Relevance

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Here's what we discussed last night in the student housegroup. It's part 1 of our 'Discipleship' course...

Relevance

Let’s talk about relevance tonight. We talked earlier in the year about the relevance of the church and what it meant to us and how God sees it. I want to pick that up again and explore more.

When I was becoming a Christian – for me, it wasn’t a decision or moment – it was a journey. I asked “God, if you’re there – reveal yourself to me” and thus began a journey where God would reveal himself to me.

I began to notice change, I began to pray and all the while in secret. I wasn’t going to throw all my cards in until I was certain. At the time, Linkin Park had a song out called ‘Somewhere I Belong’ which really spoke to me, as I was looking for who I was and where I fitted into life. Hungover in a coffee shop on valentine’s day 2003 – I decided I didn’t like who I was or where I was going or what I stood for. I didn’t know the answer, but I knew it wasn’t where I was, so I had to look for it.

5 years later, I can say that God is real, alive, involved and relevant in my life – so let’s try and explore some issues surrounding it.

Why is Jesus relevant?

Some people will have different opinions on this. And for every reason there is a million ideas of how to express it. But for me, the Relevance of Jesus is not rooted in His message of love, or how we can write songs about Him, make art in His name, have pictures, audio, multimedia etc…those are just means of telling people about Jesus.

There are churches that say “We’re post-Jesus. We don’t need to teach Jesus. Let’s just live better, try to all get along and live in peace.” Wrong. That is not God’s vision for His church. In John 12 Jesus reveals that He is “The way, the truth and life” and that “NO one comes to the Father except through me.”

We can’t get around Jesus. We can’t get to Heaven, be right with God, be able to serve or love God or even confess that God is Lord without Jesus.

But instead of asking; “How do we make Jesus relevant to people?” let’s ask ourselves; “Why? Why is Jesus relevant in my life?”

I believe the answer is found in Hebrews…

“Since He himself has gone through suffering and testing, He is able to help us when we are being tested.”
Hebrews 2:18

Are you a parent? He knows how hard that is.
Are you alone? He’s been there.
Are you sick? He made you, so he knows how to cure you.
Are you suffering? Persecuted? Beaten Up or just broken? He has firsthand experience of all of those things.
Are you tempted to do wrong? So was He.
Does the world ever feel like it’s too much to handle? Yeah.

Jesus is relevant – because he was willing to become like us. He isn’t some impersonal, distant but caring God. The religious leaders of the day, couldn’t believe that Jesus was who He said He was, because they thought they were getting a self-righteous King, a warrior, but one that bowed to tradition and law and reverence.

No, He got down in the mud with us. He didn’t wear whiter-than-white clothing. He was a meek and humble individual. He slept under the stars, dined with the broken, ordinary people and hung out with a rag-tag bunch of fishermen and a tax collector. He spent his days walking around with the sick and even dared to touch them. He suffered from persecution, betrayal, heartache, temptation and tremendous pain. He was even willing to become sin itself, to be separated from the Father and take the fullness of God’s wrath upon himself.

God had to turn his back, because He cannot look on sin. His own Son, willing to take our punishment, so that we could be found right with God. So that we can enjoy a relationship with him. So we don’t have to be alone…

Jesus is relevant because no matter what century we live in, no matter what technology brings or what kind of economic or political culture we live in – we are people. We feel. We hurt. We get sad. We fail. He came to fix all that. He became like us, and He won the victory.

Hebrews 4:15 says:
“This High Priest [Jesus] of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do, yet He did not sin.”

He didn’t fail in His mission. He didn’t succumb to the pain, or the temptation or the sorrow – but He felt it. You wouldn’t believe how he felt it. But He endured it. And He won.

The Relevance of the Gospel

So what makes this gospel relevant?

The stories of Jesus have not lived on because he was a good man. He is not just a model of how we should be. Nor is he just some symbol of goodness that we should strive to ascertain. His wisdom is not why we believe in him, nor is it because of his prophecies.

No, we love, believe, trust, serve and try to obey Jesus is the simple fact of his gospel – the most fundamental part of the gospel. He rose from the dead.

If Jesus was still dead, there would be no church. The disciples would have returned to being fishermen, perhaps more polite than they were or maybe even a little more inclined to help someone than before – but there would be no transformational power.
The crowds of people that gathered to hear him speak would have long forgotten his words and scattered. The next fad would have come up. Maybe it would be yo-yo’s this time. Or pogs.

No, the reason for our lives, our beliefs and our values is all built on the Resurrection.
“If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless and your faith is useless” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
Let’s also read 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.
Paul is explicit here in the timeline of events.

Other religions will say “He was a prophet” or “A wise teacher”. Some say “He fainted on the cross” or that “They found the wrong tomb on the Sunday”. Let’s dispose of some of these myths…

• Jesus was flogged, beaten and whipped. Some people didn’t even make it this far. Some men died before even being crucified.
• Jesus, tired, starving, beaten beyond recognition was nailed to a cross that impaled his body and ripped it open.
• Next, Jesus says “It is done” and dies.
• He is pronounced dead by the executioner. He is a trained, and skilled man. His job is to kill people. Every day. If he says someone is dead, they are dead. Final.
• Luke testifies in his Gospel that Jesus is dead. What was Luke’s profession? He was a doctor. He knows what a dead person looks like.
• Next, to speed things up, a spear (or javelin) is thrust into Jesus’ side. It says in scripture that ‘blood and water flowed out’ – water came from his heart. This method pierces the skin under the rib cage and pierces the heart, causing it to burst and leaks water and blood. Without a heart – he is dead.
• Next, Jesus is taken from the cross and wrapped in hundreds of pounds of cloth. He is in a near mummified state and left in a tomb for 3 days. No water, no medical attention, no food, no air, no heart.
• Now, the tomb – was from a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea. Being a wealthy man his tomb would have had prominence, position and place. It would be distinguishable from the others. When Mary came and told the disciples the news, it says that John and Peter RAN there. They didn’t need to ask directions, or work out where it was – they ran. They knew the way.

So what happens then?
Jesus’ tomb does not become a place of worship or prominence – because why worship an empty tomb?

Jesus starts appearing to disciples, crowds of up to 500 people at a time and not as a spirit – Jesus wasn’t raised a spirit of himself – he was a physical being. He ate, drank, touched, embraced, walked, everything…He rose again to a perfected, glorified body and walked the Earth for 40 days after the resurrection, enough time for people to make accounts, history books dating back to the 1st Century depict that Jesus rose again and told the disciples of stuff like the Gethsemane prayer that no one else was around to hear.

Let’s go back to Hebrews: the writer records
“But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lives forever. Therefore, He is able, once and for all to save those who come to God through Him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.” (Hebrews 7:24-25)

Our Gospel is relevant because it is different to everyone else’s. All those ‘all roads lead to heaven’ are going the wrong way. No other God died for his people. No other prophet dared to call themselves God’s son. No one else rose from the dead to lead the way to someone else. And it’s relevant to people, because of what we said earlier about Jesus’ relevance.

Maybe you get that.
Maybe that’s all old news.
But there’s another piece of the puzzle:

Why am I relevant?

John 15:16 says this:
“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name”

Church today has the ‘Jesus loves me’ down. We’ve got ‘God’s my provider, God’s planned my life, more than a conqueror’ stuff down. These are true, important and encouraging. But there’s more.

• God chose to make man and woman (Genesis 1) Before that, he made them an inhabitable world.
• He made them a paradise and made them to live with Him.
• When they sinned, he cast them out the garden for their own good. Because, the tree of life gave wisdom and understanding that only God should have. If God hadn’t cast them out, they would have ‘become like us’ [Gods] and much chaos would have ensued.
• God made plans to reconcile them to himself. He chose Jesus to do all that we said before about becoming like us to free us and save us, then came back from the dead to guide us to the Father and to intercede for us.

But what else? God chose us to spread the Good News. In the verse we read above it doesn’t say “I chose you because I like you and you deserve to get everything you want. Just ask and you’ll get it”. It says ‘I appointed you to GO and PRODUCE lasting fruit.”

You are part of the plan. Your actions and words are important and can shape those of the people around you. If you are brave enough to take this Christian life seriously, then God will use your appointment to make you more like him. Now, you’ll be the one feeding the poor, living with the ordinary and speaking out against injustice and religion. Why can’t God do it himself? He did.

In fact, God doesn’t ask us to do anything that He didn’t already do for himself.

Why can’t God just make everyone believe Him? He could, but He doesn’t want people forced into loving him. You can accept and reject his love at any time. Just like anyone else. Would you want to be at a party where everyone is forced to like you? No. You want to be around people who choose to appreciate and love you. People who respect you and trust you. We are relevant, because God has included us in the plan.

Y’know, we have it so easy, have so much freedom that we spend our lives praying “God! What do you want me to do? I don’t want to anything unless it’s Your will! Absolutely nothing! Nope, not a thing!” We have so much freedom, we don’t know what to do with it. So we waste it. We indulge in sin, in religion, in time-wasting relationships and other activities.

Start walking – and God will soon tell you you’re going in the wrong direction. Jesus said “Go!” He was OK with the disciples all going in different directions to spread the news – it got done. And that was the important thing. He guided their steps and they showed willingness to move.
Pastor Andrew said to me, when I was becoming more involved in church that my greatest ability – was availability. Making time to do whatever God needed me to.

So to wrap up:

Jesus is relevant. He suffered, cried, felt and was tempted just like you and me – but he didn’t sin. That said, because He didn’t means that he even knows the way to deal with that. Identify with him, trust in him – he’s been to hell and back for you.

The Gospel is relevant – because no other faith has a God who died for them. None will tell you that we can have resurrection and new birth NOW. That eternal life begins when you believe. This is not a multi-faith gospel, or even a crowd-pleasing gospel. It’s revolutionary, radical and relevant to everyone. Everyone needs a saviour.

And we are relevant – because God has chosen the weak things of this earth to confuse the wise and put them to shame. You and me were accepted as we were, but are daily changed into who we can become. Children of grace, ordinary and with a face and a mortgage and kids and responsibilities and feelings and failures. But we have a saviour, an intercessor helping us out who promises to give us what we need in this journey to spread the good news.