Trusting in Christ

| Watch the video | Download the Video

We are living in confused times. There is both intellectual and moral confusion. There is secular humanism, multi-faithism and extreme Islam just to name three of today’s options that oppose biblical Christianity. So if you are a Christian, you need to know what you think and why, if you are to resist such ideologies and religions.

Because of the threat of floods following the events at the end of June and two weeks ago, in Jesmond some houses directly opposite the Town Moor are now prepared for more flooding. Similarly, wise Christians should prepare for the subtle seepage of false ideas from these other ideological and religious options and try to prevent them from becoming floods for the sake of individuals (yourself included) and society. And you do that spiritually, as with a house, by making sure your foundations are firm and the defenses are secure. That is why our mission statement at JPC will be helpful in such preparation. It is summarised as Godly Living, Church Growth and Changing Britain. And the series on these Sunday Evenings this session is on that Mission Statement. For Godly Living involves Trusting Christ and Obeying the Word; Church Growth involves Telling the World and Serving the Church; and Changing Britain (or wherever you come from) involves Caring for Needs and Contending for Truth. So this series means checking our foundations and preparing (and not just defensively but to gain ground.) And, therefore, tonight as we think about Godly Living our subject is Trusting in Christ.

For that I want us to consider Jesus’ words in Matthew 11.25-30. And my headings tonight are, after some words of introduction, first, ESSENTIAL FACTS; secondly, THE PERSON OF CHRIST; and, thirdly, HIS INVITATION.

By way of introduction let me just say two things.

First, (and briefly) a former Master of University College, Durham, Dr Plummer, in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, said this about these verses (25-30) in Matthew 11:

“they are [words] addressed to the whole human race throughout all time, and he who understands them [and here he is quoting another famous theologian] “has found his way to the heart of Christianity.”

I trust you will see how true that is tonight.

And, secondly, these five verses are to be seen in contrast to the preceding five verses. Our verses show what it is to trust Christ. The previous verses tell you what it is to reject Christ. For these previous verses are saying that even though Christ had performed miracles in certain towns such as Korazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, the people did not change their thinking. So Jesus said of Korazin and Bethsaida, verse 22 of chapter 11:

“I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." (Matthew 11v22-24)

The luxury and the ruthless cruelty of the business dealings of Tyre and Sidon were bad enough as were the sexual sin and violence of Sodom. But Jesus is saying here, the indifference to him, inspite of all the amazing things he said and did in these towns, was far worse.

I don’t know why some of you have come tonight. Perhaps it was someone you liked invited you. Or perhaps it simply was to keep someone quiet who has been saying, “you ought to come to church.” Well, whatever the reason, do not be like those people who were simply ignoring Christ after they had heard and seen what he had done. For someone who has a chance to accept Christ but ignores him is far worse than a dishonest multi-millionaire who ruins the lives of 1000s, or an utterly decadent pagan, bad as he or she is. That is what Christ is saying. Well, so much by way of introduction.

Now for our first heading and ESSENTIAL FACTS. And there are two.

The first is in verses 25-26 where Jesus tells us that the living and true God, whom he calls “Father, Lord of heaven and earth”, is a God who communicates with us. Look at verses 25 and 26:

“At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”

Note that word “revealed” – for our God is a revealing or communicating God. And there are two forms of that revealing or communication. First, there are truths about God revealed in the created world around us. I heard a marine biologist say recently that the aquatic world is so marvelous, that you cannot believe it is just an accident. There must be a God somewhere behind it. And it was Sir Fred Hoyle, the great astronomer (but not a believer) who had the honesty to oppose those who spoke of blind chance as ultimately responsible for this wonderful universe. He said they were like those who suggest a tornado, sweeping through a scrap yard, could assemble a jumbo jet from all the junk lying around. The Bible certainly says that creation points to God. As we heard in Psalm 19 and verse.1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” And the Apostle Paul echoes that in Romans 1v20. Yes, God reveals truths about his reality through the created order. He also reveals some basic truths about right and wrong through the human conscience. Paul tells you about that in Romans 2v15. The theologians say all this is God’s General Revelation. It is God revealing factual and moral truth generally for everybody.

But such is the way with human beings that they can ignore this revelation as it concerns himself and his will. So they turn their backs on God and away from the light of his truth. And then they are in the dark and spiritually blind. Also turning away from God means you become spiritually deaf. That can be through the huge noise of all the current competing ideologies and religions. But the good news is that God in his mercy offers people new eyes to see the truth and new ears to hear what he says, and new hearts to receive it and act on it. This is what God does, by his Holy Spirit, through the second form of revelation. The theologians call this Special Revelation. While General Revelation comes through God’s created order, Special Revelation comes through God’s grace. And it is about God acting in history to save men and women from the mess they are in through turning their backs on him. That saving work started with God’s people the Jews. You read about that, of course, in the Old Testament and its completion through Jesus Christ, in the New Testament. For Christ is God’s supreme communication. He is the focus and centre of God’s Special Revelation. So this Special Revelation about the saving work of God you read about in the Bible. But then it needs to move from the head to the heart. It needs to become real to individuals and communities in every generation. This happens as God the Holy Spirit opens people’s hearts (their personalities – the real them) to receive God’s saving truth and to live and work for Jesus Christ.

Well, all this is what Jesus is talking about in verse 27 where he says, “No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”. So, the first essential fact to grasp is that our God is a God who reveals truth to all generally, but specially to some.

The second essential fact, according to Jesus, is that for God to work in your life, you need to be humble rather than clever. Jesus says in verse 25, God has …

“… hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” (11v25)

I came across an atheist recently, a Professor of English, who in his 50s became a Christian. He said his old belief was, as he puts it, like that of the villanous Edmund in King Lear. For Edmund declares: “Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law/ My services are bound.” That is Shakespeare’s brilliant way of summarizing secular scientific naturalism. But this Professor then saw how arrogant his and other people’s atheism was. He mentioned people like Dawkins and, of an earlier generation, Bertrand Russell. He quoted Russell saying: “when I come to my own beliefs, I find myself quite unable to discern any purpose in the universe, and still more unable to wish to discern one.”

The Professor said in response: “as if that non-discernment by his own sole self was sufficient for his sweeping, voluminous irreverence.” And he began to notice such people all “lacked [as he put it] the whisper of self-doubt.” But this or humility is so necessary, says Jesus, for true faith in him. He says to receive God’s revelation of truth you need to be not childish but childlike and not thinking you know it all. (And that is the theme, really, of this month’s Coloured Supplement – www.church.org.uk). And let me quote G.K.Chesterton on “Humility in the wrong place”. He wrote:“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of conviction (where it was never meant to be). A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth. This has nnow been exactly reversed.”

We must move on …

… secondly, to THE PERSON OF CHRIST

Look at verse 27:

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (v27)

This is an amazing statement.

First, it says Jesus Christ is Lord over all, for “all things have been committed to me by my Father.” Last June for our Jubilee Celebration service, we showed a video of significant clips of the Queen’s Coronation. And there was that one of the Queen receiving the orb, one of the Crown Jewels. We saw the Archbishop of Canterbury, then Dr Fisher, present it to her with these words: “Receive this orb set under the cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ our redeemer. That was simply echoing the Bible’s teaching on Christ’s sovereignty. This sovereignty was confirmed when God the Father …

“… raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Eph 1.20-21).

So, says Jesus: “All things have been committed to me by my Father.” And he says later on in Matthew’s Gospel, 28v18: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” Christ’s authority over the whole of life means you ought, therefore, to go out and help (as you can) others learn about, and obey, him in the wider world - that includes your hospital, your clinic, your school, your business, your college, your university, your law firm, in the courts, in local and central government, wherever you go, as well as in your family. So, first, Christ is the sovereign Lord of all.

Secondly, he is the Second Person of the Divine Trinity.

This is the reality behind the words in verse 27:

“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son”

The Trinity is a mystery – but true. So Jesus says, regarding making disciples in Matthew 28v19: “go and make disciples of all nations, [and he continues] baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The Coloured Supplement in last month’s newsletter dealt with the Trinity. You can look at that again on the Church’s website. So all I shall say now is that the doctrine of the Trinity (with the Church’s creedal statements about the Trinity) and Christ, are simply what wise faithful Christians down the centuries have seen is the teaching of the Bible. This teaches that our God is one God in three persons, and Christ is both fully God and fully man. The tragedy is that over recent centuries in the West there has been a dumbing down of the truth about Christ. Some people in the 17th and 18th centuries with a wrong view of science said miracles couldn’t happen. So they disbelieved in Christ’s miracles. Then in the 19th century, belief in evolutionary progress meant that some said Christ was just the most evolved of all religious leaders, but not divine. So they then rewrote the Gospel narratives to fit in with these new so called “liberal” ideas. However, the dreadful First World War, at the beginning of the 20th century, meant that a number of theologians realised that evolutionary moral progress was a myth. The holocaust then confirmed (for all the technological progress) that there was further moral decline not progress. So in significant places after the Second World War there was a return to sane theology and biblical studies and a recovery of belief in the Trinity and orthodox belief generally.

But sadly this hasn’t percolated through to many of our schools where so many RE teachers are trapped in 19th century skepticism. It is made worse because most British secular universities do not teach Christian theology any more but only a mishmash of religious studies. No wonder, then, so many still treat Christ just as a very good man whose memory needs to be cherished. They do not treat him as the Second Person of the divine Trinity of the one God in three persons (Father Son and Holy Spirit) that he really is, and being truly man but also truly God. But that first Easter Thomas, who knew Jesus was fully man, when he appeared to him with his risen body, knew he had also to say, “My Lord and my God” (John 20v28). And as Paul said a little later: “through the Spirit of holiness he [Jesus] was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 1v4). So the Resurrection with an empty tomb “declares with power” Christ’s deity.

Thirdly, there is a uniqueness about Jesus Christ as well as a finality.

He has no equals and no successors. Look at verse 27 again. The verse makes it clear that Christ’s Trinitarian relationship with his Father (and how he can be both God and man) will be a mystery. For Jesus says: “no one knows the Son except the Father.” But then he stresses his uniqueness as one to reveal the truth in the last part of the verse:

“No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”(v27)

If you want truly to know God, Christ alone can reveal him to you. But the uniqueness of Christ is not just that he alone reveals truly what God is like. He alone reveals all you need to know for salvation. In Christ you understand both God’s infinite holiness and righteousness but also his infinite love and mercy. This is at the heart of the Cross where Christ died and alone became the answer to human sin. "For [there] God [the holy and righteous Father,] so loved the world that he gave his one and only [perfect divine and human] Son [to die in our place, bearing our sin], that whoever [however imperfect] believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

That (expanded) is what John 3v16 teaches. Christ is indeed unique. Let me quote John Stott: “He is unique in his incarnation (which is quite different from the ahistorical and plural “avatars” of Hinduism); in his atonement (dying once for all for our sins); in his resurrection (breaking the power of death); and in his gift of the Spirit (to indwell and transform us).”

So, our third, and final heading, HIS INVITATION

The question is, what are you going to do about Jesus Christ? As we saw in those previous verses, you cannot say (without dire consequences on the final judgment day), “I can’t be bothered”. But what you need to do, Jesus invites you to do in verses 28-30:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." This invitation of Christ is so simple.

So in conclusion let me explain in just a few sentences five things about that invitation. One, it is addressed to all who are willing to face reality. It is for “all you who are weary and burdened”. And that is all of us in some measure. So it is for those weary and burdened with the emptiness of life, with loneliness, with stress, with worry, with oppressive Pharisaical religion, with temptation and guilt and with many other things. Two, the offer is of “rest” and “rest of soul” through forgiving your sin and guilt. Three, the invitation is so simple. It is to “come” to Christ and to be willing to “learn” from him. That really is faith. For Christian faith is not only believing facts. Importantly it is also “coming” to Christ in commitment. Four, the incentive could not be better. For Christ is not like a hard school-master. Christ is not like that. For, he says here he is “gentle and humble in heart”. “Gentle” can mean (in the original) not having too much anger, but also not having too little when necessary. So never think Christ is meek and weak. His gentleness is strong. And, five, the consequences of coming to Christ are that instead of a heavy burden, you will have a light burden. Yes, there is a cost in coming to Christ as you were hearing last week. But compared to the cost of not coming, any cost is so light. So to repeat, Jesus says:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (v28-30)

How foolish not to accept that invitation.