Christianity: boring, untrue, irrelevant?

“I was brought up in a Christian home….” I wonder how many times I’ve heard those words from people who have some kind of Christian background, some awareness of Jesus, yet for whom, perhaps for many years, Christianity seemed a dull and lifeless thing. If you’re admitted to hospital, it seems you’re expected to be able to state your religion, and ‘C of E‘ will do as well as any other. Even if you’ve never darkened the door of a church you except to be `hatched, matched,’ and, sometime in the future, ‘dispatched’.

It was pretty much like that for me. I was brought up to go to church, to respect what Christians stood for, live a decent life, and that was pretty much it. As a teenager, there wasn’t much to hold my attention. Church services for me were dull and irrelevant, I could have sympathized with Oliver Wendell Holmes when he said, “I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen 1 knew had not looked and acted to much like undertakers.”

Not only that, I couldn’t see that Christianity was true. After all, it is only one of a myriad religions swarming over the face of this planet, and who is to say which is the right one? And, at first glance at least, it is by no means the most attractive. All this talk about sin and hell and repentance and self-denial. Where’s the fun in that? So I set up as many objections to the Christian faith as I could think of. I had been invited to attend a little Christian gathering, and I gave them as hard a time as I could for over a year. After all, I had some ‘0’ levels: they’d better have some jolly good answers to my questions if they were going to win me over. Except they didn’t so much try to answer my questions as pray for me. And that was even more annoying.

Anyway, what difference does it make? The church is full of hypocrites, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem to have done them much good. Pinning your hopes on something that happened 2,000 years ago and 2,000 miles away in Palestine doesn’t exactly look like a recipe for dynamic living in the 20th century. We’ve all sung the hymn ‘Jerusalem’. That about sums it up: ‘And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green?’ Answer: ‘No, they didn’t’.

Except that, as a nineteen-year old, 1 found God. I was walking to work one day, and in a moment, those objections evaporated, that anger subsided, my loud “No!” turned into a calm “Yes!” I had found God. Or rather, God had found me. Because there was nothing I could have done to make that happen. He came to me, he touched me, he changed me. I discovered what it means to know God.

Knowing God is:-

• the best thing in life:- Jer 9:23f ‘This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.’
• what God himself desires:- Hos 6:6 ‘For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.’
• the gift that Jesus brings:- Jn 17:3 ‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.’

And that’s what I want to talk to you about tonight. I don’t want to talk much about church, or Christian people, or religion, or morality. I want to talk about ‘knowing God’.

1. Is anyone out there

We need to know if there is someone out there.

Prince (now King) Charles once spoke of his belief that, despite all the advances of science, ‘there remains deep in the soul (if I dare use that word), a persistent and unconscious anxiety that something is missing, some ingredient that makes life worth living.’

Bernard Levin was not a Christian, but he wrote some time ago: ‘Countries like ours are full of people who have all the material comforts they desire, together with such non-material blessings as a happy family, and yet lead lives of quiet, and at times noisy, desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motor cars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it…it aches.’

Some people say, ‘It doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you are sincere.’ But it is possible to be sincerely wrong. Adolf Hitler was. The Yorkshire Ripper believed that he was doing God’s will when he killed prostitutes. What you believe dictates how you will live. Sincerity isn’t enough.

Some people say, ‘Christianity is fine for some, but I’m not a religious type.’ But again, this misses the point. The point is, is God out there? If there is, then it is of vital importance to us all. If there is no God, then Christians are deluded. C.S. Lewis put it like this: ‘Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.’

We need to know if God is out there. I cannot prove to you that there is a God. But then I don’t need to shine a torch at the sun to see if the sun exists. And God has not left himself without witness.

• The world around us cries out, “The hand that made us is divine.” Psa 19:1. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his “
• Human nature bears its own witness: An awareness of God has been written on the hearts of men and women ever since their creation in God’s image, Gen 1:26f. This is why people have such an incurably religious nature, woefully misdirected into idolatry or superstition as it so often is.
• Jesus Christ is himself the most important witness to the existence of God. So my message is not ‘believe me’; but ‘believe him’. Christians can say with Paul, II Cor 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
• Then there is the witness of the Christian church and the experience of its individual members. Despite all the abuse that is heaped upon it, the Christian church has been the most powerful influence for good in the world since it was founded nearly two thousand years ago. And individual Christians are happy to sing, ‘You ask me how I know he lives? – he lives within my heart.’

Sally and Susie were playing hide-and-seek at Sally’s house. Sally closed her eyes and started counting. Susie crept out the house and went up to the park for the rest of the day. God doesn’t play with us like that. Jimmy and Johnny were playing hide-and-seek. Jimmy closed his eyes, started counting, and a hour later he was still counting. Sincere seekers after God don’t play like that. If we are earnest about knowing God we should open our eyes, and stop counting. Look for God, and you will find him. He’s not even trying to hide from you. He is nearer than you think.

God promises this: that he will reveal himself to the sincere seeker. God will reveal himself to the sincere seeker after him, Isa 55:6f Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

2. What is this God like?

(A) He is a God who reveals. We have a deep-set tendency to ‘create God in our own image’, Rom 1:23. But we do not have to rely on guess-work. We do not need to take a vote on it. God has told us who he is and what he is like. Deut 29:29 ‘The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may follow all the words of this law.’

• He is a God who rules. He is is righteous law-giver, and a righteous judge. Gen 18:25 Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” This is why knowing God includes a vital element of reverence and awe. Why was the prophet Isaiah so awe-struck? lsa 6:5, “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
• He is a God who redeems. God made us in his own image, but that image has been distorted and defaced by sin. Solzhenitsyn, the Russian writer, said, ‘the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor through classes, nor between political parties…but right through every human heart and through all human hearts.’ Some of us know that we are ungodly. Others assume we are good enough. But when we examine ourselves alongside God and his law, and alongside Jesus and the life that he lived, we see that what we thought was white enough is in fact filthy and polluted. C.S. Lewis speaks of the first time he examined himself deeply and honestly. ‘And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was Legion.’

‘Redemption’ speaks of of the deliverance by the payment of a ransom of someone who has been captured by enemies. Isa 53:5f But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

‘In a sense, other religious systems are sets of swimming instructions for a drowning man. Christianity is a life-saver.’

3. What does it mean to ‘know God’?

But what does it mean to ‘know God’? Shivers down the spine? A sense of elation, like a drug trip? Do you hear a voice, or see a vision?

The Bible illustrates our relationship with God in a number of ways: Father and son; husband and wife; king and subject; sheep and shepherd. In all of these, the knower ‘looks up’ to the one known, with an attitude of dependence.

(A) Knowing God is a matter of personal commitment. To get to know a person, you have to invest time and commitment, Psa 34:8. ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good.’ You are not nourished by reading a menu; nor will you get to know God without committing yourself to him in faith and obedience

(B) Knowing God is a matter of grace, from beginning to end. We do not make friends with God, God makes friends with us, Gal 4:9. God ‘knows’ his children, not just in the sense that he knows all about them, but that he establishes a personal relationship with them, Jn 10:27 “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand.”

4. How can I know God?

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, Jn 14:6.

• Jesus is the ‘way’. Many people have taken it upon themselves to lead people to God. But Jesus doesn’t just point the way; he is the way. An elderly gentleman was out walking with his grandson. “How far are from home?” he asked the grandson. The boy answered, “Grandad, I don’t know.” The grandfather asked, “Well, do you know where you are?” Again the boy replied, “I don’t know.” Then the grandfather said, “It sounds to me as if you’re lost.” “Oh, no,” said the boy. “I can’t be lost. I’m with you.”
• Jesus is the ‘truth’. Jn 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
• Jesus is ‘the life’. What lengths people go to in order to keep death at bay! ‘In 1960 Californian millionaire James McGill died. He left detailed instructions that his body should be preserved and frozen in the hope that one day scientists might discover a cure for the disease that killed him. There are hundreds of people in Southern California who have put hopes of one day living again in this process which freezes and preserves human bodies. The latest development in Cryonics technology is called neuro-suspension which preserves just the human head. One reason why it is becoming so popular is that it is much cheaper than preserving and maintaining a whole body.’ Such attempts to stave off the inevitability of death are not only absurd but unnecessary. Jesus brought ‘eternal life’ as a free gift. He promises, not an easy life, but a full one, Jn 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.