The Wonder of Jesus
The Hard Sayings of Jesus
3.25.2012
One of the best known sentences in the English language …. Source of incredible pride …
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Found in this sentence is the idea that the Creator gives worth to every human being and gives rights to them
that are not given by anyone else and no one else should control those rights.
Do you think that's true? --- That all men, all people, all human beings, are created equal?
Strange thing: It's not all that obvious?
IQ, privilege of birth, music ability, March Madness, beauty contests
In the ancient world not only was it not obvious it was not the way life was looked at.
The ancient world saw things in a different way differently
Aristotle, for example, wrote that it was the natural order of life that some would be under and some would be
over, that some would be masters and some would be slaves, that some would be rich and some would be poor.
"For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of
their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."
What changed human thinking on this subject?
Yale philosopher - Nicholas Wolterstorff. Justice.
"We all now take for granted our moral subculture of rights. We are oblivious to how extraordinary it is, how
extraordinary it is that we should recognize human rights and person rights."
He says through history, human beings by nature tend to be tribal all the way back to ancient times. We don't
think of outsiders as having the same worth or the same rights.
"What accounts for the emergence of this unusual thing, this moral subculture that says every human being, no
matter who, has rights?"
He says it is the teaching, beginning with the Hebrew Scriptures and then clarified and made available to a
broader world through the life and death of Jesus that every human being has actually been made by God…and
in the image of God.
Every human being is loved by this God.
Columbine Shooting -- 1999
What changed the way people see others --- Jesus.
Wolterstorff -- "Our moral subculture of rights is as frail as it is remarkable."
We take it for granted, but it's kind of peculiar through the centuries of human history.
If belief in this rights-endowing, worth-giving Creator is taken away -- then human beings cannot be understood
as bearing the image, the dignity, the love, of this God.
We see this in the evolution worldview --- take God out of the equation and the whole game changes.
A 2011 piece in the New York Post declared "The End of Down's Syndrome," noting that 92 percent of women
who receive this diagnosis choose abortion.
First part of March, a couple from Oregon received a $2.9 million settlement because their doctor failed to
diagnose Down syndrome during pregnancy.
The parents, through their lawyer, told the media that while they loved their little girl, they would have
terminated the pregnancy had they known her diagnosis.
"What you end up having is a world without people with Down syndrome and the question becomes is that a
good thing or a bad thing?" Paul Root Wolpe, director of the center for ethics at Emory University
We have been a country that fights for the rights of the marginalized, underprivileged, otherwise discarded
people.
We stand up against foreign powers
… you can’t treat your people that way …
Why not?
Why not abort whomever you want to abort?
There are gradations of capacities.
There are gradations, differences, of talent and strength, beauty, charm, intelligence.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, "There are no gradations of the image of God."
A writer named Chris Seay tells about when he was a kid, his dad would take him to Astro games. They sat in
the cheap seats because they didn't have much money. A lot people would buy cheap seat to save money for
beer. He said, "By the late innings, there would be beer on the floor and beer down your neck and brawls
breaking out in the stands."
He wrote, "As a kid, I learned from a lot of folks that we were sitting with the bad people. There was one
consistent drunk fan named Batty Bob. He would come to all the games wearing a rainbow wig and lead slurred
cheers in the stands. I remember one time my dad went out to sit with Batty Bob. He spent the whole game
next to Batty Bob. Then he walked him to the parking lot to bring Batty Bob home with us. I was confused
because this was one of the 'bad' people. When we got home, my dad explained to me how God loved Batty
Bob. I can remember thinking, Really? Batty Bob? He stayed with us a few days to get back on his feet. This is
when I started to realize God does not despise those people; He dearly loves them for the same reason He dearly
loves me. ---- “Because.”
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator.
How do we know? "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever
…whosoever…believes in Him should not perish." --- Taken from John Ortberg
PRAY --- Jesus, Make yourself real to us, I want to know you!
Any way history is sliced there has never been anyone who has been quote as Jesus.
Quoted by historians, play writes, novelists, politicians, world leaders, teaches and of course Bible teachers.
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Go the extra mile
moving mountains
Casting pearls before swine
People like the nice saying of Jesus
 The truth will set you free.
 You shall not judge.
 Do to others as you would like them to do to you.
 You are the light of the world
 You are the salt of the earth
Mark Twain - The things in the Bible that bothered him were not those that he did not understand but those that
he did understand.
Sometimes the more we understand the harder the statements of Jesus are to swallow.
Not all of Jesus’ sayings are pleasant – warm – touchy feeling
Many of the sayings of Jesus are ‘hard’
People ran from them, struggled with them, bristled against them,
What?
You've got to be kidding!
That's crazy!
Hard because they go against the way that people behaved and treated one another.
Hard because they go against the natural reaction of the human heart to others and to life.
Hard because they are often the truths that dig deepest into our heart, spirit and motives.
The hard statements raise the question WHY?
 Why should I do that?
 Why do I react the way I react?
Jesus was talking about believing in him – eating his flesh and drinking his blood and …
 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (John 6:60 NIV)
 Another time Jesus asked the disciples “Do you want to leave also?”
We ask the question why?
What will it benefit me?
Cost Benefit Analysis - Decide whether to obey or not.
Loyalty
If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes,
even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26-27 NIV)
If we get the loyalty question wrong we get every other loyalty wrong.
Loyal to family ... we get neither loyalty to family nor loyalty to God right
Often not loyalty but actually fear of rejection or fear of their response
Get the loyalty to God right and you will be loyal to your family.
First loyalty is to work every other loyalty goes wrong.
Loyal to God … your loyalty to your family, work, play, hobby, church, community … all come into alignment
Coming down Mt. Adams
Money
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to
the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24 NIV)
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the
kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God." The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be
saved?" (Mark 10:23-26 NIV)
Serve God … money is a tool
Serve money … God is a tool
Gone somewhere to buy something … interact with a salesman …
They somehow find out that you are a believer and everything changes … pull out the God Track?
Forgiveness
If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if
you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV)
Love your enemy
I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your
Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and
the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax
collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do
not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:44-47 NIV)
At the end of the World War II when the allied troops went into Ravensbruck concentration camp, they found
among all the suffering and misery, the broken body of a dead child. Beside it lay a scrap of paper that one of
the soldiers read and then kept. No one knows who wrote them, but it is guessed that it was maybe the mother
of the dead child.
“O Lord, remember not only the men of good will, but those of ill will also. But do not only remember all
the suffering they have inflicted on us: remember the fruits we bore thanks to the suffering; our
comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage and the generosity, the greatness of heart which has
grown out of all this; and when they come to judgement, let all the fruits we have borne be their
forgiveness.” From an article by the Rev. A. M. Shepherd.
Marriage and Divorce
Matthew 19:1-9
The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
(Matthew 19:10 NIV)
Honor and Position
But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now
will be the greatest then. (Matthew 19:30 NIV)
Facebook Depression
Do whatever is necessary to deal with sin
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into
the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter
eternal life with only one foot than to be thrown into hell with two feet. And if your eye causes you to sin,
gouge it out. It’s better to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to have two eyes and be
thrown into hell, ‘where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out. (Mark 9:43-48 NLT)
Words we speak
But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every empty word they
have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
(Matthew 12:36-37 NIV)
Do you let the words of Jesus get down inside of you?
Do you let them cut away?
Calluses
That was nice …
Jesus goal … transform people …