Why Jesus

Today I'm going to ask and attempt to answer a question that hundreds of millions of people across the world have asked. Some have asked it in hatred and antagonism, some of them have asked it mockingly, and there are many that have asked it out of confusion but trying to seek the truth. And that question, which affects so many different people across the world, is simply this. Why Jesus? Why Jesus in the context of different religions? Why does the Bible say and do many Christians say that he's the only way to heaven and to know God? Why isn't it the same about other religions? Why isn't there another way to heaven? Why Jesus in the context of Christianity itself? Why couldn't the God of the Bible simply have sent an angel to die? Why couldn't a man have died and risen again? Why could God just not have forgiven us without sending his son to be brutally murdered on Calvary? This question affects so many different people and I'd like to attempt to answer today but first I'd like to throw a concept before a Bible verse. And this concept comes through a very tragic story of a lady, an old lady, a granny. And this granny was asked and tasked to look after a little toddler. And this little toddler was near a swimming pool, and this is a true story in the 90s. And the little toddler crawled towards the swimming pool when the granny wasn't looking and fell in. The granny rushed to the side of the swimming pool as best she could in her old age and saw the little body falling and basically sinking to the bottom of that pool. Then another tragic thing happened. That granny who longed for that child not to die jumped in after the child. But even though she was willing to save that child, wanting to save that child, longing to save that child, she couldn't swim. And so later they found two bodies at the bottom of that pool. And the concept I'd like to bring out of this tragic story is simply this. To be a savior, to be someone that can help someone else in trouble, there are two qualifications. One is you have to be willing to save. But very importantly, the second thing is you have to be able to save. And when we look at every single person that ever lived in the history of time, in the context of the Bible, in the fact that we are born sinners, we got this from Adam, and that we've done sin, of which compared to God we are deserving of hell for eternity. Unlike comparing ourselves to Hitler, which makes us all look good. In the light of that, everybody doesn't know how to swim. Everybody is drowning. And everybody cannot save themselves. You cannot die for another sinner. You cannot try to save another sinner because you need to save yourself, according to the Bible. There's not one man out there that can help you to meet with God, because they might even be willing. They might be your mother that doesn't want you to go to hell, but they're not able. And that's where part of the answer comes in conceptually to why Jesus. But another great part of it, and much of it is answered through one verse from the Bible, the very first verse, which is Genesis 1 verse 1. It says so much. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Why is that important? Well, it tells us so much about the quality of God. It makes it different from all other religions, or most of them, in that in Genesis 1 verse 1, we see that number one, God is creator, that he is all-powerful, because he just spoke and created the stars and the moons and the planets into being, the whole universe. Universe means single spoken verse. And that's what happened. God spoke and it all appeared. God is all-powerful. We know from this also that God is the possessor, as the Bible says in many portions of Scripture. Melchizedek said it. Abram said it. It's in the Psalms. God is the possessor of heaven and earth. He owns everything. In essence, he can do with his creation whatever he wants. And why is this important? Well, we struggle with the fact that a lot of people go through suffering. And a lot of people don't know that's because of man's sin, that the curse has come upon the world. But ultimately speaking, when it comes to God, he's a higher being. And if I step on an ant, very few people would walk up to me and say, murderer, because we understand that an ant is a lesser being to us. An infinitely more higher being than we are to an ant is God to us. He has rights with his creation that we don't have. We are at his mercy. He is sovereign. He is above everything. We see all this in the first verse of the Bible. This is very different to many other religions. And then we see another thing, that God is holy. Because it says in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. He creates a distinction between God and his creation. He, we learn later in Scripture, sustains his creation. We learn later in Scripture that basically he gives us our breath. And not only does he create everything, but like I said, he keeps it going. And why is this important? Well, if God is separate from his creation, there's nothing in creation that is in essence God. There's no fish, there's no tree, there's no mountain, there's no lake that is God. We are not God. There are many religions out there, and I'm not going to mention by name right now, but over a billion people and movements in Western and Eastern societies that believe that God basically split into two, the original God, that they had a relationship together, and that out of this relationship came everything. Every tree, every lake, every mountain, in essence everything is God. And that's why you can come to the realization that you are God, or you can meet God through a tree, or through a fish, or through the sun, or through parts of God's creation. But that's not what the Bible says. Genesis 1 verse 1 basically says very clearly that God is separate from his creation, he's holy, in essence he's different. And therefore, you cannot come to God through a tree, because there's no tree, or fish, or anything out there that is fully God. You have to come to God directly. You can't come to God through an angel, because an angel is not fully God, it's part of creation. You can't come to God through a human being, because it's not fully God, even yourself, and you wouldn't anyway, even if you were, because you need a savior yourself. You've rebelled against the holy God. If you think of the Bible, and the fact that God is holy, and that he hates sin, ultimately speaking, the only way to God is direct. And the problem with this is, if we can't come to God through a tree, or through a fish, or through the sun, or anything like that, and we can only come to God through himself, or directly, we've got a huge problem, because he hates sin. And we've been born sinners, and we've done sin, and so if we came into his presence, and we see this in various portions of scripture, we would be fried. We would be destroyed, if we came into his kind of glory, as sinful men. And this is where Jesus comes in. An angel couldn't die for us, because he's not God. An angel is not God. A man could not die for us, because they're sinful, and need a savior, and because they're not God. We can't come to God through anything else, but God, Jesus, is God. Therefore, if we come to Jesus, we come directly to God, because God is three in one. It's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So when God sent his son to die, he did two amazing things. He sent God down, so that we could meet God through the son, but he also dealt with something else, because his son died in our place, or his son became a human being, and therefore he could be a representative of mankind. Adam represented everybody who would ever be born, because they're his descendants, and because he sinned, everybody became sinful. Death passed on all men. When Jesus became a human being, he became the second representative of all mankind, and so he could represent you, and everybody that was ever, and would be ever born on the cross, when he died on the cross, and he rose again. Many of us have heard that story. The beautiful thing is that God became a man. As a man, he became the representative of mankind, just like Adam was, and when he died, he was taking the punishment that we deserved for our sins upon himself, and he died in our place, and the beautiful thing is, he didn't stay dead. The Bible, and the gospel, the goodness of God through Jesus Christ, cries out something else. He rose again. Why is that important? Because if he didn't rise, it couldn't be part of our life what he did on the cross. It's through him, that this precious gift, of the only one who was willing and able to save us, who became a man, lived a perfect life, died, rose again, ascended to heaven, it's because he's alive, that he can enter into our lives, and become our righteousness by faith. We can't work for it. We can't run around the world, and start a million churches for it, but we have to realize that we like sheep, have gone astray. We've been going our own way, and that's not acceptable to God. There has to come a point where we realize that we have to surrender to him, but that our surrender will not save us. Our works will not save us. Our reformation will not save us, but his mercy can save us, and his righteousness can save us. Through one person, Jesus Christ, not a tree, not a church, not a priest, not a person, not a guru, but Jesus is coming directly to God, and we can come to God directly through him, because he's died in our place, and God see his righteousness, and his work of Calvary, the moment we come to God through him. One last point, why Jesus? There's an infinite gap between us and God, because of sin. It separates us from God, spiritually. He sustains everything physically, as Colossians and Romans says, but there's this infinite gap between us and God, because of sin. Only an infinite being can fill that gap. And be the bridge between ourselves and God, and take away that middle wall that separates us infinitely from God, and that infinite being who did that, Jesus qualifies to be that being, because he is God, and God is sovereign. God is infinite. God is eternal. God is holy. God is almighty. God is creator. God is the possessor of heaven and earth. We are at his mercy. He is just. He is holy. He is love. He is perfect. He is grace. He is righteousness. He is justice. He is equal. He is everything that God is. The fullness of God, the Bible says, dwelleth in him. And so, when we come to God through him, in essence, we're coming through the one who was the only one who was qualified to be our savior, because not only was he not drowning, and he was able because he didn't need a savior himself, but he was able in the quality of his essence. He was qualified through the essence of who he was, God eternal, in that he could be the infinite one who died for an eternal punishment, and an infinite punishment. And when he died, he didn't have to stay dead, because he was an infinite being. And so, it's infinitude. And the fact that he's eternal meant that he could be the sacrifice that was dealt with God's eternal wrath forever. And so, when he died, he said the words, it is finished. It is paid. And we know that we can come to God through him. And I'd like to encourage you, when you ask questions, why Jesus? Why different to all religions? Why is he the only one? It's the only thing that makes sense. And I encourage you to do what I did 18 years back, where I knelt down on my knees as a little child, basically, even though I was already 20 years old. But I came to God as a little child, and I didn't come with any of my good works, and I didn't come with the preaching, and the praying, and the fasting, and the prayer meetings through the nights, and the witnessing to others. I didn't come with all those things that I tried to do before I was a true Christian. I came with one thing. I came with my sin to Jesus Christ. None of my good works. In that moment, in one moment, based on what he, Jesus, the only one who is willing and able to say what he did on Calvary, when he died for my sins, when he rose again, in that moment, he saved me, and I was a new person. Only he could do that. He changed me. He changed my nature. He didn't just give me an hallucinational experience. He made me a new person in Christ. Amen. And I want the same for you.