“Made for More”
by Curtis Martin
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Prayer – John 8:52-58
Introduction
Sunday – Who is Jesus? Chapters 1-2 of Made
for More by Curtis Martin
Monday – Who am I? Chapters 3-4, followed
by Confessions
Tuesday – Why be Catholic? Chapter 5-6
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Example – Is it ethical to buy a term paper
online?
What motivates me to do anything?
We are all looking for happiness?
Where do we find happiness?
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baseball – roller coaster
God wants us to be happy.
Pope Emeritus Benedict – “We were not made
for comfort; we were made for greatness.”
We were MADE FOR MORE
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Will cheating lead to happiness?
Ethics is all about doing what is right so that
we can cultivate authentic happiness
Ethics and morality are not just rules; they are
guides to lead us toward happiness
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Coffee pot story
Have you ever done something wrong and
found true happiness?
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Every act, even sinful, is ultimately a search for
God (true happiness)
We cannot will our own happiness
We can only make the right or wrong choices
to gain happiness
Am I making the right choices in life?
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Many of our choices lead to a temporary
happiness, often at the cost of our ultimate
happiness
Good choices lead to lasting happiness
Only thing better – everlasting happiness
If we were made for more (everlasting
happiness), it explains why we often long for
so much more in this world.
Archbishop Sartain – “loneliness is God’s
invitation to intimacy with Him.”
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What would you do if you found out there was
a heaven and you could not enter?
If there is a heaven, what earthly good would
you be willing to sacrifice in order to gain
heaven?
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Take time to imagine the day you die and you
are invited into heaven
You take in the beauty, the joy, every fiber of your
being of completely satisfied…
 You meet the saints, some of whom actually knew
Jesus personally.
 “Wow! If someone had only told me about heaven
when I was young, I would have lived my life
differently.”
 Story of Mom
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“If heaven and hell exist, nothing else matters. If
heaven and hell don’t exist, then nothing matters.”
Albert Camus, “I would rather live my life as if
there is a God and die to find out there isn’t than
live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there
is.”
This book is dedicated to examine the compelling
evidence that God and heaven do exist.
Our souls were MADE FOR MORE – we were
made for God!
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Forget what you know about Jesus for a
moment…
There is not a figure in history that has had a
greater impact than Jesus of Nazareth.
Historian Non-Christian H.G. Wells – “…this
penniless preacher from Nazareth is
irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus
Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all
history.”
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Jesus lived 2000 years ago
Never held public office
Never wrote a book
Never invented or discovered anything
Wasn’t rich or wealthy
We know nothing about 90% of his 33 years on this
earth
Even His public ministry was often done in
villages and He asked people not to talk about
Him or spread the news
Died a spectacular failure on the cross
Placed in a tomb belonging to someone else
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Billions of Christians have followed Him and
call Him savior
A.D. means in anno Domini or “in the year of
our Lord” – time is measured by Him
Kairos story (personal God)
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It is precisely in the moment of seeming failure
– His death on the cross – that we start to
unlock the mystery.
Why would a peaceful man who “went about
doing good works and healing all that were in
the grip of the devil” (Acts 10:38), be rejected,
tortured and killed?
Many religious figures encouraged others to
turn toward God and love their neighbor.
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Other religious leaders (Moses, Buddha,
Mohammed and Confucius) had a message
about God.
Jesus is different in that He claims not to be a
messenger but to be the Message.
His identity is the issue
“Who do men say that the Son of Man is?”
(Matthew 16:13)
John the Baptist, a prophet, Jeremiah…
Who do YOU say that He is?
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Albert Einstein (Jewish) – “I am enthralled by
the luminous figure of the Nazarene…. No one
can read the Gospels without feeling the actual
presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in
every word.”
But Jesus wasn’t just a wise man because He
made claims no one else made…
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Matthew 9:2-7 – Jesus is brought a paralyzed man
by his companions.
“Which is easier to forgive sins or say, ‘Rise and
walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of
Man has authority to forgive sins…”
As the man got up and walked, his restored body
gave physical witness to the forgiveness Jesus
granted.
Only God can forgive sins, so Jesus was
proclaiming, “I am God”
The real miracle is not the healing, but the actual
forgiveness of sins.
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John 8 – religious leaders are criticizing Jesus, “Do
you think that you are better than Abraham?”
Jesus responds, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before
Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58)
“I AM” is the Name of God in Hebrew, the Name
by which God revealed Himself to Moses in the
burning bush
This name was sacred and unspeakable to Jews.
And Jesus takes it upon Himself!
That is why they wanted to stone Him right away
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Jesus taught people to be good, to care for the
weak, the sick and the poor, like many wise
teachers.
However, more than showing the way, Jesus
says, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no
one comes to the Father but through me.” (John
14:6)
He claims to be more than just a “good man”
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John 20:26-29 – Jesus appears to the apostles
after the resurrection and Thomas is doubting
Thomas falls to the ground and says, “My Lord
and my God!”
Neither Jesus nor the apostles rebukes Thomas
for blasphemy
Jesus accepts this worship, which says
something
His followers certainly saw Him as much more
than a wise teacher.
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C.S. Lewis’ trilemma
Jesus is either
1) Just a moral teacher – we have shown this not to be the case in
previous arguments. I AM, forgives sins, accepts being
worshipped, etc…
2) God
3) Not God
 Liar – if Jesus were a liar, He’d be a liar of biblical proportions.
 He would be evil claiming to be God to innocent people.
 Yet He witnessed to the truth, healed, gave life, wanted nothing for
Himself but to do the Father’s will.
 Usually liars are in it for themselves.
 True love – seeking the best for the other person
 Lunatic – does Jesus’ comprehensive teaching, the Sermon on
the Mount, all of His words sound like they come from a
deranged man? He is wise, warm and alive.
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The only conclusion left is that Jesus is God
We are asked to echo Peter’s words, “You are
the Christ (anointed one), the Son of the living
God.” (Matthew 16:16)
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Fully human
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Born in Bethlehem, had parents, laughed, cried,
slept, ate, drank, was tempted, died on a cross
Fully divine
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Miracles, walked on water, fed 5000 with a few
loaves and fish, healed the sick, raised people from
the dead, forgave sins, said, “The Father and I are
one”, rose from the dead
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Always desiring the best for the other.
“There is no greater love than to lay down
one’s life for one’s friends.”
How does the world define love?
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What is the danger of this kind of love?
Love is a decision to always seek the best for the
other person.
“Love does not seek its own interest”
This is how God loves us.
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The skeptic says, “Yes, if you believe
everything that you read. But why should we
trust the story the Bible tells us?”
People will look for any excuse to not believe in
the Bible and/or Jesus
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The Biblical evidence of Jesus is compelling,
but can we believe what we read?
Is the Bible just something created to make
Jesus and the apostles look good?
Stumbling blocks for some regarding the Bible
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Mistaking “Complementary for Contradictory”
Ignorance of Literary Form
Failure to read in context
Resistance to the unexplained
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Matthew 5:1 – Jesus went up the mountain for the
sermon on the mount
Luke 6:17 – Jesus stood on a level plain and gave
what sounded like the sermon on the mount
Which is it? Mountain or plain
Could be both – these were important teachings of
Jesus and He probably repeated them in several
places
Matthew highlighted Jesus as the new Moses,
delivering a New Lew on a New Mountain
Luke emphasized Jesus as the New Adam, who
makes salvation available to all
Complementary does not mean contradictory
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Some think that if the Bible is not like a newspaper
account of facts, then it has no truth
Jesus spoke in:
Parables – it is not necessary to have a real prodigal son;
the story is meant to illustrate an important teaching
point
 Hyperboles – exaggeration – does Jesus really want us to
cut off our hand if it causes us to sin? No, but it is urgent
to turn away from sin! (Matthew 18:8)
 Some of Scriptures is meant to be taken literally (John 6)
and others are poetic and are not meant to be taken
literally
 Allow the Holy Spirit and the Church help you
understand the Scriptures
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We can twist the text to say anything out of its
proper context
Extreme example – “Judas went off and
hanged himself” – Matthew 27:5
Luke 10:37 – Jesus said, “Go and do the same”
If we put these two together we get the wrong
message
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Unexplained doesn’t necessarily mean
impossible
Example – we can’t explain how bumblebees
can fly because their wings are so small
compared to their bodies
We can’t really explain the resurrection of
Jesus; yet that doesn’t mean it was impossible
Witnesses just knew that it happened; it didn’t
matter how it happened
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Deals with the reliability of ancient texts
Three types of evidence used:
Bibliographic
 Internal
 External
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Some say that since we don’t have the original
manuscripts of any books in the New
Testament, why trust the versions that we have
today?
This would erase most of our history since we
don’t have originals of ANY writing except in
the modern era (papyrus decays over time).
But there is evidence that our versions
correspond to the originals…
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Gospel of Matthew – oldest manuscript is from
4th Century
St. Jerome – 4th century – says he saw the original
manuscript of Matthew
 Jerome translated Matthew into Latin
 So we have an ancient witness of the original
(Jerome) and his translation that matches other
manuscripts of the same Gospel
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We have 5,366 ancient manuscripts and
fragments of the New Testament, all datable
within 50-100 years of the originals.
Plus we have 10,000+ copies of the Latin
Vulgate (St. Jerome – 4th Century)
2,000+ copies in Coptic
4,000+ copies in Slavic languages
Comparing all of these we can come to a “high
degree of accuracy” about what the original
Greek said.
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“To be skeptical of the resultant text of the
New Testament books is to allow all of classic
antiquity to slip into obscurity. For no
documents of the ancient period are as well
attested bibliographically as the New
Testament.”
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People who copied sacred texts, often monks,
took great care in their copying
Many people would check their work word for
word
If they found the slightest error, the whole copy
was destroyed and they would start over
It was a sacrilege to corrupt the sacred text
Biblical reliability and fidelity to the original
text have been scientifically established by
textual criticism.
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Does the document contradict itself?
Is it logical and plausible?
Errors in geography, customs or persons point
to forgery
However, details that would be unknown to a
later forger, like John talking about the
architectural details of Jerusalem before its
destruction in 70 AD, point to authenticity
Luke talks about people and events
surrounding St. Paul; events and people that
can be verified by other sources
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Also, the Gospels, especially Mark, have many
unflattering descriptions of the apostles
If someone were trying to write the Gospel to
promote Jesus as God and his friends as
reliable witnesses, they would not contain such
details:
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Peter’s denial of Jesus
Cowardice of the apostles during the crucifixion
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This looks at the meaning of the text
How did the original audience react?
6 historical facts that support the resurrection
1) Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate
 2) The tomb was empty
 3) The once fearful disciples soon proclaimed the
bodily resurrection
 4) Other eyewitnesses saw Jesus alive after
resurrection
 5) All apostles (except John) were martyred
 6) Millions accepted the faith quickly
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St. John taught St. Polycarp, who taught St.
Irenaeus.
Polycarp & Irenaeus both were martyred
St. Paul believed immediately and also was
martyred
So many lives have been changed by one
person and Jesus continues to inspire people
today…
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Jesus was not crucified because he said, “Love
one another.”
He was crucified for saying, “I AM”, claiming
to be the God of the universe (King of the Jews)
He doesn’t ask us just to accept His teachings;
He asks us to accept Him
The apostles became eyewitnesses to the
greatest miracle in history – the resurrection of
Jesus and they gave their lives for Him.
How am I responding to this miracle?
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Read the Bible 5 minutes a day
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Either the daily readings, or
Start reading the Gospels
Read the Catechism 5 minutes a day
Pray, converse with God based on what you
have read, for 5 minutes a day