Sermon Tone Analysis

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: John 14:1-7

N:

Welcome

Welcome to our Family Worship service at Eastern Hills this morning, whether you are in the room or online.

I’m Bill Connors, and it’s a joy to be gathered together to worship the Lord this morning.

We had quite a gathering in celebration yesterday as we got to rejoice with Bryce and Khyrstyn Seiler as they were married, and it was such a blessing!

I’m going to jump right in on what I need to talk about this morning, and I promise that I won’t keep you as late as last week today!

Announcements

Business Meeting & Master Plan (No children’s stuff, no youth stuff)

Purpose & Vision:

Purpose: The Eastern Hills Baptist Church Family exists to connect people to Jesus and to each other.

Vision: The EHBC family will connect people to Jesus and to each other by sharing the Gospel, cultivating relationships, and serving others so that God is glorified.

Clarity:

3 phases.

Only looking at all 3 in concept right now.

Phase 1 is the only one we’re going to be actually doing at the moment.

It includes: architectural design, specifications, engineering, and planning; new furnaces and refrigerated air throughout the building (not new in MH); any necessary upgrades to our utilities to support the needs of the entire plan; redoing the south drainage ditch to make it more attractive and safe; upgrading the lighting in the sanctuary including stage lighting and (hopefully) a video wall instead of a projector (in lieu of a wall, we might do a better projector, depending on cost); the tensile shading structure over the south half of the courtyard.

Our early estimates project that this might cost $2.8M including the plans and such.

The plans would include taking Phases 2 and 3 to design/development stage to adequately prepare for utility needs for those phases.

Remember that this entire thing is in CONCEPT phase right now.

All of the details are subject to change as we get into the next steps (surveying, utilities, etc.).

We may discover that certain ideas must change because of things we don’t know about at this point.

The vote tonight will be to adopt the Master Plan as the future concept of the building, not as set-in-stone design drawings.

We will also vote tonight on setting aside $86,000 for Simons Architecture to do the necessary work as I’ve just outlined it.

And we will also hear about and vote on engaging a Lifeway subsidiary called Auxano to help us with a church assessment and capital funds campaign to raise the funds to pay off the cost of phase 1 through pledges and other giving.

Auxano’s cost, spread out over I believe 7 months, is $49,000.

Just wanting to be up front and clear on what’s coming tonight, and ask you to please plan to be here if at all possible.

AAEO ($6,021).

Supports church plants and other missionaries throughout North America.

Opening

Fourth of five weeks in this series.

Questions so far: “Why are people so often hurt by the church?”

“Are faith and science in conflict with one another?”

“Is abortion wrong?”

Our last two questions in this series are going to be ones that have been asked of Christianity for a very long time.

I pray that these last two weeks of the series are a help to your faith if you’re a believer, and that they are a help to those who are still considering Christianity.

I’ll give you today’s question in a bit.

First, let’s look at our focal passage this morning.

PRAYER (pray for Ukraine, pray for CBA Alameda Baptist Church & her Pastor Ken Clair)

Let’s use our imaginations for a moment: Imagine that a gigantic meteor came hurtling through space, got sucked into Earth’s gravity, and impacted our little planet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was really hot because of falling through the atmosphere at a gazillion miles per hour, so it created a bunch of steam that changed weather patterns throughout the world, but it was also a really strange chemical makeup, so that the precipitation that came from the steam was toxic—lethal—if you drank water that was contaminated by it, and because of the changes to weather, nearly all of the fresh water sources in the world were tainted by this toxic chemical.

And so let’s pretend that there was only one source of water… an underground spring... in the entire state of New Mexico that was safe to drink for the time being.

I know, it’s a stretch and highly improbable, but stay with me for the sake of the illustration.

If we were looking for water, what would we want?

Would we want someone to tell us the truth: that all the other water in the state was bad news and would kill us?

Or that, you know, whatever water you feel is right for you is the water you should drink... There’s no “right” water at all, or maybe there’s like a “best” water, but all other waters have the idea of water in them, so all waters lead to thirst quenching?

We’d want the real thing, the true thing, the thing that was going to actually save us.

And we would want that exclusively, rejecting every other water source.

And not only that, but we would want to tell other people about the only source of this saving water, because we know that without it, they’re toast.

Only the people who drink the right water will survive.

Today’s question is: “Why is Christianity so exclusive?”

The problem with this question is that when it is asked, it often is being asked with two meanings, which are the same question from different vantage points.

The first meaning of our question today would be best put in another way: “How can Christianity claim that there is only one way to God?” The second meaning of the question would be best put as: “Why do Christians believe that ONLY people who think like them will go to heaven?”

Both of these questions are basically the same with one slight tweak: The first is saying that the location of salvation (Jesus) is exclusive; the second is saying that the application of salvation (who can be saved) is exclusive.

We will address both positions this morning.

1) Christianity is EXCLUSIVE because Jesus claimed to be and is the only Savior.

This is the answer to the first question.

Yes, Christianity is absolutely exclusive as far as salvation is concerned.

I realize that my illustration at the beginning is far-fetched, and no illustration like that can ever be perfect as it relates to salvation.

However, forgive its shortcomings for a moment.

If there was only one source of pure water in the state, that would be a necessarily exclusive thing.

There would not be water anywhere else in NM that was safe to drink.

As far as logic goes, this makes perfect sense.

It’s called the law of the excluded middle.

It says that if A is true, then the opposite of A must be false.

For example, if it is true that I am physically here at this moment, it cannot also be true that I am not physically here at this moment.

The two statements are called mutually exclusive.

Both cannot be true at the same time.

And Jesus made a claim in our focal passage that was this kind of thing:

Jesus said that He is THE way.

He is THE truth.

He is THE life.

He said that NO ONE comes to the Father except through Him.

These aren’t subjective (or “preference”) claims.

Jesus didn’t claim to be A way to be saved.

He claimed that He is THE way to be saved ( a “moral” claim).

He said that NO ONE comes to the Father except through Him.

According to the law of the excluded middle, if it is true that Jesus is THE way to be saved, then there necessarily cannot be OTHER ways to be saved.

If it is true that NO ONE comes to the Father except through Jesus, then it cannot be true that someone or anyone comes to the Father by any means other than Jesus.

Does this make sense?

So the question isn’t whether or not we LIKE the idea that Jesus is the only means of salvation.

The question is whether or not that claim is TRUE.

He made an objective claim about the nature of reality, and He didn’t only make it once.

The claim is made several times in Scripture.

The gate of salvation and life is narrow, exclusive: there is just one narrow gate and road that follows it.

There is only one God, and only one mediator between God and man: the man Jesus.

Peter put a very fine point on this in Acts 4:

The Scriptural witness is that faith in Jesus is the only way to be saved.

That claim is either true or it’s false.

Jesus is either the Savior or He’s not.

He’s either the way, the truth, the life, the gate, the mediator, the cornerstone, or He’s not.

There is no possibility for a middle ground.

Christianity is exclusive in the location of salvation, because it claims that there is one and only one way to be saved: trusting in what Jesus did when He died on the cross, taking the punishment for your sins in your place, and thus surrendering yourself to Him as Lord.

But is it right for Christianity to claim to be the only way to God? What about all the other world religions?

Aren’t they all kind of the way to get to God? How can one religion have the market cornered on truth?

These are fair questions.

The answer is simple.

Every (and I do mean every) religious belief, even atheism, claims that reality is a particular way.

They all make objective, moral claims about God and salvation and life.