<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'><font color="black" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" size="4"><a href="http://www.sermonsuite.com/content.php?i=26097&key=yIdbw6zc4zuamgXp">http://www.sermonsuite.com/content.php?i=26097&key=yIdbw6zc4zuamgXp</a><br>
<br>
(see above for beginning; below, in conclusion:)<br>
</font><b>Salvation Of The Whole Person</b><br>
<br>
Another uniqueness of Jesus is his emphasis on the well--being of the whole person.<br>
<br>
If
I become a Muslim, my religion promises to make me right with Allah,
god. But it offers me no relationship with myself or creation. Arabs
raped Palestine ecologically, and their religious leaders make them into
car bombs constantly.<br>
<br>
If I become a pantheist, I get right with nature but ignore my relations with God and other people.<br>
<br>
If
I become a Hindu, through diet and meditation, I achieve a relationship
with myself, but have nothing with God, people, or creation.<br>
<br>
In
Christ, however, I am promised a relationship that is based on love
that intellectually, emotionally, and willfully includes God, self,
neighbor, and creation. This is the exceeding breadth of the great
commandment of Christ - to love God and my neighbor as myself. See in 1
Thessalonians 5:23 God's interest in the whole person: "May the God of
peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body
be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."<br>
<br>
No one cares for all that I am and for all my basic relationships like Jesus Christ!<br>
<br>
<b>Philosophical Epistemology<br>
</b>
Epistemology is the philosophy of knowing. It asks the question, "How
do I know something is true?" And basically, it works out to four means:<br>
<br>
<br>
1.<i> Experience:</i> "I know fire burns because I touched it."<br>
<br>
2. <i>Reason:</i> "I know 2+2=4 because it is reasonable." <br>
<br>
3. <i>Authority:</i> "I know man walked on the moon because <i>NBC News</i> told me so."<br>
<br>
4. <i>Revelation: </i>"I know there is a God because my conscience bears witness."<br>
<br>
<br>
The
interesting thing about world religions is that they all appeal to
epistemological verification in at least one of these four areas and to
varying levels of quality. Jesus Christ, however, can be verified in all
four areas and to the highest levels of quality.<br>
<br>
As James 3:17 teaches, "The wisdom from above (Christ) is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason...."<br>
<br>
Consider:<br>
<br>
<br>
1. <i>Experience: </i>All varieties of people on every continent have experienced Jesus Christ for 2,000 years.<br>
<br>
2. <i>Reason:</i>
Jesus and his Bible are the most scrutinized of all. There has been
more debate, writing, thinking, and teaching about him than any other.
Christian apologetics is well documented. And the most intelligent of
history have believed in him - T. S. Eliot, Shakespeare, Rem--brandt,
Handel, Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, and the like. <br>
<br>
3. <i>Conscience, revelation:</i>
I read this word and I am strangely calmed. We keep coming back to him,
rediscovering him. He's the man we cannot avoid, the one revealed from
heaven. <br>
<br>
4. <i>Authority:</i> Here there is the Bible, the
church, Christian universities, families - human authority and beyond -
all chorusing, "Jesus is truth!"<br>
<br>
<br>
Oswald Spangler called
Jesus "an incomparable figure." Ibsen said he is "the greatest rebel who
ever lived." Will Durant called him "God's highest incarnation."
Charles Lamb observed, "If all the illustrious men of history were
gathered together and Shake--speare should enter their presence, they
would arise to do him honor; but if Jesus Christ should come in they
would all fall down and worship him."<br>
<br>
It was Napoleon who wrote
of Christ: "I know men, and I tell you, Jesus was more than a man.
Comparison is impossible between him and any other being who ever lived
because he was the Son of God."<br>
<br>
<b>Incarnation</b><br>
<br>
The Bible says Jesus is "the word" that "became flesh and dwelt among us."<br>
<br>
I
asked a young Oriental student at the university why he had become a
Christian. "I was in a deep pit," he testified. "I wanted out but<b> </b>was
in too deep and was entirely too weak to climb out. Confucius looked in
and said, 'You are in a deep pit. You should have been more careful. If
you ever get out, come and see me and I will teach you wisdom.' Next
Buddha looked in on me. He said, 'Quit struggling, my son. There is
peace in the pit. Only meditate on my words.' Next Moses visited. He
gave me ten rules and told me to build my life around them. There
followed, then, the man Jesus Christ. He looked down into the pit, saw
me and didn't say a word. He simply climbed down into the pit, embraced
me and carried me out on his back. Now, every day he walks with me
teaching me how to love like him."<br>
<br>
Such is the incarnational
love of Jesus. He comes among us, feeds us, heals us, numbers the hairs
of our head, calls us by name, dies in our place, and bids us, "Cast all
your cares upon me because I care about you."<br>
<br>
<b>His Miracles</b><br>
<br>
Yet a final distinctive of Jesus Christ is his miracles.<br>
<br>
What
did he do? What didn't he do! He turned water into wine, healed the
lame, the blind, and the deaf. Calmed a storm, multiplied a little food
to feed 5,000, raised the dead, even resurrected himself from death!<br>
<br>
Look
at it this way. If you were walking down the road in life, and the road
came to a fork and you didn't know which way to go, you'd ask
directions. Let's say four people are there, three dead and one alive;
who will you ask?<br>
<br>
Buddha, Mohammed, and Moses are dead, but
Jesus Christ is alive. He is unique among religious leaders of the world
in that he alone has no tomb. He alone is alive, eternal, and reigning!<br>
<br>
<b>Conclusion<br>
</b>
Almost 2,000 years ago a man was born contrary to the laws of nature.
This person lived in poverty, was reared in obscurity. Never did he
travel extensively. Only one or twice did he cross the boundary of
Israel. He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His family had little
education. In infancy, he startled a monarch. In childhood, he puzzled
scholars. In adulthood, he ruled nature walking upon the sea and hushing
a storm.<br>
<br>
He healed the multitudes of blind, lame, mute,
possessed, and he did it without medicine and made no charge for his
services. He never wrote anything down, and yet the libraries of the
world bulge with the volumes written about him. He never wrote a song or
painted a picture or molded clay and yet he has furnished the theme for
more art than all others combined.<br>
<br>
He never practiced medicine
and yet he has healed more broken spirits and hearts than modern
medicine far and near. He never started a university, yet all the
colleges of the world cannot boast of having as many disciples.<br>
<br>
He
never commanded an army, fired a gun, drafted a soldier, or ran for
political office. Yet no officer or king ever had more volunteers who
have, under his orders, marched into every valley of human need to begin
orphanages, schools, hospitals, to right wrongs, and institute justice.<br>
<br>
Every
Lord's Day, the wheels of commerce cease their churning and multitudes
assemble in churches worldwide to worship him as Savior and Lord.<br>
<br>
The
names of athletes, senators, artists, emperors, and soldiers have come
and gone; but the name of this person grows with time. Though nearly
2,000 years from his birth, yet he still lives! Herod could not kill
him. Satan could not seduce him. Death could not obliterate him. The
grave could not hold him.<br>
<br>
He stands forth upon the earth as God Incarnate, the King of glory, Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord.<br>
<br>
Proclaimed by prophets, heralded by angels, worshiped by saints, feared by devils, he asks, "Who do you say that I am?"<br>
<br>
Stephen M. Crotts<br>
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