July 2018

Lay Reader = John 2:1-11

¹On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Introduction

This is the final week in our series looking at some of the questions people ask most frequently about our faith. In fact, this wasn’t one of my original sermons. This is a sermon by popular demand! I was asked by quite a few of you to address this question, so here we go. I thought if any question was going to be demanded by the congregation, it would be, “Dear God…why is our pastor so amazing?” but I guess I was wrong.

I actually have collected quite a few miraculous stories over the years. And I also emailed the people who took my spiritual gifts class to see if they had any stories. And I checked with people on Facebook as well. And I received so many stories, I could give three sermons on them! It seems pretty clear just from that kind of response that miracles are happening all around us. God didn’t quit after Creation. God didn’t even take a vacation after Jesus.

Our text today comes from the book of Acts – that’s the story of how the early church expanded and spread from Jerusalem out to the world after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Right before this text, James, the brother of John, one of the three disciples Jesus brought up to the Mount of Transfiguration, one of Jesus’ closest friends – James is in prison. And Herod Agrippa puts James to death by the sword. James died. He wasn’t saved. It wasn’t a dream, he really died. He didn’t get resurrected later like Lazarus, he really died.

And Herod Agrippa sees how this murder results in his own increased popularity with his Jewish subjects, so he tries to rustle up some more Christians to kill. And Peter gets swept up in the net.

Have you ever been at a sporting event when someone gets injured? Not World Cup flopping injured, really injured? If it’s someone who’s on the team but not all that important, people generally get quiet and give a respectful golf clap when the person either walks off or gets carted off.

But if the injured player is a superstar? <whoosh> The air is sucked out of the stadium like a shop vac. People hold their breath. Some people cry, seeing their hero down – and probably realizing their team is about to lose, too.

Peter, James, and John are the superstars of Jesus’ disciples. James is dead. Peter’s in prison about to be executed. <whoosh> The air is sucked out of the church. Is this faith real? Has it all just been a giant coincidence? Will God allow the superstars to be martyred for their faith? James is already gone. What will happen to Peter?

Acts 12:5-19

⁵While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him. ⁶The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. ⁷Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. ⁸The angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” ⁹Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. ¹¹Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.” ¹²As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying. ¹³When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. ¹⁴On recognizing Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. ¹⁵They said to her, “You are out of your mind!”

But she insisted that it was so. They said, “It is his angel.” ¹⁶Meanwhile Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed. ¹⁷He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, “Tell this to James [the brother of Jesus] and to the believers.” Then he left and went to another place. ¹⁸When morning came, there was no small commotion among the soldiers over what had become of Peter. ¹⁹When Herod had searched for him and could not find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.

Miss or Dismiss

I mentioned that I asked people in our church and people I know from the past on Facebook for their miraculous stories. And I already told you I received a ton of them. But you know what’s the most fascinating thing to me? Each of the stories are incredible, but that’s not the most fascinating thing. Given how many stories I received – from people I know – people who have spiritual conversations with me – it’s fascinating that I didn’t know a single one of the stories already.

The people in my life have experienced the tangible, powerful presence of the Living God…and I didn’t know about it. Isn’t that fascinating? Doesn’t that seem funny?

Someone in your pew today could have experienced a Bible-worthy miracle. And you’ve talked about your kids or grandkids, you’ve talked about work, you’ve talked about the weather, but I bet you don’t know about that miracle. Why is that?

My theory is that we, as intellectual Presbyterians, being decent and in order at all times, are afraid that we will be ridiculed. We are afraid that an investigator will jump up and unmask our story like the end of a Scooby Doo episode – “I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you kids!”

But that’s why I asked the spiritual gifts class attendees. We learned in that class how to think about, categorize, and explore our extraordinary experiences. Those people are now more comfortable sharing what they would have tucked away last year.

In our first text today, Jesus does his first miracle – turning water into wine for a wedding party. And how many of the guests knew about it? Zero! How about the bride and groom? Nope! Surely the bride’s mother knew – they always know, right? – not this time! Only Jesus, his mother, and the servants knew about it. Everyone else was blissfully unaware that they were drinking miracle wine of a very, very recent vintage.

I wonder how many extraordinary stories we are missing because of that fear of sharing. Sure, sometimes others will say that our experience might not have been a miracle. But in my experience, most of the time people are interested to hear it.

So we miss out on a lot of stories, but we also sometimes dismiss those stories. As you know, it is one of my missions in life to find the humor in the Bible. And our text today has a little bit of humor if you pay attention.

Peter is miraculously freed from prison and Herod Agrippa’s deadly wrath. He makes his way back to the house where the church is praying. He knocks on the door and calls out to the maid – Rhoda. She recognizes his voice and screams with delight!

I imagine Peter with a big grin on his face, ready to give Rhoda a bear hug as she opens the door. But the door doesn’t open. And Rhoda’s screaming voice seems to retreat further and further into the house. Confused, Peter knocks again. No Rhoda. And again. No Rhoda. And again. Finally his fellow believers come out to greet him! Come on – that’s funny! The only thing that’s missing is Kramer becoming part of the action somehow. And as a side note, do you think they made that up? That’s the kind of quirk that’s stranger than fiction. This had to be a real story, or we need to give out some creative writing awards posthumously.

But I wonder, how many times do we do what Rhoda did or the disciples did inside the house – dismissing the miracle standing in front of us? How many times to we chalk it up to coincidence or good fortune or karma or something else – anything else but God?

Under God’s Control

Isn’t it surprising that the early church would dismiss a miracle like that?

Well, now we get into one of Cody’s theories, or as my preaching professor liked to say, “sanctified imagination.” My theory is that the miracles we see in the Bible still seemed miraculous at the time. My theory is that miracles still weren’t like a mage casting healing spells on demand. My theory is that the early church didn’t get everything they wanted when they wanted it every time either.

Case in point – James wasn’t saved. He died at the hands of Herod Agrippa.

But let’s think about this. I think it’s normal to think that God did a lot more miracles back in Biblical times than today, right? Let’s go with that for a moment. How much more frequent do you think miracles were back then? Twice as common? Three times? Ten times as common?

Well at the time this text was written, there were 200-300 million people in the world, and less than 10,000 of them were Christians. Now there are 7.6 billion people in the world, and 2.4 billion Christians. Miracles could be a hundred times less frequent today than in Biblical times and there would still be way, way more total miracles today than in Biblical times.

We just can’t control them. We can’t command them. We can’t conjure them like a spell.

Delia Knox is a Gospel singer who was in a violent car wreck early in her life. Her siblings walked away from the wreck largely unscathed, but she wouldn’t walk again. She forged ahead with her life, continuing to sing God’s praises, finding her husband along the way after the accident. As a Gospel singer, she ran in a little more Pentecostally circles than we typically do. And she says she grew to hate altar calls and healing services. Because inevitably someone would come over to her and try to lift her out of her wheelchair. She said, “I’ve been plopped, dropped, flipped, everything. But never healed.”

After twenty-two years of this, she and her husband were at a revival that suddenly turned into a healing service – she says if she had known that she would’ve stayed away. But something was different this time. She reports that God was telling her to stop complaining about the healing service, to stop fighting to control her life, and to just worship him. And she realized she was feeling something in her legs.

As God’s voice kept sounding in her head, “Just worship me! Just worship me! Just worship me!” she suddenly, for the first time in 22 years, stood up out of her wheelchair. Her legs didn’t know what to do, so she had to sit back down. But a minute later, she stood again, and just started moving her hips, and then lifting her knees. There’s actually a video of it. I’ve seen it. It wasn’t graceful. But it was beautiful. Now she walks normally, she’s still singing God’s praises as a Gospel singer. And she dances with her husband every chance she gets.

I love that story, not just because it was a miracle. I love the story because so many people had tried to force her to become a miracle and it didn’t work. She was “plopped, dropped, and flipped” rather than healed. We don’t get to cast a Level 3 Healing Spell. We don’t get to control God. But these things do happen.

What Is a Miracle?

But I guess that begs the question – what is a miracle? I like the simplicity of one of our member’s definitions: “a miracle is a situation where you go ‘Whoa!’ and realize God is in charge.” That’s pretty good.

Here’s another way to think about miracles. Grab your bulletin. Hold it in front of you – eye-level. Why isn’t the bulletin falling? Did gravity stop working? No, the force of gravity is being overcome by the force of your fingers. You can put your bulletins down now – or drop them if you want to confirm that gravity is still working.

You can overcome the force of gravity with something like a piece of paper. And if you were one of the strongest people in history, you could overcome 6000 or so pounds of gravity on your back. That’s a couple of cars, for reference. But that’s where humans top out. That’s where our capability ends.

What’s God’s max bench press? That’s the age-old question – can God make a weight so heavy even he can’t lift it? I don’t know, but God can definitely make people sassy enough to ask that question.

Here’s my point. God is stronger than the physical forces that he created. Just as we can overcome the force of gravity in some circumstances, God can overcome the physical forces of this world with his greater force. The physical forces don’t stop working. They are just overcome by a greater force.

And that’s also why the definition of “miracle” changes over time. It’s only a “miracle” if we can’t replicate it or explain it. A miracle is when something happens that exceeds human ability and human understanding. And people of faith can see that it’s no coincidence – it’s God.

In 2010, Kate Ogg gave birth to twins after only 27 weeks, Jamie and Emily. Emily survived, but Jamie couldn’t breathe and despite 20 minutes of resuscitation attempts, the doctors had to admit the little boy had died. Nurses placed Jamie’s lifeless body onto his mother’s chest so she could say her goodbye.

About five minutes later, Jamie began moving. They called in the doctor, who said over the phone that those movements are just reflexes, not life. A couple of hours later, still cuddling with their medically dead child, Jamie opened his eyes. The doctor assured them – again by phone – it was still reflexes, not life.

As they noticed the steadily rising and falling movement of their child’s breathing, they decided the only way to get the doctor to come in was to lie and tell him they had come to terms with their baby’s death. The doctor finally came in, picked his jaw up off the floor, and confirmed with his stethoscope what the parents already knew. The doctor kept muttering, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”

Jamie’s still alive today. With no health complications. That is beyond human ability, and beyond human understanding. But not beyond God.

Partnering With God

Sometimes the miraculous is a partnership between God and us. Christine Joy was born in the Philippines, and she suffered debilitating seizures from birth. She would stop breathing, her face would grow dark, even her fingernails turned black. Without treatment, she somehow, inexplicably survived. That’s the miracle.

In the midst of that – miraculous survival, but terrifying illness – Compassion International came to town. The Compassion doctors found a medication that worked for Christine, and they found a sponsor to pay for the medications. Now when she sees the nurse, she says, “When I get grown, prepare yourself. I’ll become a doctor and I’ll be injecting you!”

Something Small

Sometimes miracles are something much smaller. One of our church members recounted losing his wallet somewhere during a day of hiking and kayaking. They re-walked the trails – no luck. Couldn’t really check the lake. After checking everywhere and lobbing up a few prayers to the patron saint of lost things for the former Catholics in our midst – they gave up on the search.

Only to receive a phone call from the police that someone had found it – how it was spotted no one knows – and that person turned it into the police with everything still in place. Coincidence or small act of grace from God? You decide.

Something Avoided

Sometimes miracles are something avoided. I’ve learned to listen to the Holy Spirit while driving. The road from our house to my previous church went up a steep, East-facing hill. It’s basically a blind left turn if you hit it at the wrong time with the sun in your eyes. I was alone in the car, about to turn on one of those days, when I heard an almost-audible “stop!” in my head. I hit the brakes. And less than a second later a car zoomed by.

Another time in Bethlehem I was nearing our house with Charlie in the back seat. And I suddenly just knew that I needed to dodge away from the car sitting at the stop sign for cross-traffic. Without hesitating I pulled to the left, and not a moment too soon. The woman never saw me and plowed into the side of the car. My dodge was the difference between an annoying hit on the wheel well and a potentially fatal strike on Charlie’s door.

Here in Littleton, I was driving back from an even with Charlie, and I had a protected left turn behind a tow truck. And I once again heard an almost-audible, “get in the other lane!” in my head. I jerked to the left just before a car tried to turn right as the tow truck went by. I didn’t know they were there. They never saw me, didn’t bother to stop at the red light, and we missed by the width of a flea.

So either I have some precognition going on, in which case I would like to start a high stakes poker night for anyone who’s interested, or God’s been doing some backseat driving.

Something Spiritual

Sometimes the miracle is more spiritual than physical. God had a very interesting way of reaching the heart of one of our members. She had a pretty colorful past, became a single mom at an early age, enjoyed a certain recreational drug that is only legal in a few states – but wasn’t legal at the time.

An unmarked white van was parked outside her house for a while, and the police came to see if she knew anything about it. She didn’t know anything. No big deal. But she saw how frightened her son was of the police, and she realized he was worried his mom would be arrested. Later on the van disappeared, but the encounter stayed with her. She realized she needed a different life. A few weeks later someone gave her name to the Billy Graham crusade coming through town. An unmarked white van, a friendly encounter with the neighborhood police, a terrified child, and a Billy Graham crusade led her to the Lord. Miraculous timing to put all of that together.

Something Relational

Sometimes the miracle is relational. One of my brothers-in-law told me his miracle story. He had a very troubled relationship with his dad. He lived very close to this Catholic church that had a well-known prayer shrine behind it, but in all those years he had never been to it.

One night after fighting with his dad again he decided on a whim to go to the shrine and walk around. A woman was there also praying, and she apparently just had to tell her story to someone. And my brother-in-law was the only one there. Through tears she told how she was abused by her father, how she fell into a a pretty hard-luck life, how she desperately wanted out.

And something clicked inside of him. He realized that his relationship with his father was still difficult, but it could be so much worse. He noticed the reasons he had to be grateful, not just resentful. And that has stayed with him to this day. Strange timing of events, or miraculous orchestration?

Summary

Sisters and brothers, miracles happen all the time. Things happen that are beyond human ability and beyond human understanding. Miraculous healing. Miraculous birth. Miraculous partnership between us and God. Miraculously avoiding something. Miraculous spiritual connection. Miraculous change in relationships. Miracles are all over.

But we miss them or dismiss them.

I believe that God is far more powerful than me. Far more powerful than any physical force in this universe that God created. Able to do anything.

Sometimes God doesn’t act. James, one of the superstars of the early church, died. But Peter was saved. Miraculously.

I collected enough stories to give several sermons. I’ll keep it to just this one. But how can you have eyes to see, ears to hear, the heart to feel, and maybe even the voice to speak what God is doing beyond your ability and beyond your understanding? Because it’s not beyond God.

Lay Reader = 2 Timothy 3:10-17

10Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, 11my persecutions and suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Introduction

We are still in our series looking at some of the questions people most frequently ask about our faith. Last week Pastor Carol looked at, “Is Jesus Really God?” This week we are asking “Is the Bible Reliable?”

Quite a bit hinges on this question, because the Bible is what we have. Without the Bible we’re all relying on signs, portents, the alignments of the planets, whether we’re feeling groovy today or not. Instead of relying on those ways of uncovering God’s will, we have this text – the Bible.

I can respect a fairly wide range of ways of interpreting the Bible. But I have three core concepts. First, when you seek God’s will through the Bible, sometimes it should challenge you. If you only get affirmation and atta-boys from the Bible, you might be hearing your mother instead of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword. Sometimes it cuts. But like pruning a tomato plant, those cuts shape us into something more wonderful.

If you can’t tell me a time when reading the Bible has challenged you or inspired you to change somehow, I would encourage you to focus your prayers in that direction for a while. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where you could use some spring pruning.

My second core concept comes directly from our first reading today in 2 Timothy: “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”

So what is included in “all scripture” being inspired by God and useful? Is the Old Testament inspired by God and useful? Yes. What about the violent parts of the Old Testament? Inspired by God and useful. What about the parts where we don’t like what the Bible says? Inspired by God and useful. But what about the letters from Paul that seem antiquated to some modern sensibilities? Inspired by God and useful.

So my second core concept is that we can’t throw out any parts of the Bible. We’re going to run another version of the hot button theology class this fall, and we’ll show how you have a dialogue between different parts of the Bible rather than saying, “I don’t like that, so it doesn’t count.”

My final core concept comes from 2 Peter 1 – “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding.” In other words – we don’t understand God’s will through logic. We understand God’s will through the Holy Spirit. Just because you think it, doesn’t make it true. Just because you feel it, doesn’t mean it comes from God. Just because you want it, doesn’t mean it’s God’s will. It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s not about us. It’s about God.

And this is one of the core ideas of our faith tradition. We come from the Reformed branch of Christianity, and one of our slogans is, “The church reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.” There are things that faithful Christians thought a thousand years ago that we no longer think are true. There are things that faithful Christians today are thinking that future Christians will no longer think are true. Not to mention the things that we think are true, but God is actually shaking his head. So my final core concept is that we should have some humility as we interpret the Bible. I can guarantee you that you are wrong somewhere in your faith. I don’t necessarily know which part. But I guarantee you that you don’t have it all figured out. Same thing with me – I don’t have the mind of God, so there’s no way I have this all figured out. We should have a little humility.

So again, I can respect a fairly wide range of ways of interpreting the Bible, but I do ask that you enable God to call you to change, that you include all of Scripture without throwing out the parts you don’t like, and that you have humility rather than judgment when someone disagrees with you. If you can do those three things, we’re good.

With that said, let’s get to some of the reasons I do believe that the Bible is reliable. Our text today comes from the Old Testament prophet Haggai.

To understand why this is incredible, you first need to know the narrative leading up to it. The Israelites, the Chosen People, God’s People, were defeated. Conquered. Their political and religious leaders were shipped out. Jerusalem lay in ruins. The Temple of God was destroyed. But about 70 years later, God fulfilled his promise to restore Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders started to return. One group came and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem so they could be safe. Another group came and rebuilt the Temple.

But here’s what the priest Ezra writes about the rebuilding of the Temple: “But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.” In other words – this would be like buying a used Cadillac from 1989 with 250,000 miles on it and the fender missing. It technically runs, and it’s technically a Cadillac, but it’s only exciting if you’ve never seen a new Cadillac.

At the time of Haggai, the ruler of the restored Jewish people is named Zerubbabel. He is the closest descendant of King David. And Haggai gives this surprisingly positive prophecy concerning Zerubbabel and the rebuilt Temple.

Haggai 2:1-9, 20-23

2In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 4Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, 5according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 7and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.

20The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the twenty-fourth day of the month: 21Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, 22and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade. 23On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the Lord, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts.

Reliable?

I love pumpkin muffins. It’s true. And in particular, my mom’s pumpkin muffins are literally a taste of heaven. The next time she’s here, ask her for some pumpkin muffins, because then I’ll get some, too!

When I was in college, my parents lived about four hours away in Port Aransas, and one of the ways my mom said “I love you” was to send a batch of pumpkin muffins whenever someone from my family was driving between Port Aransas and Austin.

And this particular time, my dad had driven up and sure enough he delivered a small but still satisfying supply of four pumpkin muffins. I called my mom to thank her – you know how rare that is for a college student, right? that’s how good the muffins are – I called my mom to thank her, and she asked if I had shared any with my roommate.

I didn’t know how to respond. I mean, four muffins? Share? That’s blasphemy! So I haltingly told her the truth, “Well mom, I would have shared with him, but since there were only four I ate them all myself.”

After a long pause, my mom responded, “Well I’m going to have to take that up with your father, because there were two dozen when he left Port Aransas!”

My dad is a very reliable person. When they were renovating a home, I remember one time some electricians were standing around watching my dad run some wire, and they shrugged and said, “He’s better at this than us.” He can rebuild engines. He’s a retired pastor. He’s good with money. Very reliable.

Except when delivering pumpkin muffins. I asked him once, and his only defense was, “Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

So if we’re going to ask, “Is the Bible reliable?” we have to ask a series of questions. To me, reliable means trustworthy. We were just Charlie’s therapy camp – it’s called Adam’s Camp – for a week, and Becca and I went on a hike where you had to cross a running creek several times. You have to pick which rocks seem reliable as you walk across them, and which ones you think will wobble if you step on them. So is the Bible a solid rock where we can place our weight as the river of life rushes around us?

And if it is reliable, is it always reliable? Or does it have some pumpkin muffin weak spots like my dad? Are you with me?

Surprising Predictions

Anyone ever seen the movie Back to the Future? How about Back to the Future II? One of the main plot points in Back to the Future II is that the bad guy, Biff, finds a piece of memorabilia from the future: Gray’s Sports Alamanac, listing the results of various sporting events for the next 50 years. Even the dimwitted Biff realizes he can use this to his advantage. And he becomes a wealthy man by selectively betting on key games that he already knows the result.

Sometimes reading the Bible is kind of like having Gray’s Sports Alamanc in our hands. Although with a twist. The Bible tells us a bunch of things that will happen, but it doesn’t give days or years.

My dad was at the University of Texas during the longest win streak in program history – thirty straight victories. The team claimed two national championships in ‘69 and ‘70. If you want to see my dad wince, ask him about the pumpkin muffins. If you want to see him still beam with pride, ask him about “30 straight.”

Now let’s imagine that someone told my dad at that time that Texas would have some hard times coming, but then win the national championship again someday. He probably would have thought three or four years of OK teams, then we’re back! In reality Texas went thirty-five years until its next football national championship.

Or let’s up the ante. The Chicago Cubs famously won the World Series in 1907 and 1908. And not again until 2016, almost 100 years later. That’s some waiting! People wondered if the Cubs were cursed! Maybe God is a Yankees fan and doesn’t like the Cubs! And yet they did win again.

The Bible is kind of like that. It tells us what’s going to happen, but it might take a while to happen.

For instance, let’s look at our text today. Because this text has had a twisty, turny history. Haggai says that Zerubbabel is chosen by the Lord of hosts, that God is about to shake the heavens and earth through him. People LOVED that prophecy at the time. And yet, Zerubbabel is the last descendant of David to rule Israel. And keep in mind that Haggai was written around 500 BC.

Haggai gets the people excited again when he says that the rebuilt Temple will have greater splendor and glory than the former. But I already told you that the people who had seen the previous Temple wept with disappointment when they saw the rebuilt one.

What gives, Haggai? Is your prophecy antenna out of alignment or something?

Well let’s fast forward 500 years, to a little before Jesus’ birth. Herod is the Roman governor over Israel. And Herod wants to leave a legacy, and he knows that the hardest legacy to overturn is one made of stone. So Herod embarks on a massive building campaign, including spiffing up that haggard second Temple that was rebuilt in Haggai’s time. Herod pours resources into it, enlarging it, adding new buildings, making it a whole compound, bringing in the splendor of the Roman Empire.

The renovated Temple was so nice, one of the Roman emperors wanted to put his own statue inside of it, but luckily for him he was talked out of it.

Just in time for Jesus, the Temple becomes greater than ever before. Just in time for Jesus, the Temple has splendor and glory beyond the first Temple. And, for added measure, the Jewish people are so proud of the renovated Temple that it makes them mad when Jesus makes disparaging remarks about the injustice going on inside the Temple walls. So it took 500 years, but Haggai was right.

And what about Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel? What about God shaking the heavens and the earth through him? Well let’s look at Luke 3, the genealogy of Jesus. Are you ready to discover that even the genealogies are inspired by God and useful? Here it goes. Luke 3:27 – “Joda was the son of Joanan. Joanan was the son of Rhesa. Rhesa was the son of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the son of Shealtiel.”

Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, ancestor of Jesus. And thus did God shake the heavens and earth through Zerubbabel. And in case you’re wondering, there are over 300 specific prophecies like this that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus. Take that, Back to the Future II!

So if someone points out that the Bible predicts a time when justice will be served, when peace will be had across the world, when the dead will be raised – and those things haven’t happened yet. I would respond – take a look at the other prophecies in the Bible that have been fulfilled – hundreds of them. The Bible has a pretty good track record. But it also took far longer than almost everyone imagined at the time of the prophecy, so I’m not surprised that it has taken a long time. No one saw the exact time or the exact manner that those previous prophecies would be fulfilled, so I’m guessing we won’t guess the exact time or manner of the remaining prophecies either.

So to me the Bible is reliable because it has made surprisingly accurate predictions in the past. So I’m willing to wait for the fulfillment of the remaining promises.

Contradictory Scriptures

But what about the Scriptures that seem to contradict each other? I mean, there’s a verse that says swords will be beaten into plowshares – implying peace. And there’s another verse that says plowshares will be beaten into swords – implying war. Or here’s my favorite pairing.

The first is Proverbs 26:4, remember that Proverbs 26:4 – “Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.”

Contrast that with “Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.”

Totally contradictory. First one was Proverbs 26:4. Where do you think the second one is found? Proverbs 26:5. The very next verse!

So obviously the writers of the Proverbs are fools themselves – failing to notice contradictory verses right next to each other. Or maybe – just maybe – the Proverbs, the purveyors of wisdom, are trying to make the point that sometimes you need to respond to a foolish statement and sometimes you just need to let it go. Or as I summarize it: “Much of wisdom is knowing when to generalize and when to particularize.”

But that’s wisdom literature. What about the parts where cold, hard numbers are different? You see this a lot of times with the two books of Chronicles, because those are re-telling stories found elsewhere in the Old Testament with a little different twist. So you might see that there were 742 people according to Deuteronomy, but 1 Chronicles says there were 815. Stuff like that. Maybe the writers of the Bible are just incompetent – unable to count?

But I just read in the news a few weeks ago about a defense program – I can’t remember which one – and according to one government agency the project was right on track with its money. But another government agency said the project was going to wind up billions of dollars over budget. And here’s the kicker – accounting experts said both reports are correct! They just used different methods of accounting! Different numbers in the Bible don’t bother me, because if I’m going to allow different accounting methods today, I’m going to allow different accounting methods two-to-three thousand years ago.

So to me the Bible is reliable even when it seems contradictory, because the Bible isn’t a collection of checklists and recipes to follow. It contains Truth with a capital “t”, and that means sometimes it’s generalizing and sometimes it’s particularizing.

Summary

But really, if we’re asking “Is the Bible reliable?” we’re asking, “is it reliable for me, personally.” Is scripture really inspired by God and useful – in your own life?

You’ve probably heard this famous part of American Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

That’s pretty much the fundamental idea of America, right? Everything else flows from there. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, everything comes from that belief in certain self-evident truths. If you don’t believe in those truths, nothing else makes sense.

With our faith, there are a few self-evident truths that must be believed or nothing else makes sense. God created everything. Humans messed up in general and I mess up all the time in particular. God came to us in person in Jesus to reunite us with himself. Jesus tasked his followers, including us, to tell others about that good news. There will be a day when Jesus comes again and fulfills the remaining promises. And the primary way we know about any of this is the Bible. Without believing in those truths, we have nothing.

That’s why every time there’s a controversy in the church, it becomes a battle about interpreting the Bible. Because the Bible is the content of our faith.

So I’ve covered a few arguments about the Bible, but this is where it all boils down. Has the Bible been true for you? When you read the Bible and pray to God and sense a direction to go, and you do it, have you regretted it or cherished it? Has the Bible passed the sniff test in your life? That’s what it means to be reliable.

If the Bible has been reliable for you in the past, how can you trust it today or tomorrow? And if you’ve never tried trusting what the Bible reveals about God, I encourage you to run a little experiment. See if you regret it or cherish it when all is said and done. Then you’ll know if the Bible is reliable. I’ve personally never regretted it. Hasn’t been easy! But I haven’t found a pumpkin muffin weak spot yet. I’ve never regretted following the God revealed to me in the person of Jesus through the words of Scripture. Amen.

Lay Reader = 1 Peter 4:1-11

4Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), 2so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God. 3You have already spent enough time in doing what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.

4They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme. 5But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.6For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.

7The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. 8Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. 11Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

Introduction

We are still in our series looking at some of the most common questions people ask about our faith. Last week we asked why God allows pain and suffering, and I spent twenty minutes basically saying “I don’t know.” But we have the fantastic promise that Jesus will be with us always, even as we suffer, even when we are in pain, through everything.

This week we are asking if Christianity is too narrow. There are some religions that are fairly broad, and some religions that make some eternal and exclusive claims. For instance, I had a friend who was a Buddhist, and he said it was more like a moral code than a religion. No exclusive claims in his approach. But for Christians and Muslims, especially, our respective faiths say that everyone should believe what we believe.

And they’re not exactly compatible. Did you know Jesus is a part of the Quran? It’s true. But in the Quran he is an important prophet, not the Son of God. If you know someone who says Jesus was a good teacher, that’s kind of how Jesus is viewed in Islam. A good teacher, but not as important as Muhammad. Only one religion can be right about that – is Jesus God, or a good teacher and a prophet? One’s right and one’s wrong.

And it seems like every religion has its weird spots, right? I knew someone who was Wiccan, and he was always a little worried about being pulled over in his car on his way to their gatherings, because part of his religious practice requires a sword. Not to mention sometimes worshiping sky-clad. As in clad in nothing but the sky. Naked for those who still haven’t connected the dots. The Worship Committee didn’t approve that proposal – don’t worry.

Or for us Christians, have you ever told a new convert that you pray in the car? It’s a priceless look before they realize that means you can pray without closing your eyes. Try it sometime. It’s fun.

The biggest difference, though, between Christianity and just about every other religion, is the direction of the action. It has been said that religion is humanity’s attempt to reach God, but Christianity is God’s attempt to reach humanity.

Knowing that every religion sounds weird to those who aren’t a part of it, the Apostle Paul was very clever when he spread the good news of Jesus in the city of Athens. Listen to how he approaches the topic with the Athenians. Notice how he doesn’t want them to add a little idol to Jesus to their existing and voluminous collections of idols to pray to. He knows our faith asks for much more than a little token of affection.

Acts 17:16-31

16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

22Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ 29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Respectful

As a student at the University of Texas, you must learn a critical skill. It is imperative. You must learn how to walk by people without making eye contact. Some say waiting in line is the most important skill at UT, but I say ignoring people is #1. Because the path you walk between your classes and the student union, where all the good food is on campus, is clogged with every student group under the sun trying desperately to get your attention despite being with fourteen hundred other student groups doing the same thing. If you stopped and talked to everyone, it would take seventeen days to reach the student union. So you must learn to ignore people. Lunch awaits at the union!

But in the midst of all those attempts to get your attention, one group stood head and shoulders above the rest. They got everyone’s attention – even those who opposed them. It’s pretty impressive. It was a Christian group. And once a year they trotted out their over-sized burning flame banners proclaiming that everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus – by which they mean everyone who doesn’t follow their exact set of beliefs about Jesus – all of those other people are going to hell. Where they’ll burn. It’s a good attention-getter.

But you know who didn’t come to talk to them? Anyone who was curious about Jesus. They gathered quite the crowd, but it was a crowd of people trying to shout them down, not listen to what they had to say.

By contrast, did you hear how Paul approached the Athenians? The text says he was “deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” He cared deeply. He was bothered. He was borderline angry. But that’s not how he approached them.

He actually started by praising them for their religiosity. He decides to embrace their curiosity about religion rather than tell them they’re going to hell if they don’t agree with him. But he still makes the big claims of Christianity. He proclaims not just a little god, but “the God who made the world and everything in it.” He proclaims not just a God of one ethnicity, but “we are all God’s offspring.” He proclaims not just a God who wants five minutes of your time once a week to burn some incense, but “he commands people everywhere to repent” because everyone “will be judged in righteousness.”

So if we take our cues from Paul, when we interact with people of other religions or someone who doesn’t believe in religion, Paul started from a place of commonality. He started where the people were. He found a way to respect and affirm where they were. And then he still made his message and the good news of Jesus Christ very clear. And good news is a key word. Do you know where we get the English word “evangelism?” It’s from the Biblical Greek word “euangelion,” which literally means “good news.” Flaming banners at the University of Texas doesn’t seem like “good news” to me.

Does Hell Exist?

But their flaming banners do raise a good question as we wonder if Christianity is too narrow. Does hell exist? Is there some kind of eternal separation from God that is a punishment of sorts? Well, if you’re going to believe the near-death experiences we talked about after Easter – where people experienced heaven before being brought back to life – then you might want to believe in something a bit less pleasant as well. About 85% of people who have a near-death experience have a positive experience. But about 15% have what are called distressing near-death experiences. Many report seeing rapid-fire replays of their life moments and feeling judged or condemned because of it.

And the Bible sure seems to be consistent on the fact that not everyone will enjoy the eternal joy of the Father in heaven. The lovely summary of God’s love in John 3:16? Let’s keep reading through verse 18 shall we?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

I haven’t seen any John 3:18 banners, have you? That part about being condemned if you don’t believe in Jesus – that sounds a bit scarier than John 3:16’s talk about God loving the whole world.

Or in Matthew 25 when Jesus is talking about the sheep and the goats. To the sheep he has wonderful things to say. But to the goats, who didn’t feed or clothe or visit or care for the least of these, he says, “depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Or in Luke 16 Jesus tells a parable about Lazarus and the rich man who die at the same time. Lazarus suffered in life but now he’s at Abraham’s side in the afterlife. But the rich man who ignored Lazarus on earth cries out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” That doesn’t sound good, does it?

If you’re still not convinced, go read Revelation and then tell me that hell doesn’t exist. Go ahead. I’ll wait. I’m not sure exactly what hell is, I’m not sure exactly what the experience is for those who are in it, but the Bible seems very clear on the idea that some people aren’t going to have a pleasant eternal experience. How many? What percentage? How unpleasant? We don’t know. I’ll let you know when I hopefully don’t get there.

As a side note, I don’t know if you know this, but when you become a pastor you are issued three “Get Out of Hell Free” cards. It’s true. And when we have another major fund raiser I’ll have one of those available for auction. It’s going to be a hot item if you catch my drift. Just kidding! That’s not true! Or is it?

While it would be nice if our faith could say, “don’t worry everyone, we’ll see everyone in heaven,” that’s really not in the Bible. I don’t know what the breakdown will be, but it’s not going to be 100% of the people on the planet. That seems pretty clear.

I heard a story once about what heaven and hell are like. This is not in the Bible – it’s just interesting. Someone is taken by an angel to see what hell is like. And it’s a glorious mansion. And the angel takes the observer to the great dining hall where a sumptuous feast is laid out. Everyone is seated at the table, but they have their arms clamped away from their bodies so they can’t feed themselves. And everyone is furious with their hunger and their futility.

The angel then takes the observer to heaven, where an identical mansion is serving an identical feast to a group identically clamped so they can’t feed themselves. But everyone is happy in heaven, because they are feeding the person next to them instead and being fed by their neighbor as well. I don’t think that’s what heaven and hell really look like, but I think it captures the attitudes of the inhabitants of each realm very well.

How Do We Get Into Heaven?

So other than my auction for the “Get Out of Hell Free” card, how do we know we’ll be on the positive side of the eternal destination equation?

Well in our text today, Paul tells the Athenians, “he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” In other words, follow Jesus.

And what did Jesus himself say? “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And elsewhere Jesus says, “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

Jesus is the way to a positive eternal destination. In fact, he says that he is the only path.

Now with that said, we heard a couple of weeks ago when we were asking if God exists that every person has the ability to instinctively live their lives in a Gospel-honoring way, because God has written it on their hearts. So perhaps people who don’t follow Jesus specifically but live in a way that pleases Jesus are good. Maybe. It’s possible.

And in our first text today it says that Jesus himself preaches to the dead. Now, the context seems to suggest that this might be a one-time fix to deal with the problem of people who died before Jesus was born. But it’s possible that everyone gets one last shot after they die because Jesus himself will present the Gospel. Maybe. It’s possible.

But rather than counting on those “maybe”s, on those “it’s possible”s, Jesus commanded us to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and remember I am with you always to the end of the age.” Jesus doesn’t say, “sit back and relax – I’m a way better preacher than you and I’ll get them on the way out.” No, he sends us now. Today.

But we should be very, very circumspect about saying “this person will be in heaven but this other person will be in hell.” Remember the thieves on the cross hanging next to Jesus? One mocks him, but the other asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes into his kingdom? And Jesus says to that one, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” No one would have guessed that the thief would get a positive eternal experience, and yet there at the end he finds it in Jesus. We don’t know who is living the life of the thief today but will find Jesus later. We can’t write anyone off as a lost cause. There’s always a chance. Unless you’re a Raiders or Chiefs fan in football – then it’s hopeless right? Just kidding!

So it’s possible that Jesus will tell everyone the Good News when they die. And maybe people who instinctively live in a God-honoring way will be counted among the good sheep instead of the bad goats.

But the only sure path is the one Jesus himself layed out – “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is the only path that is sure instead of a “maybe” or “it’s possible.” So we are called to share the Good News about Jesus in a respectful way to those who do not follow Jesus already.

Too Narrow?

So is Christianity too narrow? It offers a clear path to a positive eternal experience to every human on the planet, so I think that’s pretty inclusive actually. And it doesn’t require you to radically change your customs – Christianity presents itself differently around the globe. But Jesus is the one commonality. All we require is faith in one who died for us, rose for us, and reigns for us.

As Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Ephesus, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” That’s pretty inclusive if you ask me. It’s not universal – not everyone is going to get it – but it’s universally available.

So now for the tough question to ponder this week – is God calling you to respectfully share the Good News with someone? Is God calling you to let someone know you’re praying for them, even if they don’t believe in prayer? Some people think Christianity is too narrow. I don’t think so. In fact, I think the Holy Spirit wants to use the people in this room to expand the reach of Christ this week. What’s your part to play? Amen.