan or a Steelers fan. Do you remember those days back in the 20th century when you had to kind of choose between the Cowboys and Steelers and the Chiefs were, you know, you could go for them, but it was hard not to have someone to root for.

So having that backup plan came in handy. Now, my other backup plan was I was a big Patriots fan when I was a kid and this was all pre-Tom Brady. So it was Steve Rogan who was a quarterback for the Kansas State Wildcats.

And so that backup plan didn’t go well either. When they finally made it to the Super Bowl, the Bears beat them by the biggest playoff, biggest Super Bowl victory lead ever. So I found that in a lot of things, I need a backup plan.

Sometimes insurance is a smart thing to have. Sometimes some things don’t go well, so we need to be ready to step up and do something else. When I was in college, I got my call to the ministry, but I was strong-willed enough that I put that aside and went on and got my accounting degree and became an accountant and practiced for several years.

And then when God called me and I was finally open to being a pastor, I had to put all that experience behind me and move on to being a pastor. And I remember thinking and saying, and a lot of people telling me, well at least now you have a backup plan. If you get tired of the ministry, you can go back into accounting.

That’s not really how ministry works. It’s if God uncalls you or calls you to something else, then you go back. But I’ve always not worried too much about the ministry thing because I knew I had a backup plan and I could always go back and do accounting.

It’s kind of like riding a bike, except for the tax side of it, which I was talking to Sherry about this morning, because a lot of the laws have changed. And so that backup plan doesn’t work so well anymore. Now as we are walking through this series, let me address you again.

Are you ready? Hey Methodist! Hey! Why go global? Why would we do that? We’ve talked about how it’s beyond us. It’s bigger than us. It gets us thinking more about than this room and the people we’re worshiping with or our own city even.

It helps us think beyond that and see more how God is doing things in places where we couldn’t even imagine. So it helps us think beyond us. Last week we talked about the importance of renewing scriptural holiness, so that with that scriptural holiness, we could not only trust in the scripture, but we could live the scripture out, which is an act of becoming holy and more set apart and like Jesus for our whole lives.

Today we’re going to talk about One Hope. That title sounds familiar. Have any of you heard that before? I guess I pull that whenever we can.

That is the name of our church, that it’s based on One Hope. And it’s not saying you have to be baptized here to have that One Hope. It’s not saying you have to be a member here.

It’s not saying that you have to show up here. But it’s saying we have our One Hope in Jesus. Now if you look at the history of the church, I remember somebody coming up to me, and I don’t even think I was in ministry yet, but they were so worried about a documentary they saw on the History Channel.

And they were going, we’re supposed to have one God. Did you guys know that? Have we made that point clear enough? One God. And they saw this documentary on the history of the Hebrew people and how they dug up the artifacts from certain times and places.

And in almost every time, even from the Exodus, you could see they had idols and other gods involved in their religion. And they said, have you heard this before? And I said, yeah, I read it right here. That the natural tendency is that if you’re not getting what you want from God, that you seek out a backup plan.

And you look for it in other things. And that happens. It manifests itself in many ways in our lives today.

It can manifest itself in abusing drugs and alcohol. It can manifest itself in mistreating others. It can manifest itself in trying to pour ourselves into being successful and not caring about our neighbors along the way.

And for a lot of people I know, some of the best friends I had in seminary started seeking when they didn’t know if the Bible was truth. And they looked into other religions and they dug into that until they finally came back to Jesus and found no other way. Peter was addressing a people who had forgotten so much.

They had Peter. Remember Peter, where we go from Peter in a scene where he’s at a fire and he denies Jesus how many times? Boy, this is a church group. Look at you.

He denies Jesus three times. Do you know him? No, I don’t know him. You were with him.

You got the wrong guy. You’re Galilean. Your voice gives you away.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. No matter who it was, whether it was a slave girl or whether it was someone who could get him in trouble, he was at that point in time and Jesus was arrested. He was denying Jesus.

To the next scene we go to Pentecost and the Holy Spirit comes down and Peter just stands up and starts preaching. I mean, it’s an amazing thing. And then we see he and John go out and they’re walking through and there is a crippled man who everybody knows he’s crippled.

And he asked them for, what do you think he asked for? Alms, for money. He says, hey, help me out here. And they knew what he was asking and they said, Peter said, silver and gold we do not have, but we do have.

We get up, we give to you. Take my hand and stand up in the name of Jesus. And for that act of kindness, they got mad at Peter and John.

Peter and John found themselves arrested and they didn’t know what to do with Peter and John. They thought they had taken care of this sect that was following Jesus. And there they were this first time and they came and they questioned them and they said, tell us again, by what name did you do what you did to this man? They can’t even say, did you heal this man? And the Bible often uses the word made for made whole.

We say well or heal, but it’s like made whole. And Jesus has a way of making the healing tie into the forgiveness of sins. In Acts 4, starting in verse 8, Peter gives his rebuttal when they say, what did you do here and who was this? We stand as you are able.

Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man standing before you well, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone and there is salvation in no one else for as there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we may be saved. The word of God. For the people of God.

Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated.

Now remember last week when we were talking about the Bible and the importance of Scripture and the inspiration of Scripture and the importance of living out Scripture and I told you there would there would be more controversial things to come in this series. Today we have one of the most controversial things you could even imagine saying out loud in the world today that Peter would have the audacity. Now when they looked at Peter and heard him spoke they were all surprised because he they knew he was uneducated and uneducated meant you wouldn’t be there speaking so boldly because you didn’t know as much as someone who was educated but they also knew he was with Jesus but Peter said these words there is salvation in no one else there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved this verse was one of the most controversial verses you could even imagine in what setting guess what setting I was in where it became almost blasphemous to say this say it louder oh did you experience no you went to a good one never mind yeah one of the first things that I kept hearing started with the audacity to think that Christianity and that it’s not even Christianity it’s Jesus is the only way to God and one of the things where they start breaking this down is when we talk about the theologies that are important to the Christian faith I heard so many pastors say I don’t buy this atonement theory now atonement means if you atone for something it means you make it right an atonement theory mean Jesus on the cross made it right for who for us that he died for us they think it’s too archaic for God to send his son but the truth is that we have to know in our lives that God did this because that God did this because he wants to mess with us did God do this because he didn’t like Jesus did God do this because he loves us that much that’s why God did this and that is what we are looking at when we look at Peter and what he’s talking about is the importance of salvation when you break down salvation and you don’t think the atonement of Jesus has to do with our salvation then you change who Jesus is himself and what Jesus purpose was in our lives now last week we looked at the book the next Methodism which I’m not even going to ask if any of you got that and read the whole book last week because it’s pretty big for that but there is a chapter on Soteriology in the book in Doctrine of Soteriology by Bill T Arnold and he says this about Soteriology it’s the doctrine of salvation the next Methodism meaning global Methodism will be honest about the atonement as satisfaction of the justice of God which is so central to our tradition going back to John Wesley it’s just part of who Methodists always had been historically and that eroded in the 20th century and into the 21st century that Soteriology is is the basic what one of Wesley’s sermons that’s the basis of Methodism is called the way of salvation and the way of salvation talks about God’s grace and God’s role and our role in salvation that there’s the prevenient grace the preventive grace that says God’s spirit goes out before us and he works and moves beyond us that is kind of what we were talking about the first week of this when we say God moves beyond us that and it prevents us from sinning it’s like our conscious within us that knows right and wrong but we spend so hard and long in life trying to stop that and then after prevenient grace there is justifying grace and justifying is when we’re made right we’re justified before God when we ask for forgiveness of our sins and accept Christ as our Lord and Savior that’s the cross that’s the justification and then the sanctification means we grow up into our salvation that’s how Paul puts it that we grow up into our salvation that our good works don’t save us but we do good works because that’s part of how we live out our salvation that’s part of who we are and in that it is central to who Methodists are is the doctrine of Soteriology in the Bible now if we go to the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 7 has a couple of verses that are also controversial verses if we look at 14 you see on the screen 13 and 14 say enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few and then towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says this starting in verse 21 not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven on that day many will say to me Lord Lord did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name and then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me you workers of lawlessness in here does Jesus say their good deeds are salvific their good deeds get them into heaven what does it say hint Justin talked about it earlier between the songs it says I never knew you if there’s anything I want is for you to know Jesus for you to know Jesus the one who lived and who taught and who gave everything for us so that we can live and then he walks beside us in everything you do I want you to know Jesus in the good times and in the bad times in the easy times and in the tough times I want you to know Jesus when you go through life circumstances that are way beyond what we can handle on our own because it’s only by the love of Christ that we can be saved and it’s only by the grace of God that we can walk with Jesus in everything so as Christians should we have a backup plan is there a backup plan let’s say it’s not working this this connection thing Jesus this I’m not feeling it it’s not my truth right now well I got I need a backup plan how is that gonna work and and that’s kind of how the world works today where whether they have an idol or whether we have another God we lean on things that aren’t Jesus and in a sense we’re just like those Israelites who wandered in the desert wonder to my God would let him be in in the desert so they pulled out those Egyptian idols least trouble who I was just talking about this book was someone last week he I don’t know how many of you have read this but he wrote the several books like this the case for Christ and I keep some of these if you have anyone that you think needs one of these that they want some proof of who Jesus is and the importance of Jesus then they should read this in in his message called are there many paths to God he just dispelled myth after myth after myth and myth number three is Christians are narrow-minded to think Jesus is the only way to heaven that if it’s a narrow road we are narrow-minded and that is that is a myth in the sense of when you go through the proof in the case for Christ or another book that has the coolest title ever I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist by Norman Geisler in Frank Turek and what it does is it walks through all the prophecies of Jesus and you could take the prophecies of Isaiah 53 alone or you can look at all the prophecies in the Bible and the odds of them matching anyone else to be the Messiah are I don’t know you could win the lottery every day of your life and have better odds than the Messiah being someone else besides Jesus the only one who fulfills that prophecy is Jesus and he told this story he said a few years ago some friends of mine had a baby that developed jaundice have you ever seen a baby with jaundice or someone with jaundice it’s a disorder of the liver that causes the skin and the whites of the eyes to turn yellow and her eyes were yellow and the parents were worried so they took the baby to the pediatrician and the pediatrician told them that jaundice is a potentially devastating disease but it’s also easily cured all they had to do was put the baby under a special light that stimulates the healthy liver function now the parents could have listened to this advice from the doctor and then said that sounds too easy just put her under a light what if instead we scrub her with soap and we dip her in bleach and eventually if we work hard enough and do enough then she won’t be yellow the doctor could have looked at them and said you don’t understand there’s only one way to cure your daughter they could have replied what if we just ignore all this and pretend everything’s okay the jaundice is your truth doc it’s not our truth if we sincerely believe that things will turn out for the best in the long haul the doctor would have said you’re going to jeopardize the life of your child if you do that there’s only one way to cure her you hesitate you’re hesitant to pursue the treatment because it sounds too easy but look at the credentials on my wall I’ve studied medical school I’ve used what I’ve learned to treat and to cure countless babies trust me would anybody accuse the parents of being narrow-minded if they followed the doctor’s advice and they treated the baby of course not this is not being narrow-minded this is acting rationally and in accordance with the evidence now you can tell it’s Lee Strobel in accordance with the evidence every person in this room has a terminal illness called sin those are Lee’s words you know you guys might not be but he’s saying the reason for those of us who follow Jesus cling to him so tightly is that he is the great physician who has the cure the only cure we could try to scrub off our sins with good deeds but it will not work we can sincerely think that there are other ways of dealing with it but we will be sincerely wrong the truth is that only the great physician offers the treatment that will erase the stain of sin he has the credentials and the credibility to back him up so when we turn to him we’re not being narrow-minded we’re actually rational we’re acting rationally and in accordance with the you know what he’s saying here evidence it’s not just how we feel when we have Jesus as our Lord and Savior it’s the facts is what Lee Strobel is trying to say now going back to the next Methodism on the doctrine of soteriology Arnold also says the next Methodism will not be embarrassed by the references to the blood of Jesus flowing down from the cross we must fully embrace the depth of our sinful human nature and understand that the only that only such a great sacrifice can redeem us from death and hell Jesus paid it all everybody read this last word with me hallelujah Jesus paid it all he did it I I mean I didn’t I didn’t know stuff like this happened you know being in the ministry exposes you to a lot of things but in a in a church one church I was serving we saying nothing but the blood and I had people saying can we still sing this there were pastors before that said we don’t sing these kind of songs and and we say it but people started singing and you know they were singing more and more boldly by the end of the song but they were most more used to cutting that out because it seems offensive to say that Jesus is the only way to God that we need Jesus I’m gonna tell you I may have a backup plan for this ministry thing but I have never found a backup plan for Jesus I may have thought about it I may have leaned on other things I may have when my faith wasn’t so strong leaned on something else I may have pushed it aside but in all the facts and all the experience and all the things I can remember in my life Jesus is what is needed we have one hope and one hope only Jesus said it this way he said it a couple different ways go back and going along a little further he fell on his face and prayed saying my father now this is in the Garden of Gethsemane remember he’s playing and he asked the disciples to pray for him but they were tired it was late so they slept and he prayed and he said if it is possible let this cup pass for me nevertheless not as I will but as you will if it is possible that’s kind of why one of the things I like about Matthew in here that he has this line of Jesus that if it is possible so the answer was it was not possible for there to be any other way than for Jesus to do what Jesus did and then finally the most controversial line that I can remember Jesus said to them read this with me Jesus said to them I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me now the Greek when you look at that the Greek has the word the in the Greek which is actually the word ha and it makes me think of this is not how he would have done it but it makes me think of him saying you thought there was another way ha I am the way and the Greek would do that the Greek would say it may be talking about Peter if we looked at the Greek it would have said and the Peter talked to them signifying it because they didn’t have full last names and social security