One-Way Theology
Sermon
God's Top Ten List
A Prescription For Positive Living
God knows we don't do much theology these days. We don't try to understand and communicate the will of God as exemplified in Jesus and explained in the Bible.
These are the days of ideological navel-gazing in which "Well-I-think" rivals "Thus-saith-the-Lord" for sovereignty over life and ministry.
Everybody wants to paddle her or his own canoe, and spaghetti-headed opinion has been elevated to the level of intellectually credible reasoning and fact.
There are few examples more emblematic of this diabolical seduction -- "You will be like God" (see Genesis 3) -- than the religious universalism which has become so popular today.
Religious universalism is the silly notion that one religion is as good as another religion, and it's more a matter of personal preference than spiritual reality.
Loosely translated, religious universalism pretends it doesn't matter if it's Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Twain, Maclaine, or whoever works for you. It's that many-paths-to-the-top-of-the-mountain nonsense. It's a matter of taste rather than truth. It is rewriting Genesis 1:27 to read, "So man created God in his image. In the image of man, man created God."
Egocentrism is alive and well on planet earth.
But Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14).
Peter put it bluntly, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
Paul and Silas put it invitationally. When asked how to be saved, they replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (See acts 16:16ff).
Right about now, somebody usually complains about the exclusivity of Christianity. Balderdash!
Christianity is the most invitational and inclusive religion in the world. No other religion is nearly as classless and colorless. It's easier to become a member of the Kingdom than it is to become a member of Oakmont Country Club. It's easier to get into the Kingdom than it is to get into a Steelers' game. It's easier to find a room in heaven than it is to find a seat at a Pirates' game. And you know how easy that is!
Or as Jesus explained the inclusivity of Christianity, "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (see John 11:25-26).
People who say Christianity is exclusive are just plain old ignorant. They don't know the facts. They don't know Jesus.
Jesus doesn't care who you are, what you've done, where you've been, where you live, or who you voted for in the last presidential election, though some people may have some explaining to do to him in the future.
The truth is everybody can get into the Kingdom through faith in Jesus. No other religion is as easy to access. Jesus doesn't fence out anybody.
Believing in Jesus as the only way, only truth, and only life is not an attempt to put down people who don't believe in Jesus. It is a faith statement that wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security will be experienced by anyone who trusts in him as Lord and Savior.
Exclusive? I don't think so!
Inclusive? Without question!
Quite frankly, I am baffled by people who say it doesn't matter what a person believes even after Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, and all of the rest. When people spout off about religion being a private and personal choice protected from the inspection of the church or state, I want to remind them that the same kind of reasoning freed gods like Hitler, Stalin, Jones, Manson, Khomeini, and too many others to do their devilish deeds. I just don't understand people who say it doesn't matter what people believe.
Belief is the foundation of behavior. And some behavior is hellbent. I just don't understand people who make allowances for hellbent beliefs and behavior.
But as we've already noted, these aren't the best days for doing theology.
Biblical literacy is at an all-time low. A Gallup Poll reported a few years ago that while most people cannot recite the Ten Commandments, they have seen the movie. It's like C. S. Lewis wrote in the preface to The Screwtape Letters (1961), "If you gauged the amount of Bible reading ... by the number of Bibles sold, you would go far astray."
Ann Landers recently provided a whimsical list which may reflect the level of biblical knowledge in today's world.
1. Noah's wife was Joan of Ark.
2. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night.
3. Moses went to the top of Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.
4. The seventh commandment is "Thou shalt not admit adultery."
5. Joshua led the Hebrews in the Battle of Geritol.
6. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.
7. The people who followed Jesus were called the twelve decibels.
I think of the pastor who visited an irregular member of the church in the hospital. "I'm dying," the man said, "and I've got to know if God will forgive me for neglecting to worship and serve him if I leave a million dollars to the church in my will." "I don't know what the Bible says," the pastor replied, "but it couldn't hurt."
The notorious agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll asked Phillips Brooks to visit him in the hospital. "I appreciate this very much," Ingersoll told Brooks, "but why do you see me instead of your friends at the church?" Brooks answered, "I feel confident of seeing them in the next world. This may be my last chance of seeing you."
I recall the fellow who thought he could fly. He went downtown to Pittsburgh's Gulf Building and jumped off. As he fell halfway down, somebody yelled, "How are you doing?" He yelled back, "So far so good!"
As I think of the intellectual and spiritual dimness of people who buy into the New Age garbage about all-religions-being-the-same and it-doesn't-matter-what-you-believe, I cannot help but see that it does matter what we believe. It affects our behavior. And as those silly stories just illustrated, it flavors how we interact -- behave -- with other people. And as Christians, we know it's the difference between Kool-Aid and communion wine. It's the difference between dying in Nikes to hook up with the spaceship behind the comet and inheriting abundant and eternal life through the One who died for us. It's the difference between life and death. And if you check out history, you'll discover only Christianity has always chosen and guaranteed life for everyone through Jesus.
So don't tell me or delude yourself or poison people with the lie that it doesn't matter what we believe. It does matter. It's the difference between life and death.
If there is one way to wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security, why would anyone in her or his right mind choose another way?
The answer, of course, is in the question.
John Huffman, senior pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, recently told his congregation:
I am reading the recently released autobiography of Billy Graham titled Just As I Am. In it, Billy Graham describes his own crisis of faith. The year was 1949. He was preparing for a crusade in Hollywood, California. He had just had an evangelistic campaign in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that was, in his words, a "flop." One of his best friends, Chuck Templeton, had resigned his church in Toronto to enroll in Princeton Theological Seminary. Several times during the winter of 1948-49, he had talked with Templeton and discovered that he was having great doubts about biblical authority. Now, Templeton had come out to Southern California and joined Billy and several other speakers invited by Henrietta Mears to speak at the annual College Briefing Conference at Forest Home Christian Conference Center in the San Bernardino Mountains. Billy describes in his autobiography how, after the Altoona failure and his subsequent conversations with Chuck Templeton, he, himself, was struggling with doubts. Templeton had declared him to be fifty years out of date theologically. He suggested that Billy drop out of evangelism, go to the seminary with him, and learn theology.
One night, Billy took a walk out under those tall trees at Forest Home. The moon was out. He fell to his knees with an open Bible in front of him. There wasn't enough light to read that Bible, but he opened his life to Jesus Christ, promising God that he would teach and preach the Bible with the faith that would go beyond his intellectual questions and doubts. He would not claim to have all the answers, but he would preach the Bible as God's Word. He came out of that experience into the Los Angeles crusade and the subsequent decades of ministry in which he has been greatly used by God. Initially, Chuck Templeton was very successful, heading up evangelism for our denomination. Ultimately, his doubts about biblical authority led him to deny the deity of Christ, to leave the ministry, to become a talk-show host in Toronto, have a couple of divorces, make a stab at politics, and even to write a novel, cynically declaring that the Roman Catholic Church had found the bones of Jesus but had covered up the discovery so as not to lose the good, commercial thing they had going.
So I ask you again: If there is one way to wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security, why would anyone in her or his right mind choose another way?
The answer, of course, is in the question.
In A Long Obedience In The Same Direction (1980), Eugene H. Peterson addressed the benefits of one-way theology:
The main difference between Christians and others is that we take God seriously and they do not. We really do believe that he is the central reality of all existence. We really do pay attention to what he is and to what he does. We really do order our lives in response to that reality and not to some other. Paying attention to God involves a realization that he works ...
God works. The work of God is defined and described in the pages of Scripture. We have models of creation, acts of redemption, examples of help and compassion, paradigms of comfort and salvation.
That's what the first of God's Ten Commandments is all about: "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3).
God's first commandment establishes his sovereignty over our lives. "God," preached Dwight L. Moody in 1896, "will not accept a divided heart. He must be absolute monarch. There is not room in your heart for two thrones." Or as Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24).
That's why the Psalmist taught us to pray, "Give me an undivided heart" (see Psalm 86).
Clearly, concisely, and conclusively, God's first commandment spells out one-way theology: "You shall have no other gods before me."
That's the commandment.
Now here's the blessing inherent in the commandment: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Or as God promised through Samuel, "Those who honor me I will honor" (1 Samuel 2:30).
That's why John Huffman refers to God's Ten Commandments as liberating limits. In other words, living within the limits of God frees us to experience wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security.
I really like how the Reverend Eric Ritz explained it a few years ago in a sermon (26 April 1992):
Recently, the Sunday school class that I am teaching examined the Ten Commandments and why they were given by God to Moses. They were given to Moses as he led the nation of Israel to the Promised Land. We discovered they were not given by an angry God who wanted to deny freedom and joy to his people. They were given by a loving God to instruct his people to say, "No," to one way of life in order to say, "Yes," to a greater way of life.
Simply, God's sovereignty saves us here and now and forever.
When my son was in seventh grade, he didn't want to play football. I said I wouldn't feed him unless he played. He played.
When he said he didn't want to wrestle, I said I wouldn't feed him unless he wrestled. He wrestled.
When he said he didn't want to go out for track and field, I said I wouldn't feed him unless he went out for track and field. He went out for track and field.
Aside from the less than subtle message that I'm trying to convey about parental responsibility to those parents who seem to forget the difference between being an adult and a child, I mention this because I was convinced back then and remain convinced now that most parents know a lot more about what children need to succeed than children. Children need parents to exercise a lot of parental prerogative -- teaching them right from wrong and making choices for them until they reach emotional, intellectual, and spiritual maturity -- in order to survive the perils of childhood and temptations of youth.
Similarly, one-way theology is a blessing rather than a burden. It is an opportunity to experience God's best by being our best for God.
So if there is one way to wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security, why would anyone in her or his right mind choose another way?
The answer, of course, is in the question.
That's what the first of God's Ten Commandments is all about.
Let me put it another way.
Father knows best.
These are the days of ideological navel-gazing in which "Well-I-think" rivals "Thus-saith-the-Lord" for sovereignty over life and ministry.
Everybody wants to paddle her or his own canoe, and spaghetti-headed opinion has been elevated to the level of intellectually credible reasoning and fact.
There are few examples more emblematic of this diabolical seduction -- "You will be like God" (see Genesis 3) -- than the religious universalism which has become so popular today.
Religious universalism is the silly notion that one religion is as good as another religion, and it's more a matter of personal preference than spiritual reality.
Loosely translated, religious universalism pretends it doesn't matter if it's Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Twain, Maclaine, or whoever works for you. It's that many-paths-to-the-top-of-the-mountain nonsense. It's a matter of taste rather than truth. It is rewriting Genesis 1:27 to read, "So man created God in his image. In the image of man, man created God."
Egocentrism is alive and well on planet earth.
But Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14).
Peter put it bluntly, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).
Paul and Silas put it invitationally. When asked how to be saved, they replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (See acts 16:16ff).
Right about now, somebody usually complains about the exclusivity of Christianity. Balderdash!
Christianity is the most invitational and inclusive religion in the world. No other religion is nearly as classless and colorless. It's easier to become a member of the Kingdom than it is to become a member of Oakmont Country Club. It's easier to get into the Kingdom than it is to get into a Steelers' game. It's easier to find a room in heaven than it is to find a seat at a Pirates' game. And you know how easy that is!
Or as Jesus explained the inclusivity of Christianity, "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (see John 11:25-26).
People who say Christianity is exclusive are just plain old ignorant. They don't know the facts. They don't know Jesus.
Jesus doesn't care who you are, what you've done, where you've been, where you live, or who you voted for in the last presidential election, though some people may have some explaining to do to him in the future.
The truth is everybody can get into the Kingdom through faith in Jesus. No other religion is as easy to access. Jesus doesn't fence out anybody.
Believing in Jesus as the only way, only truth, and only life is not an attempt to put down people who don't believe in Jesus. It is a faith statement that wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security will be experienced by anyone who trusts in him as Lord and Savior.
Exclusive? I don't think so!
Inclusive? Without question!
Quite frankly, I am baffled by people who say it doesn't matter what a person believes even after Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, and all of the rest. When people spout off about religion being a private and personal choice protected from the inspection of the church or state, I want to remind them that the same kind of reasoning freed gods like Hitler, Stalin, Jones, Manson, Khomeini, and too many others to do their devilish deeds. I just don't understand people who say it doesn't matter what people believe.
Belief is the foundation of behavior. And some behavior is hellbent. I just don't understand people who make allowances for hellbent beliefs and behavior.
But as we've already noted, these aren't the best days for doing theology.
Biblical literacy is at an all-time low. A Gallup Poll reported a few years ago that while most people cannot recite the Ten Commandments, they have seen the movie. It's like C. S. Lewis wrote in the preface to The Screwtape Letters (1961), "If you gauged the amount of Bible reading ... by the number of Bibles sold, you would go far astray."
Ann Landers recently provided a whimsical list which may reflect the level of biblical knowledge in today's world.
1. Noah's wife was Joan of Ark.
2. Lot's wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night.
3. Moses went to the top of Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.
4. The seventh commandment is "Thou shalt not admit adultery."
5. Joshua led the Hebrews in the Battle of Geritol.
6. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.
7. The people who followed Jesus were called the twelve decibels.
I think of the pastor who visited an irregular member of the church in the hospital. "I'm dying," the man said, "and I've got to know if God will forgive me for neglecting to worship and serve him if I leave a million dollars to the church in my will." "I don't know what the Bible says," the pastor replied, "but it couldn't hurt."
The notorious agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll asked Phillips Brooks to visit him in the hospital. "I appreciate this very much," Ingersoll told Brooks, "but why do you see me instead of your friends at the church?" Brooks answered, "I feel confident of seeing them in the next world. This may be my last chance of seeing you."
I recall the fellow who thought he could fly. He went downtown to Pittsburgh's Gulf Building and jumped off. As he fell halfway down, somebody yelled, "How are you doing?" He yelled back, "So far so good!"
As I think of the intellectual and spiritual dimness of people who buy into the New Age garbage about all-religions-being-the-same and it-doesn't-matter-what-you-believe, I cannot help but see that it does matter what we believe. It affects our behavior. And as those silly stories just illustrated, it flavors how we interact -- behave -- with other people. And as Christians, we know it's the difference between Kool-Aid and communion wine. It's the difference between dying in Nikes to hook up with the spaceship behind the comet and inheriting abundant and eternal life through the One who died for us. It's the difference between life and death. And if you check out history, you'll discover only Christianity has always chosen and guaranteed life for everyone through Jesus.
So don't tell me or delude yourself or poison people with the lie that it doesn't matter what we believe. It does matter. It's the difference between life and death.
If there is one way to wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security, why would anyone in her or his right mind choose another way?
The answer, of course, is in the question.
John Huffman, senior pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California, recently told his congregation:
I am reading the recently released autobiography of Billy Graham titled Just As I Am. In it, Billy Graham describes his own crisis of faith. The year was 1949. He was preparing for a crusade in Hollywood, California. He had just had an evangelistic campaign in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that was, in his words, a "flop." One of his best friends, Chuck Templeton, had resigned his church in Toronto to enroll in Princeton Theological Seminary. Several times during the winter of 1948-49, he had talked with Templeton and discovered that he was having great doubts about biblical authority. Now, Templeton had come out to Southern California and joined Billy and several other speakers invited by Henrietta Mears to speak at the annual College Briefing Conference at Forest Home Christian Conference Center in the San Bernardino Mountains. Billy describes in his autobiography how, after the Altoona failure and his subsequent conversations with Chuck Templeton, he, himself, was struggling with doubts. Templeton had declared him to be fifty years out of date theologically. He suggested that Billy drop out of evangelism, go to the seminary with him, and learn theology.
One night, Billy took a walk out under those tall trees at Forest Home. The moon was out. He fell to his knees with an open Bible in front of him. There wasn't enough light to read that Bible, but he opened his life to Jesus Christ, promising God that he would teach and preach the Bible with the faith that would go beyond his intellectual questions and doubts. He would not claim to have all the answers, but he would preach the Bible as God's Word. He came out of that experience into the Los Angeles crusade and the subsequent decades of ministry in which he has been greatly used by God. Initially, Chuck Templeton was very successful, heading up evangelism for our denomination. Ultimately, his doubts about biblical authority led him to deny the deity of Christ, to leave the ministry, to become a talk-show host in Toronto, have a couple of divorces, make a stab at politics, and even to write a novel, cynically declaring that the Roman Catholic Church had found the bones of Jesus but had covered up the discovery so as not to lose the good, commercial thing they had going.
So I ask you again: If there is one way to wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security, why would anyone in her or his right mind choose another way?
The answer, of course, is in the question.
In A Long Obedience In The Same Direction (1980), Eugene H. Peterson addressed the benefits of one-way theology:
The main difference between Christians and others is that we take God seriously and they do not. We really do believe that he is the central reality of all existence. We really do pay attention to what he is and to what he does. We really do order our lives in response to that reality and not to some other. Paying attention to God involves a realization that he works ...
God works. The work of God is defined and described in the pages of Scripture. We have models of creation, acts of redemption, examples of help and compassion, paradigms of comfort and salvation.
That's what the first of God's Ten Commandments is all about: "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3).
God's first commandment establishes his sovereignty over our lives. "God," preached Dwight L. Moody in 1896, "will not accept a divided heart. He must be absolute monarch. There is not room in your heart for two thrones." Or as Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24).
That's why the Psalmist taught us to pray, "Give me an undivided heart" (see Psalm 86).
Clearly, concisely, and conclusively, God's first commandment spells out one-way theology: "You shall have no other gods before me."
That's the commandment.
Now here's the blessing inherent in the commandment: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Or as God promised through Samuel, "Those who honor me I will honor" (1 Samuel 2:30).
That's why John Huffman refers to God's Ten Commandments as liberating limits. In other words, living within the limits of God frees us to experience wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security.
I really like how the Reverend Eric Ritz explained it a few years ago in a sermon (26 April 1992):
Recently, the Sunday school class that I am teaching examined the Ten Commandments and why they were given by God to Moses. They were given to Moses as he led the nation of Israel to the Promised Land. We discovered they were not given by an angry God who wanted to deny freedom and joy to his people. They were given by a loving God to instruct his people to say, "No," to one way of life in order to say, "Yes," to a greater way of life.
Simply, God's sovereignty saves us here and now and forever.
When my son was in seventh grade, he didn't want to play football. I said I wouldn't feed him unless he played. He played.
When he said he didn't want to wrestle, I said I wouldn't feed him unless he wrestled. He wrestled.
When he said he didn't want to go out for track and field, I said I wouldn't feed him unless he went out for track and field. He went out for track and field.
Aside from the less than subtle message that I'm trying to convey about parental responsibility to those parents who seem to forget the difference between being an adult and a child, I mention this because I was convinced back then and remain convinced now that most parents know a lot more about what children need to succeed than children. Children need parents to exercise a lot of parental prerogative -- teaching them right from wrong and making choices for them until they reach emotional, intellectual, and spiritual maturity -- in order to survive the perils of childhood and temptations of youth.
Similarly, one-way theology is a blessing rather than a burden. It is an opportunity to experience God's best by being our best for God.
So if there is one way to wholeness, happiness, joy, and eternal security, why would anyone in her or his right mind choose another way?
The answer, of course, is in the question.
That's what the first of God's Ten Commandments is all about.
Let me put it another way.
Father knows best.
