(Sept. 24, 2000)
The Bible readings that Jan read to us this morning are almost "Alpha" in a nutshell.:
Isaiah 53: 3-10 : Jesus talked about in the Old Testament - the prophets foretelling his life
Acts 10: 38-48: His life, death and resurrection summarised in the Gospel preached by his disciples after Pentecost.
1 Peter 1: 3-5, 8-10 : what all this means for us in our lives.
The Alpha course is all about building a relationship with a person - and that person is Jesus Christ. Alpha is not a course that teaches facts that we're expected to be able to spout out at the end.
It's not important that we know the facts. It is important that we know the person.
The Alpha course looks at who Jesus is, what he did in the past, what he's doing today and what that means for us.
Who is Jesus? You'll notice that the question isn't 'Who was Jesus?' - because Jesus is a person who is alive today. If he wasn't, we'd all be wasting our time sitting here this morning. We might as well be at home mowing the lawn or sleeping in or out for the day doing whatever people do who don't believe in Jesus.
So, the question is 'Who is Jesus?'
He's a person in history: [Grow, Rowland Croucher, JBCE, Melb. 1992. p. 68,]
| Who was this Jew from an ancient, frontier province of the Roman Empire
who has left such an indelible mark upon the earth? Well, first let's
get one thing straight: the man Jesus actually lived, and the histories
describing his life (mainkly the four gospels in the New Testament) are
regarded by the overwhelming majority of scholars - Christian or not -
as reliable.
And he was a real person: an extrovert who enjoyed the company of others, but who also spent hours and days and weeks in solitary prayer; an angry man who would not tolerate hypocrisy and injustice, but also a tender, compassionate friend of teh downtrodden; a brilliant teacher and debater, but also 'down-to-earth'; a man who was tempted in every way others are, but, his friends asserted, remained sinless; a man who was truly masculine (prepared to take the fight up to his enemies) and also in touch with the feminine in his personality (there is no woman in the gospels who was ever his enemy). |
But, he claimed to be more that just an ordinary human being. He claimed to be God.
Listen to what he said about himself: [ Grow, p 68-69 ]
| But Jesus said he was more than a man: he claimed divinity. Now that's not odd: psychiatrists counsel many people who have delusions of grandeur. But this man was different: he was not a 'nut-case'. In fact, he comes across to his contemporaries and to us as a very-well-put-together person indeed. |
At his trial, according to Mark 14: 61-62: Again the High Priest questioned him: 'Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?' Jesus said, 'I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of God and coming with the clouds of heaven.' These were images that left the High Priest in no doubt as to who Jesus claimed to be.
And in John 14: 9, 11, Jesus stated, "…Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." And "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me."
How can we believe that Jesus is God? In a conversation I had recently the person I was talking to said she just couldn't believe that Jesus was God. She could understand Jesus as the 'Son of God', but not God himself. When I asked her what she thought about the fact that Jesus said he was God, she replied, "Well, if he said he was God, I suppose I just have to believe it - but I don't understand it." Well, we don't have to understand it - we only have to believe it, don't we?
She agreed with what C.S.Lewis wrote in his book Mere Christianity, [New York, Macmillan, 1960/1978. p.56]
| A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. |
What else helps us to believe?
Jesus did things that only God could do:
So…what does that mean for me and for you, that Jesus is God and that he rose from the dead?
We're familiar with 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. And in verses 18 and 36, he goes on "Whoever believes in him is not condemned….." and "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life…"
Then, we read in 1 John 1: 9 - "If we confess our sins, he is just, and may be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every kind of wrong."
And more! John 1: 12 tells us: Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -
It's pretty clear what the death and resurrection of Jesus means for us - no condemnation for the things we have done wrong, forgiveness by God, and therefore the right to have a father/child relationship with God.
I sometimes wonder how many of us are totally sure that it does apply to you and to me. We know what we're like, don't we? Why would God want to give us eternal life? Why would the person who controls the universe want to have a close relationship with you and me? I wonder what your immediate reaction would be if someone asked you "Are you going to heaven when you die?" On the spur of the moment, I wonder how many would think "I hope so," or 'I think so' - with just that little bit of doubt in your thoughts.
Well, the verses I read just before don't say anything about being good enough or religious enough or whatever. They say 'all who believe'. They don't say 'all who do enough good deeds' or 'all who go to church every Sunday'. They say "if we confess our sins…"
Romans 4: 16 says "The promise was made on the ground of faith, in order that it might be a matter of sheer grace…" Romans 3: 24 says "….all are justified by God's free grace alone" The gift of salvation is offered to us regardless of what kind of people we are.
It's stated clearly in the New Testament again and again - our relationship with God has nothing to do with what we do or how we feel about ourselves, or how our life is going - nothing to do with our feelings at all. It boils down to: do we believe that God does what he says he does? Do we trust him? Or not?
We all have doubts at times. There are many things we don't understand - Satan uses those to put doubts in our minds. That's why we need to keep reading our Bible so we know what's in it - not so we can repeat chapters and verses, but so we know and believe in our hearts what it teaches us.
It's why we also need to be continually in prayer - not always on our knees in a quiet spot (although that's great to do), but to know that Jesus is with us all the time, in all our activities and to chat with him about the things that happen during the day. Get into the habit of talking with him about little things, so that when the doubts come, we'll think of talking with him about those too.
How is Jesus alive today?
In John 14: 16-18, Jesus told the disciples about sending the Holy Spirit to be with them after he had gone, so they would have a Counsellor or Advocate or Encourager to be with them in his place.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
We speak of God as being in three persons - Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit - all are the same person in different roles - all are God. That's one of the things I can't understand, but which I believe without understanding fully because Jesus said it was true. Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit is a person, not an 'it'
As soon as a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within them. Jesus promised that this would happen in John 14: 23 - Anyone who loves me will heed what I say; then my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him,
Paul talks about it in Romans 8: 9 -…if a man does not possess the Spirit of Christ, he is no Christian. We can't be Christians and not have the Holy Spirit within us.
When he comes into us, he starts making us more like Jesus. Some things in us begin to change. Some of these are listed in the Alpha Manual (p. 15). Some are listed in Galatians 5: 22 - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Sound good?
But wait! There's more!
Alpha teaches us something that I'm sad to say I don't think I've ever been told in church. I learned about it through reading Christian books, talking with other Christians and checking out what they said in my Bible.
There are 'Christians' and there are 'Christians'!
No, I don't mean that some Christians are better than others. We are either Christians or we're not. There's no such thing as 'good' and 'bad' Christians.
But…Alpha describes it like this: some people have gas heaters with a pilot light that's burning all the time. Some Christians are like that - quietly and happily living their faith day by day. On our gas heater, when we turn up the gas, what happens? It goes "POW" and the heater heats up. There's more action, greater results. There are other Christians who've had the gas turned up and they've become "POW" Christians.
What's turned up their gas? They've been what we call 'filled with the Holy Spirit". When we become filled with the Holy Spirit, he helps us to
There are some people who believe that the time when Jesus will return is getting closer. Although we're not meant to know just when that will be, we are told to make sure we're ready or we'll be left out of the great things that will happen then. A bit like the child who heard their clock strike 13 and ran to mum shouting, "Mum, it's later than it's ever been before!" There are lots of people out there who don't know Jesus. It's up to us to make sure they have a chance. How will they know him if no-one tells them? We need more POW Christians in the churches.
Some might say, "I'm too old, not fit enough, , etc,…to want to be a POW Christian.
In this book (My Son Johnny,) we can read about a young man who was brain damaged at birth so to all intents and purposes he became merely a 'vegetable'. But inside his useless body was an intelligent mind. With all his disability, he became a POW Christian and God gave him a mighty prayer ministry. He couldn't move or talk, but he could pray. People from all over the world sent prayer requests and many prayers were answered through him. God can even use a person whom we would think was totally useless.
How do we become filled with the Holy Spirit? It's easy - we just ask. Just as we become a Christian by inviting Jesus into our lives, we are filled with his Spirit by inviting the Holy Spirit to fill us. We can do that in private prayer, or we can ask someone else to pray for us. We can do it daily. I read about some 'great' Christian (I forget who just now) who said he needed to ask to be filled every morning because, by then, he'd leaked out yesterday's filling!
If you would like to be filled with the Holy Spirit, share this prayer with me now……
