Sermon Tone Analysis

I just went over to Starbucks and got some coffee, I ordered my vente % extra hot wet Capuccino, because I’m low maintenance, and the barrista got it wrong.

He called it out: “vente % extra wet Cappucino”, and I took a sip, and my wife watched me and said “are you ok?” and I said “yeah?

Why?”

And she said “because he got it wrong” and I said “yeah, he did but it came out right.”

And she said “what do you mean?”

And I said   “I can’t really explain it, it’s not really extra wet, it’s really hot, so even though he made an extra wet vente Cappuccino, it came out especially for me as a vente % extra hot wet Cappuccino.”

And you may be asking yourself “what does this have to do with anything important in life?”

Well, it has a lot to do with the questions we’re dealing with today.

Let me read some of them.

Brian, age 42, “I have always questioned organized religion, studied Kabala, then became a parent (not sure if there’s any connection there), and there are no differences.

I do believe in a higher power, not sure what it is, I grew up in a somewhat religious home, what is it that sets Mosaid apart from other religious organizations that I have been involved with.”

April, 20, “In the back of my mind I’ve always had this thought.

You look at other religions and they are so convinced that they are right, well aren’t we like that?  Christians are so convinced their God is real and what we think is true, what if we’re the ones that are wrong, and say, Islam is the one that is actually true?”  Jim 46, New Testament teaches that Christ is the only way to avoid eternal damnation, that Christ accomplishes this through the work of the sacrifice of the cross, how can these people who have never heard of Christ be damned by a just God?

Is there an alternative way to obtain salvation than by Jesus?”  Jason 18,  “After accepting Christ as your Lord and savior, how do you know if you’ve really accepted Christ if you don’t feel any different than anybody else?”  Alex, 23, “Why is it that though I firmly believe in predestination or intentional micro-design, I’m not really sure what that means, I continually question whether or not I’m truly elected?

My father is a theologian, went to a major seminary, and then I fell away, and then several years ago chose to come back to the faith several years ago, can you explain this?

Where are the boundaries of our free will?

Is salvation is our choice or God’s choice?”

Ayume, 19, “If God really loves His children, why does He allow them to fall away from Him?”  Here’s a good one.

Kylie age 28, “Why would a loving God who is omniscient and exists outside of time create humanity in such a way, free will,  where they are placed in a system, i.e., sin separates one from God that results in self-choosing doubt?

How can I explain to someone who doesn’t know God yet that the whole way God set it up indicates that God created something that will result in people being in pain?”  Michael, “Why would a God of love who holds the very essence of creativity in his hand have created this free will system as the best one for humanity?

Given that sin separates one from God, is this question answerable?

Or is it one that just can’t fit into the human brain?

If it can’t be answered, I’m cool with it.

Thank you.”

What happens to humans who never hear the word of God, the good news of God, but they live basically good moral lives, Buddhists, Hindus, who will never hear about Christianity before he or she dies?

What about those that died before hearing about Jesus?

Will God judge them relative to the information they received?”

Jesus said no one gets to the Father but through him.

This decree would condemn many great people such as Gandhi to eternal separation from God.  Merely for being born at the wrong place at the wrong time, how is such a rule that determines that what a person believes morally to be defensible?”

How can billions of Buddhists and Muslims be wrong?

How can this be fair?

How can you know that Christianity is the one true religion.

How can we say that when Asia which comprises half the human population with religions that are fundamentally opposite to ours?

I am skeptical of Christianity as the only way.

If Christians accept Jesus as the basis of faith, why not accept Brahma or Krishna on the basis of faith?

Why is Jesus the only way?

What is the point of having faith?

If there is a God and Truth with a capitol T and our life depends on some part of getting that truth right, what do you do with the diversity of human convictions and human fallibility when it comes to knowledge, particularly self knowledge, particularly of your own beliefs.

It’s like the teacher has left the classroom with the information on the black board for us to figure out and we’re gonna be tested on it.

I hate the lostness and I am in it.”

Let’s pray.

“Father, we are inundated with questions about how Jesus could be the only way, how you as a just and merciful God could condemn people to Hell who never even heard the message of Christ.

I ask you Lord God to engage us in a conversation today that makes sense.

To help us see you for who you are, to understand the human dilemma.

I confess this subject is too big for my brain and too heavy for my heart, so God even though I know that I can’t unravel all of this, I ask for clarity about what’s important, and what’s true.

Amen.”

So back to my Cappuccinno, this is a disclaimer and not everybody’s gonna really like it, but I want to deal with it and address this issue, when the world is predominantly Hindu and Buddhist and Muslim, and then the Scriptures say that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but by him: how is it that we could possibly conceive that Jesus is the only way to God?  What happens to people who never hear?

And what about a person who lives a moral life or a just life?

All these questions are asking an important question about God, and that guy who made my Cappuccino wrong and it came out right, let me tell you that I would like to believe God has this thing mapped out in a whole way that I don’t understand, wouldn’t you?

A lot of it hurts my brain to think about it, but it hurts my soul not to think about it.

I think that’s really the quandry, I think the fundamental question we are asking here is “Does God care more than us?”  Really, that’s the essential question: “Is God more interested, more concerned, more compassionate, more loving, more interested, more proactive, in relationship to the human condition?

If the Scriptures are right, and all of humanity is separated from God by sin and we’re all in this dilemma that is described as sin and there is an eternity that is beyond the end of this life, God should be more concerned about it than us, don’t you think?

It’s amazing to me how many conversations I’ve had over lunch or dinner with people who are not followers of Jesus, and inevitably, every one of them will ask me this question:  what about the people in India?

I’m amazed about how people are about people in India.

But it always becomes the question, and I think it’s a good question, and an important question, because what we are basically asking or really saying is “I could not give my life to a God who doesn’t care about everyone.

I could not worship a God who is indifferent to the majority of the human population and basically says “Tough luck”.”

And I think sometimes Christians, when they hear that question, what about the people in India or Africa or China, what about Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus, I think sometimes Christians unfortunately become indignant and become defensive, and say “Well, I’m sorry, but Jesus is the only way”.

And what ends up happening is Christians come across as the least caring people on the planet.

And everyone else is concerned about everyone else but Christians don’t seem to care.

As long as we’re right, we’re ok.

And we don’t deal with the essential primal question of the human soul: “Is God actually better than us, because if God is less caring than us, maybe He should be worshipping us?

He should look up to us and aspire to become like you or me.

And unfortunately there are a number of religious systems that could communicate that there are people who care more about humanity than God does.

And I think that’s a problem.

Are all religions the same?

Don’t you just wish they were?

I mean, from a purely humane perspective, I wish everything just sort of played out and in the end we all realize that no matter what curtain you picked, it’s always curtain number 3.  Have you watched that show Deal or No Deal?

I haven’t seen anybody win the 1,000,000 yet.

Isn’t that the high dollar suitcase?

Seen anybody win the million yet?

And don’t you just wish that inside every one of those suitcases it said a million?

But it doesn’t.

And there’s something inside of us, and we just want everybody to win, I’m for that, I want everybody to win.

Years ago somebody said “For me to win, someone has to lose.”

That person was scary!

See for me to win, you don’t have to lose.

I don’t have a personal need for everyone else to be wrong, do you?

I don’t have a personal need to be more right than everyone else, I just want people to experience the life that comes in God.

And that should be our core motivation, and as we approach this Scripture, I want you to realize that all religions are not the same.

I know we want them to be, we want everything in the end to just work out ok, and I understand that, and I’m with that motivation.

I think we’re starting from the same place.

But to say that every religion and every philosophy and every belief system is the same is to really dishonor the significance and value of human beings.

We don’t all choose the same thing.

This isn’t a façade.

It’s not an illusion, it’s not all of us choosing different colors but in the end, our favorite color is simply blue.

I just thought it was orange.

Wow,  I thought my favorite color was pink but it’s blue just like everyone else’s, but we’re hoping is that no matter what color we choose in the end it’s blue.

Your favorite food, maybe it’s Italian, maybe it’s Chineese, it’s funny I meet very few Chineese people who Chineese is their favorite food.

But a lot of causcasians I meet, “Oh, Chineese, it’s my favorite.”

And you never know what people are gonna choose, do you?

And maybe yours is sushi or Mexican, but in the end, we all realize we all eat the same meal.

It’s all been Salvadoran all along.

And I wish I could stand before you today and say “I’ve come to the conviction that everything in the end just works out and everything is the same,  and every religion is the same and every philosophy is the same, but they’re not.

And there are at least two fundamental differences, and I love that question “What is the difference between what Mosaid believes, and why is Jesus supposed to be the only way?”

I think these are important questions.

And when you look at the backdrop of human history and religion, you have to basically categorize religion into two categories: they’re either legalistic or fatalistic.

See either religions says “God is aloof or they say God is impersonal.

If God is aloof, that leads to legalism: so then you have all these rules and all these rituals and all these criteria that you have to live up to and strive toward so that God might accept you into His kingdom.

And the other one is fatalism and it says you have no control over your destiny, it’s all mapped out, it’s all pre-packaged, it’s all pre-planned,  and you have an illusion, a perception of freedom and choice but the truth of the matter is that you don’t really get to choose, it’s all set into order.

And what you find is those different views inform world religions.