TRADITIONAL WORSHIP

Jeremiah 31:31-34

2 Corinthians 2:14-3:6

Imagine you are in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. You pull up to the parking lot of one of the hiking trails.  A couple pulls up beside you, and gets out to look at the trail map.  You notice that the couple is not really dressed for hiking, but they are intently studying the map.  You get ready to go on the hike, and as you approach the trail, the couple who had been studying the map starts walking back to their car.  You say to them, “Not gonna try this trail, huh?”  They say, “What do you mean?”  “The trail, you’re not going to hike it?” you respond.  They look confused and say, “Oh no, we know the trail.”

            “But, you’re not going to hike it?”

            “No, we know the trail.  We studied it.  That’s all we need to do.”

            They leave, and you go on your hike, thoroughly confused.  Hold that story in your head for the time being – we’ll come back to that in a moment.

We’ve going through a worship series on covenant.  We’ve been studying the different milestones in the Bible when God made a covenant with his people through certain individuals.  Matt started with Noah, and then Joe preached on Abraham and circumcision (which he loved), and then the following week we heard about Moses.  As we were planning out this series, when I realized that I got to preach on the Sunday that we were talking about the new covenant in Jesus, I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I got the easy Sunday.’  And then I sat down to write…and nothing was coming to me!  Why isn’t it easy?  Shouldn’t it be easy to talk about Jesus and explain the gospel?  And then I started to ask myself, ‘If it’s so easy, why does the Bible contain 66 books?’  Why didn’t God just drop us a business card?  If it’s so easy to explain, why is Paul talking about this“aroma” in the 2 Corinthians passage we read earlier?  Why is it that I have such a hard time stating the gospel simply and then leaving it at that? I’ve also realized that I’m not the only one.  For example, the guys who attend our Men’s Breakfast at Perkins on Tuesday mornings recently said that they have trouble communicating their faith, especially in Baptist terms, to other people.  So now they are studying the book “A Baptist’s Theology,”…and becoming even more confused.

The new covenant – why are we people of the cross?

In the Jeremiah passage, verses that were written several hundred years before Jesus, God makes a promise of a new covenant.  He doesn’t say exactly when or what, just that a new covenant is coming.  God says, ‘Even though I led my people out of slavery and taught them how to live in peace, they broke the covenant.’  He says that He was like their “husband,” and they left him.  And then here’s verse 33:  [[Jeremiah 31:33]]  This is unprecedented:  Where’s the sign of the covenant?  An ark, a rainbow, circumcision, 2 stone tablets?  No, the sign of the covenant here is the human heart.

In the Corinthians passage we read, Paul says something similar.  First, he says, as followers of Christ, instead of having some sort of identifying mark or symbol, what is more important is our “aroma.”  For his 1^st century readers he would have been calling to mind the Roman army processionals that would march through town, spreading spices and other aromas to make it known that they had been there.  And then, in chapter 3 verse 3, he says this: [[2 Corinthians 3:3]].

What makes us who we are?  Why are we “a people of the cross?”  What is the nature of this new covenant?  Because, after all, the cross by itself is simply a 1^st century Roman execution method.

Do you remember Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus?  Nicodemus is actually the person to whom Jesus originally quoted John 3:16.  But here’s how the story started:  [[John 3:1-8]].  Do you notice Nicodemus having trouble with this?  He needs something concrete, he needs a first step.  He’s so desperately looking for something concrete in what Jesus said that he says something ridiculous:  “Surely I can’t go back into my mother to be born again!”

There is no formula for this.  You can’t explain this or contain this on a piece of paper, much less 2 stone tablets.  What God did in Jesus Christ was so earth-shattering and so personal that the only adequate mark of this new covenant is the human heart.  Going back to hiking analogy; many of us may try to “study” the map and think we’ve got it.  We might be able to explain to others what the trail looks like, how long it is, etc., but have we gone on the hike?  The Christian faith is something to be experienced, not just explained.  You can explain what “forgiveness” is, but it’s nothing like actually experiencing it.  You can try to explain “love,” but you have to experience it.  The gospel is, first and foremost, something to be experienced.  Words are inadequate…the 4 spiritual laws, A-B-C…all inadequate for expressing what the gospel is.

Jesus spoke a lot about the “kingdom of heaven”…not as a place we go after death, but as a reality invading our world.  And we see this most clearly at the cross.  On the cross, God’s kingdom crashed into our world.  On the cross, God put flesh and bone on concepts like love, forgiveness, and grace.

There’s a contemporary worship song called “Salvation Has a Name.”  The lyrics of the chorus communicate what I’m trying to say:

Salvation has a name, mercy has a face

Holiness was crucified

And rose to give us grace

Salvation has a name, mercy has a face

Jesus our holiness, worthy of all praise

CONNEXION

Romans 5:6-11

John 14:1-10

            What does it mean to be “a people of the cross” in the 21^st century?  Today’s religious landscape is very diverse, very confusing, and very integrated.  In Biblical times, it was entirely possible (likely, in fact) to go through your whole life and never meet someone whose faith differed from yours.  Today, you can’t avoid it.  And religions are no longer localized.  It is unprecedented as far as history is concerned, but you can find a Muslim, a Sikh, a Buddhist, anywhere.

            I think for some people it has gotten overwhelming.  There are way too many religions to choose from, much less study.  And so, the typical modern-day response to the confusion is to simply retreat to saying they’re all the same.  You hear it all the time:  “All religions lead to God.”  Or, “all the world’s religions are just different paths to the same place.”  It sounds nice, and very influential folks are saying it, like Oprah.  In fact, today people will pick and choose elements of different religious traditions to sort of make their own custom-made faith.  One of the most popular labels I hear is “Buddhist-Christian.”  “I’m a Buddhist-Christian,” people will tell me.

            I never know what to say to this, because I don’t want to offend them.  But one thing I can tell you is that this is impossible.  It is impossible, if you know anything at all about those two religions, to be a Buddhist-Christian.  Buddhism and Christianity have distinct, drastically different, mutually exclusive worldviews and truth claims.  There is just no way.

            All religions, faiths, and philosophies are answering 4 questions:

1)      Who is God?

2)      Who are we?

3)      What’s wrong with the world?

4)      How do we fix it?

            Each of the world’s religions offer very different, mutually exclusive answers to these questions, and to say that they are all essentially the same denigrates all of them. 

You hold a worldview whether you know it or not.  It’s sort of like hiking.  Sooner or later, even if you study all the maps, you have to chose your path.  And they don’t all go the same place.  And if you want to blaze your own trail, be forewarned…no one’s been there before, there might be no one who follows you, you’ll probably get bitten by tics and step in poop, if you get in trouble you’ll be hard to find…and most importantly, you’ll have no idea where you’re going.

            So, what does it mean to be “a people of the cross?”  If you choose the “Christian” path, if you choose the Bible, if you put “Christian lenses” on, what do you see?

—  Who is God?

—  “God is love.”  - 1 John 4:8

—  “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise.  Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”  - 2 Peter 3:9

—  Who are we?

—  “God created humankind in his own image.”  - Genesis 1:27

—  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  - Romans 3:23

—  What’s wrong with the world?

—  “For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction.”  - Isaiah 30:9

—  “The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.”  - Romans 8:22

—  How do we fix it?

—  “If my people…will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will…forgive their sin and heal their land.”  - 2 Chronicles 7:14

—  “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”   - 1 John 1:9

This is the Christian worldview, this is the Christian’s answer to the 4 questions that every person on earth has to answer.

Even more important than these perspectives, though, is what I believe makes the Christian faith absolutely unique among all the world’s religions.  The Christian story is the story of a God who came to get us when we couldn’t go to him.  All the other world religions are basically prescriptions for how we reach God, Nirvana, Enlightenment, whatever.  Only the Christian faith sees humanity for what it really is…a race that will never be at peace without outside help.