Blog

In this world, you can work extremely hard at something and give it everything you’ve got and still come up short of your goal. This is why many people won’t even set goals that are extremely difficult. They choose instead to avoid the bitter disappointment of failure. In just a few short weeks, much of the attention of the world will be turned toward the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia. Many of the athletes who will be competing get their chances only once every 4 years. They go through grueling training regimens while no one else is watching just for one chance at the gold medal in front of the whole world. Many try, but only one gets the ultimate prize. You can imagine the disappointment for those who fall just short.

Christians know what it is like to fall short of the goal. In order to be a Christian, one has to admit that he is in need of a savior because trying to meet the standard of perfection that our Holy God has set is something he has found to be unachievable on his own. That is why we often hear the word “surrender” associated with being a Christian. You can’t be a Christian by simply being born to Christian parents, going to church, obeying the law, and being kind to others. This is a foundational matter of Christianity. I’ve seen it written somewhere that “sitting in a pew doesn’t make you any more of a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car”!

Being a Christian is a personal choice for each human being, so each person’s experience leading up to the point when that decision is either accepted or rejected is absolutely crucial. In Monday’s post, Katie wrote about the authority of the Bible as the main reason why Christians claim that Jesus is the only way to heaven. For some, that is all that is needed to make such a claim. However, we learned in seminary about what is called the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”. It was a concept developed by reformer John Wesley that suggests that we actually have 4 sources of authority when it comes to our faith – Scripture, reason, tradition, and experience. As the staff at Worldview Warriors talk about the Bible every week, we fully accept that we are using REASON to understand certain non-foundational things about the Bible that may not be perfectly clear in our translations. While most of us want to believe Scripture is our “primary” authority, I’ve never met a Christian who didn’t believe at least one TRADITION that is not clear in the Bible. My point is that whether we like it or not, we’re all prone to using the other sources to understand matters of our faith.

I want to talk to you about the importance of personal EXPERIENCE in understanding that Jesus is the only way to heaven. In Acts 11:26, we see that “the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch”. What is neat is to look back and see what happened leading up to that moment. Acts 10 is the story of how the world changed regarding Christianity. Before that point, the only followers of Jesus were Jews, and they called their faith the “Way” (Acts 9:2). But in Acts 10, we are introduced to Cornelius, who was a Gentile (meaning non-Jew). We see that he is “a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment”, and that “he and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly” (vv. 1-2). In other words, Cornelius did all the things that someone who might “earn” his way into heaven might do. The problem is that none of those things could save him.

The rest of the chapter is about God orchestrating through his Holy Spirit visions and events that would bring the Apostle Peter face-to-face with Cornelius. In addition, verses 23-24 also show us that each man had Jews and Gentiles with him, respectively. So God was setting the stage for Gentiles, who had worked hard at living rightly, to hear the gospel message because it was the ONLY thing that could save them! If their works were enough, why would God send Peter to share the gospel? In vv. 44-48, Cornelius and the other Gentiles received the Holy Spirit right before the eyes of the Jews who still stubbornly believed it was not possible for them. They were then baptized in the name of Jesus Christ as new believers. As news of this earth-shaking event spread throughout the region, true believers faced persecution and many went to the large city of Antioch. And for the first time, they were no longer Jews and Gentiles, but united as one body of CHRISTIANS.

You see, Cornelius heard the gospel message and his personal experience showed him that no matter how “devout and God-fearing” he was, he needed Jesus to save him from his sins. Many of the Jewish Christians of that day also believed in following the Law to attain righteousness. Yet, God brought every one of them to the same place of knowing that their works would not be enough to set them free from the penalty and trap of sin so they could spend eternity with Jesus. From that moment forward, the gospel you and I now hear today has been preached. We have heard that our works won’t get us into heaven. Yet, there are still many in the world who believe they will be eternally rewarded for simply “doing good”. If you are in that camp, please understand that the only difference between you and a Christian is that the Christian has personally accepted that his works won’t get it done. I accepted that in 1994 and am reminded of it often. We can only pray that you have that experience as well so that you will surrender to Jesus as the ONLY way to heaven.