SPEAKER_06: After you're seated, we'll have just a short video.
SPEAKER_06: Uh there is a famous pollster in the religious world.
SPEAKER_06: His name is George Barna.
SPEAKER_06: And uh he was speaking at the Bellevue Baptist Church a number of years ago, and what he says is a little bit shocking, but I want you to watch it.
SPEAKER_06: Uh and we'll uh watch that together after we read our text.
SPEAKER_06: We're talking today on the subject of this question.
SPEAKER_06: Is Christianity too narrow?
SPEAKER_06: It's awfully narrow-minded to make the claims that we as Christians make.
SPEAKER_06: We're going to take up that question and we're going to read here in Ephesians chapter 4, and then you'll be seated and we'll watch a short presentation and get right into our message this morning.
SPEAKER_06: I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called, with all lowliness and meekness, with forbearing, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
SPEAKER_06: There is one body, and one spirit, even as ye are called, and one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all.
SPEAKER_06: May we pray.
SPEAKER_06: Father, thank you for all that we've heard and felt in this meeting already today.
SPEAKER_06: Truth, life-changing, world-changing truth put to beautiful music today.
SPEAKER_06: Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_06: Now, as we come to the pages of your word, and we argue not just from the Bible today, but we argue for the scriptures that you will illuminate our minds, rid us of that distracting thing that would keep us from our focus on Christ, and we praise you for it.
SPEAKER_06: For we ask in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_06: Please be seated together.
SPEAKER_00: But as I look at this whole enterprise of discipleship in America, I started looking at some of the research, some of the facts that we have about what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And what I've discovered is that in America today, only somewhere between two to three percent of adults in America can be defined as disciples of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Two to three percent.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
SPEAKER_00: In this nation where 64% of Americans call themselves Christians, only 2 to 3% of them meet a series of criteria, very simple criteria, that might begin to define them as disciples of Jesus, criteria like you know, believing that the Bible is God's true and reliable words, that it should influence our life, believing that the Bible should be our primary moral God, being born again, calling ourselves them, but actually being people who recognize that we're sinners, then our only hope is Jesus Christ therefore.
SPEAKER_00: We've acknowledged that we're sinners before God.
SPEAKER_00: We've told him that we're sorry for those sins.
SPEAKER_00: We've asked him to forgive us for those sins, we've asked him to send Jesus to allow Jesus to cover us with his blood, so that we can live eternally with him.
SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, we're promising that we're going to turn our lives around.
SPEAKER_00: We know that sinning hurts God, and we don't want to do that anymore, so we're repenting, which is what that means, turning your life around, doing things differently.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, what else does a disciple do?
SPEAKER_00: Someone who reads the Bible every day, someone who will spend time every day praying to God, listening to him, trying to discern through his word and through your communication with him.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want from me today, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: I'm committed to it, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00: I will go there, I will do it, I will pay the price no matter what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Pursuing his will in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Every day, taking time to thank and praise and worship God for his greatness and his goodness, being someone who is consistently pursuing obedience of all the principles that Jesus taught us.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to get it perfect, but we're intent on trying to become a little bit closer to them every single day.
SPEAKER_00: Individuals who would say that the only reason why we're on the face of the earth has nothing to do with us.
SPEAKER_00: It has only to do with God.
SPEAKER_00: He created us for his purposes, and his purpose for you and me is that we would know, love, and serve him with a little heart and mind, strength and soul every moment of every day.
SPEAKER_00: And a disciple is someone who would try to avoid sinning all the time because we know that that breaks God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: We know that that doesn't advance his kingdom, it's not part of his agenda.
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, these aren't, you know, things that you've never heard before.
SPEAKER_00: You know all this, I know all this, but are we living that way?
SPEAKER_06: Two to three percent of professing Christians are living a normal Christian life.
SPEAKER_06: It was G.K.
SPEAKER_06: Chesterson who said years ago, the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
SPEAKER_06: It has been found difficult and left untried.
SPEAKER_06: Recently, uh another poll was done of professing Christians.
SPEAKER_06: I discovered that 66% of American Christians say many religions lead to eternal life.
SPEAKER_06: 52% of evangelicals say that many religions lead to eternal life, and uh 48% say that God accepts the worship of all uh religions.
SPEAKER_06: Led one uh preacher to correct those statistics and to say 100% of true Christians say no other religion can save you.
SPEAKER_06: 100% of true evangelicals say there's no other religion that can save you.
SPEAKER_06: 100% of all evangelicals, true followers of Christ, say that God rejects all worship other than that which is consistent with his divine revelation in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: I'm hesitant even in our world today to use the term Christianity because it's become so indefinite and so ubiquitous.
SPEAKER_06: Anything that seemingly doesn't exist on the dark side is called Christianity.
SPEAKER_06: But what does it mean to be a true follower of the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ, that the Bible is the Word of God, that Jesus Christ is God's revelation to mankind, that there is salvation in none other than in the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: Salvation is not of works or baptism or church membership.
SPEAKER_06: Salvation is through and by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_06: And upon what basis can I make those extremely narrow claims?
SPEAKER_06: Well, I make them based on the authority of Scripture, the reliability of Scripture, the power of our rational thought, and upon the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: The fact is, our culture wants to treat Christianity as one helpful option among many other options, as if it were a preference, like choosing between Coke or Pepsi or Chevy or Ford.
SPEAKER_06: But it was C.
SPEAKER_06: S.
SPEAKER_06: Lewis who rightly observed years ago that Christianity, if false, is of no importance.
SPEAKER_06: And if it is true, is of infinite importance.
SPEAKER_06: And then he said this the only thing that it cannot be is moderately important.
SPEAKER_06: If Jesus Christ truly is the Son of God who died, was buried, and rose again, then Jesus Christ deserves way more than our mere admiration.
SPEAKER_06: He demands our faith, our worship, and our allegiance.
SPEAKER_06: And if Jesus Christ is not who he claimed to be, then Christianity should be rejected altogether.
SPEAKER_06: But what it cannot be is merely one respectable opinion among many.
SPEAKER_06: And do not make the illogical statement that all roads lead to God, for there is one way to heaven, and that is through and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: Now I'm going to scare you because there are six points in the sermon, so listen fast, okay?
SPEAKER_06: But we're going to take a logical conclusion, some concluding statements that hopefully lead us to recognizing how exclusive Christianity is and why it necessarily is the very way of God.
SPEAKER_06: Notice, first of all, in your notes, the exclusive claims of Christianity.
SPEAKER_06: The exclusive claims of Christianity.
SPEAKER_06: We read a moment ago in Ephesians chapter 4, uh verses 4 through 6.
SPEAKER_06: If you have it there, notice it again.
SPEAKER_06: There is, maybe you can help me.
SPEAKER_06: If I point at you, say the word one.
SPEAKER_06: Okay, one.
SPEAKER_06: Ready?
SPEAKER_06: Here we go.
SPEAKER_06: There is one body and one spirit, even as you're called in, one hope of your calling.
SPEAKER_06: I need you to say it with a little more conviction, okay?
SPEAKER_06: Some of you, uh the uh the caffeine has yet to fully kick in yet.
SPEAKER_06: Okay, let's try it.
SPEAKER_06: Can we try again?
SPEAKER_06: Okay, just just just imagine you're Pentecostal for the next couple minutes, okay?
SPEAKER_06: Here we go.
SPEAKER_06: Ready?
SPEAKER_06: There is one body.
SPEAKER_06: Now you're speaking in tongues, okay?
SPEAKER_06: I don't need that much energy.
SPEAKER_06: Okay, right somewhere in the middle would be great.
SPEAKER_06: Here we go.
SPEAKER_06: There is one body and one spirit, even as you're called in, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
SPEAKER_06: Now the Bible makes this clear in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, there is one God.
SPEAKER_06: Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.
SPEAKER_06: The Bible says, There is one God to worship.
SPEAKER_06: Exodus 34, verse 14, thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.
SPEAKER_06: There is one creator.
SPEAKER_06: Isaiah 44, verse 24, thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things.
SPEAKER_06: There is one Savior.
SPEAKER_06: Hosea 13, 4.
SPEAKER_06: Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no other God but me, for there is no Savior beside me.
SPEAKER_06: There is one Lord, there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_06: There is but one door, John 10, 9.
SPEAKER_06: I am the door.
SPEAKER_06: By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.
SPEAKER_06: There is one way, Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_06: There's one name, neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
SPEAKER_06: There is one gospel, Galatians 1.6.
SPEAKER_06: I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ and to another gospel, which is not another.
SPEAKER_06: There is one gospel, and that is the death and the burial, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: There's one foundation, 1 Corinthians 3.11, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ.
SPEAKER_06: There is one sacrifice, Hebrews 10, verse 10, by the which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
SPEAKER_06: There is one high priest, Hebrews 4, verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_06: There is one body, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, for by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.
SPEAKER_06: There's one resurrection.
SPEAKER_06: I am, Jesus said, the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_06: There is one King, Revelation 19, verse 16, and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_06: There's one narrow way, Matthew 7, verse 13.
SPEAKER_06: Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go therein.
SPEAKER_06: Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth to life, and few there be that findeth.
SPEAKER_06: There is one flock, John 10, verse 16, and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, neither them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
SPEAKER_06: And finally, there is but one eternal destiny for the redeemed.
SPEAKER_06: Daniel chapter 12, verse 2.
SPEAKER_06: And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
SPEAKER_06: Number one, the exclusive claims of Christianity.
SPEAKER_06: These are the boasts the Bible makes about itself, found in that word that you helped me so eloquently preach this morning.
SPEAKER_06: It's the word one.
SPEAKER_06: But number two, I want you to think about this as we logically work our way through the sermon today.
SPEAKER_06: Every religion makes exclusive claims.
SPEAKER_06: We have a little illustration that my buddy Chat helped me build.
SPEAKER_06: You guys know?
SPEAKER_06: Anyone, friends with chat?
SPEAKER_06: Some of your friends with Grok.
SPEAKER_06: How many of you are friends with Grok?
SPEAKER_06: Wait, how about Claude?
SPEAKER_06: We okay, everybody has a friend, and some of you have no idea what we're talking about, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_06: This is the view of many people in our world today.
SPEAKER_06: We have the truth or what mean what might be represented as God on the top of the mountain.
SPEAKER_06: And as you can see, we have five roads here that all that lead up the mountain, and all five roads lead to God.
SPEAKER_06: Well, there's the question of who is the divine?
SPEAKER_06: Hindus believe that there are many gods.
SPEAKER_06: Buddhism teaches that there are no gods at all.
SPEAKER_06: Muslims believe that there is but one God.
SPEAKER_06: Jews believe that there's one God as defined in the Old Testament, and Christianity teaches in a triune God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: But all of these faith systems preach a particular exclusive claim to eternal life or enlightenment.
SPEAKER_06: For example, Christianity says that our sin is our problem and our sin is committed against God, that we cannot save ourselves, that salvation is by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, whose death and resurrection accomplished everything necessary for our salvation.
SPEAKER_06: Well, then there's the teaching of Islam.
SPEAKER_06: Islam teaches that mankind must submit to Allah and hopes for acceptance through faith, obedience, repentance, and Allah's mercy.
SPEAKER_06: And by the way, can I just tell you, nowhere in the Quran does it ever say Allah loves you.
SPEAKER_06: And it only gives one hope of eternal life, and that is through your martyrdom.
SPEAKER_06: You giving your life for Allah.
SPEAKER_06: Can I just say that Islam requires that you die for God, but Christianity teaches that our God came and died for us?
SPEAKER_06: Exclusive claims.
SPEAKER_06: Take Judaism, for example, they do not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_06: They look to covenant faithfulness and repentance and good works, even a sacrificial system established under the Mosaic covenant.
SPEAKER_06: Hinduism teaches that the problem of mankind is bondage to the cycles of rebirth, that liberation comes through various paths such as devotion and knowledge or righteous acts, depending on the tradition, that there is an endless cycle of reincarnations, that if you are a good person and live a good life, you'll rise higher and higher and higher towards deity.
SPEAKER_06: Buddhism teaches that the fundamental problem of mankind is suffering.
SPEAKER_06: And our suffering is brought by our desires or our ignorance or our intellect, that the solution to our problem is enlightenment through following the eightfold noble path, not forgiveness of sins through a savior.
SPEAKER_06: And then, of course, we see the rise of atheism in our world today.
SPEAKER_06: By the way, did you know that the fastest growing religion in America is not atheism, but non's.
SPEAKER_06: A big fancy word for people that say, I have no participation in the game of faith.
SPEAKER_06: I'm a non-believer, just existing outside of any of these structures.
SPEAKER_06: The atheism says that there is no eternal salvation because there is no eternal, transcendent God from whom we need to seek forgiveness and to whom we might give account of our lives someday.
SPEAKER_06: May I just say, as we look at this mountain, that these are not different roads up the same mountain.
SPEAKER_06: Rather, what I just described to you are different mountains entirely, different destinations and different definitions of the problem itself.
SPEAKER_06: May I just say this morning, Muhammad does not lead to God, Buddha does not lead to enlightenment, rebirth does not come through Hinduism.
SPEAKER_06: Salvation is found through the claims of Scripture in the coming of Christ in humanity, his perfect life, his total substitutionary death for sin, his burial and his victorious resurrection from the grave, their salvation in that exclusive claim because of the authority of Scripture.
SPEAKER_06: Now, notice number three, there cannot be two ways to lead to God.
SPEAKER_06: Now, based on what we just described, Islam makes an exclusive claim.
SPEAKER_06: And anyone who does not submit to Allah is a pagan and an outsider, they're making exclusive claims.
SPEAKER_06: All around the world today, the Roman Catholic Church will lift up the Eucharist, claiming it becomes the body and blood of Christ, that salvation is found solely in the church.
SPEAKER_06: That's an exclusive claim.
SPEAKER_06: There were Jehovah's Witnesses traveling about our cities yesterday, selling magazines, working for their own soul salvation, Mormon missionaries, young people heading out on a two-year mission in order to gain favor with an almighty God.
SPEAKER_06: But there can only be one way.
SPEAKER_06: Now, it's called the law of non-contradiction.
SPEAKER_06: You should have this little saying in your notes this morning: A cannot be not a.
SPEAKER_06: A cannot be not A.
SPEAKER_06: And what that simply means is two truth claims cannot be both be true at the same time.
SPEAKER_06: Now, why can they not be true at the same time?
SPEAKER_06: Because they're both making exclusive claims for salvation.
SPEAKER_06: And it also means that A cannot be not A at the same time and in the same way.
SPEAKER_06: Imagine you were driving through an intersection as sometimes happens here in Englewood.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
SPEAKER_06: Four-way stops in Englewood are just merely suggestions.
SPEAKER_06: Can I get an amen right there?
SPEAKER_06: So you're traveling through an intersection.
SPEAKER_06: The fact is the light cannot be green and red at the same time in the same direction.
SPEAKER_06: By the way, people that say, I don't, I don't like to exercise faith, exercise faith every time they come to a four-way stop.
SPEAKER_06: I'm placing belief in the fact that the person coming this way sees the sign, observes the sign, and has the connection between their brain seeing a sign and their foot stomping on their brake pedal.
SPEAKER_06: If someone argued at that intersection, well, the light was green and red for me simultaneously, we wouldn't call that being broad-minded.
SPEAKER_06: We would call that dangerous.
SPEAKER_06: Why?
SPEAKER_06: Because reality doesn't bend to our preferences.
SPEAKER_06: Bruce Miller said, in many ways, far from being paths on the same mountain, trying to reach the same God, these religions aren't even on the same planet.
SPEAKER_06: They each have exclusive claims as to what truth is.
SPEAKER_06: It's simply not rational to see all religions as divergent but equally true paths to the same end.
SPEAKER_06: To do so is to ignore the reality of each religion's actual belief system.
SPEAKER_06: In other words, it's impossible that Christianity is true and other religions are true at the same time.
SPEAKER_06: Because if Yahweh is the one and living and true God, it means there is no other God.
SPEAKER_06: If the Bible is the one true revealed revelation of God, that means the Book of Mormon is not.
SPEAKER_06: That means the Quran is not.
SPEAKER_06: That means no other religions are to be placed in equal order.
SPEAKER_06: Authority to the revealed revelation of God in the pages of God's living word.
SPEAKER_06: If the Son of God is Jesus, who alone is Lord and the King, there is no other Lord.
SPEAKER_06: If Jesus Christ is the only savior from sin and eternal judgment, there is no other savior.
SPEAKER_06: If sinners can be saved only by the gospel of Jesus Christ, then they can't be saved by any other means.
SPEAKER_06: If people can only escape hell by trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ, they cannot escape hell by any other avenue.
SPEAKER_06: If sinners will be in hell forever, if they reject Christ, there is no other way for them to escape.
SPEAKER_06: If the sole work that saves sinners is the death and resurrection of Christ, then no other work can save sinners.
SPEAKER_06: If the gospel is the only saving truth and all other claims are lies, if there's only one true religion, then all other religions are false.
SPEAKER_06: If there's only one true God, who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, then there is no other God.
SPEAKER_06: The Old Testament says He is one Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Deuteronomy 6, 4, Hero, Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.
SPEAKER_06: The New Testament gives credence to this idea, John 17, verse 3, and this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
SPEAKER_06: There's one preacher who said, The most serious thing that you could possibly do in this world was to believe that there is any way to eternal life apart from Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: Apart from the gospel.
SPEAKER_06: That is condemned from the Pentateuch in Scripture all the way to its very end.
SPEAKER_06: Number four, Christianity naturally invites investigation.
SPEAKER_06: Is there a logical, historical, archaeological proof for the truth of Scripture?
SPEAKER_06: We live in a day and time when things are asked of us to be believed without evidence.
SPEAKER_06: I don't mean to give you PTSD, but about six years ago we were we were called to trust the science.
SPEAKER_06: Unassailable, unimpeachable, unrivaled, unquestioned science.
SPEAKER_06: And what we discovered is that there can rise such a hubris, such a pride in mankind to claim that one person is science.
SPEAKER_06: That is a dastardly bold claim.
SPEAKER_06: Science is bigger than any one person.
SPEAKER_06: And science is only accurate so much as it is what we call falsifiable.
SPEAKER_06: It's placed in a laboratory, it's inspected, it's questioned, it's placed through rigorous processes to see if something is actually true.
SPEAKER_06: Can I speak for a moment about the theory of evolution?
SPEAKER_06: The theory of evolution.
SPEAKER_06: If it's truly scientific, it would be questionable, it would be testable, it would be falsifiable.
SPEAKER_06: And you know what we've discovered?
SPEAKER_06: We've discovered that we have never personally observed one occurrence of evolution.
SPEAKER_06: Imagine a detective says, no matter what evidence you find, my subject or my suspect is guilty.
SPEAKER_06: No investigation, that's just prejudice.
SPEAKER_06: But honest investigation always asks, what evidence would change my mind?
SPEAKER_06: Science calls this falsifiability.
SPEAKER_06: Christianity has never feared history because it is itself rooted in history.
SPEAKER_06: The God of the Bible does not ask us to believe in spite of evidence.
SPEAKER_06: He invites us to examine the evidence, and when we observe the evidence, we discover that the evidence always proves the Bible is true.
SPEAKER_06: I want you to go with me very quickly to Luke chapter 3.
SPEAKER_06: I was reading uh the first hand story of an Islamic man who had come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_06: His name was Shariq Khan.
SPEAKER_06: He said, When I was a Muslim, I never noticed what the Quran doesn't have.
SPEAKER_06: Muhammad was a young religious leader of a certain clan.
SPEAKER_06: He began to coalesce power.
SPEAKER_06: Before he radicalized, one in every thousand people exposed to Islam converted.
SPEAKER_06: One in every thousand.
SPEAKER_06: When he radicalized, he converted one in every ten.
SPEAKER_06: It's amazing what happens at the wedded edge of a sword.
SPEAKER_06: And by the way, can I just tell you the difference between Islam and Christianity?
SPEAKER_06: Islam has always spread by the sword, and Christianity has always spread by the word of God.
SPEAKER_06: Listen, we are not interested in taking a dead sword and plunging it into living hearts to make them convert, but we are interested in taking a living sword and plunging it into the heart of dead men that they may come to life.
SPEAKER_06: He said, When I was a Muslim, I never noticed what the Quran doesn't say.
SPEAKER_06: It has no dates, no places, no names you can check.
SPEAKER_06: Read the Quran's story.
SPEAKER_06: He said, No chronology, no geography, kings only called Pharaoh, events floating, and no particular year.
SPEAKER_06: When did the story happen?
SPEAKER_06: When and where, and under whom the text doesn't say you can't check it, which conveniently means you can't cross-check it.
SPEAKER_06: But then he read Luke chapter 3, verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_06: Notice, in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, Tetrarch of Eturia, and of the regions of Trechonidas, and Lysanius, the Tetrarch of Abylon, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priest, the word of God came into John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_06: Now, if you'll just take the time to notice, in Luke chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, there are seven historical anchors mentioned in these two verses of Scripture.
SPEAKER_06: Seven.
SPEAKER_06: God, in two verses of Scripture, gives you seven targets to come after the authority of the Holy Scriptures.
SPEAKER_06: Now, there's two particular I want to show you.
SPEAKER_06: There's one in this verse, and then one that you'll immediately recognize.
SPEAKER_06: Historians said that there was no evidence of a man, as mentioned in Luke chapter 3, verse 2, Lisanius the Tetrarch of Abilene.
SPEAKER_06: Therefore they said, because there's no archaeological, geological, historical proof that this man existed, that the Bible was not true.
SPEAKER_06: But in 1850, a French archaeologist named Louis Felician Del Salce, and I don't know any French, and so pardon, pardon my French.
SPEAKER_06: Okay, there we go.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't plan that, it just happened.
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
SPEAKER_06: Found an inscription from between 14 to 29 A.D.
SPEAKER_06: that proved indeed this man actually existed.
SPEAKER_06: This is uh this is not the inscription, but it would show you what it looked like so it could be read.
SPEAKER_06: The second one is a fellow in the New Testament, you'll know his name.
SPEAKER_06: His name was Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_06: Historians, skeptics, liberals said there was no record that a man named Pontius Pilate ever existed.
SPEAKER_06: But in 1961, when they began to excavate the area of Caesarea, they discovered a stone with an inscription to Pontius Pilate himself.
SPEAKER_06: In other words, listen, every time the archaeological spade digs in the soil of Israel, it shouts the Bible is historically true.
SPEAKER_06: It's falsifiable.
SPEAKER_06: In other words, the Bible offers certainty.
SPEAKER_06: It provides evidence.
SPEAKER_06: The Quran floats above history where nothing can touch it, but the Bible plants its flag in checkable ground and says, search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they that testify of me.
SPEAKER_06: So what makes Christianity different?
SPEAKER_06: What makes it different?
SPEAKER_06: Mason Jones said a few years before high school he converted to atheism.
SPEAKER_06: It's interesting how you can convert to a non-religion.
SPEAKER_06: Atheism.
SPEAKER_06: I developed this tidy understanding of religion through my early teen years, and for a while it went unchallenged.
SPEAKER_06: But when I was a sophomore in high school, he moved one of the he moved in with his dad, began attending church, and for the first time he heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_06: I paused myself to say, I become so vexed at times by people speaking down the role of the church and the authority of Scripture.
SPEAKER_06: When the fact is, when they tell me their story, I'm convinced they've never attended a true church and never heard the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: I hate potato salad.
SPEAKER_06: I said that for years.
SPEAKER_06: Now I've offended half of you, and I apologize.
SPEAKER_06: Just give me time to make amends.
SPEAKER_06: You know why I hate it?
SPEAKER_06: I've never had it.
SPEAKER_06: But I looked at it.
SPEAKER_06: I said I didn't like it.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, taste and see, the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_06: People make such mean and vulgar expressions of our great God, and they've never tasted the joy of that bread of life and water that truly, truly satisfies.
SPEAKER_06: Some of you are going to bring potato salad to the next church function, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_06: It can be white, it can be yellow.
SPEAKER_06: I'm not eating it.
SPEAKER_06: Unless we have 500.
SPEAKER_06: We have 500 in church.
SPEAKER_06: I will eat a plate full of potato salad.
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
SPEAKER_06: He said, after going to church, I realized I'd done to Christianity exactly what I accused religions of doing to the world.
SPEAKER_06: I oversimplified it.
SPEAKER_06: I misrepresented it because I missed the key piece of data.
SPEAKER_06: You ready for it?
SPEAKER_06: There's salvation in no one else but Jesus.
SPEAKER_06: There's two types of religions in this world.
SPEAKER_06: Do and done.
SPEAKER_06: Islam teaches that a Muslim must obey Allah, keep the five pillars of Islam, repent, and hope for Allah's mercy.
SPEAKER_06: Hinduism says to perform righteous deeds, whether it's devotion or meditation or knowledge.
SPEAKER_06: Buddhism encourages its followers to follow the eight-fold path to enlightenment.
SPEAKER_06: Whether it's the Mormon on his two-year mission or the Jehovah's Witness in his distribution of the Watchtower magazine, religion is asking something of you in order to provide you with assurance of eternal life, however it's defined.
SPEAKER_06: But Christianity says the work is already completed.
SPEAKER_06: Jesus paid it all.
SPEAKER_06: Christianity says, I cannot save myself, but I'm in desperate need of rescue.
SPEAKER_06: But I've heard that Christ robed himself in humanity and took on human flesh.
SPEAKER_06: He was buried and rose again.
SPEAKER_06: I bring nothing but filthy rags to him, but receive by faith righteous garments because of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: Nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling.
SPEAKER_06: Let me give you one more.
SPEAKER_06: The greatest argument for Christianity.
SPEAKER_06: What is the greatest argument for Christianity?
SPEAKER_06: One of the most credible claims of Christianity is the resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: It's the ultimate claim of our faith.
SPEAKER_06: It's so important that the scripture says if Christ did not rise from the dead, our faith is absolutely in vain.
SPEAKER_06: The internet lists 28 people who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah over the past 2,000 years, 28.
SPEAKER_06: And besides Jesus, none of them ever claim to have risen from the dead.
SPEAKER_06: The Bible says plainly that Christ died, that his grave was truly emptied on the third day after his death.
SPEAKER_06: Though given the opportunity to do so in the decades after his resurrection, none of his disciples ever recanted of their eyewitness accounts of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_06: In fact, all of them were martyred and pointed to Christ's victory over death.
SPEAKER_06: You remember Chuck Colson?
SPEAKER_06: He was chief counsel to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
SPEAKER_06: Became a Christian while imprisoned.
SPEAKER_06: He wrote of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_06: Here we were, the ten most powerful men in the United States, with all that power, and we couldn't contain a lie for two weeks.
SPEAKER_06: Take it from the one who was involved in conspiracy, who saw the frailty of man firsthand.
SPEAKER_06: There is no way he said the eleven apostles who were with Jesus Christ at the time of his resurrection could have ever gone around for 40 years proclaiming Jesus' resurrection unless it were true and they spilled their belief in their blood, stating Jesus Christ died, was buried, and he rose again according to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_06: Not only that, but a few decades after Christ's resurrection, one of Christianity's most committed enemies testified to the truth of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_06: The Apostle Paul was a leader in persecuting Christians for their faith in Christ, but later he became a Christian when he experienced on the road to Damascus the living Christ.
SPEAKER_06: So what is the greatest argument for Christianity?
SPEAKER_06: I was talking to one of our young men about helping in one of our children's classes.
SPEAKER_06: He's a great young man.
SPEAKER_06: I'm praying that God will use him in a great way.
SPEAKER_06: And he, like all of us, maybe get involved in ministry and are concerned about the unknown theological questions people are going to ask us.
SPEAKER_06: Does that ever intimidate you?
SPEAKER_06: That you're going to give a gospel tract to someone in the fishing section of Walmart and they're going to ask an age-old theological question that's going to stump you and rattle your faith.
SPEAKER_06: Don't worry about that.
SPEAKER_06: I want to tell you what your greatest weapon is in sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_06: Not a treatise on the difference between transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and the fact that these elements represent the body and blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: That's not the point.
SPEAKER_06: Though it's important.
SPEAKER_06: The greatest argument for Christianity is your own life-changing story of how Christ transformed your life.
SPEAKER_06: As Christ transformed your life, then tell someone about it.
SPEAKER_06: Brett Hume, who I understand lives on the island.
SPEAKER_06: I remember years ago when Tiger Woods was outed for his excessively adulterous lifestyle, had said in a news conference that he had failed himself.
SPEAKER_06: He had lived below his expectations of himself, and he was reconnecting with his Buddhist faith.
SPEAKER_06: Do you remember that press conference?
SPEAKER_06: And Brett Hume said to Bill O'Reilly, Tiger Woods ought to consider biblical Christianity.
SPEAKER_06: Because Buddhism offers no promise of forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_06: And what Tiger Woods needs is to recognize that a Savior died, was buried, and rose again, and their salvation and deliverance to the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: When I look around the room, I see the power of changed lives.
SPEAKER_06: People say, I don't go to church because there's a lot of hypocrites there.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, it's worse than that.
SPEAKER_06: Drug addicts in the room, too.
SPEAKER_06: Liars in the room.
SPEAKER_06: There's adulterers in the room.
SPEAKER_06: Alcoholics in the room.
SPEAKER_06: Wickedness in the room.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, but such were some of you.
SPEAKER_06: But you've been washed, you've been sanctified, you've been justified.
SPEAKER_06: It is true, the exclusive claims of Christianity that we can say this is how it feels to be freed by the precious blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: The power of a changed life.
SPEAKER_06: You don't have to go to Jerusalem to see evidence that Jesus is Christ is alive.
SPEAKER_06: Look across the room this morning.
SPEAKER_06: Look across the aisle.
SPEAKER_06: Look in your own heart and see the life-changing power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: I'm the way, I'm the truth, and I'm the life.
SPEAKER_06: And as believers in Christ, let's come to this table this morning in gratitude that these elements represent the only way mankind has to be set free from the power of his sin.
SPEAKER_06: And that's through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you and for me.
SPEAKER_06: Let's all bow our heads and pray together.
SPEAKER_06: In just a moment, our ushers will come and we'll make ready to receive these elements today.
SPEAKER_06: On the table is such a simple supper.
SPEAKER_06: Beautiful in meaning, not beautiful in appearance, very simple.
SPEAKER_06: Bread speaks of Christ's body and juice that speaks of Christ's blood.
SPEAKER_06: And Jesus Christ did all of this for you and for me.
SPEAKER_06: The God that created this world, came into this world, took on flesh, lived a perfect life.
SPEAKER_06: Walked to an old rugged cross, where there he hung, suspended between heaven and earth, between God and men, and as a mediator between God and men, he satisfied the righteous anger of a holy God and offered to sinful men forgiveness through the merits of his own shed blood.
SPEAKER_06: This is what it means to be forgiven.
SPEAKER_06: Now I ask you a question.
SPEAKER_06: How many of you could say by lifted hand, I know this morning I've placed my faith and my trust in the finished work of Christ?
SPEAKER_06: Would you lift your hand and hold it high?
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: Praise God forgiven.
SPEAKER_06: If you would just take a few moments and say, I don't want to come to this table with my life.
SPEAKER_06: Pastor, would you please pray for me?
SPEAKER_06: Or would there be one person that wouldn't lift your hand that would say I'm not a Christian, but I hope you'd pray for me this morning?
SPEAKER_06: Would there be any person like that?
SPEAKER_06: God bless you.
SPEAKER_06: I see your hand in the back.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, there are others who say I'm not a Christian, but this moment I need to be.
SPEAKER_06: God is speaking to my heart.
SPEAKER_06: You just raised your hand.
SPEAKER_06: I want you to know Jesus Christ loves you.
SPEAKER_06: He died to save you.
SPEAKER_06: He was buried.
SPEAKER_06: He rose again.
SPEAKER_06: He defeated death.
SPEAKER_06: He defeated sin.
SPEAKER_06: He defeated the grave.
SPEAKER_06: He wants to come into your life at this very moment.
SPEAKER_06: But we can receive that gift of salvation by trusting Christ.
SPEAKER_06: The Bible says, if thou shalt confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart God raised her from the dead, you can be saved.
SPEAKER_06: If you just raised your hand, and maybe you didn't raise your hand, but you know you need Christ.
SPEAKER_06: You can pray right where you're seated this morning by looking to Christ.
SPEAKER_06: Would you just say, Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_06: And I know that I need salvation.
SPEAKER_06: But I ask you at this moment to forgive my sin.
SPEAKER_06: I ask you into my life.
SPEAKER_06: I believe that you're God and that you died and you rose again.
SPEAKER_06: And I'm trusting you right now to give me eternal life.
SPEAKER_06: Help me to live for you from this day forward.
SPEAKER_06: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_06: Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed together.
SPEAKER_06: But as I was praying aloud, you prayed in your heart to God and received that gift of salvation.
SPEAKER_06: Would you lift your hand just so we can pray for you this morning?
SPEAKER_06: Anyone at all?
SPEAKER_06: God bless you.
SPEAKER_06: I see your hand.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: God bless you.
SPEAKER_06: I see your hand in the back as well.
SPEAKER_06: God bless you, sir.
SPEAKER_06: I see your hand.
SPEAKER_06: God bless you.
SPEAKER_06: Can we just welcome them into the family of God this morning?
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: We have some resources to help you live for Christ and know the Lord Jesus Christ and follow him with your life.
SPEAKER_06: We're so glad you're here today.
SPEAKER_06: In just a moment, we'll come to this table.
SPEAKER_06: I just want you to take that moment just to get your heart in tune with God.
SPEAKER_06: I invite our ushers to come and we'll make ready to give these elements.
SPEAKER_06: Father, we just love you.
SPEAKER_06: We praise you and thank you for the goodness of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_06: And we pray that you'll make this a moment as we arise as we turn to you.
SPEAKER_06: We ask it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_06: The Bible in 1 Corinthians of chapter number 11 teaches us the moment in which the Lord Jesus Christ gathered his disciples.
SPEAKER_06: He took bread and he took wine on the table.
SPEAKER_06: They knew for thousands of years that that bread represented their salvation from slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, but he said, This is bread, is not just deliverance from Egypt.
SPEAKER_06: This is my body broken for you on the cross.
SPEAKER_06: The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, for I've received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.
SPEAKER_06: But the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.
SPEAKER_06: I want uh Brother Ron Fried, if you want, to lead us in prayer, as we're grateful this morning for the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_06: He gave his very life for us.
SPEAKER_06: His body?
SPEAKER_06: Broken.
SPEAKER_06: Unleaven bread.
SPEAKER_06: Unleaven is a picture of sin and in the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_06: No sin, no imperfection.
SPEAKER_06: No decay.
SPEAKER_06: Thank the Lord for it.
SPEAKER_06: I wish I had for all of us.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for this church and for our staff and our membership.
SPEAKER_02: Just uh thank you for everything you did for us on the cross of Calvary.
SPEAKER_06: Some of us wait.
SPEAKER_06: Some were served quite early and some last.
SPEAKER_06: But we don't partake until we all perceive together.
SPEAKER_06: Some of us got to the supper a long time ago.
SPEAKER_06: A couple got in just today.
SPEAKER_06: And one of these days we'll all gather around the nails at our feet of Jesus and he'll serve us in heaven.
SPEAKER_06: What an act of humility and love as we wait on each other.