Is the Christian Faith Relevant Today?

How can a 2000 year old message be relevant today? This sermon examines the Christian faith briefly in light of other worldviews. 

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Transcript

Anush 0:00

Good evening. A lot has changed in the last a hundred years. Cultural norms, beauty concept of beauty, medical treatments. Let me give you two medical treatments that were done in the 19 hundreds. If you had tuberculosis, which is a disease of the lung, one of the treatments that was done, it's a very contagious disease of the lung. And you, you developed these grans in your lung. And one of the, treatments at that time, it was called plumage, where a surgeon would make a hole in your lung and fill it with loose sight balls. And, of course what had happened is the lung would collapse. But the thinking at that time was if the lung collapsed, it would heal up on its own, which is, is crazy to think that they did that at that time because if you got tuberculosis in both lungs, then you're essentially done. another treatment for headlights, let's say instead of tubic losses. You were, you were more fortunate, but you had only headlights the treatment for headlights in the 19 hundreds. other than I guess shaving your hair off was to douse it with kerosene or gasoline. I'm sure it cured the headlights, but, there were other problems with it. In this context where hundred year old ideas and opinions are outdated, how can a 2000 year old message be relevant today? That is a focus of today's talk. is the Christian faith relevant today? I am gonna argue this evening that the Christian faith is relevant today, and I want to give you five reasons why the Christian faith is relevant today. A couple of things. There is a, sermon notes available. If you were to scan that QR code, it would take you to the sermon notes. The other thing that I wanted to mention is I will mention a couple of worldviews today, and my humble prayer is that I will accurately represent those worldviews. I'm not trying to show Hinduism from the perspective of Christianity or Islam from the perspective of Christianity. I want to interpret or show Hinduism on their own terms or Islam on their own terms. What do they say about themselves? I've divided the sermon into five parts, and we will look at five reasons why the Christine Faith is relevant today. The first reason why the Christian faith is relevant today is because it accurately describes the reality of the human. it accurately describes the reality of the human condition. Most religions start with the idea that humans are good, humans are good, and so for atheism and secular humanism, they start with the idea that humans are good. You know, if humans are essentially good, where did evil come from? In fact, that is the argument against evolution. If we all came from particles, biochemical particles that are inanimate, where did morality come from? But the Christian worldview starts with the idea that humans are essentially sinful. We sin because we are sinners. We are already sinners at birth. And so in Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. and so we sin because we are sinners. We were born as sinner. If you have little kids or when you were little kids, you probably watch some, kids cartoons. And there are some kids cartoon while there's a kid's cartoon by the name of Daniel Tiger. Have you watched, uh, or had the misfortune to watch Daniel Tiger? Okay. Some, some parents. Okay. So, for the purposes of this sermon, I was forced to watch a few minutes of Daniel Tiger episode. So I, I looked up on YouTube, Daniel Tiger, and I saw an episode. The first thing that came up was when I get angry. So I looked at, this episode, there's a little tiger, by the name of Daniel. And, his system Margaret broke his rainbow crayon and he got so angry and his mother came in and said, Daniel, count to four. And so he started counting to four. As he counted to four, his anger went from up here to all the way down here, and his anger was gone. And then the next few minutes there were more, instances of Daniel Tiger getting angry at random things. And somebody would come in and say, Oh, Daniel count to four. I think the four was because it rhymed with roar. And so count to four, he counted to four, and his anger went from up here to down here. after a few minutes of this, I figured out how it was gonna end, so I didn't watch anymore, mainly because his voice was super annoying. I could not listen to it anymore, But no matter, well, if it was Tom and Jerry or something, I watched the whole thing for any sermon. But even if I've not seen every episode of every, children's cartoon out there, I can guarantee that there will never be an episode that says being mad is awesome. Right? Or an episode that says The beauty of. There is no episode like that because sin is innate. So if, we are essentially good, where did our two year old learn how to sin? Right? If we didn't teach our kids how to sin, where did they learn how to sin? Because sin is innate and starts from birth, we have to teach them good morals using Daniel Tiger and other questionable, ways to teach them good, morals. So the Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Christianity a accurately addresses the human problem as an inner problem and a problem of the heart. Secondly the Christian faith is relevant today because it gives a coherent solution to the human problem. It gives a coherent solution to the human problem. Any worldview that purports to give a solution must first diagnose the problem, If you cannot even diagnose the problem, then you cannot give a solution to the problem. About, 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago, I was working at this mission hospital in South India. It was a place called, uh, well lore, and it was a hospital by the name of Christian Medical College and Hospital. And we were there. And while we were there, there was a patient that came in and she came with ulcers in her eyes and in her, uh, well over her lips. she had been to doctors for 10 years and had received all kinds of treatment. It, including a doctor that put her on chemotherapy. And, uh, when she came to us, we looked at her and we instantly knew what it was. It was this condition called Steven Johnson Syndrome, and we put her on high dose steroids and that treated her. You see, to give a solution to the problem, you need to first diagnose the problem. If a worldview cannot diagnose a problem, it cannot give a solution to the problem. Having identified the problem, the Christian worldview gives a solution to the problem. In Buddhism, Buddha says that the, the key factor that causes problem is desire, is desire. Well, how do you overcome this desire? There is a noble eightfold path. Right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samma. Well, how do I do it? I understand right livelihood and right motives and right actions. But how do I do it? Has anybody tried successfully and done successfully to fix themselves and get better by themselves? How can I get better when I'm inherently wired to do that? Which is wrong? Atheism, Buddhism and Hinduism all say that. We can do, we can get better by our own strength. Anyone who has tried to get better by their own strength knows it's impossible. If you've had, uh, anger issues, as a part of your temperament and you've tried to overcome it, you know it's impossible to get rid of. Or if you've had fear issues as a part of your temperament and you've tried to overcome it, you know, it's impossible. We cannot get better by ourselves if that were true. Culture would be way holier now than hundreds of years ago, right? If we could all get better by ourselves watching all these cartoons, the Christian worldview says that we cannot change ourselves. So we believe in Jesus to change us. So in 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature The old things passed away. behold new things have come The Christian worldview says we cannot do it by our own. And therefore we need to believe in Jesus to change us. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature just by being in Christ. Thirdly, the Christian faith is relevant today because of the reliability of the Bible. Now, of all the subtopics in apologetics, this is one of my favorite topics, the reliability, the credibility of the Bible. So we're gonna spend a few minutes here looking at the reliability Bible. There is so much to talk about why the Bible is a reliable book, but I'm gonna, focus on two things this evening. We will look at manuscripts and we will look at eyewitness testimony, manuscripts and eyewitness testimony. First, let's look at manuscripts. So all of us know that we don't have the original document of the Bible, We don't have original John's gospel. When John wrote it, that original document is gone. So what they did was, because these documents were written on pais, as soon as a document was written, it was copied, and the copy was called a manuscript. The original document was called an autograph. The copy was called a manuscript. So what they did was, as soon as the original document, the autograph was written, trained, well trained scribes would painstakingly make a copy of the autograph and, make one copy of it. Then they make another copy of it. So generation after Generation there will be copies after copies, after copies, after copies of the original manuscript and the original manuscript, the autograph, is long gone because it's written in ris and then over time even the copies kind of disappear and the copy of the copy of the copy survives over time. Two things about the, um, the manuscript is that the time between the original copy and the earliest found manuscript is important, After many copies, the earliest found manuscript. So when we dig back in Archeology and find manuscripts of, the old documents, we date those manuscript. And we find how early, what is the time difference between the original document and the earliest found manuscript, and the closer that time is, the better and more accurate the original document is, so well, what is the, time difference between the original document and the copy? For most ancient documents? It is a thousand years, thousand years after the original was written. we have found the earliest document. For Roman historian Tacitus annals the earliest copy is 700 years after the original in Homer's Odyssey. It is 500 years after the original. How about the New Testament? The New Testament is 50 years. the New Testament is 50 years after the original. That is one generation away. In one generation we have the most, the closest of all the ancient documents. We have a copy. And the earliest known manuscript is a little peppers called P 52, which are five verses from the Gospel of John chapter 18. And that is in the John Ryland's Library in Manchester, England. And it's dated one 17 to 1 38 ad. One generation after Jesus, one generation after it was written. Next, we look at the number of manuscripts, you know, because we don't have, the original, the more number of copies there are, the better. If you have less copies, then you have less to compare with. And if it's thousand years from the original and you have only one copy, you're like, well, how, how accurate is that compared to the original? So the number of manuscripts are important. The more number of copies that are available of the original document, the better the validity, the accuracy of the original document that we can find out. Well, let's see how ancient documents compare. the number of manuscripts, intas, There are two documents, two manuscripts, That's it. And that's 700 years after the original that we have found. Two C. History has eight documents. Julius Caesar's Gaelic War has 10 ma. Levy's Roman history has 20 manuscripts, and by far the most is Homers, which has 643 manuscripts, and we think, Wow, that's amazing. There are 643 manuscripts of Homers, and that's amazing. We have no doubt about Julius Caesars Gaelic Wars. We have no doubt about it, even though we have only 10 copies of that. How about the New Testament? How many copies do we have of the New Testament? We have 26,000 copies. 26,000 manuscripts of the New Testament. You see, ladies and gentlemen, in terms of ancient documents, there is no comparison with the Bible if we use the standards that we use to evaluate any other ancient document. The Bible, the gospels, the New Testament by far and the way is superior. In its accuracy to the original. Second, let's look at eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony. We know that eyewitness testimony is the most accurate of all the testimonies. Let's say an uncle, had an accident. random uncle had a random accident. If you say, I saw this uncle have an accident that has more credibility than saying, my friend's, cousins, grandfather's Facebook feed had about this accident. Right? Eyewitness testimony always supersedes any other kind of testimony. The Bible claims to have eyewitness accounts and so in 2 Peter. 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Alexander the Great died in 3 23 bc. The earliest known account of him was by ion and Pluto, 400 years after his death. if Alexander's account is 400 years after his death, when is the earliest eyewitness account that we have of the death of Jesus? what we are gonna do is we are gonna trace how early the accounts are, how early were the eyewitness accounts of the gospel. We know that by, by looking at what the gospels wrote and what they didn't write, what the gospels wrote and what they didn't write. In 80, 70 Roman forces destroyed Jerusalem. Roman, general Titu came into Jerusalem and destroyed Jerusalem. the Jerusalem temple was the epicenter of the Jewish faith. It's like Mecca for the Muslims. If the Jerusalem temple and Jerusalem got destroyed, it would've been written in every Jewish related account. If the Book of Acts does not have it, That means a book of Acts was written prior to 80 70. We know that Paul died in the late to mid sixties. How do we know this? Because of another Jewish historian by the name of Flavius Josephus, who wrote about Neros persecution in the mid sixties. So we know that Paul and Peter died during that persecution. So Paul died in the mid to late sixties, but the Book of Acts does not mention Paul's death. In fact, two thirds of the book of Acts is about Paul. If Paul died and the Book of Acts is written after that, they would've mentioned Paul's death. But when the Book of Acts ends in Acts after 28, Paul is in his first imprisonment in Rome. He gets out after that. He visits a few other places, has a second imprisonment in Rome, after which he was killed. So the Book of Acts ends with, Paul's first imprisonment, which means that the Book of Acts was written in the early sixties. Who wrote the book of Acts? Luke, So we know it's Luke that wrote both of them. Now if the Book of Ax was written in the early sixties, the book of Luke was written before the early sixties, but in Luke 1:1-2 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us. You see what he says there? He says that there are other accounts of the gospel. That means if Luke wrote his account in the early sixties, there are already other accounts of the gospel that he knows about. One of these accounts is likely to be marked because when you study Mark, Matthew, and Luke, there is a lot of similarity and it looks like Matthew and, and Luke took some of the material that Mark wrote. So one of these accounts that Luke is writing about is Mark. So Mark was written in the fifties. If Mark was written in the fifties and Jesus was crucified in 30 80, that's 20 years later, we have an eyewitness account 20 years later. How many, if you remember, nine. One, one. Do you remember? 9 1, 1. Uh, how many towers were there? How many cities were affected? I mean, everybody eventually got affected, but the planes landed in which states? New York, Pennsylvania, dc Right. So, so even though it's 22 years, the way we kind of have an idea. When there's a very important event that happens, we will have an idea. 20 years is not too far away. So if Jesus died 30, 80, and Mark was written in the fifties, and there are other accounts, we have eyewitness accounts within the generation and. What do you think is the most important event that happened in 2016, six years ago? So I looked up, so I, googled to look up events of 2016, and there were multiple places that had a countdown. So I went through the countdown and in a couple of those countdown, there was one event that was at the very top 2016. Objection. What's that? Trump, President Trump. Okay. Now I've, I've got, let me just back up for a second. In none of my sums ever, and you can go back and listen to all my sermons, none of my sermons, do I ever say anything political? Okay. I do not do political because all parties need Jesus. So I don't care to say, So this is not a political question. This was a historical question. So President Trump against the odds, broke the wrong glass ceiling and won, That was six years ago. Now, if we can remember stuff from six years ago, Actually, we can take the eyewitness accounts earlier than 20 years because the letters of Paul were written before the gospels were written. And so First Thessalonians, Galatians first and second Corinthians, Philippians, and Romans were written in the early to mid fifties. And when you look at the letters Paul wrote in his letters, there's something called creeds. Creeds are something that are orally said. It's a oral poem. It was not written down. It was oral poem transmitted just by word of mouth. So if I say, uh, Mary had a little lamb, somebody from that aisle, What's the next line? Mary had a little lamb whose flee was white as snow and everywhere that Mary went, The lamb, Yes. You see how this is, This can be transmitted orally and you don't need to have it written. So there were these poems that were transmitted orally at that time, and it wasn't written down. And Paul incorporated it in his accounts. The most important creed. And if you can take away five verses, which is the basis of apologetics. Which can which has, which is liquid gold. In terms of apologetics are these five verses in first Corinthians 15, and I'm gonna read it for us 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 This is a creed that Paul got. This was in the oral form, and when you, study it, it translates easily from a to. And there are, factors in it that show that it wasn't from Paul. It was something that he received. Look what it says first for I passed on to you as most important. What I also received, Paul received this creed. And when I read it for you, you will see the kind of poetic form that it takes, that Christ died According to the scriptures that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas then to the Twelve then he appeared to over 500 brothers, at one time most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James then to all the apostles. He received this doctrine of the resurrection. Where did Paul get this from? You see how he mentions Sifa and James in the creed. Galatians 1:18-19 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him 15 days. I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the Lord's brother. So this creed was given to him by Peter who saw Jesus first hand, and James the Lord's brother. And so the Resurrection Creed is dated in the mid thirties. Even the critics of the Bible agree that this resurrection, ancient creed can be dated three years after the resurrection of Christ, and that is absolutely incredible. If Alexander's earliest account is 400 years, the account of Jesus is a mirror. Three years, and that is why we can believe what the Bible says exactly the way the Bible says. The Bible has sold more than 2.4 billion copies since 1816. It's been on the best sellers list for the last 400 years and has been translated in over 1500 languages. It has had a greater impact on culture, worldviews, and individual lives than any other book. It has been responsible for wars, revolutions, and reformations. It spans over 1500 years, written in three different languages by 40 different others. Making up a total of 66 books once laughed at it is now used by our geologists to find lost civilizations. Its historical accuracy, impeccable its predictions of future events. Events have been fulfilled by the hundreds with shocking position. It is a foundation for law and morality for many nations. It unveils the origins of man and his final destiny. It explores and reveals the deepest philosophical questions of humanity. It is practical, yet deeply spiritual, simple, yet filled with eternal mysteries. It's words are able to cut into the very heart of man, often resulting in overwhelming displays of emotion, conviction, freedom, courage, and self. It is authoritative, not only on earth, but in the heavens, Principalities and powers must bow before its command. It is a window to heaven, a biography written in God's own handwriting, a love letter, a manual for life. When heaven and earth come crashing down and the stars fall from the sky, it will be left standing solid. For it is the eternal living logos. The Bible you have in your hands is reliable. The fourth reason why the Christian faith is relevant today is because it gives hope and certainty for the future, hope and certainty for the future. We are living in less than a perfect world, and if you've been following what's happening over the last eight months or nine months of this, What are some of the things that happened this year? Nationwide state of emergency was declared in Kazakhstan because of riots in Kazakhstan. Massive protests in Sri Lanka displaced, both the Prime Minister and the president. Thousand people were killed in an earthquake in Afghanistan. One of my friends was there. At that time, the former Prime Minister of Japan was assassinated. 25,000 people were killed in Europe due to heat waves. 1700 people died in floods in Pakistan when a third of Pakistan went underwater. The number of covid cases exceeds 500 million worldwide, and the number of deaths is 6 million. Obviously, those are completely skewed. Russia invaded Ukraine. As a result, global food prices went up with the cost of wheat going up 20%. 7.4 million refugees left Ukraine and 8 million refugees were displaced in Ukraine. 10,000 Ukrainian forces died between five and 50,000 Russian forces died. Depending on which propaganda you read. China conducts multiple military exercises over Taiwan based on a, couple of visits by American politicians to the island. And the threat of nuclear war hangs over our head every day. We are on the edge of the end, and one wrong move can tip things over, and there is moral and natural evil among us. In this context, which worldview gives hope, and what is the basis of that hope? The atheistic and the Buddhist worldview believe in the annihilation of the soul. That means when you die. That's it. It's over, and the way it is described is as when a candle is blown out, the smoke goes away and it's nothing. There is no afterlife in those two worldviews. If that is true, if there is no afterlife life, this life is miserable. What are we living for? The Muslim and Hindu worldviews are uncertain worldviews. They both believe in doing good, but how much good is good enough? If you ask a Hindu person, Have you done enough karma to get mugshot? They don't know. Nobody knows Who decides in Hinduism, who decides if so much karma is good enough? There is no person out there. It is an impersonal system. Broma is an impersonal being. There is no person to decide whether, okay, what you did is good enough come into heaven. No. So there is uncertainty. Even though you did good. In the Islamic faith, you follow the five pillars of Islam. Even if there was a devout Muslim who followed the five pillars of Islam perfectly, the Declaration of faith, arms giving Ramadan, fasting, um, and then Mecca, and then one more prayers, five times. Praying. Praying five times, even if they did the five pillars perfectly, and you asked them if you did these five pillars when you die, are you certain to go to heaven? They'll say no. Then on what basis do you go to heaven? And they'll say, In Shah, it is the will of Allah. There is no certainty whatsoever. In this context, the Christian faith gives a certainty. In Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And that is an unbelievable statement. No matter what you have done, if you are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. And then the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. What a statement of hope. What a statement of hope. The Christian message gives hope in a very dark world. It gives purpose for our existence. It talks with certainty of the resurrection and the life after Kevin Carter was a South African photo journalist in 1994, he was a recipient of the Pulitzer Award for photography because he took a photograph of the 1993 Sudan famine, and this was a manmade famine caused by political unrest and civil war. So it was a manmade famine. He took some photographs, and in 1994, he got the puer award. Three months after he got the award, he took his own life. The reason why he took his own life is because of the atrocities he saw in that war and in his life. This picture depicts the atrocities in this war. Now, this is a very disturbing picture and I'm gonna show it to you. There's a disturbing picture. If you are gonna get remotely disturbed, you can close your eyes. This is a disturbing picture. It takes a couple of seconds to, to realize what's going on. I will put it up for 10 seconds. Okay? So let me count down and if you want to close your eyes, feel free to close your eyes. I will call this picture the patient vulture. It's got a different name, but that'll give you the idea. I'll call it the patient vulture. Okay? In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. In his farewell note, he said, I'm really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. I'm haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain of starving or wounded children of trigger-happy madmen of killer executioners. What a hopeless situation and to live in a world without hope is a terrible torture. We need hope and certainty, and the Christian faith offers. The Christian faith is relevant today because it accurately describes the reality of the human condition. It gives a coherent solution to the human problem because the reliability of the Bible and because it gives hope and certainty for the future. Fifthly. And finally, the Christian faith is relevant today because of the supremacy of Jesus Christ. The founder of the Christian faith stands supremely above any anybody else? The closest person that Jesus had in his life. Who was it, John, Right? He had multiple discipl. He had 12 out of those multiple disciples. Out of that, he had three in the inner circle, Peter, James, and John. Out of that, John, the disciple that Jesus loved. And if you, you know, if, I mean you guys all look, um, amazing and holy right now, but if I ask you, if I ask the person who is closest to you how you are, they may have a long list of stuff to tell, right? Look what the closest person to Jesus in his adult life. Look at what he said about Jesus in 1 John 3:2-3 We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is all who have this hope in him, purify themselves just as he is pure. That's amazing, isn't it? To be with somebody so close and to say that a person is pure, in addition to the holiness and the purity of Christ, it is the empty tomb of Christ that is unparalleled. There is no other religious founder that has an empty tomb. The tombs of Mohamed Buda, Confucius, and Karl Marks are all occupied. It is only the tomb of Christ that is empty. John Phillips, in his book exploring Romans writes these words, His life was perfectly holy. He never looked with lust. He never uttered a hasty, unkind, untrue, or frivolous word. He never entertained an I pure thought. He was never accused by conscience, never in framed by wrongful passion, never out a step with the will of God. He never had to apologize for anything he did or retract a single word. He said he lived on earth approximately 12,000 days, and every one of them was a marvel of holiness. Ladies and gentlemen, no matter what I said today, the single biggest reason for the relevance of the Christian faith is because of the resurrected historical Jesus Christ. Thank you.