Living up to His Claims

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Transcript:

Well, I once saw a restaurant that was advertising that they had the best chicken fried steak in the universe. And I thought, how could you even know something like that? We see this all the time.

Restaurants will claim ours is the best burger in town. Ours is the best fried chicken in the state. A lot of businesses do this.

As a matter of fact, Charla and I, a while back, went to a burger place, because that’s one of my favorite pastimes is eating, is exploring small towns in Oklahoma and finding off-the-beaten-track places to eat, especially hamburgers. And we went to one place that had hyped itself. I mean, it’s known statewide, and they’ve hyped themselves as being the best burgers in the state.

And honestly, we were really disappointed. We kind of hated it when we left there. And people can claim anything they want to.

And so what we’ve started doing is reading reviews where it doesn’t matter what you say about yourself. What do other people say about you? And we went the next night.

We were in the same general area and found someplace much better that nobody knew about except a few people who had eaten there and read reviews. When I say nobody, I mean it hadn’t had nearly the press that the other places had. We have found some incredible places to eat by reading reviews online.

We’ll be driving, I’ll say we’re getting close to this town and it’s lunchtime. Get on Facebook or whatever site she uses, Yelp, I guess, on her phone and find us a place to eat and she’ll start reading reviews. What do other people say about their claims?

I don’t want to hear you say you’ve got the best onion rings in the county. I want to know what do other people say about those claims. Do they hold water? So as we’re going through this series of some of the reasons for our Christian faith, we come into it realizing anybody can make any claim they want to about themselves.

How do we know that Jesus’ claims about himself were true? We’ve spent the last three weeks talking about some of the arguments for the existence of God. There are way more than three, but I picked three that I found especially compelling, and hopefully they gave you some things to think about as well.

I want to spend the next three weeks looking at how do we know Jesus is who he said he is. And before we get into that, we’ve got to answer, well, who did Jesus say he is? Because there are some churches out there who are preaching today that Jesus was just a good moral teacher.

And if Jesus was just a good moral teacher, then what’s the point to any of this we’re doing? There are all sorts of great moral teachers out there who don’t require you to get up on Sunday and get out of bed when you’d rather stay in bed and sleep in and maybe have breakfast in bed and turn on the sports game. There are all sorts of good moral teachers that don’t require anything from you.

I’ve never understood the point of the Christianity of those who claim that Jesus is just a good moral teacher. When on the contrary, Jesus claimed numerous times in the Gospels. They say, oh, he never claimed to be God.

That’s something his followers claimed for him. Numerous times in the Gospels, Jesus claimed to be God. Jesus accepted worship from people while claiming that worship was due only to God.

And he never corrected them. Jesus demonstrated and claimed power that belongs only to God. And I think one of the most important instances is found in John 8, 58, when he’s talking to the Pharisees, and he’s going back and forth with them about Abraham and their relationship to Abraham, and they’re saying, well, what do you know about Abraham?

And he’s saying, well, you don’t know Abraham as well as you think you do. And they’re going back and forth, and finally Jesus says, I’m telling you that before Abraham was, I am. And there’s a double meaning there.

Not only is he saying, Abraham was, and before that, I am. I’ve outlasted Abraham. He was, but I am, and I am even before he was.

But by saying, I am, he’s identifying himself with the God of the Old Testament. He’s identifying himself with the God who met Moses at the burning bush and said, I want you to go and free my people. And he says, how will they know that I’ve come?

Who should I say has sent me? And God said, you tell the Israelites, I am that I am. And if you don’t think that that’s exactly what Jesus was claiming, that he was the God of the Old Testament, if you don’t think there that Jesus was claiming to be God, look at how the Pharisees absolutely lose their ever-loving minds in the rest of John chapter 8 after that.

They are ready to kill him. They’re not ready to kill him because he made some cute little quip about having special knowledge of God. They are ready to kill him because he has just claimed to be God in human flesh.

All throughout the Gospels, and not just in the book of John, but all throughout the Gospels, Jesus claims to be God. And again, we come into this knowing anybody can claim anything. But what does the evidence say?

And so over the next couple of weeks, I want to look at the evidence. And the first bit of evidence that I want to look at, out of the many numerous reasons to believe his claims, I want to look at the accounts of the people who knew him best. What do other people say about his claims? The people who knew him best. Now to get that, we need to go to the New Testament.

I accept the authority of the New Testament. I believe it’s God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant word. But I also understand there are skeptics out there who don’t accept the validity of the New Testament.

There may even be some sitting in the congregation this morning saying, Okay, yeah, of course, the New Testament’s going to say that. Why should I believe the New Testament? All right, we can and we will later get into kind of a demonstration of the New Testament, why it’s historically reliable, why we know that it hasn’t been changed over time.

That’s not for, we don’t have time for that today. But today I’m going to ask the potential skeptic or just the person who has questions about this to consider three things. All right, first of all, the Gospels do claim to be eyewitness testimony to the life of Jesus Christ. The Gospel accounts claim to be eyewitness testimony.

And generally, in a court situation, when somebody claims to be an eyewitness, you have to at least hear what they have to say. You may believe it, you may not, but you have to at least consider it. It has to be taken into consideration.

Second of all, there’s good evidence to show that the gospel accounts were written within a generation of Jesus’ death. And we’ll talk about that again in a few weeks. So they claim to be eyewitness accounts.

There’s good evidence to show that they were written within a time frame where they could be eyewitness accounts. And third of all, most people are not pathological liars. Maybe you think, well, I know lots of people who are.

Our society would entirely break down worse than it already has if we weren’t able to trust each other somewhat. So if you’re sitting here and you’re skeptical and you’re saying, well, of course, the New Testament says this about Jesus, but I don’t believe the New Testament, I’m asking you just for this morning to consider, okay, maybe there’s something to what the eyewitnesses say. Charlie and I watch Cops a lot when it’s on.

It’s really entertaining. And we’ve discovered a new show called Live PD. We know about it because we heard that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol was going to be featured on it.

So now on Friday and Saturday nights, after we get the kids to bed, we get our snacks out and we watch live PD and we wait to see if there’s anybody we know who shows up in custody. But I’ve learned from watching these law enforcement shows that people will tell them all sorts of things. And Charles is probably even better than I am at saying, oh, no, they’re lying.

I can tell just by the look on their face. But usually there’s a kernel of truth in what they’re saying. The story as a whole may not be true, but there’s a kernel of truth in there somewhere.

Now, I believe the New Testament as a whole is true. I believe everything in it. But I’m speaking to those who may not.

Speaking to those who may not. Consider the fact that it might be eyewitness testimony. and even if you don’t accept the whole thing, look at it and say, what would be the kernel of truth in here?

Is there some truth? I’m just asking you, I’m just asking you, if maybe you were dragged in here or you’re here because you’re curious this morning, keep an open mind as to what the eyewitnesses have to say about Jesus. So if we start from these premises, if we start from these ideas that they claim to be eyewitness testimony, they were written in the right period of time to be that, and most people are not pathological liars, if we start from those, An open-minded seeker should at least consider the possibility that they could be eyewitness accounts and should take seriously what they say about Jesus Christ and who he is.

And so we’re going to look at some of these eyewitness accounts and what people in these eyewitness accounts say about Jesus Christ. And I’ll take you one step further. I want to see what the people say who started out as skeptics about Jesus. The people who themselves were not immediately on board with what Jesus was doing.

the people who at the very beginning of their interactions with Jesus said, I don’t know about this, because we’re going to see this morning the stories of three different people who started out saying, I don’t know. I don’t know about this Jesus guy. They were skeptical. And then after an encounter with Jesus, after they had had some time to interact with him, because of the things he did, because of the things he said, they quickly became convinced that his claims were absolutely true.

And I think if their claims, or I think if their interactions with Jesus convinced them, then I think that says something to us today about Jesus being exactly who he claimed to be. So let’s look at the first story. We’re going to find this in the book of John in chapter 1.

John chapter 1, starting in verse 43. Some of you who were here on Wednesday night will be familiar with this. We talked about it a little bit in a different context, talked about this story in terms of discipleship.

But it also tells us some things about Nathaniel, who started out kind of skeptical. John 1, verse 43. It says, The following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and he found Philip and said to him, Follow me. This is when he’s calling his disciples.

Philip was among the first who was called. And when he called Philip and said, Follow me, Philip just readily went. There was no apparent skepticism on Philip’s part at all because he had been a disciple, apparently, of John the Baptist. And when John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb, Philip believed it.

Now Philip was, verse 44, now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael, found his brother, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. So he said the Messiah, he goes to his brother Nathanael, and he says, hey, hey, hey, hey, the Messiah who’s been promised all throughout the Old Testament, the one Moses wrote about, the one the prophets wrote about, we found him.

It’s Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And he says this to Nathanael, and Nathanael utters, I think, one of the funny lines of Scripture. Verse 46, Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Now, he’s not literally asking anything good. He’s not saying Nazareth is a bad place. He’s saying Nazareth is the middle of nowhere.

And as I shared Wednesday night, an equivalent in our day would be to find out that the next president of the United States lives in Bolegs, Oklahoma. There’s nothing wrong with Bolegs, Oklahoma. It’s just a tiny little place.

I’d never heard of before we moved to Seminole. Okay? Never heard of it.

And I know where most places are in Oklahoma. I used to study the maps as a child because I’m just that boring. But I’d never heard of Bolegs.

And that makes me think of the story Jim told about the scammer saying his office was located right next to Bolegs International Airport. That was you, wasn’t it? There’s no International Airport in Bolegs.

There’s not a whole lot of anything there. And it would boggle the mind for us to think one of the most important people in the world is coming from this tiny town. And so he was saying, wait a minute, you’re telling me the Messiah is coming from Nazareth?

Because you’d think the Messiah is going to show up in Jerusalem. You’d think the Messiah is going to show up someplace important, and you’re telling me he’s from Nazareth. And we see a little bit of skepticism in Nathaniel.

Now, Nathaniel was a godly man, but he was also, he had a show-me attitude toward things. I need to see it. And so Philip said to him, come and see.

He says, can anything, can the Messiah really come out of Nazareth? And Philip says, come and see. Come and check it out for yourself.

So verse 47, Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is no deceit. Some of your Bibles may say in whom is no guile. he knew immediately upon seeing Nathaniel the character of the man that this was not a crooked dealer this was not somebody who was you know slippery like an eel and always trying to figure out an advantage and always running some angle this was a straightforward guy this was an honest man and he says that as soon as Nathaniel walks up and now Nathaniel’s puzzled Nathaniel is not like some of us who have just been given a compliment would have said, well, thank you.

I sure am pretty great, aren’t I? No, Nathaniel says, wait a minute. How do you know me?

How do you know? Nathaniel realizes it’s true, but he says, how do you know anything about me? He says in verse 48, Nathaniel said to him, how do you know me?

And Jesus answered and said to him, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Now, we don’t know that much about the fig tree experience, except to know it’s something significant enough that Jesus would not have known about just from sitting there as a man. It’s not something he would have known about, and it’s significant enough that it got the attention of Nathaniel the skeptic.

And apparently, the most likely explanation, it sounds like, is Nathaniel had been sitting under a fig tree, as evidently there’s some tendency to do, as I read about in these commentaries, people in that time would sit under a fig tree to try to commune with God. They would pray under the fig tree. They would think on God’s word under the fig tree.

And it’s entirely possible that Nathaniel, sitting there seeking what it was God wanted him to do under that fig tree, and Jesus had no way of knowing except he’s God and he sees all and he knows all. As a man, he didn’t see Nathaniel under the fig tree or it wouldn’t be that amazing. But as God, He saw Nathanael under the fig tree.

He said, I saw you and I knew you when you were under that fig tree. Verse 49, Nathanael completely changes his tune because of this interaction with Jesus. Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, teacher, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel. Just that recognition that Jesus knew him when from a human standpoint he shouldn’t have. But as God, he knew him.

it was enough to convince Nathanael, the slightly skeptical man, that this was the Son of God. And Jesus answered, verse 50, and said to him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.

And he said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. So he says, Because of this one encounter you believed? He said, I’m telling you, you’re going to see even greater than this.

You think you understand I’m the Son of God now. You just wait until you really see it. So Nathanael, this man goes in skeptical, but he meets Jesus who knows Nathanael, who knows him, who knows his heart, knows his history, and it’s enough to convince Nathanael this is no ordinary man.

This is no mere teacher. This is the Son of God. I want to take you to the story of the next kind of skeptical person, which we see just a couple chapters later in John chapter 4.

Now this is kind of a long story, so I’m going to skip over a few things here. But we see Jesus showing up in John chapter 4. He shows up in a small village in Samaria, and it was unusual for him to go there because of the animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans.

It was unusual for him to stop and talk to a Samaritan woman. It was practically unheard of. But also, this is a woman with a reputation, and she’s at the well in the middle of the day, drawing water in the heat of the day, because the women don’t want anything to do with her there in town, so she has to go when they’re not at the well.

Jesus comes up to her and asks her for something to drink. And she’s amazed because she knows that he’s a teacher. He’s a Jewish teacher from Galilee, And she’s amazed that he would stop and talk to her, not only because of her reputation, but also because she’s a woman, and because of the animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans.

So he asks her for a drink. In verse 9, then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

And Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. She says, why would you ask me for a drink? And he says, lady, if you knew who I was, you’d be asking me for a drink.

Because I’ve got the water. Talking about himself, I’ve got the water that will leave you never thirsting again. He’s got the living water.

She still doesn’t understand. In verse 11, the woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. How are you going to get the water out there?

Where do you get that living water? She doesn’t understand. does not understand.

Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock? Verse 13, Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water, talking about the well water, will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become a spring in him, a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

He says, you don’t understand. That water will leave you thirsty. I’m the living water who will bring you everlasting life, and you’ll never have to thirst again.

In verse 15, she’s intrigued. She’s intrigued. She said, Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

But Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here. Jesus has this incredible ability to cut through all the red herrings and all the arguments that people throw up and want to distract. And gets right to the heart of somebody’s spiritual problem.

He says, go call your husband and tell him to come here. Verse 17, the woman answered and said, I have no husband. And Jesus says, you have well said.

Jesus said to her, you have well said, I have no husband. For you have had five husbands. And the one whom you now have is not your husband.

And that you have spoken truly. He says, no, I know very well you don’t have a husband. This woman had had five husbands, and she was now living with a man who was not her husband.

And that’s probably part of the reason why the other women in the town didn’t really want anything to do with her. They were probably afraid she was going to try to have their husbands, too. I don’t say that to be mean to her.

I’m just saying this is a woman who was not in a good situation. Her life was a mess, and Jesus realized this. And I think she’s a little shocked here that Jesus, a stranger in this area, who had no way of knowing this, knows who she is.

Evangelists have tried to, televangelists have tried to pull this off. There’s a man named Peter Popoff, who as I understand it, I don’t want to get sued, so allegedly, just allegedly for this whole story, but according to the reports I’ve heard, would go into his crusades and he’d get a message from God about there’s somebody, and he might read off their address and some ailment they had, and people were just amazed. Peter Popoff hears from God.

Well, I think it was the magician, James Randi, I think that’s who it was, went in with a radio scanner to one of his crusades, and he allegedly was getting radio messages through a wireless thing in his ear from his wife who was reading off of the prayer cards that these people filled out. allegedly okay folks this is not some parlor trick that jesus is doing jesus really knows who this woman is and what’s going on in her past he doesn’t need some advanced team to come and get her to fill out a prayer card he knows her heart and she picks up on this and in verse 19 the woman said to him sir I perceive that you are a prophet yeah I bet he just told you everything you’ve done wrong. Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.

Verse 20, others worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. Oh, he’s getting a little too close to stepping on toes territory. This is uncomfortable for her, so she tries to deflect him into a theological argument.

Where’s the right place to worship? Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father, you worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

There’s so much good stuff there that I’d love to dig into. We don’t have the time this morning to go verse by verse through that. And I have done that in the last couple of months.

in this very passage. But he’s just telling her, you know, she’s trying to get him off deflected into a theological argument over where’s the right place to worship. And he just pole vaults past all that and says, really what matters in worship is that you’re worshiping the Father in spirit and in truth.

So he clears her hurdle. And the woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming who is called Christ. Now remember, when you see the word Christ in the Bible, it’s not Jesus’ name, it’s his title. It means Messiah.

The Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. He claimed to be the Messiah of God.

Now, we see that the disciples come back and talk to him. Skip ahead to verse 28. The woman then left her water pot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, Come see a man who told me all the things that I ever did.

Could this be the Christ? could this be the Messiah? and I don’t think it’s really I don’t think it’s really a question it’s phrased as a question but I don’t believe the meaning there is a question I believe it’s like when we we hear good news and we know it’s true but we say can it be?

can that really be true? it’s like all the time we were praying for Carly Jo while she was in the hospital that she wouldn’t have to have the heart surgery and we’re still praying that she won’t ever have to have it But we were praying she’d get to go home without the heart surgery. And I think the whole time we believed that God was going to do this.

We just had a piece about it that I can’t explain. I don’t always feel that way. But in this case, I felt like God’s got this and she’s not going to have to have the surgery.

And I remember the very last Sunday that she was in there before being released. I came to church. I left here.

I went to the city. I got up there and Charles said, you just missed the cardiologist. And he’s talking like she’s not going to have to have surgery and this and that. And I just fell back in my chair and I said, are you serious?

She might not have to have the surgery? It was phrased as a question, but it wasn’t a question. It was just an expression of amazement, of astonishment.

And that’s what I sense in reading this from her. I don’t believe she’s questioning whether he’s the Messiah. I believe she knows it, and she’s expressing her amazement that she’s found him.

Because why else? She’s not going to these people as a matter of curiosity and saying, this guy could be the Messiah. He could not.

Come see for yourselves. She’s saying, this man told me everything I’ve ever done. Could it be?

Could we really? We’ve found the Messiah. She identifies him as the Christ, as the Messiah.

Because he was able to see past all her theological arguments. He was able to see past the facade that she put up and see right into the middle of her heart and what her deepest spiritual need was. To identify it and to fill it.

And she came away convinced that he was the Messiah. Now I want to take you to look at a third story this morning. A third story of a skeptic.

Someone who started off kind of skeptical. Turn a few pages back with me. I don’t know how many pages are in your Bible. but from John chapter 4 to Luke chapter 23 is going to be just a few pages.

Luke chapter 23. And in this story, we see that Jesus is on the cross. And as we start this story, he’s been crucified between two thieves.

We’re going to be in verse 32. It says in verse 32, there were also two others, criminals, led with him to be put to death. now we don’t see it immediately in this account but if we look at Matthew’s gospel he says in Matthew 27.

44 even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing so while the soldiers and the authorities and the crowd were on the ground mocking Jesus it started out that these two robbers who were being crucified on either side of him were mocking him as well and verse 33 of Luke 23 says And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. So he’s been crucified between these two criminals. They’re mocking him just like the people on the ground are.

And Jesus says in verse 34, That is incredible grace. That is incredible grace that these people nailed him to the cross. The ones on the ground nailed him to the cross for no good reason.

I mean, from their standpoint, we know that it was God’s plan. But from their standpoint, they had no good reason other than they hated him and they trumped up some charges. And Jesus is pleading with the Father to forgive them.

We see these two thieves who are guilty as charged. And here they are mocking an innocent man who’s suffering the same fate as they were through no fault of his own, no sin of his own. And he’s pleading with the Father to forgive them.

I don’t think I would be quite as forgiving as Jesus. I aspire to be as forgiving as Jesus, but I’m not there. And these thieves, as they’re mocking, and the crowd as they’re mocking, they see this incredible grace, this incredible compassion that Jesus exhibits.

And some of them don’t really care. Because it says toward the end of verse 34, And they divided his garments and cast lots. The people on the ground are gambling over his clothes.

And the people, verse 35, stood looking on, but even the rulers with them sneered, saying, He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ, the chosen of God. Really, he claims that he saved all these other people. If he really is the Messiah, let him save himself.

They’re still mocking. Verse 36, the soldiers also mocked him, coming and offering him sour wine and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. If you really are who you claim to be, save yourself.

And an inscription was also written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, this is the king of the Jews. So to mock him as much as possible, they put up a sarcastic sign above him. Oh yeah, this is the king of the Jews.

All hail the king. But there was one person there, There was one person there who started out as a skeptic about Jesus, making fun of Jesus with all the others, but saw the incredible love of God flow through Jesus, saw the compassion that he was able to express, the grace that he was able to show toward others, that he’s pleading for their forgiveness, even as they’re mistreating him in some of the most vile ways possible. And this one person recognized all that and became convinced that he was exactly who he said he was.

Verse 39 says, Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us. One of the criminals is still in the act, saying, If you really are who you say you are, get yourself off of here, and us too, take us with you. Verse 40, But the other, answering, rebuked him.

Not rebuke Jesus, but rebuke the other criminal. saying, do you not even fear God seeing you are under the same condemnation? He’s really changed his tune here from one of the ones who was mocking to saying, wait a minute, do you not even fear God at this last moment of your life? You are literally about to die.

You are just about to stand before God and you’re still focused on this mocking. You’re not even concerned about what’s going to happen to you next. You are under the same condemnation and we indeed justly, we deserve to be here.

For we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. He’s really changed his tune. Wait a minute.

He doesn’t deserve to be up here. We do, but he doesn’t. Then he said to Jesus, the criminal, he finishes rebuking his comrade and turns to Jesus and says, Lord, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus said to him, assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. See, when this man saw the supernatural ability that Jesus had to forgive in the midst of these horrible circumstances, he became convinced that Jesus was exactly who he said he was. And he turned to Jesus and he call