Do All Religions Lead to the Same God?

 TRANSCRIPT

You know, God never said that. It's what a series we've been in. Hey, we had our, uh, first week a little while ago, and, uh, our funny man, resident, funny man, pastor Simon, uh, told us about it. It doesn't matter what you do, God never said that. And then the, uh, talented Mrs. Greenway, he said, uh, God won't give you more than you can handle.

God never said that. And then last week, Mr. T. Taylor Thompson, he brought us, God wants you happy. No, God never said that. So today we are going to explore what we just saw in the video. This is one that you've guaranteed have heard lots of times, maybe even this last week. People have this notion about the flexibility.

The elastic nature of believing in God. It could come from all sorts of places, you know, and, and it really boils down to this common phrase. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you are sincere. It comes out in different expressions.

We've explored some of these already, like, um, you're a good person. You should be okay. You know? You'll be fine. Not a problem. God never said that, by the way. Or he's in a better place. You've been to a funeral. I mean, as a pastor, I've conducted funerals and I've felt that tension of, what do I say? Because I'm not at all aware of where this person's going for eternity, but people just love to say, oh, he's in a better place, you know?

Well, God didn't actually say that. I hope I don't disappointing you too much, but you can't just glibly say things and believe them to be true without evidence of it. What about this one? She is looking down on us. Ah, I love the thought of that. The sentiment is great, isn't it? But there are several times a day where I think, gee, I hope grandma's not looking down right now.

Well check this one out too. All roads lead to God Anyway. I love that one. It's so universal. You know, everyone will get there somehow. You might take a wrong turn here or there, but it doesn't matter. Somehow going this way and this way at the same time ends up the same place. Alright, well then we can add on this one.

I don't believe a loving God would send people to hell. God actually didn't say that. In fact, some people argue that God didn't invent hell at all. It's something that we created and I kind of lean that way myself. And finally it comes down to this. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere.

How can anyone know? Anyway? You know that argument? Your argument is just as good as mine. Your belief is good, good as mine. How dare you say mine's wrong, you know? And so we come to that point today of wanting to investigate this. Your ideas about this are no better than mine anyway. People think, how can anybody be certain?

You know, there's very little controversy talking about God. You can talk about God lots of ways in different times and different groups of people. They're not too worried about these days. You can even talk about the buzzwords of spirituality and wellbeing. They're all out there, aren't they? Yeah, and yet the moment just fell out.

I'm talking about Jesus. Oh, and what he's asking you to believe, then suddenly it gets a bit, a bit uncomfortable, can be a bit challenging, but nobody really doubts that he helped the poor. He was a great teacher, that he loved people, he blessed them, he served them, he forgave them. That's not the problem.

The real problem is this. His exclusive claims. Have you thought much about how Jesus really stands out from all the other religious options that are out there? We'll explore that a bit more. I was speaking at, uh, I do religion in schools, public schools, which is a real blessing. And there's a guy that comes to teach Bahai.

I call him Guy because that's his name.

And I said to Guy the other day, he gets there a bit early and gets set up in the lunchroom where we're praying. That's fun too. But I said to him, there's a few years ago, guy, when you guys weren't here to teach Bahai and I had the Baha children in my Christian religion class, and so I had to really be careful.

I wanted to. To investigate what you believed so I wouldn't be saying things that are totally screwing their minds up. Or I'd ask them to go out with the non-religion kids, you know? And I found out the Baha, I said to Guy, I found out Baha, hold Jesus in high regard. He said, that's understating it. We hold him to be a massively blessed spiritual person like others.

You see like others, there's no exclusive nature to Jesus in his mind, but John was a friend of Jesus and he was there when Jesus was getting them prepared for his going away, and this is what Jesus was saying to them. We find it in John chapter 14 and verse six, Jesus answered and said, I am the way and the truth and the life.

And no one comes to the father except through me. All. Well, religions are not the same. They have some truth and beauty in all of them. You will notice it. I think truth is from God and it turns up in different places, but it's not the same as being the place where we find our truths. And so it's not the same.

It's tantalizing to think that all religions are the same, but it removes all the issues and minimizes any differences. So let's take this way of thinking for a quick spin. Let's look at Hinduism. Uh, sorry. Buddhism. Buddhism, there is no personal guard. There's no type of final existence. It's a countless cycle, you know, bursts and rebirths, which are not the same as resurrection, by the way.

You come as a whole different being and try it over again. It's like getting a a, a second go, you know, this is an attraction to that thought. But the end cycle, they believe is a, a state of nirvana where you are just in a spiritual nothingness and nothing else matters. Uhhuh, okay, prove it. Buddhism. Well, in Buddhism, uh, sorry, in Hinduism.

Now Hinduism, there is an impersonal God approached through multiple deities and statues and idols, and so a lot of it relates to how well you can sacrifice to them. For daily blessings, you know, you'll find little shrines and homes and on street corners, you know, this is where it happens in their religion.

Both Buddhism and Hinduism don't offer forgiveness of sin. Or a supernatural helper. They believe in karma. And that fascinates me. I've been thinking about it. Why karma? Who is it that told us that the universe has to be just, where does that thought come from? Who puts it in the hearts of man to know they're being unjustly done by, they've been taken advantage of.

Isn't that the God? The true God, the nature of God define justice and truth and, and walk that way, but karma, it's not the same as what Jesus said. Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do to you, like pay it forward. You know, don't wait and then revenge back. You'll never get ahead of anyone you're trying to get even with, you know what?

That's not the answer. It's a very attractive idea, and we think we see it, but it's not the same. So Muslim faith, Islam, they worship one God, Allah, personal God. No secondary gods, no place for Jesus as God or Holy Spirit. A total ban on idols. But don't count the big black rock that you walk around. Okay?

And then your standing depends on your religious devotion. We talked about devotion today. See other religions believe that too. It's all about devotion and works. What your devotion leads to is you'll act a certain way. You'll believe a certain thing, you'll do certain things. Then there's a new age teaching.

There are some people in our congregation who know more about this than I do, but no personal God, a higher consciousness. The universe or the cosmos. Cosmos is in charge of itself. Uh, may the force be with you. That's the popular version of what I'm talking about. It's so, uh, what's the word? Invasive. It just gets into our culture.

It's second nature to think this way, that there's some benevolent spirit out there that'll help you. Well, there is, but it's not New age Christianity. I know a little bit about this one personal God expressed in three persons. He's here on earth as a person. He's in heaven as the commanding officer, the great God and Father, he's also in us by His spirit.

Jesus was sent. Jesus showed his love for us by dying for us. He brings forgiveness. That's right. And he, he brings that all the things that we need from Jesus' conquered death and proved that by conquering death, he proved he who he is. So this shows us that human humans have a capacity for religious things, right?

There's something in our hearts that longs to know the God thing. Or the godness of things around us. I remember as a young boy thinking it must be a God. I've got no idea who he is. I grew up in a household where I was sort of christened as an Anglican, but we never went. Nobody talked about God. And then I got to a place where I was about 14 and I thought, you know what?

This life of mine is really screwed up. I've got so many stepbrothers and blended family and things are not going well. Ah, I wish there was a way I. I wish there was the truth. Wish there was some life like I could follow. And then somebody invited me to hear a speaker, and guess what? He referred to as?

John 14, six who was written in big letters across his, the top of his stage. His name was Billy Graham, and he just said, you have to decide today. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to Father except through me. What do you believe? And I believed it. I knew a good thing. When I saw it, I was convinced.

And from that day on, I began a journey. A bit stumbling sometimes and feeble, but it was a journey that led to all kinds of lpl uh, deciding for Jesus. So this shows us that one of the joys of being a young dad was a trip down, uh, the aisle. I remember Aaron when he was young going down the toy aisle and you see these toys that has try me buttons on it.

You know those ones and they make funny noises or the thing goes, whatever it does. Well, I was thinking about these religions, you know, some of them have got buttons that look like this. Um, pretty much just hype, full of good ideas, but sound pretty trendy. And other buttons are kind of more like this.

They're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some of you're sitting there saying, you're already there, Mr. Bradley, blah, blah, blah. All this talk. And then there's this one that says, just try me. Just try me. Go on. And you're kind of waiting to see what's gonna happen when you do it. Now all world religions are not the same.

There's simply no logical way that that can be so, so why does it matter? That's a good question. Does it matter? Really? The lady in our little video said, oh, that's a good thing. It doesn't really matter. Well, it does. And how do I know? Well, Proverbs 1412 said this, there's a way that appears to be right, but the end of it leads to death.

If we get this deciding wrong, it has eternal consequences. You know, if what we talk about in church on Sunday doesn't have eternal consequences, why are we here? What are we up to? We're looking at long-term things. Have you ever heard of John Lennox? Yeah. John Lennox is an Oxford professor in mathematics and biochemistry and no bioethics.

That's the one. And he is an amazing guy to listen to because he also is an expert in explaining things about Jesus and debating atheists. And this is what I, I saw him say about this question of all religions. He says, you think of three major mono monotheistic religions are ones that have one God, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam when it comes to Christ.

Our Jewish friends believe that Christ died and did not rise. That's where they stand. Yeah, he was. He was around. He died, but that was it. I as a Christian, he says, believe he died and then he rose again. Our Muslim friends believe he didn't die, and then he says those three things cannot be simultaneously true.

Therefore, I simply invite you for people to investigate the evidence. If it can't be true that Jesus didn't die, he died, he rose again. He didn't rise again. Investigate what it has to say. So, um, that's what we'd like to look at for clarification. The only place we can look is what the Bible says. Really, the Bible has made a lot of truth claims, and if it's true, then we are kind of forced to do something about it.

But I'm not asking you. So what we wanna do is consider Jesus, how do we consider him? We're not considering our church. Not considering religion of Christianity. Jesus didn't come to start a religion. No, the, it's the life of the so-called Christians is not up for grabs either. We're not debating that. You know, Christians can be a bit out of touch, sometimes narrow-minded, have bad hair, judgemental.

Just don't look at my life. Oh, hang on. That devotion said you should. Yeah, we've gotta work on that one. I might let you down, but Christ won't. There's another guy I wanna mention. He is the one that I like to hear about. J. His name is Jay Warner Wallace. He's got a ministry called Cold Case Christianity.

Now, I dunno if you've heard of him, but he's actually a cold case detective in the USA. He specializes in the ones where the evidence is 20, 30, 40 years old and all the original witnesses dead. Even the arresting officers are dead and he goes in and proves the case and has a good success rate. He didn't believe in Christ.

And he thought, I'm gonna take the evidence case notes called the gospels and I'm gonna examine them just like I would any other case to see if there's any validity to the claim that Jesus lived and died and rose again. He came out a believing Christian. Yeah, he, he said in any court of law he really did die and he really did rise again.

So anyway, this is what he has to say. After Jesus inaugurated Christianity, several other world religions, the spiritual world views also appeared on the timeline like Islam, Bahai, new Age, spirituality. And notice this, he says, other religions after the appearance of Jesus either modified themselves in response to him, mentioned his life in ministry, or even merged him into their worldview.

That's significant, isn't it? If you ask the question on AI or Google, who is the most famous person of all, you know what answer you're gonna get? It's indisputable. The one name that's known everywhere. What you know, it's just amazing. Well, Jay Warner Wallace continues, but what about those religious systems that preceded Jesus in history?

You know, the Buddhism and, um, Hinduism, it's, while it's true, he says The earliest worshipers of these deities knew nothing about Jesus. By the time these faith systems progressed into what we call ad common era, they found themselves accommodating Jesus in one manner or another. As it turns out, these ancient religions also modified mentioned or merged Jesus into their worldviews after Jesus became known.

Why is that? If you want to claim exclusivity, why? Go back to mentioning Jesus. Why is he important to other world religions? There's more on this. The impact of Jesus on global faith systems cannot be overestimated. He says this, if you wanted to remove any trace of Jesus from human history, you'd also have to scrub the scriptures and statements of religious people all over the world.

If every New Testament manuscript was destroyed, we would still be able to reconstruct the essential truths of Jesus from the common acknowledgements of competing religious systems. Jesus deeply matters to religious people everywhere, even if they do not claim a Christian identity. Jesus, he says, is a great place to start.

End of quote. When I think about the impact of Jesus, I think I chose a good one when I chose him out of all my possible faith to have. So let's do this very quickly. Consider Jesus in three ways. Consider his ministry, the ministry of Jesus. When you realize how he lived and what he did on the world, in the world, you can, you have to be astounded other religious leaders, despised people.

He loved them. You know when that woman was caught in adultery, you remember the story where she was brought before Jesus and they said, our law says we can stone her. And then he started scribbling in the dirt. I dunno, what he wrote. Must have been pretty good. And he got up and said, alright. Your Lord says that let the first person without sin cast the first stone, and it says from the oldest person first they started to leave quietly until in the end he looks up and there's nobody around.

Where Woman, where are your accusers? I don't accuse you either. There's something different about Jesus, something about our God that's so different, personal and understanding and loving that He doesn't ignore the sin, but he loves sinners. Mark was there, and he wrote this in his record of Jesus' life.

Mark chapter two, verse 16. When the teachers of Allah who were Pharisees, they were the ones experts, and saw Jesus eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat? Were tax collectors and sinners. That's a good question. Doesn't he know? What these people are like hanging out.

But those guys won't give you much credibility. But instead he goes on to say, I'm hearing this. Jesus said to them, it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. He's kind of holding up a mirror for them, saying, look at the mirror. Do you say you are healthy? Do you really believe that? Then I'm not here for you.

But I have not, I have not come to call the righteous, but. Sinners. Ah, I'm so glad it came for me. You know, I'm the sinner. You didn't know that or know, but we are all in the same place here. This is the beauty of church. You know, it's nobody here saying, oh, I better than you. We're actually all saying, wow, we're here.

You know, we, we all don't belong in a way, but we all must be here because of Jesus. That's the story. Jesus truly stands out of all the righteous people. He opened the blinds eyes. He healed deaf ears. He the mute, he causes the mu to speak. He heals the lepers and turned the water to wine. Walked on water loaves and fishes, fed 5,000, and he even raised the dead.

And the critics really don't question his miracles so much, they just wanted him to stop doing it. How dare you do that God stuff. You're not him. Well, I found out when I was 14 that he was the God he said he was. And I put my faith in him. I'm a new creation. I'm not a better me, I'm a new me. I'm not the same as I used to be.

It doesn't mean I'm in per I'm, uh, perfect in any way, but it does mean that I know the one that's making me perfect. So consider the ministry. Consider the resurrection of Jesus. You know, if God didn't love us so much, Jesus wouldn't have had to die. He came to die for us, and that was one of the prime things, and he accomplished.

And by doing that, he showed us that the Father forgives us. Even on the cross, he says it's finished. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. But they were doing a great work in putting him to death 'cause he committed his spirit into the hands of the father and then the cross. At the cross, the centurion looked at him and said, surely this was the son of God.

You know, if you're looking for a God figure, there he is. Even the, the non-Jewish person standing there could see that three days later the stone was rolled away. What are the possibilities the disciples took? The body really overpowered those soldiers and took it away. It wouldn't have happened. And then if they had, soldiers would've said, nah.

We were there, we saw it, and the Roman soldiers could have stolen the body. Why would they do that? Well, when the Christians claim he rose from the dead, they say, no. Here he is. We just had him stored away to counteract that argument. Do you really expect that any rational person believe that? 11 small town uneducated, um, men devised the most elaborate deceptive plan, pulled it off, kept it secret, and at the same time, cheated the world into being a better place?

Yeah. We've got one on you. We'll make you better. No. There's no personal motive. It's in fact there. It was tremendous personal loss to be a follower of Jesus, a certain prospect of painful death. And the only one that really doubted was Thomas. But you know what? He ended up being speared to death in India or somewhere because he believed and took the message of Jesus.

He saw the risen Christ, and today, 2000 years later, there's only about 2.4 billion people who followed Jesus. But you don't have to believe him because the numbers, honestly, that means there's a lot of earthlings that don't believe in Jesus. And we can't get too complacent about that. We live in a safe place.

I've been hearing just a little aside, we haven't got time, but there we go. Um, I heard about these Muslims getting dreams about Jesus and it turns out that some, in some countries, the ministry to Muslim people by Christians, they just put a billboard up saying, have you seen the man in white robes?

Because that's the way he turns up. Jesus turns up in the dreams of Muslim people and they begin to say, I dunno who he is. He doesn't come saying, Jesus, come to me and go to church. Instead, they find then a Christian nearby who they just happened to work near or something, and they say to that person, I've had this funny dream.

And the dream is to follow the man in the white robes. Wow. And then the Christians are able to lead them to Christ. But those ministries say, we always say this to them because a lot of them live in nations. Where to believe in Jesus is at least a change in your family structure. At most, it'll cost you your life.

And they say to them, don't please don't believe in Jesus if you're not ready for the consequences. And here we say, oh, put up your hand. If you believe in Jesus, you know it's gonna be all good with you. God never promised you happy. Instead, we say, honestly, today, don't consider following Jesus. If you're not ready for the whirlwind that's gonna happen.

Something may happen that you didn't expect. Be ready for that. It has to happen. Consider the ministry, consider the resurrection. Consider the message of Jesus, and this is where we finish today. Either the facts and the message of Jesus are everything or their nothing at all. We're either wasting our time right now.

Making a little club for Jesus, or we're actually zeroing in on the truth of the universe that everything that matters is Jesus. Everything we need to know is him. So instead of that belief, let's listen to what Paul said to the Romans. His friends there. He said, we are made right with God. Don't you want to know how he says We're made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.

That's how we're made right with God.

And some people say, that's all right for you Christians. I've got my own belief. But then he goes on to say, and this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. There's no exceptions. The same truth for everyone. Jesus is the way for everyone, the truth for everyone. It's like there's nothing plus Christ.

It's Christ plus nothing is the way to come to him. And let me burst another balloon. We're not asked to believe in heaven. I mean, heaven is a place we've God. But that's not the idea here. We go through Christian life often thinking, I'll just do what it needs to get me to heaven. Instead, what we found in those devotions shared earlier is it's a call for devotion to God, to be his people, to have our aspiration and desire just to be with him.

It's all about a relationship with him. And very quick, we're gonna finish with this a little matrix, if you like, religion versus relationship. On the one side, religion is what I do. Relationship is what really matters. It's what Jesus has done for me and religion. It's um, about me. In relationship? No, it's about Jesus.

It was never about me in the first place. It's about who he is. On this side, it's religion says, what will you do to be saved? And Jesus says, I've done it. It is finished. And on this side, if I obey, God will love me. No, he says, because God loves me, now I can obey. It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere.

God never said that. Isn't it time you settled any doubts that you may have? Look at the ministry of Jesus. Lean in to the resurrection of Jesus. Take on the message of Jesus. And Jesus is not saying this little try me button here, he's actually not saying, I'm just one of the possibilities. Try me. No. He's actually saying, I am the way.

I am the truth. I'm the life. Don't try me. Don't try me. No. If you believe in me and receive me, then you become a child of God. It's not a taste And see. As much as we'd like that, and I'm not saying if you're not there yet, you shouldn't investigate. I'm just saying don't cross that line yet until you are sure in your spirit and you're ready to say yes, I believe as well.

Let's pray. And God, I pray that your Holy Spirit will draw people. To yourself. If you are in the room right now or online, I want you to ask Jesus this. Jesus, help me to see why you are consistently the most famous, most highly regarded person in all of history. Make yourself clear and plain to me right now.

Teach me that it does matter what I believe I do believe. I wanna speak quickly to you Christ followers. You know somebody in your life that's not there yet, they're still struggling with these things, these issues. I want you to pray. God, reveal yourself through your goodness and love to them so they will seek you out and find you and receive eternal life through faith in Jesus, not just religion.

Amen. Christ or nothing, guys. It really does matter what you believe.