WHATA MAN CAN BELIEVE John 10:22-39
2. Jesus Christ Is Lord July 31, 1966
I began last week the attempt to bring to a neat conclusion six
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years of work.| Under the general heading es a Man Can weLiers y i
Suggested that a man today can believe in God .\ As I said then this

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final series ofgsermons is as much a looking inside my heart and mind

as anything else;| and hopefully one of the results will be that you

will share my own questions--and that your thinking will be pushed along.

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Is it odd that ("Jesus Christ is tora’) should be included in this

context? | arter all,that affirmation stands at the very basis of all

theology--it is the fundamental Christian assertion; \it is the theologi-

cal common denominator between us and all other Christians, past and

present.| Isn/t it a bit redundant, then, to suggest that it is one of

the things a man can believe? \ I think not.\I think not because that

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affirmation is essentially two-sided | I can stand here and problaim
that Jesus Christ is sovereign ithat he reigns over all men and all

nations, |I ean do that very nicely, I think, using the best and most

sophisticated theologians as resources | I can quote scripture, poetry,

books and cite examples ad infinitum.\ But somewhere along the line
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that affirmation has to have meaning to you 4s a person living here,

doing the things you ao. \ Somewhere along the line the theological
assertion \"Jesus Christ Is Lora"\ has to become ("Jesus Christ is My —e

and that means that we have to_ make a decision.| I believe I have made

my skepticism clear regarding the fervent evangelistic type of

Chrsitianity that emphasizes personal decisionat the eppense of sound
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theology. | And yet I have to temper my own skepticism with the obvious

fact that the early disciples did not go to their deaths for a theological

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tnesis,| outte obviously they did not go out into thetowns and villages

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selfless and secrificial. |
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And so, much of what goes under the name of Christianity today is

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devoid of Christ. .\ Keep him out and everybody is happy | Eliminate

him and there is no reason to sacrifice--or to love--or to think about

sin.\| Keep Jesus Christ out and ther's no reason why you and

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I, as churchmen, should feel responsible for anyone but ourselves.

Keep him out and there's no real reason why the church’ should get
and there 8 no
itself into someting so unpleasant _as the civil rights movement. The

result-an easy going religiosity that soothes and comforts, a spirituall

ritualism that disturbs and challenges no one, and consequently heals

and redeems no one. _ . f J wadarwdaxd uw hey we €
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The orthodox claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate; a

that he was both God and man; [that his coming was God himself dwelling

with man;|‘that his death was aA act of God done for man; jthat his

resurrection was the decésive cosmic defeat of death and the promise
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of salvation and life eternal for all men.

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All things considered that is a rather remarkable list of con-

clusions especially about a man who was such an obvious failure.| By

anyone's standards his life didn't add up to very much. \He never

traveled 200 mi, away from his place of birth.\For 30 yrs he lived

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as everyone else-he was a carpent4r., \ Then at 30 he began to act

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strangely, preaching that thei kingdom of God was at hand, teaching

that it's a better thing to love your neighbor than to keep the law,

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healing sick people , creating disturbances among the peasantry,

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making a nuisance of himself in the Temple and Spnagsgs.. \ No one of

importance believdd him--even his 12 friends never quite understood

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or tothe lonely Doctor in the junete \ rt points to the church in the

ghetto, or the suburb, to the millions upon millions of Christian men
and women who are today dong the work of Jesus Christ [re points to all
of this and says hhis is Jesus christ~-believe in him, because he is
responsible for all of this.

Jesus! only defense was to point to what he was doing; jand i am

suggesting that the most meaningful way to understand him today is

to look at that iife--and the lives that have so dpviously been

infiuenced by him,
in these terms then the issue becomes crystal clear, If Jesus

wasn't the christs\ar he was merely a good man who died for a losing

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cause; if he was no more than one of humanity's shining lights, a

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‘visionary with some good ideas about ethical behavior if this is all

he was--then he was also a liar and 2 fraud.| He was this and worse
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because he saw himself as the Christ--he yust didn't heal--he forgave

sins.) He did more than teach--he promised people a new life, a life

that goes on through eternity \ He just didn't die, he deliberately walked

into the jaws of death, and on the evening of his arrest he drew out

in the passover meal, the lasting significance of his dying("This is

my body, borken for you. This cup is the nw covenant in my blood."|If

he was not the Christ, he was mad,

If he was not theChrist, his disciples must also share the terrible

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gullt for perpetrating this cruel hoax on hunanity..| They had time,

after his death, to reflect and decide what they should do.| To say that
he was not the Christ is bo say that they, one and all, either had the
same halucination-or else they deliberately left the upper room to go out

and deceive the world.

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every earthly authority one reigns supreme,

It means that no

earthly domain is too large or too small to be called tite, | It means

that Jesus Christ is Lord of Soviet Russia, and the U.S. and even Red

china .\ rt means he is the soveriegn authority in the halls of the U.N

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and the Senate and in the Dyer Town ua11.\rt means that he is Lord
of the High School Class room and the West Side @hetto, the steel

mill and the citehen. \ whether it is acknowledged or not, to affirm it
meas to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of All.

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Again, howevr, we find ourselves at the theological impasse

whet we began.\ For it costs nothing to say that--but to say it and

means it is to acknowledge that he is Lord over that part of life

with which I am most familiar--my own life. | x: is to say he is my
Aad thet fonfessias (rweles he \ Persencty” ~ FE 46 Yo
Lord. | 2oay—that ana oan if “Le to throw oneself wholeheartedly

into battles which are noW fought in his name ‘\r8 is to acknowéedge him

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as judge of all I do.\ It is to accept his love poured out on my behalf

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and to allow my life to become a new life because of ts |re is to live

as he would have me Live, |rt is to love and serve and die if need

be, rejoicing--because it is for him, and he is Lord--Lord of all, and
my Lord.

What can a man vetteve? \ sveryman believes something-everyman fills

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the gag in his life with some uitinate \ x would suggest that a man

ean believe that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.