In the 1990's, a four-minute video called, "Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus" went viral, being watched 6 million times in just its first 3 days of circulation. Since that time it's been viewed over 30 millions times!
The video was intended to expose the legalism that is so prevalent in Christian houses of worship. But instead it struck a nerve. Some took it as an attack on the church, and Christianity. How can you love Jesus but hate his bride? But for most the video captured a popular sentiment: That our culture is totally okay with Jesus, but people just don't like what religious people have made of Jesus.
I have this question. Do people love Jesus... do you love Jesus... because you really know Jesus, have understood what he preached and practiced, accept that he is the Son of the Living God, believe Jesus to be the only way, truth and life, and because you want to imitate his way of life? Or do you love Jesus because he's become this kind of blank canvas upon which you can project your own hopes, dream, beliefs, ideology, opinions, and morality? I think a lot of people play the "I LOVE JESUS" card without really understanding who their endorsing.
I have one truth to impart upon you this morning:: it's that this Jesus we so deeply love, admire, respect, ... who we long to imitate... was a lover of God's Word. One of the most defining attributes of his life was his belief in the Holy Scriptures, his use of the Bible, his confidence in the Word.
What did Jesus believe about the Bible? Let me just spell a few things out. Jesus believed the world was created, by a creator. He believed that in the beginning God created Adam and Eve. Not billions of years later, but in the beginning. Mark 10:6 Jesus says, "But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female." Jesus believed suffering began very near the beginning of creation. Mark 13:19 he refers to the end times as being days filled with distress, "unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world." Jesus didn't treat the Bible as an allegory, but accepted it as historically true.
Jesus believed Abel was a true historical person, including the account of his murder (see Luke 11:51). Jesus believed Noah, and the account of the flood. Matthew 24:38-39 Jesus says, "For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away..." Jesus believed Lot, and the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Matthew 10:15 he says, "Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for [those downs don't believe]." Jesus believed Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Matthew 22:32, "I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So God is the God of the living, not the dead."
Jesus believed Moses was a true historical person. In fact he says in John 5:46, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." Jesus believed Elijah, the great prophet. He believed Elisha. The story of Naaman the Leper, who was cleansed (Luke 4:26-27).
Did you know that Jesus believed Jonah, and the account of him being swallowed by a big fish? In Matthew 12:40-41 Jesus says, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Jesus even believed the whole city of Nineveh repented. He says, "The men of Nineveh will stand up at judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here."
If the entire Bible is just one grand allegory, myth, or legend as so many posit, we'd be tempted to dismiss it. But Jesus believed these men to be real historical figures, and these stories... literal accounts of actual events, where God acted.
A while back somebody asked me if we were one of those churches who believed stories like Jonah and the whale. I'll do you one better. What's more ridiculous? Jonah in the belly of a whale three days and three nights, living to preach about it in Nineveh? Or, that Jesus of Nazareth, a man like us, crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried in a tomb, rising to life on the third day, appearing to the twelve, and to 500 brethren, and many others, his name proclaimed to ends of the earth?
Some would say Jesus' resurrection is just as much myth, legend, and allegory as any person/story in the Old Testament. Jesus utter' confidence in the historicity and reliability of God's mighty works... including his belief that God would raise him from the grave... is what gave us Jesus. He wouldn't have staked his life on myth, and he's not asking us to stake our lives on an allegory either. Jesus trusted this book, he trusted the miracles accounted for in Scripture.
There is more. Jesus believed mankind has a moral responsibility to God and to God's laws. In Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus, "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter of the kingdom of heaven."
For those who suggest otherwise, there is a standard, there is a measure. Jesus never said the law didn't matter. It matters gravely. The whole world is accountable before God. But first and foremost, Jesus offers to be savior, forgiving us of our sins and transgression, fulfilling requirements of law on our behalf. But then secondly, equally important, Jesus offers his Holy Spirit to be our sanctifier, lifting us out of our sin, setting us free from the power of sin, giving us power to participate in his divine nature.
In John 5:39-40 Jesus says, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."
Jesus believed himself to be the fulfillment of all the law and prophets. He believed the Scriptures testified as to his own nature, purpose, and God's salvation. To the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, in Luke 24:25 Jesus says, "How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"... "and beginning with Moses and all the prophets Jesus explained to them what was aid in all the Scriptures concerning himself."
In his hometown synagogue, In Luke 4:17-21, he applied words of Isaiah prophet to himself! "and the scroll of prophet Isaiah was handed to Jesus. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down... the eyes of everyone in the synagogue fastened to him... he began saying, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
So much more we could say. Jesus saw the Scriptures as a necessary foundation for our lives. "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." (Matthew 7:24-27).
There is a loud of chorus of voices inviting us to lay the Scriptures aside... to discount the law, the prophets, the ethics, the morality, the miracles, the historicity, the truthfulness, the reliability... of the Bible. Jesus never did. The Scriptures gave us Jesus. The Scriptures shaped His life. The Scriptures can shape and sanctify us, if we'd trust them to be the foundation of our life. In John 17:17 Jesus prayed to Father, "Father, sanctify them by your truth, your word is the truth."
We can't control what foundation other's build their life upon. I know the pressure you feel. A whole lot of people throwing the baby with the bath water away. Throwing away all the law, all the prophets, throwing away Jesus, scorning the Word of God in all its beauty and power. But doesn't mean we cannot keep building our life on same foundation Jesus built his life, ministry upon. I'll end with Proverbs 30:4-5:
Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is the name of his son?
Surely you know!
"Every word of God is flawless;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him