Last year New York Times editorialist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about evangelical Christians.[1] The column confessed that some evangelical Christians act in ways that are immoral and hypocritical.  But he went on to write this:

…in reporting on poverty, disease and oppression, I’ve seen so many others. Evangelicals are disproportionately likely to donate 10 percent of their incomes to charities, mostly church-related. More important, go to the front lines, at home or abroad, in the battles against hunger, malaria, prison rape, obstetric fistula, human trafficking or genocide, and some of the bravest people you meet are evangelical Christians (or conservative Catholics, similar in many ways) who truly live their faith.  I’m not particularly religious myself, but I stand in awe of those I’ve seen risking their lives in this way—and it sickens me to see that faith mocked at New York cocktail parties.

Kristof stands in awe of Christians who truly live their faith.  The biblical word for this kind of world-changing life is “fruitful.”  When the Bible describes people doing what Kristof sees Christians doing, it uses the word “fruitful.”  To donate for the needy, to battle against hunger, and to stand against genocide is to live a fruitful life.  And that kind of fruitful life by Christians catches Kristof’s attention.  He applauds these fruitful lives.

This type of life is one that God applauds.  God prizes fruitful lives.  God loves it when his people donate to charities, battle human trafficking, and truly live their faith.

In fact, God dreams about this fruit.  In the book of Isaiah, God puts it this way: In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit (Is. 27:6 ESV).  There are several other passages like this in Isaiah.  The words “Jacob” and “Israel” are used here to refer to the people of God.  Here God pictures his people as a vine that takes root, then blossoms and then fills the whole world with fruit.  And in the context of Scripture fruit is consists of things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  God prizes this fruit.  He loves this fruit.  He wants his people to fill the whole world with this fruit.

But, as the New York Times piece confesses, we—the people of God—don’t always bear this fruit.  Sometimes we forget the priority of fruitful living. We don’t value fruitful living as much as God does.

Richard Stearns puts it this way:[2] “The predicament of the American church is that we live in a kind of Magic Kingdom. Like going to Disneyland, you buy your ticket, and once you are inside the gates, everything you experience is controlled. The rides, the food, the shows are all there to entertain and amuse you. All you have to do is be there and observe.  Yet just beyond the walls of Disneyland is Anaheim and the rest of Los Angeles, including the streets of Compton. This is the real world with real problems: pollution and congestion, drugs and violence, islands of upscale neighborhoods surrounded by slums. Inside the Magic Kingdom, the outside world is almost inconceivable…But our job is…to tear down the walls and transform the world outside.” It’s easy for Christians to gather and forget about the rest of the world, the real world outside these walls.  But God’s dream is that his people would be like a vine that grows throughout the world and bears fruit that transforms that world.  Sometimes we get so comfortable in our Disneyland that we forget the priority of fruitful living out there.

But even when we do prioritize God’s vine-vision, we often find that it’s a hard vision to fulfill.  It can be overwhelming to walk into that broken world outside these walls and attempt to live the kind of fruitful life that will make a difference.

I recently came across a book about Dr. Paul Farmer.  Farmer was moved deeply by the plight of people around the earth who did not have access to adequate medical care.  He dedicated himself to bringing modern medicine to remote places and poor people.  The book about his life is called “Mountains Beyond Mountains.[3] The title comes from a Hatian proverb.  Farmer spent years in Haiti establishing a medical clinic for the poor.  The proverb states this: “Beyond mountains there are mountains.”  It is a realistic and somber portrait of the world outside these walls.  You climb one mountain, and there’s another one waiting.  It describes the massive need Farmer was trying to fill as he travelled to Haiti, Peru, Cuba and Russia. You help one poor person get better, there’s a line of others waiting.  You make a dent in one country or with one tribe, there are dozens more.  It can be overwhelming.  There seems to be mountain after mountain of need in the world.  And we may feel completely incapable of bearing the kind of fruit that can topple those mountains.

Jesus’ disciples may have felt similarly.  In Jn. 14:12, Jesus challenges his disciples to go and bear even greater fruit in the world than he did.  He urges them to scatter and live even more impactful lives than he did.  Then he drops a bomb on them—he’s about to leave.  In John 13-17 Jesus is saying goodbye.  He tells them again and again that he’s about to be killed on a cross, raised from the dead, and lifted to the Father’s right hand.  Jesus is about to exit.  They will be the ones left with the mess of the world.  They will be the ones facing mountain after mountain of need.  We heard last Sunday how this news has troubled their hearts (Jn. 14:1).  They may have felt completely incapable of bearing the kind of fruit that could make a difference in the world.

It’s in this context that Jesus makes a statement: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  ³Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:1-5 ESV).

Most scholars believe that Jesus is using the vineyard image from Isaiah.  When Jesus says “I am the true vine” he’s saying “I am the vine God’s always dreamed about.”  Though God talked about his dream of a fruitful vine in Isaiah, his people in the Old Testament never fulfilled that dream.  They failed to carry out God’s vision.  Rather than bringing the fruit of love and joy and righteousness and justice into the world, at times they brought just the opposite.  In light of that failure, and in light of what the disciples must surely be feeling about their own ability to bear fruit, Jesus says simply, “I am the true vine.”  Jesus is that vine capable of bearing the kind of fruit that can transform the world.

Yet Jesus is not going to bear that fruit alone.  He tells his followers: “I am the vine, you are the branches.”  Those of us who follow Jesus are the branches.  That means we can bear fruit through partnership with Jesus.  Jesus promises in this text that he can bear his fruit through us.  He promises in vs. 5 that we branches can bear “much fruit.”

Jesus is essentially telling us this: He maximizes our ability to bear fruit.  One of the primary things Jesus does is to maximize our ability to bear fruit.  Jesus sees himself as a vine.  He sees you as a branch.  And Jesus is able to take his own fruitfulness and grant it to you so that you become as fruitful in the world as he was.  This is God’s plan for taking is his vineyard dream and turning it into reality.  Through Jesus, he maximizes your potential to bear fruit.

But how does this work?  How does Jesus’ fruitfulness become ours?  How does Jesus pass on the ability to live a world-changing life?

Listen to Jesus’ explanation: “⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you…⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love…¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. ¹⁷ These things I command you, so that you will love one another (John 15:4-7, 9-10, 16-17 ESV).  Jesus says that the key to fruitfulness is found in one concept: “abide.”  It’s only by abiding in Jesus that we bear the fruit of Jesus.  Eugene Peterson, in The Message, translates this concept this way: “Make your home in me.”  When Jesus says “abide in me” he’s saying “make your home in me.”  It’s only when we make a home in Jesus that we can bear the fruit of Jesus.

What does it mean to abide in Jesus?  What does it mean to make our home in Jesus?  We might think of this in terms of some different dwelling places.  Let’s consider three dwelling places.  Let’s imagine a hotel room, a dorm room, and a house.  Raise your hand if you’ve ever stayed in a hotel room.  How many of you even take the time to unpack your suitcase and put your clothes in the dressers?    For most of us, the hotel room is temporary.  We’re in and we’re out.  We just need a bed to sleep on and a place to store our stuff.  The priority is what’s outside the hotel room.  The amusement park.  The golf course.  The mall.  The state park.  The hotel room is just a base from which we launch out into what really interests us.  And sometimes that’s how some of us treat Jesus.  He’s a temporary place we go to when we need some rest or some recuperation.  But what truly interests us is outside of Jesus.  He’s just a rest stop.  He’s not someplace we truly abide.

Let’s consider a dorm room.  How many of you lived in a dorm room or an apartment when you were in college?  I lived in the same dorm room for three years while I was a student at New Mexico State University.  Yet despite the fact that I was there for three years, I never really settled in to my dorm room.  It was mostly a place where I could catch a nap, change my clothes, and do a little work.  I did a large part of my homework elsewhere because the dorms were so loud.  I spent the weekends at my mom’s house eating her food and letting her do my laundry.  And some of us treat Jesus that way.  He’s much more just a hotel room.  But, when it comes down to it, we’re never really at home in him.  We spend significant time in him and with him.  But ultimately, there’s something temporary and superficial about our walk with him.  He’s not someplace we truly abide.

But let’s consider a home.  Not just any home.  A well-lived-in home.  I think of the home where my great grandmother Gertie lived.  She lived there with her twin sister Vertie.  Gertie and Vertie.  They lived in a farmhouse in Missouri.  In the kitchen was a wood-fueled stove they used for decades.  The linoleum floor nearly had grooves in the paths where they had walked much of their lives.  The living room had a sofa so worn and soft you could fall asleep in it in a minute.  There were pictures of parents and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren on the walls.  I remember watching Gertie sit in an old rocking chair and read from the Bible she’d owned for many years.  The cover was cracked from use and time.  Every nook and cranny of that house was filled with memories.  They had lived every square inch of that house, and lived it for decades.  When Vertie died and it came time for Gertie to leave the house, it was gut-wrenching.  In fact, she didn’t live long after she left the house.  Her life was in that house.  She had made a home in that house and it had made a home in her.

Jesus is saying that we need to treat him like that.  Not like a hotel room.  Not like a dorm room.  But like a place where we truly are home.  It’s only when we make a home in Jesus that we can bear the fruit of Jesus. When we dwell in Jesus, abide in Jesus, make our home in Jesus, then he’s able to take his own supernatural fruit-bearing ability and transfer it to us.  He shapes us and makes us into fruitful people who topple mountain after mountain.

What does that look like?  How does that happen?  How do we make our home in Jesus?  How do we abide in Jesus and thus gain his fruit-bearing ability?  Jesus gives some brief clues here.

Jesus seems to say that abiding in him, making our home in him means abiding with his people, in his principles, on his path, and in his prayer.

• Jesus talks here about the importance of loving other Christians, of being in intimate community with his followers.  His people.  Jesus talks about letting his word abide in us.  His principles.  Jesus speaks of our need to obey him.  His path.  And Jesus urges us to pray for what we need to bear fruit.  His prayer.
• Abiding in Jesus includes fellowship and friendship and support among his people.  It includes learning and reflecting upon and meditating upon his word, his principles.  It includes walking his way, practicing his preaching, obeying his word.  His path.  And it includes humble dependence upon God for what we need to bear fruit.  His prayer.
• We abide in Jesus as we participate in a loving community, pursuing spiritual paths together, sharpening each other, holding each other accountable, and encouraging each other.  His people.  We abide in Jesus as we constantly read his word, consume his word, meditate on his word, study his word, and listen to his word.  His principles.  We abide in Jesus as we apply his teaching to our lives, as we practice what he preaches, as we let his teaching impact our relationships, our work, our school, and our families.  His principles.  And we abide in Jesus as we hit our knees, as we devote ourselves to prayer, as we passionately pursue a life of prayer.  His prayer.

The book Welcoming Justice was co-authored by two men.  One was Charles Marsh, a younger white professor.  The other was John Perkins, an older black Christian leader.[4] On the day they met, Marsh, the white man, sheepishly confessed that his grandmother was an ardent racist who thought that Martin Luther King. Jr. was a dangerous troublemaker and that most blacks were better off under slavery. Perkins’ response puzzled Marsh.  “What does she grow in her garden?” he asked.  “What do you mean?” Marsh replied.  Perkins said, “What does she grow? Cucumbers, squash, mint, tomatoes? I have the sweetest tomatoes in my garden this summer. You can eat them like apples. Your grandmother like tomato sandwiches? I bet she does. Let me ask you another question: does she like blueberries? I love blueberries.”   And in great detail he described all the ways he loved to eat blueberries: freshly picked, over ice cream, in blueberry pie. He said, “I always keep blueberries in my refrigerator. When we get to the house, I’m gonna give you a bag of blueberries, and I want you to take them to your grandmother and tell her they’re a gift from me.“  Perkins, the black man, gave Marsh, the white man, a bag of blueberries to deliver to the racist grandmother as a gift.  After Perkins gave Marsh the bag of blueberries, Marsh called them a “gift that marks you as a new kind of person.” He wrote, “I haven’t been quite the same since I accepted those blueberries.” Perkins responded to racism not with hate or vengeance.  He responded with fruit—love and compassion.

That’s the kind of fruit that becomes possible as we abide in Jesus.  It’s the fruit that can change the world.  The closer we stay to the vine, the more his fruit is born through us.  It’s the fruit that makes all the difference in the world.

[2] Richard Stearns, “Shedding Lethargy,” Leadership Journal (Winter, 2012).

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Beyond-Healing-World-Farmer/dp/0375506160/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_t_3

[4] Charles Marsh and John Perkins, Welcoming Justice (IVP Books, 2009), 61-61.

In 1942 the U. S. government decided to carve a road from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Big Delta, Alaska.[1] Called the Alaska Highway, it would stretch 1,422 miles over the Canadian Rockies, through the Yukon Territory, and into remote Alaska.  A recruiting poster made this promise to anyone applying to work on the job:

“Men hired for this job will be required to work and live under the most extreme conditions imaginable.  Temperatures will range from 90 degrees above zero to 70 degrees below zero.  Men will have to fight swamps, rivers, ice and cold.  Mosquitos, flies and gnats will not only be annoying but will cause bodily harm.  If you are not prepared to work under these and similar conditions, do not apply.”

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government believed this road was needed to keep the Japanese from potentially invading Alaska.  They sent 16,000 soldiers to help build the road.  It cost $138 million—the most expensive construction project of World War II.  The initial team, transported by plane and train, arrived with 174 steam shovels, 374 blade graders, 904 tractors, 5,000 trucks, bulldozers, snowplows, cranes, and generators.  Conditions were miserable.  One oft-repeated tale concerned a staff sergeant who, arriving in Dawson Creek during a blizzard, asked his superior officer, ‘Major, where do I sleep?’ The grinning major replied, ‘Take any snowdrift you like. This one is mine!’  In the winter, pick axes bent against the frozen ground.  Any vehicle that got wet from a still flowing stream had to keep moving because the water on it could freeze and snap the axel in two.  In the spring, rivers flooded and equipment and men were trapped in thick mud.  Those familiar with the project claimed it was the most difficult construction project undertaken since the building of the Panama Canal.  Yet, in the end, they were successful.  They completed a road through the most difficult territory imaginable.  They made a way when there seemed to be no way possible.

We are determined to create roads where it seems none can exist.  We are determined to make a way where there seems to be no way.  We have such fortitude, such technology, and such will that we humans have been able to carve roads in the most extreme environments.

Yet sometimes we face obstacles we cannot overcome.  Sometimes we cannot make a way through.  Sometimes there is no way. Sometimes, despite our courage, despite our ingenuity, despite our desire, there just is no way through.

This was spiritually true in the time of a man named Isaiah.  Isaiah was prophet in the Old Testament.  He wrote a long book of 66 chapters which is near the middle of your Bible.  Isaiah lived and preached when the nation of Assyria invaded and exiled the nation of Israel.  He also described the time when the nation of Babylon would invade and exile the nation of Judah.  The nation of Israel and the nation of Judah were filled with God’s chosen people.  No one could have ever imagined Assyria and Babylon overtaking these nations.  No one could have imagined the holy city of Jerusalem being invaded.  Yet this is exactly what happened.  And this is what Isaiah recorded.  The chosen people of God were trampled.  The beautiful city of God was terrorized.  Every aspect of the people’s lives was turned in its head.  They were dragged away from all they had ever known into a place and among a people that was completely foreign.  And there seemed to be no way out of it.  There seemed to be no way of ever getting from the strange and uncomfortable place where they now were to familiar and comfortable place where they once were.  There was no way return to that good life with God.  All hopes, all dreams, all ways were blocked.

Have you ever felt that way?  Felt like there just wasn’t any way out of your joblessness?  Felt like there just wasn’t any way out of your marriage crisis?  Felt like there just wasn’t any way out of your struggle with pornography?  Felt like there was no way to get from a strange and uncomfortable spot in life to the familiar and comfortable spot where you want to be?

That’s how Isaiah’s readers felt.  But Isaiah’s message was a remarkable message of comfort.  We might summarize the whole book of Isaiah in this way: When there is no way God makes a way.  One of the recurring images in Isaiah’s book is God’s “highway.”  Throughout his book, Isaiah writes of a God who will plow a straight and level road from hopelessness to hope, from despair to dancing, from isolation from to intimacy with God:

• ⁸ And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it.  It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. (Is. 35:8 ESV)
• ³ A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (Is. 40:3 ESV)
• ¹⁶ Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters… ¹⁹ Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Is. 43:16-19 ESV)
• ¹¹ And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up. (Is. 49:11 ESV)
• ¹⁴ And it shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.” (Is. 57:14 ESV)
• ¹⁰ Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples. (Is. 62:10 ESV)

It was as if the people’s unfaithfulness and the circumstances of the invading nations had piled boulders onto the road, washed out the road and left deep valleys, and created unshakeable mountains blocking the path.  The result was a spiritual territory that looked like Alaska.  But God, through Isaiah, declares that he’s in the highway business.  And he’s going to carve a road where none seems possible.  Isaiah says “where there is no way God makes a way.” Just as God plowed a highway through the Red Sea to lead his people from Egypt to the Promised Land, so he will once again plow a highway from the pit to the peak, from hopelessness to hopefulness.  God promises to find a way to get the people back to where they need to be.

When John the Baptist arrives on the scene in John’s Gospel, he grabs on to this very image and uses this very language.  When the Jews demand to know who John the Baptist, he quotes from Isaiah: He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” (John 1:23 ESV).  “I’m part of God’s road crew,” John is saying.  “I’m a paver.  I’m a bulldozer.  I’m here to join God’s ongoing work of making ways where there seems to be no way.”   It turns out that the construction project God started in Isaiah’s day was still going on in John’s day.  There were still people struggling with discouragement and with misery.  There were still people who weren’t where they wanted or needed to be in life.  And John was now part of that ongoing effort to pave a way where there seemed to be no way.

Not surprisingly, Jesus eventually identifies his mission using the same language.  The only other use of this language in John’s Gospel comes in John 14.  It comes in the context of troubling times.  The people in John 14 are feeling very much like the people were feeling in Isaiah’s day.  In John 13:21-30, Jesus indicates that he knows that Judas is about to sell him out, and Judas leaves their dinner gathering to do this very thing.  Even Jesus, according to John 13:21 is now “troubled in his spirit.”  Then, in John 13:31-14:14 Jesus makes repeated remarks about the fact that he is about to go—a reference to his impending death on the cross.  At least 9 times we read about Jesus going away from them.  He’s about to leave these followers of him.  They will feel, according to John 14:18 like “orphans.”  They will feel abandoned.  Then, in John 13:36-38 Jesus has to tell Peter that he knows Peter is going to cave in when the time comes.  Not even Peter will not stand his ground.  Peter will deny Jesus and give in to fear and scatter just like everyone else.

The result, according to Jesus in John 14:1 is that their “hearts” are “troubled.”  These are the toughest times Jesus and his followers have ever faced.  Everything is coming unraveled.  All the things they’ve been hoping for and planning for and working for are suddenly becoming impossible.  Their team is falling apart.  Their courage is melting.  The future is cloudy.  And Jesus himself is about to leave.  It’s as if there’s been a landslide and the way forward has been blocked.  There’s been a flash flood and the road’s been washed away.  Spiritually, life looks like remote Alaska.  And there seems to be no way forward.

It’s in this context that Jesus makes a remarkable statement: ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6 ESV).  This is the only other use of “way” in John’s Gospel.  It seems certain that Jesus has in mind what John the Baptist had in mind.  Both were thinking of the God who makes a way in the book of Isaiah.  Both were thinking of God’s ongoing construction project to pave a path for people where no path seems possible.  Jesus is saying that he is the highway Isaiah wrote about so long ago.

More specifically, I think Jesus is saying three things about the way in which he is the way.  First, Jesus is saying that his way is sure—he will make a way when there seems to be no way. Against the background of God’s “highway” language in Isaiah, Jesus is reasserting that in him, God will find a way.  When there seems to be no way, in Jesus, God always finds a way.  God’s plans will persevere.  God’s wishes will become reality.  Especially in those times when there seems to be no way, in Jesus, God finds a way.  Especially to these disciples whose hearts are troubled and who fear that everything’s falling apart, Jesus wants them to know that if they’ll just hang on to him, they’ll make it through.  Jesus will make a way forward even though none seems possible.

While working on this message I had breakfast with a fellow preacher from another city.  The story he shared with me overwhelmed me.  A core staff member at his congregation had quit.  But in leaving, this disgruntled staff member had spread all kinds of lies about the preacher.  Now he had to clean up that mess as well as deal with major financial stress in the congregation.  At times, as my friend shared his story, there was a part of me that wondered if there was any way to resolved all these issues.  But I kept thinking about Jesus’ statement: “I am the way.”  When Jesus says that, he’s speaking it in the context of a God who paved a way through the Red Sea, who paved a road back from Babylon to Jerusalem, and who, Jesus knew, would even pave a road back from the grave itself.  No matter how dark things seem to be, no matter what obstacles seems to be in the way, no matter what challenges you or your family or your friends are facing, Jesus is the way.  Through Jesus, God will make a way.  Jesus is saying here that his way is sure.  Where you are filled with doubt and wonder how you’ll ever make it through a situation, remember this statement: “I am the way.”

But I think Jesus is saying even more.  Second, Jesus is implying that his way is sacred—his way will ultimately lead you closer to the Father. Jesus not only says, “I am the way,” but he adds “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  He’s telling these troubled disciples that if they will just stick with Jesus, Jesus will make a way through all of this suffering and all of these challenges.  And the result will be this: they will all be closer to the Father.  If they will stick with Jesus, the result of the hard times will be that they get closer to God.

Jesus will not necessarily make a way through your illness so that you are healed for the rest of your life.  Jesus will not necessarily make a way through your joblessness so that you get a job next week.  Jesus will not necessarily make a way through your relationship struggles so that your marriage is renewed this weekend.  But the most important way Jesus makes is a way to deeper intimacy with God.  Jesus will make a way through whatever you are facing so that the result will be that you are closer to God.

Jesus may have a different destination in mind than you and I do.  When we hit difficult times, the destination we want to reach is one where is no more difficulty.  The destination is one where all the problems are resolved and all the pain is gone.  But if Jesus is the way, his destination is our deeper relationship with God.  That’s what Jesus is most concerned about.  So when Jesus starts carving a path for us through difficult times, that path may not lead where we think it ought to lead.  It may not resolve all pain.  It may not resolve all problems.  But here’s what it will do—it will lead us closer to God.

We Christians usually use this verse to discuss why Jesus, and only Jesus, and no other religious leader, is the way to the Father.  That is an appropriate use of this text.  We could legitimately take time this morning to explore from an intellectual perspective how Jesus is the only way to the Father.  But the context for this statement was a pastoral one not an intellectual one.  Jesus wasn’t addressing a group of religious thinkers trying to understand whether Christianity was superior or inferior to other world religions.  Jesus was addressing a group of struggling disciples trying to understand what God was doing in the midst of some very trying times.  And as Judas left to betray Jesus, as Peter would soon deny Jesus, as Jesus predicted his own death, what Jesus wanted these disciples to know most of all was that Jesus would lead the way through all of this and the result would be a deeper relationship with the Father.

Finally, Jesus is saying that his way is strange—his way will be unlike other ways. It’s not only sure.  It’s not only sacred.  But it’s strange.  Eugene Peterson has written a book exploring the many facets of this simple statement “I am the way.”  His book is called  The Jesus Way.[2] Peterson argues that one of the most overlooked elements of Jesus’ statement is the kind of way Jesus was.  Jesus’ way was very different from other ways of the day.[3] There was, Peterson says, the “way of Herod.”  Herod used power and fear to control people and bend people to his will.  Jesus’ way was just the opposite.  And there was, Peterson says, the “way of the Pharisees.”  The Pharisees majored in the minors.  They made spiritual mountains out of molehills.  The called critical what was truly marginal and marginal what was absolutely essential.  Jesus’ way was just the opposite.  Peterson argues that when Jesus promises to be our “way,” it’s going to be a way that’s unlike any other way we might follow.

John Dickson illustrates this further.  He wrote a book last year entitled Humilitas.[4] It’s based on post-doctoral research he did on ancient societies.  Dickson found that for an ancient person, to pursue personal honor was the greatest good.  To suffer shame was the greatest harm.  In the ancient world, the average person would always choose a way that led to greater personal honor.  The average person would always reject a way that led to greater shame.  And, Dickson writes, the most shameful and honor-less place in the ancient world was a cross.  The cross represented a way that no one in the ancient world would take.  Yet the cross was the way of Jesus.  The cross was the way of Jesus’ followers.    Thus, Christians in the ancient world began to redefine the greatest good in life.  They started using a word that, up to that point, has been associated with servitude and indignity.  The word is translated “humility.”  Dickson found that “humility” only became a virtue after Christians began using it in ancient society to describe the counter-cultural way of Jesus.  When Jesus says “I am the way,” he’s implying “My way is the way of the cross, the way of humility, the way of service, the way of lowliness.”  It is a way unlike any other way.

Still reflecting on this, Eugene Peterson points us back to Isaiah.[5] We began our journey this morning in Isaiah and his “highway songs.”  But there is another set of songs in Isaiah.  They are called the “servant songs.”  They are found in Is. 42, 49, 50, 52, 53.  In them, Isaiah sings of how God’s great roadwork on the earth will be accomplished through a humble and lowly servant.  Isaiah is singing that the way in which God works as he plows his highways is a strange way.  God will pave his way through lowly and menial servants.

Is. 53 is perhaps the most famous of these servant songs.  Isaiah sings this about the one through whom God will make a way: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men… But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed… He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”  This was the way of Jesus.  And if we cling to Jesus, and let him make a way in our lives, a way that leads us closer to the Father, this will be our way as well.  It is a strange and humble way.  But it is truly the only way forward.

Is there something in your life that feels like a Dead End?  Is there an issue in your life in which it seems there is no way forward?  While we sing this morning, I invite you to write that issue down on the Dead End sign on your seat and then bring it up here and place it in this wheelbarrow.  It’s a way of saying to Jesus, “Take this and make a way through it.”

[2] Eugene H. Peterson , The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way (Eerdmans, 2007), 27.

[3] Peterson, 217.

[4] John Dickson, Humilitas (Zondervan, 2011).

[5] Peterson, 170.

Tim Hansel is the author of a book entitled When I Relax I Feel Guilty.[1] He tells of the time when Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck decided to travel across the United States.  Steinbeck and his dog set out in his truck.  He recorded these observations when he stopped one evening in a diner: “It was all plastic…the table linen, the butter dish, the sugar and crackers were wrapped in cellophane, the jelly in a small plastic coffin sealed with cellophane. It was early evening and I was the only customer. Even the waitress wore a sponge apron. She wasn’t happy, but then she wasn’t unhappy. She wasn’t anything.”  That’s a striking description: she wasn’t happy, but then she wasn’t unhappy; she wasn’t anything.  It’s also a convicting description.  I fear it describes some of us.  We aren’t happy.  We aren’t unhappy.  We’re not really anything.  If forced to answer honestly when someone asked us, “How are you?” some of us just aren’t sure what we would say.

Perhaps this explains our preoccupation with happiness.  According to Psychology Today, in the year 2000, fifty books on happiness were published.  In 2008, four thousand books on happiness were published.[2] Could it be that so many of us are caught between happy and unhappy that we can’t seem to get enough books about that elusive state of happiness?

There is a sense is which many of us are alive, but we don’t always seem to thrive. We aren’t happy.  We aren’t unhappy.  We’re not really anything.  We are alive.  But we’re not really thriving.  We’re not bad.  We’re not great.  We’re just kinda OK.

In this context, perhaps one of the greatest statements made by Jesus is found in John 10: I came so they can have…more and better life than they ever dreamed of. (Jn. 10:10 The Message)  “Abundant life” some translations say.  “Rich and satisfying life” some translations say.  “More and better life than they ever dreamed of.”  Why did Jesus come?  What is this all about?  He came so you could have “more and better life than you ever dreamed of.”  He came so you could thrive not just be alive.

And this word “life” means so much more than just experiencing forgiveness of sins or escaping the fires of hell.[3] “Life” in Jesus’ mouth has as much to do with our time before death as it does with our time after death.  It has as much to do with here and now as it does with heaven.  Jesus came so that you could experience at this very moment more and better life than you’ve ever dreamed possible.  He came so you could thrive right here and right now.

In fact, in this same chapter, Jesus describes himself as a door which provides access to this abundant life: ⁷ So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸ All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹ I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  (John 10:7-10 ESV).

We are exploring seven “I Am” statements from Jesus in John’s Gospel.  We’ve heard Jesus say “I am the bread of life,” “I am the light of the world,” and “I am the good shepherd.”  Here, Jesus says “I am the door.”

Jesus is using an image which may not be familiar to most us.  He describes a door that goes out and in.  In a small Jewish village most families owned a few sheep. The houses had small walled courtyards where the sheep were kept. Because each family had only a few sheep, a shepherd for each household was not justified, so several households would have one shepherd to look after all their sheep. Early each morning the shepherd moved from house to house.  The doorkeepers would open the courtyard door.  The shepherd would call to the sheep.  And the sheep would walk out through the door and follow the shepherd into open country.^[4] When they were in the open country the shepherd would find a cave or create a round stone-walled enclosure.  He might place thorn bushes on top of the stones to keep out wild animals.  The shepherd would lead the sheep through the doorway into the cave or enclosure.  Then the shepherd would sleep across the entrance to keep the sheep safe.^[5]

This image is what Jesus has in mind when he says “I am the door.”  The courtyard door granted the sheep access to the open country as they walked out that courtyard door.  The cave doorway granted the sheep access to safety and protection as they walked in that door.  In the same way Jesus says that he is our door.  Jesus envisions himself as a door which offers access to abundant life.

What we are so often missing, Jesus came to provide.  He is a door which offers access to more and better life than we ever dreamed of.  For people who are alive but not thriving, Jesus is the door which offers access to abundant life.

There are a lot of doors in life aren’t there?  There’s the career door.  There’s the education door.  There’s the relationship door.  And each of them promises to provide access to better life.  If we’ll just get the right career or the right education or the right relationship we’ll be happy.  But Jesus is saying he is the one true door.  He is the only door in your life which can provide you access to rich and satisfying life.

If that’s true, why don’t more of us who follow Jesus experience abundant life?  Why do even we Christians sometimes find ourselves alive yet not truly thriving?

Jesus’ image provides a clue.  Jesus could have used any image to describe this rich life and his role in providing it.  He intentionally chose the image of a door for sheep.  Specifically, Jesus chose the image of a door that goes in and out.  Jesus chose a scene in which sheep in the open country go in through a doorway to a cave or enclosure.  There they find rest, refuge, retreat, and renewal.  And Jesus chose a scene in which sheep in a courtyard go out through a door to the open country where they flourish and thrive.  Jesus could have used any image to describe abundant life and his role in it.  He chose this image.  And in so doing, he gave us an important clue about how to gain access to abundant life, and why some of us may not be experiencing this life.  Jesus is saying that he offers access to an abundant life consisting of both an inward focus and an outward focus. Notice his words again in John 10: Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out… (John 10:9 The Message)  Jesus is describing the way sheep go in that cave door to a place of refuge and projection.  And he is describing the way sheep go out that courtyard door to the open country.  Jesus is our door to rich and satisfying life.  But he is a door through which we must go in and out.  Jesus is picturing the spiritual life as a door that opens both inwardly and outwardly.  And if we want to experience abundant life, we have to learn to live on both sides of the door.

Jesus is picturing the spiritual life as a door which opens two ways.  It opens inward to a quiet and calm place of rest, refuge, retreat, and renewal where sheep can sleep and settle and be protected.  But it also opens outward to the open country where the sheep can flourish, reproduce, and grow.

The earliest Christians built their spirituality around this two-way door.  They talked about the vita contemplative and vita activa.[6] Contemplative life.  Active life.  Contemplative life had an inward focus.  It consisted of habits and practices of rest, renewal and reflection.  The contemplative life was life going in the Jesus-door.  Active life had an outward focus.  It consisted of habits and practices like service and ministry.  The active life was life going out the Jesus-door.  The earliest Christians believed that you had to practice both types of life if you wanted the full life offered by Jesus.  You walked in the Jesus-door to vita contemplative and practiced rest, renewal, and reflection.  But you also walked out the Jesus-door to vita activa and practiced service and ministry to others.

Beloved spiritual writer Henri Nouwen described the full Christian life as one that consists of both an “inward journey” and an “outward journey.”[7] The inward journey leads us to find the Christ dwelling within us.  The outward journey leads us to find the Christ who is dwelling and working out in the world.  The inward journey calls for practices such as solitude, silence, prayer, meditation, and contemplation.  The outward journey calls for practices such as compassion, witness, outreach, healing, and accountability.  Nouwen believed that in order to experience the rich and satisfying life Jesus came to give, we have to engage in both journeys.  We have to journey in the door of Jesus and practice solitude and silence and prayer.  We also have to journey out the door of Jesus and practice compassion and outreach to others.

And here’s the key: we experience Jesus’ abundant life only as we attend to both the inward focus and the outward focus.  Jesus came as a door that opens two ways—inward and outward.  But the reality is that many of us spend a great deal of time only going through this door one-way.  Many of us live our lives largely on one side of the Jesus-door.  For example, some of us go inward through Jesus and often practice rest, refuge, retreat and renewal.  Others of us go outward through Jesus and often practice service and ministry.  But those of us comfortable on the inside of that Jesus-door rarely venture outward.  And those of us comfortable on the outside of that Jesus-door rarely go in.  But we experience Jesus’ abundant life only if we live on both sides of the Jesus-door.

Some of this is related to our personalities and preferences.  The Myers Briggs foundation, the group behind a widely used personality test, writes this:[8] The first pair of psychological preferences is Extraversion and Introversion. Where do you put your attention and get your energy? Do you like to spend time in the outer world of people and things (Extraversion), or in your inner world of ideas and images (Introversion)? Raise your hand if you label yourself an extrovert.  Raise your hand if you label yourself and introvert.  Most of us have a personality and preference for the inner world of ideas and images or the outer world of people and things.  And we carry this preference into our life with Jesus.  Those of us who are introverts spend time going in the Jesus-door and engaging in prayer, reflection, contemplation, silence and solitude.  But we rarely go out the Jesus-door.  Those of us who are extroverts spend our time out the Jesus-door and do mercy, compassion, and outreach.  But we rarely go in that door.  Yet, if we want to experience the true abundant life, we have to live on both sides of the Jesus-door.  Those of us who are introverts need to go out and spend time in mercy and outreach.  Those of us who are extroverts need to go in and spend time in prayer and silence.

Abundant life comes only when a church or an individual engages enthusiastically in both sides of the Jesus-door.  Abundant life flows into us and through us only as we live out a rhythm which involves going in through Jesus for rest and renewal in prayer and study and solitude, and then going out through Jesus for ministry and compassion and service.

In fact, each side of the door leads to the other.  As we go in the Jesus-door for regular times of rest and renewal, we are empowered then to go out the Jesus-door for regular times of ministry and service.  And as we go out the Jesus-door to impact the world around us, what we experience informs the kind of reflection and contemplation we do when we go back in the Jesus-door.

We have tried to frame our ministry at Highland around this idea.  Our vision is to help people discover the more they are meant for.  We want people to experience the abundant life Jesus has for them.  And this takes place as people engage in four activities.  Worship God and Grow with friends.  That’s inward work.  Serve others and Share Jesus.  That’s outward work.  We believe that as a church we’ve got to develop a rhythm of going in the Jesus-door and going out the Jesus-door.  We gather in the Jesus-door for worship and growing with friends in Sunday School classes and Huddles.  We scatter out the Jesus-door for service in ministry and sharing Jesus with others in places like our Reach Groups.  Highland experiences full life only as we live on both sides of the Jesus-door.  The same is true for each of us individually.

Unfortunately, we tend to judge others by what side of the door they spend their time in.  Those of us who like to go out the Jesus-door and do ministry and service tend to label those who spend time in the Jesus-door as people who are unconcerned about the world and disconnected from real life.  Those of us who like to go in the Jesus-door and do prayer and solitude tend to label those who spend time out the Jesus-door as superficial and busybodies.  But both sides of the Jesus-door are equally important.

Most likely, you tend to spend the bulk of your time and energy on one side of this door.  Some of you are constantly going in the Jesus-door and spending time in silence, prayer, and Bible study.  Others are you are constantly going out the Jesus-door and spending time in ministry and service to others.  Raise your hand if you tend to spend most of your time in the Jesus-door.  Raise your hand if you tend to spend most of your time out the Jesus-door.  And because we neglect the other side of the door, we fail to experience the rich and satisfying life Jesus came to give.  We fail to experience abundance because we fail to live on both sides of the door.  If you want to increase the richness and abundance of your life, those of you who spend most of your time out the Jesus-door should carve out some time to go in the door.  Determine this week to spend some time in silence, solitude, prayer, reflection, or study.  Those of you who spend most of your time in the Jesus-door should carve out time to go out the door.  Determine this week to spend some time in compassion, mercy, service and ministry.  The more we live on both sides of the door, the more we experience Jesus’ abundant life.

In his book The Circle Maker Mark Batterson tells this story that illustrates the power living in the Jesus-door:[9] A few years ago, I was reading through The Book of Legends, a collection of stories from the Jewish Talmud, when I discovered the true legend of Honi the Circle Maker… A devastating drought threatened to destroy a generation–the generation before Jesus. The last of the Jewish prophets had died off nearly four centuries before. Miracles were a distant memory. And God was nowhere to be heard. But there was one man, an old sage who lived outside the walls of Jerusalem, who dared to pray anyway. His name was Honi. And even if the people could no longer hear God, he believed that God could still hear them.  With a six-foot staff in his hand, Honi drew a circle in the sand. Then he dropped to his knees and raised his hands to heaven. With the authority of the prophet Elijah who called down fire from heaven, Honi called down rain.  “Lord of the Universe, I swear before your great name that I will not move from this circle until you have shown mercy upon your children.”  Then it happened.  As his prayer ascended to the heavens, raindrops descended to the earth. The people rejoiced over the rain, but Honi wasn’t satisfied with a sprinkle. Still kneeling within the circle, Honi lifted his voice over the sounds of celebration.  “Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain that will fill cisterns, pits, and caverns.”  The sprinkle turned into such a torrential downpour that the people fled to the Temple Mount to escape the flash floods. Honi stayed and prayed inside his protracted circle.  “Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain of benevolence, benediction, and grace.”  Then, like a well-proportioned sun shower on a summer afternoon, it began to rain in perfect moderation. Some within the Sanhedrin threatened excommunication because his prayer was too bold for their taste, but the miracle couldn’t be repudiated. Eventually, Honi the Circle Maker was honored for “the prayer that saved a generation.” The circle he drew in the sand symbolizes the power of a single prayer to change the course of history. Time spent in the Jesus-door in things like prayer can save a generation.

In a few weeks I’m presenting at the Christian Scholar’s Conference at Lipscomb University in Nashville.  During that conference, Lipscomb will confer an Honorary Doctorate of Laws upon veteran civil rights attorney Fred Gray.  When Gray was in college in Nashville, he vowed, “to become a lawyer, return to Alabama, and destroy everything segregated I could find.” Gray began his legal career as a sole practitioner, less than a year out of law school, and at age twenty-four, represented Mrs. Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus, the action that initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Gray was also Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first civil rights lawyer. This was the beginning of a legal career that now spans over 55 years.  Determined to right the wrongs he found in his native State of Alabama, Gray has been at the forefront of changing the social fabric of America regarding desegregation, integration, constitutional law, racial discrimination in voting, housing, education, jury service, farm subsidies, medicine and ethics, and generally in improving the national judicial system.  One of the first African Americans to serve in the Alabama Legislature since reconstruction, Gray was also the first African American elected as president of the Alabama State Bar Association.  Gray is a powerful example of what can happen when even just one person commits to living out the Jesus-door and ministering and bringing justice and righteousness into a culture.  An entire country can be changed.

As we close I want you to think about these two questions: On which side of the Jesus-door to I tend to live?  What is one practice I can engage in this week that will help me spend time on the other side of the Jesus-door?

[2] Julia Baird, “Positively Downbeat,” Newsweek (9/25/09).

[3] John Ortberg, “Ministry and FTT,” LeadershipJournal.net (June 2008).

^[4] Kruse, C. G. (2003). Vol. 4: John: An introduction and commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (229–230). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

^[5] Kruse, C. G. (2003). Vol. 4: John: An introduction and commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (231). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

[6] Brian J. Walsh and J. Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (IVP, 1984), 99.

[7] Henri J. M. Nouwen, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit (HarperCollins, 2010), 123.

(Author)

[8] http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/extraversion-or-introversion.asp.

[9] http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/the_circle_maker/

On Sunday morning’s we are exploring seven statements from Jesus, about Jesus which are recorded in John’s Gospel.  They all begin with the words “I am.”  We call them the “I Am” statements.  The series is called “Slice” because we so often just want a slice of Jesus with the rest of our life.  But in these “I Am” statements, Jesus shows us what it would be like to have all of Jesus; to let Jesus truly be our life.  This morning’s “I am” statement comes from John 8 and John 9.  Jesus claims to be “the light of the world.”  What does this mean?  What kind of light is Jesus?  What does his light enable us to see?

Two lights played significant roles in my life when I was young: a night light and a black light.  As you know, these are two different types of lights.  A black light exposes something bad and a night light uncovers something good. As a young child, I had a night light.  Like many young children, I was afraid of the dark.  I could imagine creatures with tentacles under my bed, monsters with fangs in the corner of the room, and goblins with long fingernails hiding near the window.  But the warm and soft glow of the nightlight uncovered the fact that all was well.  The night light revealed that there were no monsters.  There was only my safe room.  Night lights comfort.  Night lights relieve.  They show that the bad thing we thought was there isn’t.  Night lights uncover something good.

By contrast, black lights expose something bad.  There are all kinds of ugly stains that are invisible in normal light that become visible in black light.  We think there’s nothing bad, but then the black light exposes something really nasty.  Stephen Kingsley writes this: “In our family carpet cleaning business we offered a special service for removing pet urine odors. To show potential customers their need for the service, I would darken the room and then turn on a powerful black light. The black light caused urine crystals to glow brightly.  To the horror of the homeowner every drop and dribble could be seen, not only on the carpet, but usually on walls, drapes, furniture, and even on lamp shades. One homeowner begged me to shut off the light: ‘I can’t bear to see anymore. I don’t care what it costs. Please clean it up!’ Another woman said, ‘I’ll never be comfortable in my home again.’  The offense was there all the time, but it was invisible until the right light exposed it.”[1]

Black lights expose something bad.  Night lights can uncover something good.  These two lights help us make sense of this morning’s text.

Two stories about light are narrated in John 8 and John 9.  Twice, once in each chapter, Jesus talks about light.  Near the beginning of John 8, Jesus says this: “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (Jn. 8:12 ESV).  And near the beginning of John 9 Jesus says something similar: “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (Jn. 9:5 ESV).  The statement in John 9 comes at the beginning of a story about a blind man whom Jesus heals.  Jesus’ saying “I am the light” seems to introduce that story.  Last year we listened to that story during another series.  We won’t focus on it this morning.  The similar statement in John 8 comes at the end of a different story.  Jesus’ saying “I am the light” seems to conclude that story.  That story in John 8 will be our focus this morning.

Both the story in John 8 and the story in John 9 are stories about lights.  Both stories involve a conflict between Jesus and the leaders of religion. Jesus has one kind of light.  And the leaders of religion have another kind of light.  This creates conflict.

Let’s read the story in John 8 which Jesus’ statement “I am the light” is attached to:¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ² Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. ³ The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst ⁴ they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” (Jn. 8:1-5 ESV).

2T.4

A brief word about our story: your Bible, like mine, may indicate that this story is not considered to be part of the Gospel which John wrote.  We do not possess the actual document John wrote.  But we have early copies.  And those early copies do not have this story.  This story, however, is very important.  Later copies of John’s Gospel have it.  And most scholars believe that this event actually happened.

A group called “the scribes and the Pharisees” show up early in the morning in the courts of the temple.  They’ve brought with them a woman whom John says, “had been caught in adultery.”  She’s not just been accused of adultery, like some political candidate might be.  She’s doesn’t just have a history of adultery, like some prostitute might.  She’s been “caught” in adultery.  This means she’s been caught “in the act.”  Moments or seconds ago these leaders of religion yanked her out of bed where she was sleeping with a man she was not married to.  She’s not just shoplifted.  She’s not just been caught speeding.  She’s been caught breaking either her or the man’s wedding vows.

And while such behavior might be commonplace today, it was severely condemned in Jesus’ day.  In fact, as the leaders of religion point out, in the Old Testament law “Moses commanded us to stone such women.”  This was a crime worthy of death.  Actually, the Old Testament law required both the man and the woman to be put to death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22).  But the leaders of religion have conveniently left the man back in bed.  They just want the woman.  And though they clearly have impure motives, their reading of the law is correct.  Regarding the woman, her crime is worthy of death.  She should be stoned to death.

Let’s imagine that this story is a story about light.  After all, one verse after this story ends we hear Jesus say, “I am the light of the world.”  Let’s imagine that this story is a story about light.  Let’s imagine that the leaders of religion have one kind of light and Jesus has a different kind of light.  What kind of light are the leaders of religion carrying?  I’ll make this suggestion: Religion often carries a black light to expose our evil. There’s only one concern in the hearts and minds of these religious leaders: expose the woman’s evil.  Reveal her misdeed.  After all, they make the woman stand, as John puts it, “in the midst.”  They make her stand right there in the middle.  Visible to all.  And they don’t give her name.  Even if they know it, they don’t use it.  They just call her “This woman.”  They want to portray her as a monster.  They want to picture her as inhumane.  These leaders of religion drag the woman into the middle of this crowd and turn on their brightest black light so that the stain of her sin is visible to everyone around.

And too often that’s true with religion today.  Today many people still assume that religion has no warm and comforting light to offer.  It’s only light is like a black light which illuminates the sin and evil of the world around us.  Scot McKnight writes about Van Gogh:[2] He says that if you follow van Gogh’s life, you find a gradual increase of the color yellow in his paintings.  For van Gogh, the color yellow indicated the hope and warmth of the love of God.  The more yellow you found in a painting the more optimistic Van Gogh was about the world being filled with this warm and comforting light of God’s love.  But in a particularly depressed state, according to McKnight, van Gogh pained “The Starry Night.”  The painting features a yellow sun and yellow swirling stars.  Van Gogh was saying that in nature we can see the light of God’s love.  In addition, in the houses of the nearby village we see glimpses of yellow light.  God’s love is filling those houses.  But notice the church building which sits near the center of the painting.  It’s the one item in the painting with no yellow at all.  It was van Gogh’s way of saying that religion offers no warm and comforting light at all.  The only light it offers is one which accentuates the darkness and depression of the world.   Religion carries only a black light to expose our evil.

Earlier this year I attended a seminar led, in part, by a friend named Steve Joiner.  Joiner is a minister and runs the Institute for Conflict Resolution at Lipscomb University.  He shared the story of a time when he was flying somewhere and was assigned a middle seat in the airplane.  Through conversation, he learned that the two men on either side of him were a gay couple headed to a gay and lesbian function.  They asked Steve what he did.  He leveled with them: “I’m a fundamentalist minister.”  One of them laughed and said, “No, really.  What do you do?”  Joiner said again, “I’m a fundamentalist minister.”  Both gay men said, “You can’t be!”  “Why?” Joiner asked.  “Because you haven’t told us yet that we are going to hell!”  Most people expect religious people to carry black lights and to immediately expose and draw attention to the evil that’s in their lives.  Because that’s what religion does.

One of the most recent and gut-wrenching examples of this comes from a film entitled “The Stoning of Soroya M.”^[3] The move is a true story, based on a non-fiction book by the same name.  It takes place in an Iranian village in the late 1980s.  The movie tells the true story of a woman falsely accused of adultery.  The fundamentalist religious leaders in the village have her put to death by stoning. ^[4] The film was made to draw attention to the cruel way that religion was operating in Iran in the 1980’s.  It is a troubling illustration of the way religious people carry only a black light and use it to expose the evil in others.  That is the light we see in the hands of the religious leaders in John 8.

But notice how Jesus concludes the story.  In John 8:12 Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  What kind of light is Jesus talking about?  What does Jesus illuminate?

Will Davis Jr. wrote a book entitled Ten Things Jesus Never Said.[5] One of the ten things Davis suggests Jesus never said is this: “You’re too far gone to be saved.”  Davis puts it this way: “Is there ever a point where we get too sinful for God?  If we hit new moral lows or set records in the sin department, isn’t there a line we cross where we simply move beyond God’s reach?… After all, in the world God created, there are clearly points of no return.  If someone commits a heinous crime, they can go to jail or, in some cases, even forfeit their life for what they did.  For some extremely poor decisions, there’s only justice and consequences.  Wouldn’t it be the same with God?  Why shouldn’t we expect that God, who is fair and just, would determine that there are just certain things he won’t pardon?…Is there a point where we’re simply too sinful for God to save?” Isn’t that ultimately the question raised by the leaders of religion?  This woman is too sinful to save.  This woman’s mistakes have exceeded God’s mercy.  The just and fair thing to do is to stone her.  We’ve got to make an example of her.  The community needs to see what happens to people who break families.  Jesus, what do you say?

But notice how Jesus addresses this: ⁶This they said to test him,  that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷ And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”⁸ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹ But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. ¹⁰ Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” ¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (Jn. 8:6-11 ESV).  If the leaders of religion want to play around with a black light, Jesus can play that game.  He strips the black light from their hands, removes its harsh glow on the woman, and turns its light on them.  He says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  All they can see now is their own sin.  The oldest and wisest are the first to see the ugly stains on their own hearts.  But eventually, the entire group leaves.

But the black light is not Jesus’ light of choice.  He only uses it here as a defensive weapon.  His preferred light is different.  It turns out that Jesus carries a night light to uncover God’s compassion.  When Jesus finishes this story by saying, “I am the light of the world,” he’s not saying that he’s come to shed light on our sin.  He’s saying, that he’s come to shed light on our God.  This story is the ultimate illustration of this.  Sinners like this woman, like us, fear God like a child fears the dark.  We can imagine all kinds of things going on in the dark recesses of God’s mind.  In fact, when we are at our worst, we tend to imagine the worst about God.  We presume he’s going to be a monster because of the evil in our lives.  But Jesus has come to shed light on God’s compassion.  He’s come to help us see that even in our mistakes, God offers mercy.

Skye Jethani relates a story about holding a series of meetings with college-aged students.[6] On one night the students wanted to discuss how they were struggling with the same sins over and over.  And as they failed day after day, the students agreed on one fundamental thing: God was extremely disappointed with them.  Often through tears, students shared stories about how they believed God must be disappointed with them.  After listening to their stories, Jethani asked, “How many of you were raised in a Christian home?” They all raised their hands. “How many of you grew up in a Bible-centered church?” All hands stayed up. Shaking his head in disbelief, Jethani said, “You’ve all spent eighteen or twenty years in the church. You’ve been taught the Bible from the time you could crawl, and you attend Christian colleges, but not one of you gave the right answer. Not one of you said that in the midst of your sin God still loves you.”

Especially when we struggle with sin again and again, we imagine the worst.  We think God is so disappointed in us.  But Jesus did not come to confirm those fears.  Rather he came to relieve them.  With his light Jesus does not seek to expose our evil as much as he seeks to uncover God’s compassion.  Jesus shines his light on God so that we can finally see that even in the midst of our sin, God still loves us.

We see this comforting light at work in the final dialogue: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord.” “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”  It’s not your sin that Jesus came to highlight.  It’s God’s grace.  That’s the light Jesus came to bear.  That’s the torch Jesus came to carry.  He came to shine away your worst fears about God.

Some of you this morning have been dying under the glare of the black light of religion.  Either some religious person has been holding it over you.  Or you yourself have been holding it over you.  And all you can see is the evil in your life.  All you can think about is that sin, that mistake, that stupid thing you said or did which you never should have said or did.  And it’s eating you up inside.  But Jesus has come to relieve you.  As the light of the world, he’s come to show you something besides your sin.  He’s come to show you a God who loves you deeply in spite of that sin.  And though religious people and even you want to stone you and condemn you, Jesus does not.  He wants to surround you with love and grace and mercy and forgiveness.  If you’ll let him, Jesus can be the light of your life.

And that light is the only light that can truly lead us away from our sin.  We might think that the religious light is the only light that will drive us from sin.  But this is not the case.  It’s only when we truly see the love and grace of God that we are drawn away from sin to something far better.  Tim Keller tells this story:[7] The acclaimed foreign film Three Seasons is a series of vignettes about life in postwar Vietnam. One of the stories is about Hai, a cyclo driver (a bicycle rickshaw), and Lan, a beautiful prostitute…Hai is in love with Lan …. Lan lives in grinding poverty and longs to live in the beautiful world where she works, but in which she never spends the night. She hopes that the money she makes by prostitution will be her means of escape, but instead the work brutalizes and enslaves her.  Then Hai enters a cyclo race and wins the top prize. With the money he brings Lan to the hotel. He pays for the night and pays her fee. Then, to everyone’s shock, he tells her he just wants to watch her fall asleep. Instead of using his power and wealth to have sex with her, he spends it to purchase a place for her for one night in a normal world… Lan finds such grace deeply troubling at first, thinking that Han has done this to control her. When it becomes apparent that he is using his power to serve rather than use her, it begins to transform her, making it impossible to return to a life of prostitution.

This is what happened to the woman caught in adultery.  The leaders of religion shined their light on the ugliness of her sin.  But Jesus shined his light on the beauty of God’s love.  And when it became apparent to her that Jesus was using his power to serve her rather than use her, it began to transform her.  It made it impossible to return to a life of adultery.  She went and she sinned no more.

[2] Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed (Paraclete Press, 2004), 65-66.

[3] http://www.thestoning.com/flash.php#/story/

[4] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204119704574235830111853594.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

[5] Will Davis Jr. Ten Things Jesus Never Said,33.

[6] Skye Jethani, With (Thomas H. Nelson, 2011), 80-82.

[7] Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God (Riverhead Books, 2008), 96-98.

If you go out to eat at an average restaurant, you’ll find two kinds of dishes.  There are main dishes.  And there side dishes.  I suppose there are times when we choose a restaurant solely because it has our favorite side dish.  For example, you might choose Olive Garden just because you love the bread sticks and the salad.  But most of the time we choose a restaurant because of the main dish.  We are there to eat the entrée.  The side dishes are nice.  But what we hunger for is the main dish.  For many of us, a satisfying meal consists not just of a side dish but of a main dish. We can think about our lives in a similar way.  There are side dishes.  And there are main dishes.  There are things that are not terribly important.  And there are things that are extremely important.  We all have our side dishes and our main dishes in life.  This is even true when it comes to what we would probably call our spiritual life.  Spiritually, some things are more important to us than others.  This morning and in this new series we’re exploring what it might be like to let Jesus be not just a side dish, but the main dish of our lives.  We are exploring what life might be like if didn’t just take a slice of Jesus, but we took all of Jesus.

It seems that large numbers of religious people today want Jesus as the main dish.  There is a growing call in the Christian world for the Christian faith to focus more on Jesus and less on other things.

A wildly popular video captures this enthusiasm for making Jesus preeminent.  In January of this year, a poet named Jefferson Bethke created a video entitled “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.”[1] It’s a monologue trashing religion and upholding Jesus.  Here’s part of what Bethke says in the video: “I mean if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars; Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor…Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice; Tend to ridicule God’s people, they did it to John The Baptist; They can’t fix their problems, and so they just mask it; Not realizing religion’s like spraying perfume on a casket; …Because if grace is water, then the church should be an ocean; It’s not a museum for good people, it’s a hospital for the broken; Which means I don’t have to hide my failure, I don’t have to hide my sin; Because it doesn’t depend on me it depends on him…Which is why Jesus hated religion, and for it he called them fools; Don’t you see so much better than just following some rules…Now back to the point, one thing is vital to mention; How Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrum; See one’s the work of God, but one’s a man made invention; See one is the cure, but the other’s the infection; See because religion says do, Jesus says done; Religion says slave, Jesus says son; Religion puts you in bondage, while Jesus sets you free; Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see”  Since its posting on January 12, the video has been viewed over 19 million times on YouTube.

Its popularity, I believe, is due to the fact that it expresses what many Christians today are feeling.  We seem to truly want Jesus as the main dish.  We seem to want to make everything else a side dish.  What we appear to truly hunger for is Jesus.  But I wonder if that’s really what we’re asking for?

In Jesus’ day, large numbers of spiritual people also seemed to want Jesus as the main dish.  This becomes very clear in John 6.  Notice this description: ¹After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. ² And a large crowd was following him… ³ Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. ⁴ Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. ⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him… (John 6:1-5 ESV).  According to v. 2 and vs. 5 a “large crowd” is “following” Jesus and “coming toward” Jesus.  They seem to be hungering after Jesus.  What they appear to want more than anything else is Jesus.

We read something similar a few verses later: ²⁴ So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.   ²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” (John 6:24-25 ESV).  Once again a “crowd” is “seeking Jesus.”  They seem to be hungering after Jesus.  What they appear to want more than anything else is Jesus.

But I wonder if that’s really what they’re asking for?  It appears that these spiritual people want Jesus as their main dish.  But it turns out that what they truly wanted was Jesus as a side dish.  Listen once more to vs. 2: And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.  They’ve seen or heard of the official’s son whom Jesus healed in John 4.  They’ve seen or heard of the invalid whom Jesus healed in John 5.  John calls these “signs.”  These miracles are sign-posts pointing to the deity of Jesus.  The crowd has seen or heard of these signs.  And that’s what this crowd truly wants, according to John.  They aren’t coming to Jesus because they want Jesus.  They are coming to Jesus because they want the healings and the miracles.  Jesus is actually their side dish.  The main dish is really the miracles.  What they are truly hungry for, what they want as an entrée, are the miracles and healings.

The same thing is true of the crowd mentioned later in John 6.  Jesus points it out in vs. 26: Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” This crowd is a little different than the first crowd.  They aren’t hungry for signs and miracles.  They are hungry for more of the food Jesus just provided.  A few verses earlier Jesus fed this crowd with five barley loaves and two fish.  And Jesus perceives now that’s the real reason they are seeking him once more.  They aren’t coming to Jesus because they want Jesus.  They are coming to Jesus because they want another good meal.  Jesus is actually their side dish.  The main dish is really the food.

In fact, we read that just after Jesus provided the meal, in vs. 15, this same crowd tries to take Jesus by force to make him king. What they really want is the political and cultural change someone like Jesus can bring to their desperate nation of Israel.  Overwhelmed and overshadowed by their overload, the Roman Empire, they see in Jesus an opportunity to finally end Roman rule and usher in a new era of economic prosperity, health, and a golden age.  Jesus is just a side dish.  The main dish is the political and cultural change he could bring to their country.

I suspect sometimes we’re just like these crowds.  We say what we really want is just Jesus.  We say we want everything else to just be a side dish.  But I suspect that sometimes what we truly want is Jesus as a side dish. For some of us, what we’re really after is healing.  We want healing for our marriage.  So we turn to Jesus.  We want healing from our cancer.  So we turn to Jesus.  We want healing from a loss.  So we turn to Jesus.  This isn’t a bad thing.  Jesus has the power to heal.  Highland is filled with people who can testify to Jesus’ power.  But what if Jesus, for some reason, won’t bring that healing?  Will you still want him?  Will Jesus alone be enough?  Or does it have to be Jesus + healing?  If, for some reason, Jesus doesn’t heal your marriage and it falls apart, or doesn’t heal your cancer and it gets worse, or doesn’t heal the loss and you get depression, will you still want Jesus?  Is Jesus really your main dish?  Or is the healing the main dish?

In his book Screwtape Letters C. S. Lewis writes the fictional dialogue that takes place between demons who are trying to divert people away from the Christian faith.  At one point the demon Screwtape writes to the demon Wormwood:[2] “What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’.  You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order…” These were things that would have been important to Lewis’ readers in the early twentieth century.  Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin) writes that “Today, Screwtape’s list would doubtless look different.  The currently tempting formulas might include ‘Christianity and coolness,’ ‘Christianity and self-affirmation,’ ‘Christianity and self-improvement,’ ‘Christianity and personal progress,’… ‘Christianity and popularity,’ ‘Christianity and success,’ ‘Christianity and power,’ Christianity and social status,’ ‘Christianity and reform,’ even ‘Christianity and tradition.’”[3] His point is that most of us have an “and.”  Very few of us truly hunger for just Jesus.  There’s an “and.”  There’s something else that Jesus is the means to.  That something else is really our main dish.  Jesus is just the side dish.

Jesus challenges this when he says this to the crowds: ²⁷ Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. (Jn. 6:27 ESV).  What I’m here for, Jesus is saying, is something much deeper than just these side dishes.  The crowds misunderstand Jesus and they get into a debate about the bread and fish again.  At the end of the discussion they beg Jesus in v. 34 to keep giving them bread, to keep filling their physical hunger.  But Jesus wants so much more than this.

He puts it this way:  ³⁵ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst… ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever… ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (Jn. 6:35-56 ESV).

Do you hear what Jesus is saying?  He’s saying something like this: “I am the main course.  I am not just a side dish.  I am the bread of life.  If you eat me, you don’t need anything else.  If you consume me, you will be fulfilled.  If you have chewed me up and swallowed me down, it will not matter what else you haven’t eaten.  If you make me the main dish, you won’t even need the side dishes.”

This is a difficult teaching.  Jesus is essentially saying that all these “ands” don’t really matter.  He is suggesting that all these side dishes aren’t necessary.  He’s promising that if all these “and’s” and all these side dishes were taken away, and all we had was Jesus, we’d still be fulfilled.  We’d truly be fulfilled.

But not everyone believes that.  Listen to what happened to the crowds at this point: ⁴¹ So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”   ⁴² They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”… ⁶⁶ After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6:41-42, 66 ESV).

Some in Jesus’ day were not satisfied with Jesus as the main dish. Strip away the healing, and many walk away.  Strip away the meals, and many walk away.  For many, Jesus alone simply isn’t enough.  He’s not enough to be the main course.  He’s a great side-dish.  He’s a wonderful slice of bread on a plate filled with other things.  But if everything else is stripped away, and he’s all we really have to eat, we’re just not sure we’ll be satisfied.

But the point of this text is that we can be satisfied with Jesus as the main dish—especially when side dishes disappear. Jesus is challenging us.  Be he’s also comforting us.  He’s saying that when you get to those hard times in life when all the “and’s” are removed and many of the side dishes are gone, you can still find fulfillment in him.

A friend and I are studying the lives of two Christians: Saint John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.[4] Both lived in Spain in the 1500’s.  Teresa experienced many hardships.  Her mother died when she was twelve.  Shortly after becoming a nun she suffered a paralyzing illness that left her an invalid for three years.  She recovered but then came under attack by spiritual mentors and leaders for her actions and teachings.  Their critique had such an impact on her that for two years she could not pray.  For twenty years she wrestled with self-doubt.  She writes that, in the end, the only way she survived these hardships was that she learned that Jesus alone was enough.  Her health disappeared.  Her good reputation disappeared.  Her self-confidence disappeared.  She had no side dishes left.  But she did still have Jesus.  And she learned that he was truly enough.  She wrote a poem which expressed her conviction.  It is often referred to by its first line: “Nada te turbe – Let nothing disturb you.”  In English the poem reads, Let nothing disturb you; Let nothing make you afraid; All things pass; But God is unchanging, Patience is enough for everything.  You who have God lack nothing.  God alone is sufficient. As each side dish was removed from her life—her mother, her health, her standing—all that remained was Christ.  And in the end, she realized that he was sufficient.

Tullian Tchividjian wrote a book entitled Jesus+Nothing = Everything.[5] In it, he writes of a troubling time in 2009.  The Florida church he planted was merging with declining church nearby.  But members of the declining church protested Tchividjian’s leadership.  Blogs were written and letters were circulated with false accusations against Tchividjian.  A petition drive was started to remove him from the pulpit.  He writes, “Never had I experienced anything so tough. I could hardly eat, had trouble sleeping, and was continually battling nausea. I felt at the absolute end of myself.”  Just as the conflict climaxed, he left on vacation.  He writes: “In my misery I told God that I wanted my old life back. The answer from God…was simple–but sobering: ‘It’s not your old life you want back; it’s your old idols you want back, and I love you too much to give them back to you.’  You see, I never realized how dependent I’d become on human approval and acceptance until it was taken away. For the first time, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of being deeply disliked and distrusted. I was realizing just how much I’d been relying on the endorsement of others to validate me–to make me feel like I mattered. In and of itself, human approval and acceptance are not bad things. They are, in fact, a gift from God. But I had turned them into idols by making them my primary source of meaning and value and worth and significance, so that without them I was miserable and depressed.”    He had made acceptance from others his main dish.  And Jesus had become his side dish.  But when the acceptance was stripped away, he was forced to allow Jesus to be the main dish.  And suddenly, for the first time in his life, he realized that Jesus was enough.  He slowly began to realize that Jesus + nothing = everything.  Jesus became the bread of his life.

Ultimately, that’s what this whole series is about.  We’re exploring the “I Am” statements of Jesus.  Seven times Jesus reveals who he is in a statement in John’s Gospel that begins with “I Am.”  And every one of these statements relates to the idea of “life.[6] One of the key words in John’s gospel is life.  It is used at least thirty-six times.  The seven I am statements all relate to John’s theme of life in Christ.  If you want life, all you need is Jesus.  Jesus called himself “the bread of life” and “the light of life.”  He is the door of the sheep that enables us to find “abundant life.”  He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life so that we might have life. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus told Martha.  To the disciples He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life”  Jesus is “the true vine” which brings life to us, the branches.  These I Am statements are many different ways of saying one thing: Jesus is life.  Jesus is enough.  So often we make him our side dish.  We just want a slice of him.  And we make everything else the main dish.  But Jesus wants us to know that he, alone, is enough.  If we’ll make him the main dish of our life, we will always be fulfilled.  Even when everything else is stripped away from us—our health, our dreams, our career, our loved ones, our finances—we’ll learn that Jesus is enough.  Jesus + nothing will = everything.  He is the bread of life.  Will you let him be yours today?

As we stand and sing, I want you to think about your side dishes and the main dish.  What is one thing that you’ve made a main dish but truly ought to be a side dish?  While we are singing, if it would be helpful, I invite you to write that thing down on a card and bring it up to this table and place it on the small side dish.  It will be a tangible way of beginning to treat it truly as a side dish and not as the main dish.

[2] C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters – Special Illustrated Edition (HarperOne, 2009), 153.

[3] Tullian Tchividjian Jesus + Nothing = Everything (Crossway, 2011), 38-39.

[4] Gerald G. May The Dark Night of the Soul (HarperOne, 2004), 15-40.

[5] http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/jesus_nothing_everything/

[6] Warren Wiersbe Jesus in the Present Tense (David C. Cook, 2011), Kindle Edition, 305.

Timothy Keller preaches in New York City.  He shares the story of a young man who visited his church office.[1] The man was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries.  Though raised in a family with a loose connection to church, he had very little understanding of the Christian faith.  But he had recently developed a great spiritual interest.  He had attended the church where Keller preaches and he told Keller he was almost ready to embrace the Christian faith.  But there was one final obstacle:  ‘You’ve said that if we do not believe in Christ we are lost and condemned. I’m sorry, I just cannot buy that. I work with some fine people who are Muslim, Jewish, or agnostic. I cannot believe they are going to hell just because they don’t believe in Jesus.’”

In this four-part series, we’ve talked about many challenges to the traditional teaching about hell.  But this morning we get to the most challenging issue.  What many struggle most with regarding hell is this: there are fine people in our lives who don’t follow Jesus and it’s hard to believe they are going to hell just because they don’t follow Jesus.  Some of us have children who don’t follow Jesus.  Some of us have friends at work and classmates in school who don’t follow Jesus.  Some of us have wonderful neighbors who don’t follow Jesus.  And it’s so hard to believe they might all actually be in hell just because they don’t follow Jesus.  In other words, one of the most difficult objections to hell is this: hell is overcrowded. If everyone who doesn’t follow Jesus is going to wind up in hell, then hell is going to be way overcrowded.  It’s just not right that so many people mind wind up in hell.

One way in which people have tried to address this dilemma is by proposing something called “universalism.”  Many resolve this problem with hell through universalism. The word “universalism” refers to the scope of God’s grace.  One of the most important questions we can ask is this: how large is God’s grace?  What’s the seating capacity of God’s grace?  How many people will God’s grace ultimately save?  There are generally three answers to this question.[2] I’m going to use three different-sized chairs to illustrate.

• Some argue that God’s grace has a very small seating capacity.  It’s like this small chair.  Only a very few people can sit on this chair.  This view is called “minoritarian.”  It means that only a small minority of the human race will be saved.
• Others argue that God’s grace has a much larger seating capacity.  It’s like this mid-sized chair.  More people can sit on it.  This view is called is called “majoritarian.”  It means that a majority of people will eventually be saved.
• But others argue that, in the end, all will be saved.  It’s like this large-sized chair.  Every living person can sit on it.  This view is called “universalism.”  It means that all people will be saved.  Every person in the universe will ultimately be saved.  God’s grace is so big that every person will be saved by it.

This is ultimately the view which Rob Bell takes in his book Love Wins.  He writes, “no one can resist God’s pursuit forever, because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest of hearts.”[3] In light of the reality, severity, and eternality of hell, there is something within us that wants to believe that in the end, no one can resist God’s pursuit forever and that ultimately, in this life or in the next life, God’s love will melt even the hardest of hearts.  We want to believe that God’s grace is universal in its impact—God will save all.

Madeleine L’Engle, the best-selling novelist, puts it like this:[4] “No matter how many eons it takes, [God] will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love…”  In response to this hell that is not fabricated and that is unrelenting, we want to believe that in the end, no creature will be able to resist God’s look of love.  Universalism says that whether before death or after death God will save everyone.

And, at first glance, there appears to be justification for this belief.[5] People often point to passages which suggest that God will save all:

• “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32 ESV)
• “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.” (Rom. 5:18 ESV)
• “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22 ESV).
• “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11 ESV).
• ^“3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:3-4 ESV)
• “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Pet. 3:9 ESV)
• ^“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Tit. 2:11 ESV)
• “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” (Heb. 2:9 ESV)
• “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 Jn. 2:2 ESV)

On the surface, it may appear that the Bible is saying that, in the end, all will be saved.  Yet this is not what these passages teach.  I’ll point out three things they do teach.  First, these texts teach that God wants all people to be saved. God doesn’t want a small minority to be saved.  He doesn’t want a majority to be saved.  He wants everyone in the universe to be saved.  If these chairs could represent what God wants, the largest chair is the correct chair.  God wants all people to be saved.

But if these chairs represent who will actually be saved, the largest chair is not correct.  God wants all to be saved.  But not all will be saved.  We have to choose salvation.  And not all will.  We’ll explore this more in a moment.

Second, the passages teach that God has made it possible for all people to be saved.  God’s grace is not like the Titanic which didn’t have sufficient life boats and thus could not truly save all the passengers.  What God did through Jesus is completely sufficient to save all people.  If these chairs could represent the effectiveness of what happened on the cross, only the largest chair would do.  Because on the cross God made it possible for all people in the universe to be saved.

But if these chairs represent who will actually be saved, the largest chair is not correct.  God wants all to be saved.  He’s made it possible for all to be saved.  But not all will be saved.  We have to choose salvation.  And not all will.

Third, these passages teach that God has invited all people to be saved.  Through Jesus and all who follow him, and through his Scriptures, God has extended an invitation for all to be saved.  And that invitation has gone out to all people, regardless of race, income, gender or education.  If these chairs represent who is invited to be saved, only the largest chair will do.  Because God invites all to be saved.

But if these chairs represent who will actually be saved, the largest chair will not do.  God wants all to be saved.  He’s made it possible for all to be saved.  He’s invited all to be saved.  That’s what these texts teach.  But not all will be saved.  We have to choose salvation.  And not all will.

I want to explore this further.  Let’s get rid of these other chairs and just focus on the big chair.  Let’s imagine that this chair represents heaven.  If you’re in this chair, you’re going to heaven.  If you’re not in this chair, you’re going to hell.  So how do we get to the chair?  We need to speak here with great humility.  We are not God.  Only God will ultimately determine who’s in the chair.  But we can say one thing for certain—the Bible teaches that Jesus alone is the source of salvation. Jesus alone is the way to the chair.  This chair is big enough for all people.  But only Jesus knows the way to the chair.

This is the point Paul makes in Colossians.  Listen to Paul’s words in chapter two: ⁶ Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.   ⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. ⁹ For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰ and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Col. 2:6-10 ESV)

Paul’s message in this letter is that Jesus, and only Jesus, is Lord.  So he begins by reminding the Colossians that they “received Christ Jesus [as] Lord.”  Paul’s pointing back to their baptism.  He’s reminding them what they confessed in those waters.  Someone asked, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Lord?”  And they confessed, “Yes, I do.”  Paul then identifies two “philosophies”—we would call them “religions” or “faiths”—that are competing with Christianity in Colossae.  These are faiths that would argue there is another way to the chair.  You don’t have to go through Jesus alone to get to the chair.  One, which operates “according to human tradition,” is Judaism.  Paul’s critiquing the empty traditions of Judaism.  The other, which operates “according to the elemental spirits of the world,” is the popular pagan religion of the day.  Most in that day believed in a large number of gods and goddesses who ruled over peoples and places.  And Paul calls both of these faiths these “empty” and “deceitful.”  They are not the way to heaven.  They do not lead to the chair.  Only Jesus, Paul says, is “the fullness of deity.”  Only Jesus, Paul says, “is the head of all rule and authority.”  Jesus is the only source of salvation.

Paul makes the same point in chapter one: ¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶ For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷ And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:15-20 ESV).  Jesus is the image of God.  Jesus is the creator of all.  Jesus holds all things together.  The fullness of God dwells in Jesus.  And through Jesus, and only through Jesus, does God reconcile all things to himself.  Through Jesus, and only through Jesus, is there peace with God through the blood of the cross.  Jesus is the only source of salvation.  You cannot follow Buddha to the chair.  You cannot follow Allah to the chair.  Jesus is the only source of salvation.  God wants all to be saved.  He has made it possible for all to be saved.  He’s invited all to be saved.  But only Jesus is the source of salvation.  You must go through him to get to that chair.

Some object to this because it seems too intolerant and too exclusive.  But here’s the truth: There’s no faith more inclusive than Christianity. I think we’ve already seen this in the passages above.  God wants all to be saved.  He has made it possible for all to be saved.  And he’s invited all to be saved.  How could you get any more inclusive than that?

But even God’s insistence that only Jesus is the way to the chair is an example of his inclusive nature.  Timothy Keller writes, “Nothing is more characteristic of the contemporary mind-set than the statement: “I think Christ is fine, but I also believe a devout Muslim or Buddhist or even a good atheist will certainly find God.” A slightly different version is: “I don’t think God would send a person who lives a good life to hell just for holding the wrong belief.” This view is generally seen as inclusive. The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, and then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). In short, to say a good person can find God is to say good behavior is the way to God. In essence this view says, “Good people can find God, but bad people cannot.” But what happens to us moral failures? We are excluded. You see, you can believe that people are saved by goodness or you can believe that people are saved by God’s grace, but you cannot believe both at once… So both gospel and the secularist’s approach are exclusive, but the gospel’s is the more inclusive exclusivity. It says joyfully, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.”[6]

Let me unpack that.  Keller is saying that most people believe that the most generous and inclusive way to think about the chair to heaven is to think that any good person can sit in the chair.  The way to the chair is to live a good life.  No matter your religion, if you live a good life, you’re in the chair.  But here’s the problem with that—what about those of us who don’t live a good life?  I can’t speak for you, but I can confess about myself—there’s a lot, an awful lot, about me that is not good.  There’s a lot in my life that is pure evil.  That means that I don’t have a shot at this chair.  Only the people who live a good life have a shot.  The rest of us are left out.  That doesn’t seem very inclusive at all.

But here’s what God’s done.  God’s said, “You know what, goodness is not going to carry the day.  Grace is.  So here’s how this is going to work—anyone, good or bad, can sit in this chair.  Anyone—moral or immoral—can sit in this chair.  I don’t care what your gender is, what your race is, or what your income is.  And I especially don’t care what your moral record is.  I don’t care if you’re a prostitute or the President.  If you want to, you can sit in this chair.”  I want everyone right now to raise your hand.  You can sit in this chair.  And God finishes, “The only thing I ask is, you let Jesus lead you here.  He alone has made it possible for you to sit here.”

Still, some object to this.  They say, “That sounds good.  But it still means there’s a lot of people in hell.  God should have done more to get people into that chair.  God could do more to get people into that chair.  If it’s all hinged on Jesus, it doesn’t seem like God has made a big enough effort to get as many people as possible onto that chair.”

In response, let me tell a story by Brennan Manning.[7] While growing up, his best friend was Ray. The two of them did everything together: bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated together, and went to school together. They even enlisted in the Army together, went to boot camp together and fought on the frontlines together.  In fact, one night while sitting in a foxhole, Brennan was reminiscing about the old days in Brooklyn while Ray listened.  Suddenly a live grenade came into the foxhole. Ray looked at Brennan, smiled, and threw himself on the live grenade. It exploded, killing Ray, but Brennan’s life was spared.  When Brennan became a priest he was instructed to take on the name of a saint. He thought of his friend, Ray Brennan. So he took on the name “Brennan.” Years later he went to visit Ray’s mother in Brooklyn. They sat up late one night having tea when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in front of Brennan’s face and shouted, “What more could he have done for you?” Brennan said that at that moment he experienced an epiphany. He imagined himself standing before the cross of Jesus wondering, Does God really love me? And Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to her son, saying, “What more could he have done for you?”

Some may think that God’s intolerant for making salvation dependent upon Jesus.  But what more could God have done to create a way for all people to have heaven rather than hell?  What greater price could God have paid?  What greater sacrifice could God have given? If that’s not the action of a God who loves all and wants all to be saved, I can’t imagine what more it would take.  We don’t have to make God sound more loving by pretending that God’s going to save everyone whether or not Jesus is in their picture.  If we want to make God sound loving, Jesus is the only picture we need.  The cross shows how desperate God is to make sure that we, and every person, does not spend eternity in hell.  There is nothing more God could have done to fill that chair.  And you can bet that the God who went to such great lengths on the cross will go to similar lengths to give every person on this planet every possible chance to respond to that cross.

Let me bring this home.  There are still many unanswered questions which I’ve not touched on in this series or in this sermon.  But the most important question is the one I want to end this series with.  Here’s the question: are you in this chair?  God wants you here.  He’s made it possible for you to be here.  He’s invited you here.  And frankly, there’s nothing more God could have done pave your way here.  But you’ve got to go through Jesus.  Are you in this chair this morning?  You may feel that you were once in this chair but you got up and walked away.  If that’s the case, the invitation is still open.  The pathway is still clear.  You can come back.  Just confess your faults and repent and return to this chair.  You may feel you’ve never truly accepted the invitation to sit here.  You can do that today.  But simply coming and confessing that you believe in Jesus and want him to lead you here, you can sit in this chair.  We’ll baptize you into Christ and the most important question of your life will be answered.

[2] http://www.patheos.com/community/philosophicalfragments/2011/03/18/framework-for-understanding-the-rob-bell-controversy/

[3] Bell, Kindle location 1269-1270.

[4] Morgan & Peterson, Kindle location 869-871.

[5] Morgan & Peterson, 1030-1041.

[6] Morgan & Peterson, Kindle location 1169-1174

[7] Adapted from James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God (IVP, 2009), 142.

I know a family who once sent their child to time-out.  The elementary-aged son dutifully retreated to his room.  Normally, his time-outs last about 15 minutes or so.  But the mom and dad got busy.  They failed to release him after the normal 15 minutes.  15 minutes turned into 30.  30 turned into 45.  45 turned into 60.  The parents actually forgot about the son altogether.  Eventually, the son poked his head out of his room and asked, “Can I come out?”  What was supposed to have been a time out of a few minutes became a one-hour prison sentence.  And that event raises an important question: When does the punishment exceed the crime?  Clearly, in this case, the punishment had done just that.

Our legal system is designed to prevent this from happening.  Cruel and unusual punishments are not permitted.  The punishment must fit the crime.  In fact, we generally reject powers who inflict a punishment greater than the crime. Parents who inflict punishments greater than a child’s crime are arrested.  Police officers who inflict punishments greater than a suspect’s crimes are relieved of duty.  We won’t tolerate powers who inflict punishments greater than the crime.

And this is a reason some do not like Christianity.  Some people reject Christianity because the punishment of eternal hell seems greater than the crime. Bertrand Russell once wrote a famous essay entitled “Why I am Not a Christian.”  He made this critique of Christ: “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in Hell.  I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.“[1] It’s not just that Jesus believed in hell.  It’s that Jesus believed in an eternal hell.  That’s what led Russell to reject Christ.  How can a humane person believe in a God who punishes people eternally?  It’s one thing for God to punish people severely, as we saw last Sunday.  But punish them eternally?  That’s a punishment that does not seem to fit the crime.

Clark Pinnock writes that if hell is eternal, then “God [is] like a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for his enemies whom he does not even allow to die.”[2] It’s one thing for God to provide a finite punishment for finite crime.  But it’s another thing for God to punish finite sins with eternal torment.  It makes him seem cruel and unusual.  If he were truly humane, he would at least just let his enemies die and cease to exist.  This is the complaint we take up this morning.

And in order to overcome this objection, some argue that hell is not the beginning of an eternity but the end of an existence. Some sincere people state that the Bible teaches that in hell God will not punish people for eternity.  Instead, God will simply bring an end to their existence.  Hell, they argue, is not the beginning of an eternity of punishment.  It is the end of their existence.  They believe that a person might spend some time in hell.  But eventually, God will terminate them and they will just cease to exist.  .

Some even suggest that this is what Jesus emphasized.[3] For example, Jesus warned of one who could destroy both body and soul in Hell (Matt. 10:28).  Jesus further warned that the wicked would be like grass thrown into the fire and burned up (Matt. 13:30).  The suggestion is that Jesus taught that hell is annihilation.  Those within it simply cease to exist.  They are utterly and completely destroyed.  They are extinguished and terminated in hell.

In addition, Paul writes of destruction: “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thess. 1:9).  And, Paul writes this: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor. 3:17 ESV)  It is possible, some propose, that Paul is describing the total extermination of the ungodly.  Some argue that hell is not unrelenting.  Hell is not eternal.  Hell is not the beginning of endless punishment.  It is, instead, the end of existence.  A person may spend some time in hell. But eventually, they simply cease to exist.

This is, in fact, the focus of the upcoming movie “Hell and Mr. Fudge.”[4] The movie is based on the true story of a preacher from Churches of Christ named Edward Fudge.  He argues this very point.  After the death of a childhood friend, Fudge finds it difficult to accept that the friend might be punished forever in hell.  This leads him on a long and difficult journey to explore whether or not hell is eternal.  In the end, Fudge argues that hell is not eternal.

I would suggest, that of the four concerns we’re exploring in this series, this is the least important.  It’s not unimportant.  But it’s not as central as the other three.  I believe people like Edward Fudge are very sincere in their beliefs and very committed to striving to understand these matters in a biblical way.  In addition, even if these folks were correct, one day or one year in hell will certainly be horrible and something to be avoided.  And to be utterly destroyed and annihilated would be almost too much for most of us to even fathom.

Yet, I disagree with this viewpoint.  Scripture seems to clearly portray hell as something that is eternal in nature. Taken by themselves, the Scriptures that I just mentioned might possibly lead a person to the conclusion that in hell God will utterly destroy and annihilate people.  But our interpretation of these texts must be shaped by other texts which clearly indicate that hell is eternal.

For example, Jesus states: ⁴⁷ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ (Mk. 9:47-48 ESV).  Jesus affirms that there is something everlasting about Hell.  It’s like a fire that never goes out.

Further, Jesus pronounces this: ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:45-46 ESV).  Notice the comparison between the life of the righteous and the life of the ungodly.  The righteous go into eternal life.  And the ungodly go into eternal punishment.  Jesus is saying that heaven and hell share the same eternal quality.  If heaven is going to be eternal, then so is hell.

The belief in hell as a place of eternal punishment was the most common belief in Jesus’ day.  The Pharisees were the largest and most popular Jewish sect in Jesus’ time.  They taught that hell was eternal.  Jesus could have contradicted that teaching if he believed otherwise.  Instead, he affirmed it.[5] There was another Jewish sect who believed the ungodly would be punished for a short time in hell and then annihilated.[6] Jesus could have clearly affirmed that teaching if he agreed with it.  But he did not.  Jesus taught that hell has an eternal quality to it.

Other New Testament writers agreed with Jesus.  For example, the writer of Hebrews states: ¹Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ² and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. (Heb. 6:1-3 ESV).  One of the most elementary doctrines of the Christian faith, according to this author, is the eternal nature of God’s judgment.

Finally, Revelation describes hell as an eternal state: ⁹ And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.  ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Rev. 14:9-11 ESV).

The plain teaching of Scripture is that hell is an eternal place.  To use last Sunday’s images, the darkness of hell is everlasting.  The fire of hell is everlasting.  And the weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell is everlasting.

But why?  I’ll share two reasons that help explain why hell has to be eternal.  First, hell must be eternal because our sin is against an eternal being. Colin Smith explains it this way:[7] You may say, “Wait a minute. How can any sin deserve everlasting destruction?… The best answer I ever heard to that question was given by a friend of mine…He outlined the stages of the following scenario: Suppose a middle school student punches another student in class. What happens? The student is given a detention.  Suppose during the detention, this boy punches the teacher. What happens? The student gets suspended from school.  Suppose on the way home, the same boy punches a policeman on the nose. What happens? He finds himself in jail.  Suppose some years later, the very same boy is in a crowd waiting to see the President of the United States. As the President passes by, the boy lunges forward to punch the President. What happens? He is shot dead by the secret service.  In every case the crime is precisely the same, but the severity of the crime is measured by the one against whom it is committed. What comes from sinning against God? Answer: Everlasting destruction. A crime will be punished in different ways depending upon who the crime was committed against.  The greater the status, importance, distinction, and nature of the victim, the greater the punishment for the crime.

And the Bible makes it very clear that our crimes are all ultimately against God.  Even King David recognized this.  He slept with another man’s wife.  Then he murdered the husband so he could have the wife all to himself.  But after much soul-searching, he came to realize that he hadn’t just committed a crime against the wife or against the husband.  He hadn’t just sinned against the crown he wore or the people he ruled over.  His crime was against God.  He confessed this: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Ps. 51:4 ESV).  When a husband hits a wife, or when a man looks at pornography, or when a teenager bullies or spreads gossips, or when a driver swears at another driver, or when an employee steals from work, they are not merely committing crimes against other people or against organizations.  They are committing crimes against God.  The Almighty.  The Everlasting.  And because the sin is against the highest One who exists, the punishment is the greatest that could be given.  Hell must be eternal because our sin is against an eternal being.

But there is another reason hell has an eternal nature.  Hell must be eternal because we are eternal beings. We will all live forever—the best of us and the worst of us.  There is nothing in Scripture that truly suggests otherwise.  This life is a very short part of the eternal existence we were all created to live.  Scripture describes this life as a mist or a vapor.  James puts it this way: “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (Jas. 4:14 ESV).  Compared to our eternal existence, the life you and I know, from our birth to our death, lasts as long as the steam you see coming off of a hot cup of coffee.  It’s that short.  But we all have an eternal existence beyond that.  We were all created to be eternal beings.

Five of us from Highland recently travelled from Memphis, TN to Bacolod City, Philippines.  That’s a journey of about 19,000 miles (round trip).  It was a very long journey.  Imagine drawing a line that is 19,000 miles long.  That’s one billion inches long.  Now imagine that we are sitting in the airplane at the gate in Memphis about to begin that journey.  Imagine that the pushback vehicle starts and moves the airplane one inch.  Then it stops.  Imagine comparing that one inch line to the line of over one billion inches.  Imagine comparing that one inch line to a line of one billion inches.  That’s a glimpse at what it’s like to compare your brief life right now with the eternal existence you were created to live.  We are all eternal beings.

And the decisions we make in this life set the course for our eternal life. What we do during our one inch will set the course for the next one billion inches and more.  Some object to this and say, “It’s not fair that a decision made during a very short and finite life would have consequences that last for eternity.”  But we make decisions all that time that take a very brief second and yet have a great bearing on the rest of our short life.[8] The time it takes a couple to say “I do” is less than two seconds.  Yet that decision impacts them for the rest of their life.  A college student decides to say yes to a military recruiter and the decision changes the course of her life.  An unemployed man makes a decision to drive home after drinking too much at the bar and the decision changes the lives of the person he runs down and the members of that person’s family.  A teenager makes a split-second decision to text while driving and the decision has enormous consequences.  In the very same way, the decisions we make during our one-inch life will set the course for our one billion and more inch life.  Our eternity rests on what we do with that inch.

And that can be so overwhelming that we simply try to ignore it.  Abraham Lincoln ran for Congress in 1846, and he faced a challenging opponent: Peter Cartwright.[9] Cartwright, a preacher, was known throughout Illinois. During his sixty-five years of ministry, he would baptize nearly ten thousand people.  During the 1846 Congressional campaign, some of Cartwright’s followers accused Lincoln of being an “infidel.” In response, Lincoln decided to meet Cartwright and attend one of his evangelistic rallies.  Carl Sandburg tells the story of what happened as Cartwright finished his sermon: In due time Cartwright said “All who desire to lead a new life, to give their hearts to God, and go to heaven, will stand,” and a sprinkling of men, women, and children stood up. Then the preacher exhorted, “All who do not wish to go to hell will stand.” All stood up–except Lincoln. Then said Cartwright in his gravest voice, “I observe that many responded to the first invitation to give their hearts to God and go to heaven. And I further observe that all of you save one indicated that you did not desire to go to hell. The sole exception is Mr. Lincoln, who did not respond to either invitation. May I inquire of you, Mr. Lincoln, where are you going?”  And Lincoln slowly rose and slowly spoke. “I came here as a respectful listener. I did not know that I was to be singled out by Brother Cartwright. I believe in treating religious matters with due solemnity. I admit that the questions propounded by Brother Cartwright are of great importance. I did not feel called upon to answer as the rest did. Brother Cartwright asks me directly where I am going. I desire to reply with equal directness: I am going to Congress.”  He went. The reality of heaven and hell can be so overwhelming that we’d rather focus on the job or task at hand.  But the truth is this: the decisions we make or do not make in this life set the course for our eternal life.  And they deserve our utmost attention.

As I’ve done previously, I want to close this lesson with three brief words of application: Hell stirs our mission, spurs our maturity, but does not summarize our message. The doctrine of hell is foundational.  But our message is not ultimately “turn or burn.”  Our message is ultimately “For God so loved the world that he gave.”  Yet because hell is indeed eternal, it ought to stir our mission.  In the very brief life we have now, we must strive to lead others to trust in Christ and rely solely upon what Christ has done for us on the cross.  And because hell is indeed eternal, we should each give very serious thought and consideration to what we’re doing with this short life.  If the decisions we are making right now affect us for all eternity, that means there is absolutely nothing more important that growing in our own spiritual maturity.  It seems that school, sports, work, hobbies, and projects are the real important things.  Those are the things that scream for our attention day after day.  But the most important things are those things that have eternal and everlasting impact.  If we are not attending to those things, school, sports, work, hobbies, and projects don’t matter at all.  What are you doing to make the most of the one inch life you’ve been given?

[2]Pinnock, Four Views, 149.

[3]Clark Pinnock, 144-147.

[4] http://hellandmrfudge.com/

[5] Crocket, Four Views, 171.

[6] Walvoord, Four Views, 18.

[7] Colin S. Smith, from the sermon “God Will Bring Justice for You,” www.UnlockingtheBible.com

[8]Galli, Kindle Location 1920.

[9] “The Untold Story of Christianity & The Civil War,” Christian History, no. 33.

In the second century, Celsus, a critic of Christianity, labeled God a “cosmic cook.”[1] Celsus was referring to the Christian doctrine of hell.  He mocked Christianity because it portrayed God as a “cosmic cook” who was going to roast unbelievers in a fiery hell.  And for this reason, and others, Celsus could not embrace the Christian faith.

On Sunday mornings we are exploring this problem of hell.  For many the doctrine of hell is troubling.  It keeps some from even considering Christianity.  Specifically, we are exploring four concerns that people have about the traditional doctrine of hell.

• Last Sunday we looked at the reality of hell.  The problem is put this way: Hell is fabricated.  Some believe hell is just made up by preachers and churches.
• We’ll look at the capacity of hell.  For many, the traditional Christian teaching means there’s just going to be too many people in hell who do not deserve to go there.  The problem is put this way: Hell is overcrowded.
• We’ll look at the eternality of hell.  For many, the thought of people suffering forever seems cruel.  The problem is put this way: Hell is unrelenting.
• And we’ll look at the severity of hell.

That’s where we begin this morning.  Many people have a problem with the severity of hell. Hell seems too unloving.  It seems too barbaric.  It comes down to this question: How could a loving God treat people in such an unloving way?

What I want to say at the outset is this: Some problematic pieces of hell’s severity are not found in the Bible. When the average person thinks of hell, she may think of images that do not come from the Bible.  Instead, they come from movies, art, philosophy or non-biblical literature.  Before we can truly understand the severity of hell, and attempt to reconcile it with the notion of a loving God, we need to first empty our minds of many of these others images.

I’ll illustrate some of the non-biblical images that have endured for centuries.[2] From the second to the fourth centuries, Christians created descriptions of hell that were unbelievably gruesome.  For example, in Christian literature from this time period we find blasphemers in hell hanging by their tongues.  There are adulterous women in hell who hang by their hair over a boiling pit.  There are slanderers who have hot irons burning out their eyes.  Idolaters are driven up cliffs by demons and then they plunge to the rocks below, only to be driven up again.  These were some of the images used to describe hell in the second through fourth centuries.

In the fourteenth century, Italian poet Dante Alighieri published his Divine Comedy.  He imagined a hell as a place filled with the loud wails of sinners boiling in blood and people running from hordes of biting snakes. In Dante’s hell, some remain forever trapped in encasements made of lead.

We must recognize those descriptions are man-made and cannot be found in the Bible. What many people think of when they think of hell comes from works like these.  It doesn’t come from the Bible.  When someone says “I don’t believe in God/the Bible because I don’t believe in hell,” we might say, “Tell me about the hell you don’t believe in, because it may not be the hell found in the Bible.”  When people object to the severity of hell, they may be objecting to images like the ones I’ve just described.  That doesn’t necessarily mean the Bible’s portrayal of hell is not severe.  It is severe.  But we need to be sure that the severity in mind is the one the Bible discusses.

What then, does the Bible actually say?  And how do we reconcile its severe images with the love of God?  The Bible describes hell’s severity in three images: fire, weeping, and darkness. The two dominant images are fire and darkness.  When the Bible portrays the actual punishment of hell, it is framed in these two images: fire and darkness.  Weeping is the result of the fire and darkness.

The Jews in Jesus’ day used these three images when describing hell.  Jesus affirmed their usefulness in his own teaching.[3] Here are a couple of examples from Matthew 13. As Jesus tells a parable about “wheat” and “weeds,” He says: “³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’” (v. 30) Jesus goes on to explain: “⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, ⁴² and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. .”   Jesus describes hell as fire and weeping.

Jesus also uses the image of darkness.  In Matthew 8, He says: ¹¹ I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, ¹² while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (vv. 11–12).

Thus, for Jesus, hell could be described as a place filled with fire.  It could also be described as place filled with darkness.  Both the fire and the darkness lead to weeping and gnashing of teeth.  These are the three most common images used in the Bible to describe the severity of hell.

Oddly, the two main images are contradictory.  If a place is filled with fire, that means it is filled with the light of that fire.  There can be no darkness.  But if a place is filled with darkness, that means no light is present.  Thus there can be no fire.  If these images are literal, they describe something that cannot exist.  This is our first hint that there’s more to these images than we might have imagined.

The Bible uses these images symbolically.  Many of us already recognize the Bible’s use of symbolism when it comes to the opposite of hell—heaven.[4] For example, in Revelation 21 heaven is described as having “a great, high wall with twelve gates” (21:12).  Today we would never describe a great city—like Paris, for example—as having walls and gates. But in the ancient world, every major city had walls.  Until the time of gunpowder, cities were surrounded with thick walls and sturdy gates.  Thus Jesus and John used that language to help the earliest Christians get a sense of what heaven is like.  This description doesn’t necessarily mean heaven literally has walls and gates.  These are symbols used to help us see that heaven is going to be secure and protected.

The same is true regarding the images of fire and darkness used to describe hell.  As I mentioned earlier, these two images are somewhat contradictory.  Fire and darkness are mutually exclusive.  And Jesus is not the only one to hold these two images in tension.  Jude describes hell as “eternal fire” in verse 7, and then depicts it as the “blackest darkness” in verse 13.  The writers of the Bible aren’t necessarily telling us that hell is literally filled with fire and that it’s also literally filled with darkness.  That would be impossible.  They are using these images to help us see something about the severity of hell.

Consider, for example, the third image: weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Mark Goodacre is a professor of New Testament at Duke.[5] He tells of Irish comedian Dave Allen.  Allen had a well-known piece about preachers: “In Ireland you get the fire and brimstone preaching.  ‘I will tell you about the great judgment day!’  ‘I will tell you on that day the great book will be opened and all your sins will be on that book!’  ‘And the Lord will banish the wicked and there will be a great weeping and gnashing of teeth.’  At that point in the sermon, an old woman on the front says, ‘I don’t have any teeth.’  The preacher screams:  ‘Teeth will be provided!’” It’s a funny attempt to be very literal with Jesus’ description of hell.  In fact, Princeton professor Paul Coleman-Norton once published a scholarly paper professing to find a previously unknown fragment of the Bible.  With tongue in cheek, Coleman-Norton said he found a fragment from Matt. 24 which contained a previously undiscovered dialogue with Jesus.  It occurs just after Jesus has described hell as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  A disciple asks, “How can these things be if they be toothless?” Jesus replies, “Thou of little faith, trouble not thyself.  If happily they will be lacking any, teeth will be provided.”  It is, again, a humorous way of pointing out that Jesus’ language was less than literal.  He did not mean that people would literally gnash their teeth in hell.  It is a symbol for immense grief and regret.  Likewise, the images of hell and darkness are images of something else.  To explain, I’m going to build off of last Sunday’s message.

The darkness of hell points to relationship and role being removed. Last Sunday I mentioned that hell as banishment is the elimination of relationship with God.  Hell as destruction was the elimination of our purpose or role in the cosmos.  And the darkness of hell points to both of these.  Darkness is us being totally removed from relationship with God and never truly in relationship with another human again.  In other words, hell is that place where relationship with God and others is fully severed.  Darkness symbolizes this.  It is the darkness of being profoundly alone.

And darkness is also us having no purpose, no role, never being able to fulfill the reason for which we were created.  It is that excruciatingly sad circumstance in which we are no longer given the chance to fulfill any higher purpose or pursue any grander scheme in life.  Darkness symbolizes that we’ve lost our usefulness and we’ve been discarded.

C. S. Lewis wrote, ““There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.“  If, during our life, our will has been to live without relationship with God and without genuine relationships with others, then God will finally say, “Thy will be done.”  He will banish us.  And hell will be the dark absence of any life-giving relationship with him or others.  It will be the darkness of being forever isolated and abandoned.  And if, during our life, our will has been to not fulfill our greater purpose, to not play our kingdom role on earth, God will finally say, “Thy will be done.”  And hell will be the dark absence of any larger purpose or role in life.  It will be the darkness of having no meaning at all to your existence.

This darkness is not the result of a blood-thirsty and vindictive God.  It is the result of a God who finally gives us what we’ve already chosen.  We’ve already chosen darkness in this life.  Hell will be an extension of that choice—but to a degree we can hardly even imagine.

Thus the darkness of hell points to two of the three points I made at the end of last Sunday’s sermon: hell as banishment and hell as destruction.  The fire of hell also points to the third element: hell as punishment.  The fire of hell points to justice being released. The fire of hell signifies God’s delivering of justice.  All the wrongs that have gone unpunished are finally punished in hell.

In his book Simply Christian, N. T. Wright says that there is a fundamental human longing for justice.^[6] This hunger for justice is found in every culture and in every generation.  It exists because there is so often a lack of justice in our world.

And the fire of hell points to that justice finally being released.  It is the fulfillment of what humans have dreamed of for millennia.  Rob Bell points to this in his book Love Wins.[7] He shows that the Old Testament prophets dreamed of this time of justice.  Bell writes, “Their description of life in the age to come is both thrilling and unnerving at the same time. For the earth to be free of anything destructive or damaging, certain things have to be banished. Decisions have to be made. Judgments have to be rendered. And so they spoke of a cleansing, purging, decisive day when God would make those judgments. They called this day the “day of the LORD.” The day when God says “ENOUGH!” to anything that threatens the peace (shalom is the Hebrew word), harmony, and health that God intends for the world. God says no to injustice. God says, “Never again” to the oppressors who prey on the weak and vulnerable… And that’s what the fire of hell points.  It is God finally saying “Enough!”  It’s God finally releasing that justice longed for by so many.

And while it might be hard to reconcile the images at the beginning of this sermon with the love of God, it is not that way with these images of fire, darkness, and weeping.  The severity of hell does not disprove but rather proves the love of God. Miroslav Volf, a Christian theologian from Croatia, used to reject the concept of God’s wrath.[8] He thought that the idea of an angry God was barbaric, completely unworthy of a God of love. But then his country experienced a brutal war. People committed terrible atrocities.  And suddenly, he realized that the wrath of God was necessary.  He writes this in his book Free of Charge: My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry.  Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators’ basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them?  Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love. Only an unloving God would refuse to release justice.  Thus, rather than disproving God’s love, the fire of hell actually proves his love.  It’s God finally delivering what so many so desperately need.

Timothy Keller refers to author Becky Pippert:[9] “Becky Pippert writes, ‘Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it…. Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.’ Pippert then quotes E. H. Gifford, ‘Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.’ She concludes: ‘If I, a flawed, narcissistic, sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone’s condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.’”  God’s love necessitates the darkness and fire of hell.  Because God loves us, he will not force us to choose relationship with him or force us to choose his role for our lives.  He wants us to freely choose those things.  Thus, in the end, his love necessitates letting us have what we’ve chosen.  And God’s love will not stand by forever while injustice overwhelms the human race.  His love demands that eventually this injustice be dealt with.  His love requires finally dealing with the cancer of sin. The darkness and fire both bring us back to the love of God.

I want to close each of these lessons with three brief words of application.  Here they are: Hell stirs our mission, spurs our maturity, but does not summarize our message.

First, hell does not summarize our message.  Last month Kendra and I ate dinner with parents of a girl on Jordan’s volleyball team.  When the father learned I was a preacher, he told me a religious story (that happens a lot).  He said that one day when his son was about ten years old, the son came home weeping.  “What’s wrong?” the father asked.  Through tears the son said he had been talking to a neighbor.  The neighbor was a very devout Christian.  And the neighbor said this to the ten-year old boy: “You’re going to hell.”  Because the boy was not a devout Christian, the neighbor felt it critical to warn the boy of hell.  Hell is very important.  But it’s not what we lead with.  It’s doesn’t summarize our message.  The word gospel means “good news.”  Our message and our faith is primarily about good news, the love of God.

But second, because hell is a severe reality, it ought to stir our mission. There are millions of people in danger of the darkness and fire of hell.  We must do all we can to help them experience a different future in Christ.  Hell stirs our mission.

And finally, because hell is a severe reality, it ought to spur us toward greater spiritual maturity. There should be no greater priority in our own lives than to grow in our relationship with God, in fulfilling our role in his kingdom, and in praising him for the one who went through hell so that we never would.

[2] Ibid., 46-48.

[3] Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, Erasing Hell (David C Cook, 2011), 50-74.

[4] Crockett, 54-61.

[5] http://podacre.blogspot.com/2010/08/nt-pod-40-teeth-will-be-provided-joke.html

[6] N. T. Wright Simply Christianity (Harper One, 2006).

[7] Rob Bell, Love Wins (HarperCollins, 2011), 32-38.

[8] Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge (Zondervan, 2006), 138-139.

[9] Timothy Kellerin Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, editors, Is Hell Real or Does Everyone Go to Heaven? (Zondervan, 2011) Kindle Edition, 1201-1212.

Last year preacher and author Rob Bell wrote a book about hell.  The book was called Love Wins.[1] It sparked a firestorm within the larger Christian community because it challenged traditional teaching about hell.  It also fueled serious discussion within the larger non-Christian culture.  For example, Time magazine followed the book’s release with an edition with these words splashed across the cover: “What if there’s no hell?”[2] A few months from now a movie will be released entitled “Hell and Mr. Fudge.”  The movie tells the true story of a Church of Christ minister who rebelled against traditional views of hell.  There’s a lot of discussion in our churches and in our culture about hell.

In his book, Rob Bell points out why hell is such a provocative issue: “A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear…Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number “make it to a better place” and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?”  As Bell reveals, there are many difficult questions when it comes to hell.

This morning we begin a 4-part series on the problem of hell.  We’ll be exploring four concerns that many have about the traditional doctrine of hell. 

• We’ll look at the capacity of hell.  For many, the traditional Christian teaching means there’s going to be too many people in hell—too many who do not deserve to be there.  The problem is put this way: Hell is overcrowded.
• We’ll look at the severity of hell.  For many, the traditional Christian teaching means that hell is too severe.  A loving God wouldn’t treat people this way.  The problem is put this way: Hell us unloving.
• We’ll also look at the eternality of hell.  For many, the traditional Christian teaching about hell being eternal is sickening.  It might be one thing for God to punish the ungodly in a severe way.  But to punish them for all eternity?  The problem is put this way: Hell is unrelenting.
• We’ll look also at the reality of hell.  That’s where we begin this morning.  The problem is put this way: Hell is fabricated.

Obviously, we will be covering a lot of ground in this series.  It will demand more of your mind and heart than normal.  And, I can’t answer every question fully.  Thus this series may just be the beginning of your own study of hell.  In this morning’s Link you’ll find some of the books I’ll refer to in this series.

We’ll begin with the last problem I mentioned: many people have a problem with the reality of hell.  There are Christians and non-Christians who feel that hell is a fabrication, one big lie, which preachers and churches have created to manipulate others.  They feel that Jesus never talked about hell, and the authors of the Bible, at least the New Testament authors, have no real interest in hell.  As I read in the quote a few seconds ago, some feel that belief in hell is misguided and toxic.  They believe Christians have made a mountain out of a molehill.  If you really took the time to read the Bible, you’d find that hell is not a very big deal. 

But this isn’t just a contemporary concern.  It’s a concern that’s existed for a long time.  Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. writes about the history of people’s struggle with the doctrine of hell.[3] The first major challenge to the traditional view of hell came from a theologian named Origen.  Origen believed everyone would ultimately be reconciled to God.  He taught that if anyone did go to hell, it would only be temporary.  But Origen’s teaching was rejected in AD 553.  The church’s consensus on hell continued to be widely held for another thousand years.

During the seventeenth century and eighteenth century in Europe, some religious thinkers and philosophers began to raise serious questions about hell.  One group named the Socinians taught that hell would not be eternal but that the ungodly would be destroyed completely in hell.  Philosophers began arguing that hell should be viewed metaphorically, not literally.

In the nineteenth century, British Prime Minister William Gladstone stated that hell had been “relegated … to the far-off corners of the Christian mind … there to sleep in the deep shadow as a thing needless in our enlightened and progressive age.”  He and others believed it was time to rid the Christian faith of the old-fashioned notion of hell.

Certain preachers and theologians in America agreed.  Influential Brooklyn preacher Henry Ward Beecher called the doctrine of an eternal hell a “hideous” doctrine and “spiritual barbarism.”  And in the 1970s and 1980s, challenges to the traditional doctrine of hell finally moved into evangelical Christianity.  The point is simply that Christians and non-Christians have long wrestled with the notion of hell.  If you’ve ever struggled, you are not alone.  The doctrine of hell is one that raises very serious questions.

I want to address these doubts by surveying what the Bible actually says about hell.  We don’t have time to look at every text, or to go into much depth with any one text.  I don’t normally cover this many texts in a sermon.  But this survey is essential to addressing the question at hand in this morning’s sermon.  I encourage you to write these texts down and study them later on your own.

The New Testament leaves no doubt about the reality of hell. You cannot read the New Testament and believe that hell is a molehill.  You cannot read the New Testament and believe that hell is a marginal and unimportant matter.

Let’s look at Paul’s writings.  Surprisingly, the word “hell” does not occur in Paul’s writings. But Paul does teach about hell. We’ll look at Romans and 2 Thessalonians.  In his letter to the Roman church, Paul relates some important truths about the future punishment of the ungodly.

• Paul writes that the wicked are objects of God’s wrath (9:22) and they continually store up wrath for the day of wrath (2:5–8; 3:5).
• Paul writes that the future punishment of the ungodly consists of “death” and “destruction.” Sinners, Paul states, deserve death (1:32), the wages of sin is death (6:16–23), and those who live according to the flesh should expect death (8:13). Also, Paul writes that sinners are vessels of wrath “prepared for destruction” (9:22).
• He writes of future punishment as being “accursed and cut off from Christ” (9:3 ESV).

Paul teaches most directly about hell in 2 Thessalonians.  Hell, Paul writes is “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord…” (1:8-9).

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Two passages in Hebrews talk about future judgment:

• Hebrews 6:1–3 refers to the future punishment of the wicked as “eternal judgment” (6:2), which the author says is an “elementary doctrine” of the faith (cf. 6:1).
• Hebrews 10:27–30 depicts this judgment as fearful and dreadful, a “fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.”

Peter and Jude write about hell.

• Peter and Jude both depict hell as “destruction” (2 Peter 2:1, 3, 12; Jude 5, 10, 11).
• Both describe hell is like a gloomy dungeon, where rebellious angels are held for judgment (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6 is similar).
• Peter likens hell to Sodom and Gomorrah’s burning to ashes (2 Peter 2:6)
• Peter also writes that hell is a place of retribution (2:13) and “utter darkness” (2:17)
• Jude describes hell both as a punishment of “eternal fire” (Jude 7) and “gloomy darkness (Jude 6).

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Revelation contains some of the most noteworthy passages on hell.  Consider Revelation 14:9–11:  “⁹ And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰ he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.¹¹ And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” In Rev. 20:15 John writes, “And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Perhaps most importantly, Jesus speaks of hell.  Jesus gives a central place to hell in his best-known sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matt. 5–7. There, Jesus warns against hateful anger, because “whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matt. 5:22 ESV).  In this same sermon, Jesus urges us to gouge out a sinful eye or cut off a sinful hand because, “it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.” (Matt. 5:30 ESV)  Top of FormBottom of Form

Later, when LaTop of Form

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Jesus sends out the Twelve, he realizes they will be harassed, hated, and persecuted.  So he gives them a speech to deepen their courage and conviction.  Jesus tells them, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”  (Matt. 10:28 ESV).

Jesus accused his opponents of turning people away from God, producing a convert who is “twice as much a child of hell” as they themselves (Matt. 23:15 ESV).

There is no doubt.  The Bible is very clear.  Hell does exist.  Hell is a critical matter in the Christian faith.  It is not a creation of preachers or churches.  It was taught by the most central figures in the Christian faith, including Jesus.  Jesus believed in hell.  He warned us against hell.  It is not a thing needless in our enlightened and progressive age.  I would suggest that hell has never been a more needed doctrine than it is in this age.  I believe it’s critical for Christians to recapture a healthy and biblical view of hell.  It is not something we can afford to dismiss or ignore.

Kathy Chapman writes about something her child once said.[4] “One morning, my 4-year-old son, Kevin, and his grandpa went out to buy donuts. On the way, Grandpa turned to Kevin and asked, ‘Which way is heaven?’ Kevin pointed to the sky. ‘Which way is hell?’ Kevin pointed towards the floor of the truck. Grandpa continued, ‘And where are you going?’ ‘Dunkin’ Donuts,’ Kevin replied. For many of us, not much has changed since we were four.  We’d much rather think about Dunkin Donuts than about heaven and hell.  But the New Testament is clear.  Hell is a reality.  And it is a reality that must be addressed.

How do we make sense of all of these passages?  That’s what the rest of this series will do.  We’ll unpack some of these texts and look more deeply into them.  But for this morning, I want to share three broad points.  Author Christopher Morgan argues that passages like these point to three realities.[5] These points serve as a beginning place in our discussion about the reality of hell.  Morgan writes that hell represents the reality of God’s punishment, God’s destruction, and God’s banishment.

First, hell represents the reality of God’s punishment.  In Matthew 25, Jesus describes hell as “eternal punishment.”  In 2 Thessalonians 1, Paul discusses hell as God punishing those who disobey him.  Hell represents the reality that God will punish sin.  Hell is simply God finally punishing the sin that remains in the world.

Second, hell represents the reality of God’s destruction.  In 2 Peter 2, Peter writes of hell as “destruction.”  In 2 Thess. 1 Paul describes hell as a place of “destruction.”   New Testament scholars point out that when biblical authors speak of destruction, they are referring to something that loses the essence of its nature or loses its function.  One writes, “[in the Bible when God destroys things or people] they cease to be useful or to exist in their original, intended state.”  Thus hell is the state we exist in when we cease to be useful to God or when we cease to function in our intended way.  Hell is not just God punishing sin.  It is God destroying creations who have chosen not to function in the way they were intended to function; not to pursue the purpose for which they were created.

Finally, hell represents the reality of God’s banishment.  This idea of hell as a banishment from God is prominent in the teachings of Jesus.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims that he will judge the world and declare to unbelievers, “depart from me!” (Matt. 7:23).   Jesus later portrays the wicked as being excluded from the kingdom: “Depart from me … into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). Hell is banishment.  Hell is not just God punishing sin.  It’s not just God destroying creations who have chosen not to function the way they were intended to function.  It’s also God banishing those who’ve chosen in their lives to live apart from him anyway.  It’s them being removed from his goodness and grace.

We can put it this way.  Hell is a real place where justice is finally served–punishment, relationships are fully severed–banishment, and our life’s purpose is fatally stopped—destruction. That’s the reality of hell.

Why is all of this so important?  Because without this reality, we could not truly understand the cross.  The reality of Hell sheds light on the reality of the cross. [6] On the cross, Jesus takes on himself the punishment that is ours because of our sin.  Justice is finally served—but on Jesus not on us.  And, on the cross, Jesus faces complete destruction.  From the pre-crucifixion torture to the cross itself, Jesus is completely destroyed.  Even though we were the ones who refused to serve the purpose for which we were created, on the cross, Jesus was fatally stopped.  And, on the cross, Jesus is banished from God.  That’s why he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  That divine relationship is fully severed.  Bell wants to argue that to accept the reality of hell is to subvert the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love.  I would argue just the opposite.  It’s only when we accept the reality of hell that we can truly understand Jesus’ message of love and Jesus ultimate act of love on the cross.  Because on the cross, Jesus went through hell for us.  Jesus experienced hell so we would never have to.

I want to close each of these lessons with three brief words of application.  Here they are: Hell stirs our mission, spurs our maturity, but does not summarize our message. First, hell does not summarize our message.  There are too many who assume that Christianity is solely about escaping hell.  It’s fire-insurance.  Rob Bell writes this sad story: …Several years ago we had an art show at our church. I had been giving a series of teachings on peacemaking, and we invited artists to display their paintings, poems, and sculptures that reflected their understanding of what it means to be a peacemaker. One woman included in her work a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, which a number of people found quite compelling. But not everyone. Someone attached a piece of paper to it. On the piece of paper was written: “Reality check: He’s in hell.” Hell is a reality.  But it’s not what we lead with when we engage others.  It’s not the center of our faith.  And too often we turn people away because we make hell our first conversation.

But second, the reality of hell ought to stir us to greater mission.  Because hell is real, we’ve got to reach out to people who don’t know God or Jesus and try to persuade them to become followers of Jesus.  Charlie Peace, a criminal in England, on the day he was being taken to his execution, listened to a minister reading from the Word.[7] And when he found out he was reading about heaven and hell, he looked at the preacher and said, “Sir, if I believed what you and the church of God say, and even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it on hands and knees and think it worthwhile living just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that.”  The reality of hell ought to stir us to greater mission.

Finally, the reality of hell ought to spur us to greater personal maturity.  Because hell is real, not only do we not want people around us to go there, we don’t want ourselves to go there.  We should therefore be doing all that is within our power to live the kind of holy life that keep us from the possibility of hell.  We should repent of anything that might lead us down that broad way that leads to destruction.

[2] “What if there’s no hell?” Time (April 25, 2011).

[3] R. Albert Mohler Jr., Chapter One, “Is Hell for Real?” in Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, editors, Is Hell Real or Does Everyone Go to Heaven? Zondervan, 2011 Kindle Edition, pages 11-21.

[4] Kathy Chapman, North Lauderdale, FL. Today’s Christian Woman, “Heart to Heart.

[5] Christopher Morgan, Chapter Three, “Four Pictures of Hell” In Morgan and Peterson, Is Hell Real, pages 37-47.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ravi Zacharias, “The Lostness of Humankind,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 118.

In the wake of the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University, New York Times writer David Brooks wrote an article entitled, “Let’s All Feel Superior.” [1] Brooks commented on our tendency to ignore our own sins but notice the sins of others. Brooks writes that many commentators have contemptuously asked of the Penn State scandal: “How could they have let this happen?” “How could officials have just stood by when this abuse was going on?”  We assume that we would have done better than Penn State officials.  But Brooks notes that history shows that ordinary people often don’t get involved in correcting an injustice.  This happens so often that psychologists have a term for it—”the Bystander Effect.”  Brooks writes, “In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves.” Unfortunately, according to Brooks, today when something terrible happens, we try to blame it on someone else.  Brooks warns that it’s easy to vilify others from “the island of our own innocence.” It’s easy to ask, “How could they have let this happen?” But Brooks writes:  “The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive? …. [Sadly], it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.”

We are quick to see the dark underside of others.  But there is something within us that denies the dark underside of ourselves.  We are quick to ask, “How could they let this happen?” but very slow to ask “Why did I let this happen?”

This may be especially true for Christians.  Rebecca Pippert once attended two very different events: a graduate-level psychology class at Harvard University and a Christian Bible study adjacent to Harvard.[2] Pippert offered the following observations on how the two groups addressed their own faults: First, the students [in the graduate-level psychology class] were extraordinarily open and candid about their problems. It wasn’t uncommon to hear them say, “I’m angry,” “I’m afraid,” “I’m jealous” …. Their admission of their problems was the opposite of denial. Second, their openness about their problems was matched only by their uncertainty about where to find resources to overcome them. Having confessed, for example, their inability to forgive someone who had hurt them, [they had no idea how to] resolve the problem by forgiving and being kind and generous instead of petty and vindictive.  [But the contrast with the Bible Study group] was striking. No one spoke openly about his or her problems. There was a lot of talk about God’s answers and promises, but very little about the participants and the problems they faced. The closest thing to an admission [of sin or a personal problem] was a reference to someone who was “struggling and needs prayer.”  “The first group [the psychology class] seemed to have all the problems and no answers; the second group [the Bible Study] had all the answers and no problems.”

Too often that’s how we Christians come across.  We have all the answers to all the sin that’s out there in the world.  But we don’t seem to have any personal problem with sin in our own lives.  We’re quick to see the dark underside of others, but not of ourselves.  And as we’ll see this morning, overcoming this is critical to experiencing renewal.

This is our third Sunday in Col. 3:1-17.  I’ve chosen this text because it focuses on something which is close to the heart of many of us this time of year: renewal.  Near the center of this text, in vs. 10, Paul writes of how we are being “renewed.”  This text summarizes what God does to bring renewal into our lives and how we can join God in that work.

On the first Sunday of the year, we looked at the first of four steps Paul urges us to take to experience renewal.  The first step is “rethink.”  Renewal begins with our thinking.  You change living by first changing thinking.  I called you to adopt some habits by which you could fill your mind with Christ and the things of Christ.  Last Sunday, the focus was on vs. 17 and its call to “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  Renewal happens when we realize that we don’t have to pack our bags and become a missionary to serve Jesus.  We can serve and honor Jesus with every single word and every single deed.  The second step is “redo.”

This morning we move to Col. 3:5-11: ⁵ Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ⁶ On account of these the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. ⁸But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. ¹¹ Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Col. 3:5-11 ESV)

Paul begins by literally urging us to put to death our “earthly members” or our “earthly parts.”  He states in vs. 7 that these parts used to characterize the way we once lived.  And they are still influencing the way we live today.  In other words, even though we are Christians, there are still parts or sections of ourselves which are still earthly or sinful.  This is very significant.  Paul is saying that even though we’ve been cleansed by the blood of Jesus and made into heavenly people, there are still parts of us that are very earthly.  The transformation from sinner to saint does not happen quickly.  Though we are Christians, we still have sinful elements in our lives. The very first thing Paul wants us to do is to acknowledge that we still struggle with these sinful parts.  We must acknowledge our sinful sections. If we want to experience renewal, we must confess that we are in need of it.  We must admit to ourselves, to one another, and to our God that there are still sections of our hearts, pieces of our mind, slices of our soul which are still oriented toward earthly things and not heavenly things.  We can’t be quick to see the underside of others and ignore our own.  One of the keys to renewal is to admit that we too have sinful aspects to ourselves.

In fact, the Christians Paul writes to here were still wrestling with very significant sins.  First, Paul lists their five sinful sections of intimacy: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.  These words all have to do with sexually intimate sins and they move from the most egregious outward expression to the most private inward expression.  At the end of the list we find covetousness—desiring something which cannot be ours.  This was the tenth of the Ten Commandments.  This morphs into evil desire—the longing for something which is evil or contrary to God’s wishes.  This in turn transforms into passion, a sexual hunger and longing.  This becomes impurity and then sexual immorality.  “Sexual immorality” refers to any sexual act outside of marriage.  And Paul knows the Christians in Colossae used to let these sins run rampant and that there are still sections of their lives struggling with them.

Second, Paul lists their six sinful sections of irritability: anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, and lying.  These words all have to do with sins of irritability.  Anger—smoldering hatred of someone.  Wrath—what happens when that hatred turns to action.  Malice—a desire to cause harm.  Slander—words that do cause harm.  Obscene talk and lying—speech intended to abuse and confuse others.  Paul knows the Christians in Colossae used major in these sins of irritability and there are still sections of their lives which wrestle even now with them.

A first step to renewal is to admit that we too have sections of our hearts, pieces of our minds, and slices of our souls that wrestle with sins of intimacy and sins of irritability.  We are not perfect.  We do fail.  We do have problems.  That’s the first step toward renewal in this text.

In just a moment Paul’s going to call us to deal aggressively with these sins.  But first let’s look at the motive Paul supplies.  In vs. 6 Paul writes, On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In other words Paul says that God reprimands us for this sin. Simply put, God hates this type of behavior.  And if we allow it to rule our life, he will direct his wrath toward us.  He will reprimand us severely.  He sees these actions and attitudes as idolatry, as Paul writes in vs. 5.  When we let these sins into our lives, we remove God from the throne of our hearts and place either the object or our lust or the object of our hatred  on that throne there.  And God simply will not put up with it.  We should make no mistake.  God will hold us accountable for these things.

But Paul writes not only of this negative motivation.  He writes also of a positive motivation.  In vs. 10 Paul urges us to take action because we “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”  In other words God renews us from this sin. God not only reprimands us for this sin.  He also renews us from this sin.  God is working to make us into brand new people.  And we should therefore take action against these sinful sections of our lives because we want to partner with God in that renewal.  I think what Paul is saying here is this: “Be who you are.”  To continue to live in these sinful ways is inconsistent with who God has made you and is making you.  Be the renewed person you are.  Be the dead now alive person you are.  Participate and partner with God in his work to bring transformation into your heart and mind.

And the way we partner with God in this renewal is by practicing the two strong commands in this text: ⁵Put to death therefore what is earthly in you…⁸But now you must put them all away.  Paul is saying that if you want to experience real renewal in your life this year, it’s going to take aggressive action.  You can’t play around.  You can’t be half-hearted about it.  Not only must you admit the sinful sections of your life.  You must also become ruthless and intense about them.

The words translated “put them all away” literally mean “take off” or “lay aside.”  Paul imagines these sinful parts of ourselves as clothes.  And the only way to truly deal with them is to take them off—all the way off.  In other words we must fully shed this sin. Whatever is standing in between you and the person God is renewing you to be, you must fully shed it.

Too often, when it comes to sin in our lives, we treat it like we treat our summer clothes.  When it’s winter, some of us put away our summer clothes.  They go in the back of the closet, or in a box in the attic, or in a drawer.  But when summer comes again, we pull them back out.  We never really get rid of them.  We just put them aside for a season.  The same is true with so many of the sins we struggle with.  We enter a season in which we get really serious about holiness.  So we take off that sin, fold it up, and put it away.  But we don’t throw it away.  We don’t toss it out.  We put it someplace where, when the time is right and we’re no longer so focused on holiness, we can pull it back out.  We can wear that sin once more.

But Paul’s saying that if you want to experience real renewal, you’ve got to fully shed that sin.  You’ve got to take it off and throw it away never to be worn again.  You’ve got to rip it off and remove it so far from you that you could never find it even if you wanted to.

And this morning, that’s exactly what some of us need to do.  You’ve been playing around with some sin.  You’ve been toying with stopping it.  But you’ve not really gotten serious about it.  Your short temper.  Your filthy language.  Your pornography.  Your selfishness.  Your verbal abuse.  Your gossiping.  Your backbiting.  And this morning Paul is calling you to shed that sin like a pair of clothes you never want to see again.  He’s calling you to get serious about this and get rid once and for all.

But Paul uses even stronger language in vs. 5: ⁵ Put to death therefore what is earthly in you… There is no uncertainty in this language.  Paul’s saying “Don’t play with sin.  Don’t just fight sin.  Kill it.  Murder it.  Beat the life out of it.”  In other words Paul calls us to to fully slay this sin.

But the problem is that we too often are unwilling to slay the sin in our lives.  In his book The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis writes about this.[3] He describes a human who finds himself in heaven.  The man was called a Ghost.  On his shoulder sat a red lizard, symbolizing the sin in his life.  Lewis writes:  “What sat on his shoulder was a little red lizard, and it was twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear. As we caught sight of him he turned his head to the reptile with a snarl of impatience. “Shut up, I tell you!” he said. It wagged its tail and continued to whisper to him. He ceased snarling, and presently began to smile. Then he turned and started to limp westward, away from the mountains.  “Off so soon?” said a voice.  The speaker was more or less human in shape but larger than a man, and so bright that I could hardly look at him. His presence smote on my eyes and on my body too (for there was heat coming from him as well as light) like the morning sun at the beginning of a tyrannous summer day.  “Yes. I’m off,” said the Ghost. “Thanks for all your hospitality. But it’s no good, you see. I told this little chap,” (here he indicated the lizard), “that he’d have to be quiet if he came—which he insisted on doing. Of course his stuff won’t do here: I realize that. But he won’t stop. I shall just have to go home.”  ‘Would you like me to make him quiet?” said the flaming Spirit—an angel, as I now understood.  “Of course I would,” said the Ghost.  “Then I will kill him,” said the Angel, taking a step forward.  “Oh-ah-look out! You’re burning me. Keep away,” said the Ghost, retreating.  “Don’t you want him killed?”  “You didn’t say anything about killing him at first. I hardly meant to bother you with anything so drastic as that.”  “It’s the only way,” said the Angel, whose burning hands were now very close to the lizard. “Shall I kill it?”  “Well, that’s a further question. I’m quite open to consider it, but it’s a new point, isn’t it? I mean, for the moment I was only thinking about silencing it because up here—well, it’s so…embarrassing.”  “May I kill it?”  “Well, there’s time to discuss that later.”  “There is no time. May I kill it?”  “Please, I never meant to be such a nuisance. Please—really—don’t bother. Look! It’s gone to sleep of its own accord. I’m sure it’ll be all right now. Thanks ever so much.”  “May I kill it?”  “Honestly, I don’t think there’s the slightest necessity for that. I’m sure I shall be able to keep it in order now. I think the gradual process would be far better than killing it.”  “The gradual process is of no use at all.”  “Don’t you think so? Well, I’ll think over what you’ve said very carefully. I honestly will. In fact I’d let you kill it now, but as a matter of fact I’m not feeling frightfully well today. It would be silly to do it now. I’d need to be in good health for the operation. Some other day, perhaps.”  “There is no other day. All days are present now.”  “Get back! You’re burning me. How can I tell you to kill it? You’d kill me if you did.”  “It is not so.”  “Why, you’re hurting me now.”  “I never said it wouldn’t hurt you. I said it wouldn’t kill you.”  “Oh, I know. You think I’m a coward. But it isn’t that. Really it isn’t. I say! Let me run back by tonight’s bus and get an opinion from my own doctor. I’ll come again the first moment I can.”

Can’t we hear ourselves in this man?  We try to keep our sin quiet so it won’t disturb the people around us.  We punish the sin by taking him home because he’s not behaving.  But when it comes to killing it, well, that’s too drastic.  We’ll think about that later.  We’re sure we can keep it in check.  No need for violence.  And we just can’t bring ourselves to do whatever it takes to deal a death blow to our red lizard of sin.

But Paul is telling you this morning that if you truly wish to experience renewal, there’s only one thing that works: death.  You’ve got to do whatever it’s going to take to kill your sin.  If it means quitting your job, do it.  If it means changing schools, do it.  If it means ending a relationship, do it.  If it means losing sleep or losing money, do it.  If it means never getting on the Internet again, do it.  If it means never watching TV again, do it.  If it means cutting yourself completely and totally off from the wrong crowd, do it.  Nothing is too drastic.  Nothing is too radical.  Nothing is too costly.  Paul is asking you to identify a sin that is getting in between you and God.  And he’s telling you to kill it.  Murder it.  Slay it.  Don’t just hurt it.  Don’t just punish it.  Don’t just battle it.  Kill it.  Slay it.  Fully and completely.

So ask yourself, What sin is keeping you from God, keeping you from being the person God is renewing you to be?  And what would it take to kill that sin?  Not maim it.  But kill it.  What do you need to do to deal with this sin in a deadly way?

What I want to urge you to do today is to make a decision to kill that sin.  Make a decision this morning that you are going to put that sin to death.  As this year begins, decide this morning that you’re going to do whatever it takes to slay that sin.  [Life Center - And as a way of helping you visualize that commitment, I want to encourage you to do something this morning.  Grab one of the blank sheets from the back of the chair in front of you.  Write on it some sin you are struggling with.  And while we are singing, come up and drop that paper into this casket as a way of demonstrating your desire to kill that sin.]

Each Sunday our elders are available for prayer and counsel at the Shepherd’s Corner.  If you’re struggling to put a sin to death, I urge you to visit with some of our shepherds after this service is over.

[2] Rebecca Pippert, Hope Has Its Reasons (InterVarsity Press, 2001), 31-32.

[3] C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (HarperOne, 1946), 106-111.