Who is Jesus #4 - Jesus is for Real
Message Description
Senior Pastor Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues into the fourth week of the message series "Who is Jesus?".
Message Transcript
Let's pray together. God, as we're gathered this weekend in Wexford, in the Chapel, Butler, the Strip District, Bridgeville, Beaver, I pray that you would speak to each of us. I ask that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Over the last few weeks, we've been in a series that we've called “Who is Jesus?” And what we've tried to do is look at some New Testament passages that identify, speak to who Jesus is. And it's a much larger subject in some ways than we first think, because there are so many titles, so many descriptions in the New Testament for who Jesus Christ is. And yet it's one of those questions that even if you've resolved the question in your mind, is still significant to return to from time to time, because the implications of this question are staggering. Who is Jesus?
And the question that we're going to ask today is, is the Jesus that we read about in the Gospels the Jesus of history? And at first that may again seem like an elementary question, but if you think about who Jesus is as presented in the Gospels, it's a pretty outlandish Jesus. It's God taking on human form, according to Philippians 2. And in the Gospels, God becomes man, lives a perfect life, goes to the cross, is crucified for the sins of humanity, raised to new life, lives, ascends into heaven, and is returning to set the world right. I mean, that's pretty outlandish. And if you believe that the Gospels tell the story about Jesus, the Jesus of history, then it changes almost everything about how you go about life.
Here's how just a few different authors over the years, people of note, have spoken about Jesus. John Knox said, “No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshiped, but no other man has been so devoutly loved.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky said this, he said, “Even those who've renounced Christianity and attack it in their inmost beings still follow the Christian ideal. For hitherto, neither their subtlety nor their ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man, and of virtue, than the ideal given by Christ of old.”
And then Mahatma Gandhi put it this way, he said, “A man who was completely innocent offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was the perfect act.”
And so you may come here today and say, yeah, I believe that the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of history. Or you may come here today and say, that's not really where I'm at. I'm thinking that this was more of a myth, that this was something that is concocted by his followers who got together and put together some of these ideals so that people would say, oh, this is the Bible. This is what it is.
And so what I want to do is, I want to argue today that in Luke's Gospel, he tells us right at the beginning that this is actual history. And so what each of us must do is say, is this historical or is this myth? Here's where we see this. In verse 1, it says:
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us...”
So he says, this is an account. And by the way, Luke, the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, four different perspectives of the same events. Luke was a doctor, a medical doctor. And he says, here's what I decided to do. I wanted to kind of bring together all of the account, all of the narratives, so you would be able to say, yes, this is what happened. And he tells us in verse 2 that it is based on eyewitnesses, he says:
“...just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses...”
So what he's saying is, I'm giving you an account that's based on eyewitnesses. And then in verse 3, he says, and I've given this a careful investigation:
“With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning...”
So his claim is I am not just telling you a story about an ideal, but I'm telling you about a historical person with historical significance.
And I'm going to borrow heavily today from a book by a man named Richard Bauckham called “Jesus in the Eyewitnesses”. It's a pretty long academic book. I'm going to make it short and much less academic, but it's an excellent resource if this is a question that you want to dive into. Is this historical?
And now let me step out of the academic for a moment and just give you maybe a little easier, more relatable way to think about this. So the other night, my wife and I were sitting down to watch a movie. And I don't know if you do this in your house, but if you ever sit down to watch a movie, and you start with Netflix, and you start scrolling through all of the movies, trying to pick a movie, and a half hour later you're like, there's nothing to watch? All right, so we were in this space where we were going through all the movies, and there was one that was popped up. You know how they have, like, the most popular on Netflix right now, if you have Netflix? And there was one that was there, and I thought, oh, that's kind of a funny title. So as a joke, I said, how about we watch “Hot Frosty”? Now what happened next caught me a little off guard.
By the way, there were some people after last night's service who came and confessed that they had seen “Hot Frosty”. So we'll offer absolution after today's service. But my wife says to me, she said, oh, no, I heard that's bad. I'm like, who did you hear that's bad from? Like, did your sister watch it? Which of your friends actually watched “Hot Frosty” enough to say it's bad? Like, don't you know it's bad by the title and the genre that it's there? I mean, you could just see this is not a good movie. Now, here's my point. Years from now, nobody is going to say the events talked about in “Hot Frosty” actually happened. Now, why won't they? Because it doesn't claim to be history. It is goofiness meant to distract us in a good way from our lives for an hour and a half just to say this is something mindless. But here's what's also true. If somebody tried to say that the events that took place in this movie are actual, there would be all kinds of people who would say, here's why this isn't true.
And what Richard Baucom basically says about the Gospel accounts and why you can say Jesus is the Jesus of history is for a couple of different reasons. And the first is this. And that is that the accounts are too early to be a myth. The reason to believe the gospel accounts of Jesus, one of the reasons is because the accounts themselves are too early to be a myth. They're presented as truth. And the eyewitnesses are the ones who were there enough, early enough to say, I can tell you how this happened. And what Richard Bauckham says is that the names that appear in the Gospels, the names are like footnotes. And they're basically his way of saying, go check with this person about this event, and how this happened in our lives.
Maybe a way to think about this. And this might be better for those of us who live in Pittsburgh, in this region as an example, than maybe somewhere else. But this last summer, President Trump was shot at a rally in Butler. Now imagine for a moment that there's no video evidence of this. And so after the shooting, somebody says, you know what? He was shot in the ear. And he stood up and he pumped his fist and he said, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. And somebody else said, oh, no, no, he was shot right through the head. He must have been dead. And then he stood up and he came back to life. Do you know what would happen, is the people who were actually there would say, no, no, no, listen. He was shot in the ear. He didn't die. It didn't go through his head. He did stand up and say, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. But it had nothing to do with death.
And here's what's probably true. Some of us who are gathered this weekend may have been at that rally, but probably most of us know somebody who was at that rally. And at least you know somebody who knows somebody who was at that rally and would be able to say, I was there. Here's what actually happened. And what the idea of this being history is, is that these are accounts of eyewitnesses that are collected and given to us.
Now, you may say, well, that doesn't make it so, because obviously if the disciples had an agenda to make this Jesus kind of compelling, then they could have gotten together and written this. But again, written from four different perspectives, different times. And here's what's true as well. When you go to college, if you go to college, one of the things that will happen is you'll study Aristotle and Plato, which are roughly from the same period. And almost nobody, when they are given those books to read, says, can I believe that this was written by who it says it was in the error in which it said? But if you take the Gospel accounts from that air and say they were written from different perspectives, different times, telling the same story and based on eyewitnesses, then you start to get a picture of who Jesus is.
So one of the reasons not to see the Gospels as myth is because they're too early to be a myth. Here's a second reason. They're too detailed to be myth. What happens when stories are true is the details are consistent. But when stories are not true, then the details start to kind of conflict with one another. And what you have, again with four different accounts, although at times there are some small discrepancies, those discrepancies are basically a way of just seeing something from a different vantage point. But the remarkable reliableness of the details telling the same story tells us something about how this is not myth.
In fact, in one study about the psychology of lying in 2019, it says this, that “The best liars learn that they keep statements clear and simple, because as an expert liar, they know that if they add too much detail, sooner or later the detail will actually trip them up.” And so when you read through the Gospels again, what you see is you see an account that is early, it was given within a generation, and that is full of detail.
But not only this, we can believe the Gospel accounts because the stories are too counterproductive to be a myth. And what I mean when I say this is usually when stories are told that are intended to make somebody look good, they don't tell of the mistakes and the blunders of the people unless it's to tell us how they overcame something. And so when you get the accounts of the Gospels, certainly they tell us a good story about who Jesus is because he was perfect. But you also have this account about the disciples that is less than flattering.
I mean, think about this. Have you ever known somebody who played high school football years and years ago? What's true when they talk about their high school football years? Rarely do you hear somebody say, you know, I was an average player on an average team, and I had one good moment where, you know, the score was, we were winning by 30 points, and the ball just popped into my hands and I ran in for a touchdown, and that was my high school career. What you almost always hear is something that's much bigger than that. It's the story of, well, the score was tied, state championship was, you know, hanging in the balance, and I punched the ball out, did a somersault, picked it up, dodged one man, ran the other way and went all the way. I mean, that's the way that we remember stuff when we're embellishing it, even on our own behalf.
Now, some of you are saying, well, I actually did that. But my point is, we tend to make ourselves look better, not worse. And the disciples, in telling these stories, talked about their ordinariness, their weakness, their failures, their sins. And so it's really counterproductive if they wanted to preserve something for themselves.
And then I would say another reason to believe these accounts is because they're too consistent to be a myth. And the reason I say this is they're consistent with the history that was told at the time, but also consistent internally. And if you read through history that is from that time period, whether it be Josephus, Clement, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, just to name a few, there are many extra biblical sources that place Jesus and some of the events in the same context. And even if they don't validate the events, what they, at a minimum, do is say, this is what people believed at the time. And certainly there's a mass of internal consistency between the different accounts and different stories. And so these accounts are more consistent than myths tend to be.
And you may say, well, okay, what difference does this make? Well, here's what Luke says, verse 4, he says, so now he said, I'm giving you an account, this is based on eyewitnesses. I have tried to write this all down for you, most excellent, Theophilus, and what he was doing was he was saying, here's an account that he's preparing for somebody of note. And he says:
“...so that you may know the certainty of the things that have been taught,”
He says, I want you to know. You see, Jesus, ultimately, according to the scriptures, came not just to be an example, but to be a savior. And what this means, if Jesus is the Jesus of history, that you can say with certainty that he came to save us. So that it isn't about my effort and my performance.
You see, so much of religion these days and every era has been this idea that says, you be good and God will somehow reward you. But the message in the scriptures is, no matter how good you are, you're not good enough. But Jesus is good on your behalf. And the reason you can be certain of that is because Jesus isn't just a story, but he's the Jesus of history.
It means that if you're here and you're saying, you know, sometimes I just struggle because it feels like maybe God isn't real, not close to my situation. I doubt and I feel uncertain. That you can come back and say, if Jesus is the Jesus of history, it means that there's a God who is the God of Creation, who is knowable and is predisposed toward me because this was his rescue mission. And it means that when you question if the choices you've made, the things you've done, have taken you outside of God's love, outside of God's care, that the Jesus of history is the Jesus who comes, and no sin is too far to be forgiven, and for you to be in a place of being able to relate to the God of Heaven. And it means ultimately that there's a purpose for each of us. He says, so that you can know with certainty, you know, your life isn't just about kind of living for 70, 80, 90, 100 years, collecting a bunch of stuff and being able to live out your days comfortably and give a little bit to the next generation. You were born for more, and that is for a relationship with the God of Heaven. And the Jesus of history points to that.
You know, when you think about a myth, some of the biggest myths that have been believed over the history of humanity, one of them is certainly this idea that if we're nice, we get on a nice list and there's a naughty list and the way it all ends. But I won't say any more about that other than this, because I don't want to wreck this for anybody. But as you age and that myth gives way, what happens is it crumbles because myths don't stand up to scrutiny over time.
And what's true about the Gospels is you can scrutinize them. It may raise some questions, but all of the scrutiny will lead you to say it is more likely that this Jesus is exactly who these Gospels say he is than that this is a myth. And so what I just encourage you to do, if you're here today and you're saying, you know, I don't know, I'm not sure, I'd just encourage you to maybe just say, I want to investigate this, because everything rises and falls on who Jesus is. If he's a myth, if this is a myth, then you should walk away from Christianity and not play around with it at all.
But if Jesus is the Jesus of history, then acknowledging him as the Lord of your life and orienting your entire life around who Jesus Christ is is the only thing that makes sense. The middle ground makes no sense. And so it would be worth an investigation. If you're uncertain, maybe that's as simple as saying, during December, I'm going to be part of Orchard Hill and just see what I hear about who Jesus is. If it resonates as true, maybe you'd pick up the book by Richard Bauckham, “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”, and work through it and say, can I believe this? Maybe you get with a friend or family member who is somebody who's a person who has demonstrated obvious faith over time, and you ask them to help you walk through it. Or maybe over these weeks, for you, it's just going back to the idea that this is based on reality. Therefore, in my desperation this year, whatever I feel, I can live with certainty that God is real, Jesus is who he said he was, and it changes everything for me.
Or maybe you've been down some paths you didn't want to go down in recent days, and there's a little voice that you hear not audibly, but inside your spirit that says, how could God love you? How could God forgive you? How could you? And you need to go back to the Jesus of history who came to seek and to save that which was lost, to give himself as a ransom for many. And maybe, just maybe, you need to look at this and say, today I want to live for more than just accumulating some stuff, having some comfort. My life is to be about more because of who Jesus is. But either way, when we acknowledge that Jesus is the Jesus of history, it changes everything. That the Jesus of history is the Jesus who is God, who has come and is coming again.
Father, we ask today that you would help each of us, wherever we're coming from, to come to terms with who Jesus really is. And God I pray that it would change us, even if we've been changed by it in the past. I pray that it would continue to become more and more a part of the way that we think and the way that we process this world. And as a result, it would give us a greater desire to worship and serve you and to follow you and orient our entire lives around who you are. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Thanks for being here. Have a great week.
This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse errors.