Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for this day. We thank you for the rain and the refreshment to the earth that it brings for your glory revealed in thunder and lightning and storm. You are magnificent Father and we worship you. We pray that you'll teach us today. Be with us, open your word to us, open our hearts to you. We ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. Okay, we were talking about respect in class last time and we had been discussing examples on the book of Acts from our three basic messages in Acts 13, 14 and 17. And also we looked, I think, just very briefly at Paul before a gripper. And the way he speaks to King Agripper with such respect and I need to ask you a question here. Did I talk just briefly about Ephesus as well in Acts 19? I did, okay. So I know exactly where we were. As I didn't have that in my outline and I put my note on where we'd reached after a gripper, I wasn't sure whether I had mentioned that or not. Now obviously we could look at many examples in the gospels of the same thing where we see Jesus, treating people with wonderful dignity. I already mentioned earlier, I think, a few weeks ago, Jesus encounter with the Samaritan woman recorded for us in the Gospel of John chapter four. So a remarkable example of that. As you see Jesus meeting with the Samaritan woman by the well, there are so many things that are striking about that encounter in John chapter four. There are all sorts of reasons why Jesus as a Jew would have found it difficult to meet this woman and treat her with dignity and respect, her race, the Jews despise the Samaritans racially because they regarded them as a mixed breed, a mixture of Israeli blood, intermarried with the peoples, the Assyrians had transported into that area after the northern captivity, the captivity of the northern kingdom. They hated them and despised them fear logically because they saw them as heretics. They hated their religion with such passion and such zeal for God as they saw it that somewhere around 150 BC the Jews had actually burnt down, the temple the Samaritans had built on mangerism because they saw it as an offence to heaven.
They despised them so much that if the Jew and the Samaritan were walking down a road on a sunny day, the Jew would go into the ditch to avoid even their shadow being touched by the shadow of a Samaritan. Because they regarded them as absolutely religiously and morally unclean before God, added to those challenges that Jesus as a Jewish teacher faced meeting the Samaritan woman is the problem of course of her gender. As I've said to you, Jewish rabbis did not teach women, they didn't regard them as having sufficiently capable minds to be worthy of learning at the feet of teachers. And that's why when the Jewish women could not be called to be a witness in a court of law while they weren't taught theology, they were simply looked down on as rationally inadequate. And along with all these of course is the sin of this woman. She is basically in that culture a prostitute, a woman who's been passed from man to man. When a woman was divorced five times like this, it was simply assumed in those cultures that this was the woman's fault that it was a lack in her. And so she's basically regarded as just a sexual object and now she's reduced to the point of living with a man who hasn't even dignified her with a marriage ceremony or a marriage contract. So here's a woman who's despised in all sorts of ways both by Jews and even by people in her own culture. And when you see Jesus talking to her as you read that account in John chapter four, it's just a wonderful example of the dignity with which Christ treats people. As you read that account, Jesus has a theological discussion with her. That's what's actually happening. No man would ever have treated her that way before. And if you think about the reality of her sin, she's a person regarded as morally outcast and yet here's the creator of the universe absolutely wholly, absolutely morally perfect, talking with her in this way, breaking Jewish law, setting aside Jewish custom by asking her for a drink when it was against Jewish law to eat or drink anything from anything touched by a Samaritan. And yet this is exactly how Jesus begins their contact by dignifying her in this remarkable manner. And it's a really wonderful example to us of respect. And we find this all the way through the Gospels. I think of Jesus, the other example I've mentioned here in Luke chapter 19, Jesus, when he meets Sikias, a tax collector, Jesus invites himself to Sikias has for a meal. And it astonishes everyone watching, not just the Pharisees and teachers of the law, but everyone because they wonder, can Jesus possibly be from God because he's gone to be the guest of a sinner? But Jesus affirms the dignity and value and worth of Sikias by inviting himself to his home for a meal. It's the same where the prostitute comes to wash Jesus' feet with her tears and anoint them with oil and dry them with her hair. Simon the Pharisee, in whose house this is taking place, who's invited Jesus to be a guest in his home, thinks to himself as he sees this happening obviously after all, Jesus, he may be able to teach a few things, but he's not from God. Otherwise he'd know what kind of person this woman is and he wouldn't allow her to touch him, but Jesus dignifies her by receiving this gift from her. It's one of the beautiful things you see with the gospel that Christ, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who's absolutely holy, dignifies people by showing his vulnerability to them and receiving from them what they have to give him. It's remarkable. Of course, God does with this with all of us every day. He delights to receive the gifts we offer despite our lack of worth in terms of the reality of our sin. But see, this is precisely what the gospel is. The gospel itself when God comes to you to draw you to Christ when God accepts you every day of your life when you come to him in your need and in your sin is a gospel which treats you with wonderful dignity and grace and respect. That is the gospel. There is no other gospel and this is precisely what we are called to do and we've already looked at these passages several times where the apostles command us to treat people with respect. In 1 Peter 3, 15, whenever you talk about your faith to anyone, even if they are enemies of the gospel, if they are enemies of you who criticize you, that's the contact in 1 Peter 3 of people who are criticizing believers. Peter says, give your defense, give your apology with gentleness and with respect and pull the same in Colossians 4. Now, we've already looked at this issue. What is it that enables us to respect people? Fundamentally, it is that they are made in the image of God that they are made in God's image. Our calling as Christians, whenever we meet anyone, is that our first response, our automatic response, should be to see where each person we meet demonstrates the glory of being created in the image of God. We are to ask ourselves the question that Psalm 8 asks, what is this person, this man, this woman, this child, that God should be mindful of them and our answer is they are crowned with glory and honor. They are made in God's image and our calling is to see that with every individual we ever meet. That should be your first response as you meet a fellow student here, the seminary, as you go out from here to work in churches of one kind or another. As you meet unbelievers around you, your first impulse should be to see to observe where this person demonstrates the image of God. Where do they show this dignity, this glory, this honor of being made by God in his likeness? Calvin has a lot to say about this in his institutes and that may surprise some of you who assume that reformed theology teaches that people are just wretched sinners and that people are totally depraved, reformed theology does teach total depravity, that is that every aspect of our humanity is deeply damaged and torn apart by the fall, but reformed theology is also always taught. That first of all, fundamentally people bear the image of God. That's who they are. And Calvin uses the beautiful image that human beings, every one of them are like ruined statues. We see the ruin, but we also always see the outlines of their former glory of God's image indelibly imprinted on them. That's Calvin's image that he uses, the image of a statue. Of a ruined statue. And it's our calling to always see that, to see that glory of people. And even when we do see their sin, it should remind us not of their worthlessness, but of our own sin.
Whenever I see somebody else's sin, it ought to have the impact on me of reminding me of the far greatest seriousness of my own sin, because I'm a person who has come to know God through Jesus Christ. I'm a person who knows his commandments, who longs to love him and serve him, and yet I serve him so poorly, so coldly, so lacking in zeal, so inadequately. And my sin ought to cause me far greater distress than the sin of anyone else. When I see the sin of unbelievers, it ought to put a sword in my own heart, because this is so much more serious, not that their sin isn't serious, that's my point, but it's my sin that ought to be most serious to me. That's what Jesus challenges us to first take the beam out of our own eye. The person who has come to know Christ, the better we know him, the closer we draw to him, the more fully and deeply we desire to walk in his ways, the more aware we become of our own sin. And thirdly, our response is going to be compassion, compassion, recognizing their need just as I recognize my own need. The recognition of my sin reminds me of my own need for Christ, and that enables me to look at others in their sin with grace, and with compassion knowing that they need just exactly what I need. Now one last thing I want to add here, and that is this, on respect. Respect is not a technique that you can adopt like some new method of evangelism, and please don't think that that's what I'm talking about here, that in place of some other technique, you know, Jeremiah's as teaching respect as a technique, and these other things we're going to be talking about, these other principles, respect isn't a technique. You respect people because you ought to because God commands it, because he has indeed created them in his image, and to fail to respect them and honor them, is to blaspheme against God. That's why James says what he does in James chapter three, about cursing people and blessing God. A respect is not a technique, it's just like if I may say, if you've got the grocery store, and the checkout person gives you too much change, well why do you give the change back? Do you do it so that you can say I've done this because I'm a Christian, and here's a tract, or do you do it because it's right? You do it because honesty is right, and it's good, and it's beautiful, and it's what God commands, it's not a technique for communicating the gospel to people. It's simply the right thing to do, whether it gives you an opportunity to share the gospel or not, it's the right thing to do, and that's why we're called to respect people, it's the right thing to do, it's part of obedience to God, it's the appropriate response to who people are. If you had tried to adopt respecting people as a sort of technique, they see right through it.
The challenge is that we are not to despise people, so if I just think of it this way, think of the kind of books very often in teaching there is by Christians about the new age movement,
much of what's there is very different from Charlie Stromer's book, much of what you can find at a ridicule's new age belief. Think how offensive it is to you as a Christian when you hear somebody ridiculing faith in Christ. The gospel calls us to do unto others as we would have them do to us. We long to have the name of Christ honored and respected by other people because we know he's worthy of all honor and respect. But if we long that for that for ourselves and it hurts us when we see unbelievers showing disrespect and dishonor and blaspheming the name of Christ, well then we certainly shouldn't treat them in a way we don't want to be treated ourselves. Of the golden rule which is a biblical rule calls us to treat others as we long to be treated ourselves. Let me use an example here which I'm kind of reluctant to use but it's something I've thought about and some of you I know just a very few of you because most of you have expressed to me a deep appreciation for what I'm trying to teach in this class but some of you you know think that it's not intellectual enough that it's not academic enough that it's too practical. Those criticisms come back to me and I see occasionally one or two of you reading another book during class. A teacher is quite aware of these things. One sees far more up here than you may possibly imagine.
And let me just give you an illustration of something that happened to me recently because you need while you're here at seminary whether you like what I'm saying or not or any of the other professors. You need to learn to treat us and each other with respect. You're going to go add in the churches and you're going to meet all sorts of people in churches including other pastors and elders alongside whom you're going to serve and people in the congregations whom you find it difficult to respect and you're going to meet lots of unbelievers like that too but this is a kind of training grand being here where you need to learn to exercise respect as a principle a few weeks ago I as a principle obedience to God. A few weeks ago I went to speak somewhere and it was one of the most moving things that's happened in my life occurred. As I was starting the lecture I noticed somebody who looked vaguely familiar coming in and my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be and the light at the back of the church was rather dim but afterwards the guy came up to speak to me and it was a student who graduated several years ago and during his three or four years here at seminary he had been one of those who really never listened to anything I said all the way through his seminary classes he would sit in the back and read a book rather ostentatiously actually because he really didn't think what I was saying was worth listening to and it's something I prayed about a great deal you know how to get through to this guy and I tried in all sorts of ways but anyway he was there at this meeting and I was giving a very basic lecture on breaking down walls and building bridges to people and he came up to me afterwards and he said you know I don't think I heard any of this the first time you said it and I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to hear it again
and it was deeply moving to me because it's something I have been very distressing to me ever since while he was here and since he was here it makes you feel as a teacher complete failure that's the impact of something like that but now he's at a point in his life where he was ready to listen
and to show some respect and I think the reason for it is he's gone through some very hard experiences after he left here and when the church is he was in a situation where he found people he couldn't respect and they didn't respect him and he's been deeply humbled now he's ready to learn in a new kind of way so I just appeal to you for your own sake not so much for mine but for your own sake if you find it difficult to respect either me or any of the other teachers here or your fellow students that's something you need to deal with in your own heart for your own sake before the Lord because this is disobedient to his word it's disobedient to his word and it's dishonoring to his people and it's dishonoring it will be dishonoring to his church if you behave like that out and out there and it'll be dishonoring to unbelievers so I urge you and challenge you to think about this very carefully that brings us to our second principle building bridges building bridges what do I mean by building bridges it's really a very simple principle it's not just that God calls us to respect people because they are made in his image because his nature is indelibly stamped in their being it is that whenever we meet people we need to work at finding aspects of their thinking which we can commend which we can approve we don't need to just respect people themselves we need to work at respecting what they think
at looking at their beliefs looking at their lives and finding things which we can honestly commend to put it another way what we're really looking for is aspects of truth in their thinking and they're always going to be there now come back and talk about that in a moment but first to look at our examples what about the synagogue when Paul is speaking to Jews and to God-fearing Gentiles in the synagogue in Psydean Antioch in Acts 13 now we're to spoke about what Paul could take for granted when he was in the synagogue if we look at that slightly another way what Paul is really doing is building on aspects of the thinking of these people in the synagogue which he can commend which he can approve which have elements of truth in them and that kind of obvious now his here is believe in the one true God who has revealed himself to his people Israel they're thoroughly familiar with the Old Testament and regarded as inspired they know Israel's history they're committed to obeying the law they're expecting the Messiah they know they are accountable to God and so on now Paul's sermon is basically constructed on all of those points and we could add others to them as I did the other day so for Paul these are contact points these are bridges which he uses in the synagogue to communicate the message of the gospel to these people Paul's sermon is carefully constructed to build on what they already know
Paul begins his message in the synagogue not by attacking their disbelief or their failure to obey the law adequately or their refusal to have already responded to the knowledge they have of Jesus but Paul begins by commending them as people who worship God that's how he begins his message in the synagogue now if we turn to the message in Mars Hill we also find Paul building bridges there and I want us to look at that one a little more carefully again where does Paul begin despite his distress at the idolatry of these people Paul is deeply disturbed in spirit by the idolatry he finds in Athens but where does he begin he begins by commending them for their religious longings for their desire to worship many of Athens he says Acts 17 verse 22 and 23 I see that in every way you are very religious as I walked around and looked carefully or objects of worship I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God now what you worship as something unknown I'm going to proclaim to you and these people are idolaters they worship at pagan temples but Paul begins his message by commending them for their desire to worship and to know God that's where he begins he begins by telling them what you worship as unknown I'm going to tell you I want you to think about that imagine yourself saying the same thing to somebody who's involved in the new age movement commending their desire to worship telling them that the God they worship
in ignorance you're going to reveal to them more fully that's what Paul does here in Athens that's what he does he's really asking this question what can I commend rather than beginning by saying where shall I attack them what's wrong with their thinking Paul takes the opposite approach not where they're wrong but what can I build on now again the bridges are obvious here so he is looking and we've already gone through these so I won't go through them again but he oh he builds on their need to know God and their need to worship they're understanding that God is greater than human persons their sense of the dignity of human beings that there's something specialist about us as the offspring of God these are the things on which Paul builds in the synagogue
now if we think about this question and I want to come back to speak a little bit more about something I mentioned at the beginning of the semester sometimes people raise objection to what I'm saying by saying there is nothing common there is no common ground between believers and unbelievers therefore this is an impossible task and you remember I drew these circles on the board and if we talk put in this one Christian belief or a Christian worldview and we put over here non-Christian belief whatever it is or non-Christian worldview very often people talking about apologetics and how we can communicate to unbelievers will say there is no common ground between believers and unbelievers so there is nothing on which we can build in the thinking of non-Christians these two people inhabit totally different worlds shaped by the commitment of the heart shaped by their unbelief and so our task can be simply to proclaim the gospel we cannot build on anything in the thinking of the unbeliever now if this were an accurate picture of the way things are then I would agree with that statement that there is no common ground there is nothing on which we can build if it were true that we inhabit different universes it would be appropriate to say there is nothing whatsoever in the thinking or the life of the unbeliever on which I can build but that is not the situation in which anyone exists and you remember I I change this image to draw it this way the truth is that every human being is living between two worlds and there is always an overlap
every person we're ever going to meet and we may say two fundamental things every person we're ever going to meet is living in God's universe there is no other place to live whether they believe in God or not whether they acknowledge Him or not whether they worship Christ or not there is nowhere else they can exist but in the world that God has made and they are constantly constrained by that reality
they may invent out of the idolatry and unbelief of their heart an alternative universe let's say a new age view of the world or an Islamic view of the world or a Marxist view of the world or a secularist view of the world a postmodern view of the world whatever it is or just practical idolatry worshipping their own body or worshipping money or sex or whatever it is but that's not the universe in which they actually live they are constrained by the reality of God's world that is always in common whoever they are whatever they say they believe the second thing that is always in common is that they are made in the image of God and they are constrained by that reality whether they acknowledge that or not they may think that they are a trouser ape
may think they may think their body is just and their mind and everything else is just a accidental coming together of atoms as Bertrand Russell the atheist expressed it that we are accidental collocations of atoms that's the whole universe and that's us too that's all we are they may think that they may proclaim it loudly or they may proclaim a new age view that they are one with God that they are an expot of an extension of God throughout the universe but whatever they say they believe whatever however we may describe this world view or this set of beliefs they are constrained by the reality that they are made in God's likeness let me use an illustration we have visiting with us right now staying with us a couple from England very dear friends of us who among other things were astonished by the storm last night they'd never seen anything like it the husband actually went and sat outside underneath the overhang by a garage to watch it he took a chair out there was absolutely astonished by the amount of thunder and lightning and the heaviness of the rain really had never seen anything like it at all but he works as an industrial psychologist that is he goes ran to businesses and he's very good at his job he goes ran to businesses helping them learn to treat their colleagues and employees better and he was telling me how the dramatic change that has taken place in business practice over the last few years a very interesting conversation we were visiting the winters on Sunday afternoon Dr. Richard Winter because their friends too this man is an elder in the church where I used to be a pastor for many years in England and he said businesses you can approach the question of their profitability in two ways one they can approach it by saying well we are going to just kind of screw everybody for every ounce of energy we can get out of them we are just going to press forward ruthlessly in this competitive marketplace and we are going to just motivate people by fear and by reward and all sorts of other things and that is going to improve our bottom line and with the threat of sacking and replacement and lower salaries and all sorts of other things and we're just going to get everything out of them we can and he said well that works for a while but then after a year you've got to kind of got to screw the whole thing up again and it starts getting diminishing returns people leave they can't cope with the pressure they actually start producing less if there's another approach you can take which is to actually start treating people well treating them as responsible and he said there's been a whole series of books written about values for business at the moment and he said it's remarkable because you'll find books with names like servant leadership and books about treating people with dignity in the workplace you know encouraging their gifts encouraging them to exercise responsibility delegating or authority and responsibility books even about forgiveness that when somebody makes a mistake in a business you don't just destroy them publicly in front of other people you forgive them and he said as a Christian it's it's past name to me to see this because you know I could say them well God's words said this thousands of years ago that this is where we should treat each other you know Christians have always known this what we've been faithful to God's word the businesses come to discover it purely pragmatically it works you treat people like this and a business flourishes and there are more and more businesses affected by this kind of approach now that's an example of what I'm saying here people are constrained by the way God has created the universe by the moral structures of reality they are constrained by the fact that people are made in God's image and if you treat them that way it's fruitful surprise surprise of course the Christian should never be surprised by this now of course it gives you wonderful things to talk about that this doesn't work you know for no reason whatsoever this works because this is the way God made universe in it and way he's made people and it gives him as an industrial psychologist who's highly regarded and who's travels a great deal all over Europe to to help businesses start treating people better you know it gives them all sorts of opportunities to share his Christian faith there's a reason why this works you know it's not just accidental happenstance that these things improve your bottom line and make your working conditions happier for everybody so that you've got fulfilled and useful and fruitful employees in your situation there are endless examples like this several years ago in some of you or remember this the University of Chicago did a huge study on human sexuality I'm sure many of you were a member hearing about it being reported at the time it was the most in-depth study of human sexuality that has ever been done and I remember you know I listened to NPR a lot because it's a way of finding out where the way what people are thinking around you and it was just fascinating at the time because they were reporting the findings of this research on human sexuality and they were astonished by the findings and they were joking about it you know as you listen to these reporters and commentators because the the findings said things like this that that people who stay together faithfully in their marriages are actually more sexually fulfilled when people who committed adultery and people who sleep around or people who have multiple sexual partners and people who are faithful to one person for life are more sexually fulfilled and they were astonished and have bizarre who would have thought it now a Christian's response this isn't bizarre at all you know why should we be surprised that that human sexuality is related to the rest of our humanity to kindness and respect and trustworthiness and loyalty and faithfulness now this is the way God created us and the second thing they went on to say and there were many many things but the other thing they found particularly funny was that actually people who are sexually faithful who are faithfully married actually have more sex than these you know high-flying singles out there who are rushing around supposedly having all these sexual partners but that's not actually the reality and again who should be surprised who should be surprised by this the people who love each other faithfully have not just a richer but a more frequent sexual experience so that's actually the norm now that's what I'm talking about here people are constrained by the way God created the universe and by the way he's created us and because of that there are always going to be elements in people's thinking where we can say there is truth there is something which we can approve here so this is our task to always ask the question what is right about people's thinking what is right about people's thinking what bridges can I build now before we go on to our third principle let me give some examples from today some further examples some today as we think about communicating to people about finding things which we may approve first of all what about church going people this isn't on the outline here so you won't find it if you start looking suppose we are talking to somebody who is not a Christian but who is basically or vaguely churched it's really difficult actually to know what proportion of Americans are churched and the reason for that is you can see difference surveys some surveys will say as many as 45 to 50% of the population go regularly to church others will put the number as low as maybe 30% now that's a huge difference what accounts for the difference is that people always present themselves as being more faithful at church attendance than they are and that's fascinating so if you word the question do you go to church let's say regularly once a month or something like that people who maybe go once or twice a year at Christmas in Easter will respond that they go once a month if you've got somebody who maybe goes once a month they will tell you an answer to surveys that they go regularly every week or two but this is a major part of their life what people aren't being purposely dishonest we all like to think better about ourselves than we are we deceive ourselves all of us all the time in this kind of way it's the same with if you ask questions about morality if you ask questions about how moral someone is the overwhelming majority of Americans will tell you in huge proportions that they basically obey the second half of the 10 commandments but if you ask the same person about other people you know basically 80% of them will say most other people 80% of other people don't obey the second half of the 10 commandments if people have a very different perception of themselves than they do of other people especially when it comes to religious and moral activity now in in Europe you wouldn't get quite the same response in most places not because Europeans are more truthful about such things they aren't more truthful in any way but in England for example going to church or France is not part of people's life anymore it's not even considered socially important at all so if you ask people there whether they get a church to just say no here it's still very much a part of the way of life of a significant part of the population and part of their memory and so people think this is some it would this is a measure somehow of their virtue and that's why they're responding this way in most European countries they don't think that anymore it's not that they're more truthful by nature they aren't but it's still considered something important to many Americans even if it doesn't actually have that much importance in their own lives any longer now what if the people are churched what are some of the bridges and number one do they believe in God do they believe in God and almost all of them will say they do the vast majority 90% of the Americans believe in God now that views of God may not be very clear they certainly won't be fully biblical but notice when Paul was speaking speaking people in the synagogue their views weren't fully biblical either the people in the synagogue did not believe in the Trinity they did not acknowledge that Jesus was God and yet Paul is able to build on their worship of the God of Israel but so we ask the question or we reflect on the issue does this person believe in God now the majority even of churchgoers in our society have a deistic view of God rather than a biblical one they have the view of deism that is that God is rather distant that he sort of created the world and wandered up like a clock and just sort of left it there but he doesn't interact with it but they do have some belief in God it won't be as biblical a belief as the people in that synagogue now I'm to let churchgoers here not just non-churched people but many people who are churched basically have a deistic view of God rather than a biblical one that's the reality but something you can on which you can build do they have respect number two for the Bible again the overwhelming majority of churchgoers will say they respect the Bible now they may not read it in fact most of them don't I've already said this earlier the semester we live in a society where biblical literacy is declining dramatically it's true even of our seminary students when you come you gradually over the last 30 years have been doing worse and worse on that entry test on biblical knowledge that's part of the culture in which we live even where the Bible is respected it's not read a great deal in many of our churches I preach in many different kinds of churches and even in most worship services God's word is hardy read at all publicly often when I preach somewhere the only past of scripture that's read is the one I read that I'm preaching on that's the reality in many churches there's almost no public reading of the scripture in vast numbers of churches of many many different denominations including evangelical ones never mind ones that are liberal theologically but do people have some respect for the Bible that's something on which you can build three do they have some sense of needing to live in obedience to God's laws and they're going to churchgoers especially are going to say yes they do recognize their call to obey the commandments of God though they are also be deeply shaped by the moral relativism of our culture so while they say they are committed to obeying God's laws in practice many of them will have been unfaithful in their marriages many will have been involved in abhorting babies many will have been involved in all sorts of other areas of disobedience to the commandments of God but again it's something on which they can build they have some sense of obligation to God's commandments now before is Christ someone whom they know about and whom they admire and again they will those who for example go to churches which are actually cults in the technical definition of that term that is that they reject central doctrines doctrines of orthodox Christian faith let's say like the Jehovah's Witnesses on the Mormons who may call themselves Christian and whose numbers are always present in those church statistics that you read the same with the Christian science church again in the technical definition of that term occult because they strongly reject some of the most central doctrines of historic Christianity but if people are church do they respect Christ do they honor him in some way they will they have used maybe very inadequate and they will be inadequate for the majority of them though you've all seen some of these programs on television which are coming with increasing frequency on the major channels doing supposed research on on who Jesus was in a very widely watched and most of them come out with a view that Jesus was simply a man if they are taking a view of classical liberal theology and those are very influential and they're influential on many church people as well but they will still have some respect for the person of Christ on which you can build number five do they acknowledge an afterlife do they acknowledge an afterlife almost all people who are church do what you need to recognize though is that people's views of the afterlife are dramatically changing 30 years ago maybe just one percent of the American population I don't know what the figures would be well I thought would be a guess I think it would be reasonable perhaps about one percent of the American population would if you spoke about the afterlife would have spoken about reincarnation today as many as 25 to 30 percent will confuse Christian views of the afterlife with ideas of reincarnation simply because new age ideas are so popular and so widespread and get presented in all sorts now of casual contexts as well as people formally teaching them they're going to come across in all sorts of movies and television shows and so on but they will have some sense of the afterlife again it's a bridge on which you can build and six do they recognize there is some possibility of judgment after death now again here people have a much less clear idea today even church people then people in the synagogue in the first century would have because you'll find that the majority of church people out there I'm talking about church people who really don't understand the gospel now the majority of church people will assume but if they've been basically decent people they're going to heaven that God will receive them and they think it would be unkind of him not to and that's where most people are at they have some sense that there will be a judgment but they think that you know it only is going to the rejection part of it is only going to be for rapists and murderers and other people who've done really nasty things I mean that's that's really what people around you think but again you've got some bridges on which you can build they're much more tenuous than the bridges Paul could build on in the synagogue but they're still there they're still there they're points where you can commend people points in which you can start working and some of you as you're working on your papers will say yeah this is really where this person I'm writing to is my guess would be and it's usually about like this about half of the people in this class and I'm writing a paper for somebody who's basically a deist who believes in God but their view of God is certainly not a fully biblical one they're going to have some respect for Jesus they may think of themselves as a Christian but they really have no grasp of even the most basic things which are fundamental to Christianity in any really understanding way that's my guess at half of the people for him you're writing are really deists and if we've got time in the next couple of weeks we'll talk about deism in some detail secondly what about people if we look at a second group of people what about people who are involved in what we might call the new spirituality or new age spirituality what if the person who we're meeting talking to getting to know whose book we're reading or we're reading a book because we're trying to understand what somebody else thinks and what if they are sort of basically within the new spirituality they are somewhat new age and this probably covers about a quarter of the population out there some of you have told me you have members of your family who are getting more and more involved in new age thinking all the time but it's about a quarter of the population out there now describe themselves as interested in the new spirituality or new age spirituality now again what are some of the bridges on which you can build number one do they sense a need to worship they will have some sense of worship there that there's some sort of divine reality they may not define that as being a god or v-god but some sort of divine reality which they think exists which they are called to worship in some way number two is there a belief that spirituality is important and that's one of the things you'll always find with people who are interested in the new age they're deeply interested in spirituality many of them are people who have looked around at the culture and and they have said materialism is not sufficient there has to be more than life to life just than making making money and having things it has got to be more to it and so they are spiritually hungry they're spiritually searching now that's a bridge on which you can build it may be leading them in some wrong directions at the moment but just like Paul and Athens you're going to recognize that spiritual concern as something which is significant you know they're right when they say materialism is inadequate it does not satisfy the human heart now that's nothing on which to build your life just making more money and getting more things you know those little notices on people's cars he who dies with the most toys wins you know they're wrong and the person who's getting interested in the new age recognizing that's wrong let's say I more toys isn't enough you know I need more so we may put that as a third point here do they see that materialism is inadequate to satisfy the hearts longings
do they see that materialism is inadequate to satisfy the hearts longings and they're going to now often new age people will have us be a sort of interesting mixture they are trying to have all the toys of the world and at the same time be spiritual too new age spirituality is big business right now makes enormous amounts of money but before we mock people for that we need to recognize there's lots of people in our churches and all of us struggle with the same thing we try to worship God in Maman even though Jesus says that's impossible secretly we think we know better it's quite possible for me to desire to be rich and to have everything I would like as well as worship in Christ even though Jesus said you can't do that you can't serve two gods at once so we need to while it's easy to mock if you go to some new age convention for example you'll find endless little booths and stalls selling all sorts of stuff you know crystals and candles and all sorts of little tricks for making you more spiritual you know in some inexpensive or very expensive way sometimes and it was easy to laugh at such things Christians get so caught into this too again you go to Christian quote Christian shops and you'll find stores and you'll find the same kind of religious paraphernalia which somebody's making pots and money out of and which we can get fooled by
number four are they searching for inner peace are they searching for inner peace and they will be that's at the heart of the new age movement as this longing scripture says that God has put eternity in people's hearts people have a longing to have some sense of peace because they recognize that things aren't quite right with the world and with them and they want to set it right now they're going about it the wrong way
new age spirituality does not identify the problem we have as one of sin it identifies the problem as one of knowledge that we've forgotten who we are that actually we're divine and if we would just remember we're divine and wake up then it would be okay and we would find inner peace so its answer is very different from a biblical answer and its answer is wrong but the longing for inner peace is itself appropriate and is something on which we can build number five have they given up on the church for the satisfaction of their spiritual needs
one of the things you will find in those of you who are writing your letter for somebody who's into the new age movement some of you will recognize this right away probably the majority of people who are attracted to new age spirituality are people who have found the church the Christian church inadequate the majority of people who are into new age spirituality think they have tried Christianity they have either gone to some liberal theological church where the gospel was lost a generational to a go and so there really wasn't anything there to satisfy the longings of the heart or they've gone to a kind of really nominal high church some a sacramentless church like the Roman Catholic church or the orthodox churches or some of the higher Episcopal churches but where there has been ritual without biblical doctrine and teaching and life i'm not saying that's the way all sacramentless churches are they're not you can find the gospel all over the place but many people in the new age movement are people who come from Catholic and orthodox and Episcopal churches and defend an inadequate and they think they've tried Christianity and there are also many people attracted to new age thinking who've come from legalistic fundamentalist churches and who've been turned off and who think they've tried Christianity again and they have quite rightly found it wanting now when you speak to somebody who's in the new age movement and who's has a church background you need to listen really carefully and you need to listen sympathetically because often they are criticizing things which deserve to be criticized if they've been in a church for example where there's been a terrible abuse of power by the pastor and i personally have talked to many people in the new age movement and that that's what they've reacted against this is abuse of power you don't need to you must never try to explain it away you must never try to excuse it you must never try to pretend that it doesn't matter god's word and i've said this before i'll probably say it again god's word is absolutely straight about the failures of those who claim his name Jesus's hardest criticisms offer the Pharisees who've misrepresented his truth and turn people away and so when people come to you and say i went to this church and it was just basically dead you need to listen attentively and you need to say well i'm sorry but that's not the way true Christianity is but you need to listen and you need to sympathize and you need to understand and you mustn't excuse things which cannot be excused not because you hate the church coming back to the question i was asked a few weeks ago or because you hate your fellow believers that's not the point it's a matter of honesty where there has been real failure where a church hasn't taught god's word where there has been abuse of power where there has been legalism instead of god's law taught where there has been nominalism where there's been empty ritual you need to recognize that that's there and that when people react against that they're right to react against it no so that's number five number six are they concerned for the protection of the environment now Christians can sometimes dismiss new age people as being tree huggers or other abusive language like that that's not appropriate as Christians we know that this beautiful universe just you've been enjoying the spring out there and you've been enjoying summer the lirley you've been enjoying the spring out there you know it's beautiful god made this universe absolutely wonderfully we ought to know that better than anybody else that the Christian always ought to be the first person to say you know this created universe is god's gift to us which he calls us to be stewards of that's what Adam and Eve were called to do to rule to the glory of god not to abuse it there's lots of laws in the Old Testament about not abusing the environment and god cares for things he made it and when you hear new age people talking about the importance of the environment of protecting it for future generations you should be predisposed a man of course it matters you know the people of Israel were told they didn't own the land you know it belonged to god and they were given it in trust for future generations they couldn't do with it anything they wanted to they had to pass it on you know they were called to care for it now we need to take that seriously so if you've got somebody in the new age movement who cares about the environment you need to say that's good that's something on which I can build so again you're going to ask not just you know where you're not going to begin by saying where's the thinking of this person foolish where can I just tear this apart is so obviously grossly inadequate and dishonoring to god and to the gospel by Paul you're going to start by saying what can I build on and where are their elements of truth the truth may be distorted it it may be covered over with all kinds of stuff which is wrong but where there are their elements of truth on which I can build their idolatry their unbelief their blasemy may distress you deeply like it distressed Paul and Athens but you're going to ask what can I build on what is good here