Aren't All Religions the Same? | Pastor Christian Lindbeck | Venture Church

Hi, and welcome to Venture Church Online. My name is

Kelsey and I'm our online campus pastor. We're so glad

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hope that you enjoy today's service.

Hey, good morning, Venture Church.

Good to see you.

Good morning to all of you who are joining us online.

We're glad that you could be a part of what's

going on in this region. If I haven't met you yet,

my name is Christian Lindbeck, another one of the grateful

pastors on staff and this outstanding Jesus community on mission

to make Jesus famous everywhere we can reach around the world.

So sometimes we.

Think about church is this gathering, This is just one

thing that we do. This is a group of people

on mission together to take Jesus everywhere that we can go.

And we're glad to have you as a part of this.

This morning, we're in a second week of a series

that we're calling God Problems. And that might be a

problem that you have with God, or a problem that

you think God needs to solve, or a problem that

you have with Christianity.

All the things that maybe confuse.

Or frustrate or even deter people from making a full

commitment to.

The good news about Jesus.

And Venture seeks to be the kind of place where

you can ask those questions honestly and not get them

like swatted down, or get simplistic answers, or feel like

you have to solve them right away. We want to

be the kind of place where we can wrestle with

the truth. It turns out it can handle it. If

something is true, it can handle your most rigorous questioning,

and that means that our faith can handle it. Our

faith is not made weaker by asking our hardest questions.

Our faith is made stronger when we have the courage

to bring our hardest questions to the table and then

wrestle with them, admit when they're hard, talk to other people.

And that's the kind of community we strive to be.

That's what Sunday mornings are about, this kind of corporate

discipleship together. So small groups are about work it out together.

Talk with the people that you're sharing life. That's what

Venture University classes are about. Come somewhere, dive into a

classroom environment, like with all of our heart, all of

our mind, and all of our strength, let us pursue

the truth and not be afraid to ask God problem

sized questions.

Now, I'm gonna.

Admit today is gonna get a little heady, So stick

with me for a moment. Usually during the summer we

plan these kind of light and easy series like God

on Film or something. But this time Brandon decided he

wanted to swing for it, and this morning we're gonna

ask one of the most common questions that come up

in God problem discussions, and that question is aren't all

really religions basically the same? In other words, isn't Christianity

just one of the many sincere attempts to find God

or to find enlightenment or to discover spiritual peace.

And I do think that this is a common question.

In fact, it's such a widespread cultural assumption that I

think a lot of Christians themselves quietly hold it that

they think this is my truth, like that I believe

this to be true, but I want to be humble

and respectful to the people around me.

So I'm gonna say this is my path, but good.

For you on your path. And I think that that

comes a masked in what could be healthy cultural humility,

but ends up actually being sort of sloppy in terms

of evaluating what thing is actually true. It's for a

moment perfectly, I started to write, We've been trained to

believe that any claim to truth is ignorant. But I

think a stronger word might be we have been indoctrinated

to believe that all truths are equal and they belong

to the eye of the holder, and that any claim

to one path being true is in fact ignorant or intolerant.

Before we go much further.

This morning, I'm just gonna say we can't wrestle with

this question unless things are true.

Now, I got great news for you. Are you ready?

Some things are true and some things are not true,

and you move through your entire day assuming that to

be true.

Like, we work in a world.

Where things are true, and because some things are not

true are true other things aren't true. Two plus two

is four. It's objective, it's true, it's not six. There

are just things that are true and things that are

not true. And this is the way we have to

have the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual integrity to ask the

question truth exists. And that means I think that somebody

offers you the question, aren't all religions basically the same.

You might push back with asking, isn't the real question

which one, if any is true? Since things are true,

the real question isn't are are which one is true?

Are all of them true and one of them true?

Is there a way that we can evaluate that? And

here's what I want to suggest is that this is respectful.

This can have cultural and personal humility, and it can

still be rigorous and thoughtful, and we can still make

claims to truth. The value of an open mind is

a lot alike the value of an open mouth.

Sooner or later you have.

To close it around something worthwhile well and that is

functionally true, and you can do that with respect. Years

ago I worked as just a couple of years ago,

I worked as a hospital chaplain, which is a rigorous

and strange and beautiful thing to do with your time.

But on that team I worked with as an interface team.

So we had a rabbi, an Orthodox rabbi, a secular rabbi,

a Catholic priest, a Mormon elder, and a humanist chaplain.

And I will tell you that on that interfaith team,

we were able to work with respect with each other,

and we were able to have deep, deep conversations about

the meaning of truth and challenge each other and suffering

and what is life all about.

But here's a really important part.

None of us thought for one second that we were

all saying the same thing about what is true. We

were able to extend to each other the dignity of

holding the thing that we have determined to be true.

With courage and fact, could encourage each other to talk.

About it and ask each other questions.

And we knew that if we muddied it all down

to nothing, then we offered the people we were trying

to care for also nothing. I have to serve out

of a place of integrity, so I could offer respect

and humility these people. But we didn't think like we're

all just putting different sprinkles on the same ice cream.

And that was the kind of respect that we could

provide to each other. And so I need you to hear,

if you're in this conversation with yourself or with somebody else,

conviction and humility are not opposite. Conviction with integrity and

personal humility are not opposite.

In fact, one of my favorite authors.

Wrote, humility is not the denial of truth. That's actually

sloppy humility is not the denial of truth.

It's the posture with which we hold it.

You can honor someone and still say, but I believe

this to be true, and I'd love.

To help you see it.

That's actual intellectual and interpersonal integrity. But often it's just

given to us, as though that would be intolerant.

Maybe some of you have heard this.

Is a famous parable called the blind men and the Elephant.

They may know this one, okay, only a few.

Cool, cool, cool.

It's a famous parable that is often used in this

conversation about aren't all religion is the same, And it's

used to suggest that it's all basically the same because

it only differs in that the people who are examining

it are examining it from their very limited perspective and

only seeing one piece of the ultimate reality.

So in this.

Parable, there's often more blind people examining the elephant. But

it goes something like this, Right, one person, with their

very limited view they're blind, approaches the elephant and they

feel the big, strong, moving trunk and they're like, oh

my gosh. The truth is that an elephant is a

giant snake, and another one limited to their tiny bit

can only feel the side of the elephant and like,

you're totally wrong.

An elephant is just a giant.

Huge, impenetrable wall, and another one's like, oh no, you

guys are both wrong, like I'm back here and it

only just feels like a really thick, strong rope. And

this parable is often told with that sort of knowing

where you're in on the joke, and you can see right.

You can tell because.

You can see that they're all wrong, and the point

they're limitedly correct, and the point is supposed to be

everyone is describing the same thing from a different angle,

and so likewise they would suggest every religion is saying

something about the divine from its very limited piece and

perspective of the same God, which sounds humble and why like, yes,

you're right, I have a very limited perspective.

That's so correct. But here's the problem.

The only way that you can say all the blind

people are partially right and describe one big elephant as

sort of knowingly snicker at their joke and their ignorance

is that you can see the whole elephant.

It's only funny because you in.

The understanding are saying, oh, I know all the truth,

so I can see that you are only seeing a

limited piece of the truth. It's like saying, it's like

a sneaky claim to superior reality. I can see everything

and insists that no one else can.

Friends.

That's not humility, Like I said, it's a sneaky claim

to knowledge. Tim Keller, in his great book The Reason

for God puts it this way, how could you possibly

know that no religion can see the whole truth unless

you yourself have the superior and comprehensive knowledge you just

said no one else has. You only can say you

only see a limited piece of the truth. If the

teller of the story says, I know you only see

a limited piece of the truth because I see the

whole truth, it's like saying there is absolutely no such

thing as truth or nobody can know the truth, and

I'm telling you that's absolutely the truth. Do you see

out it self defeating the story. It assumes that the

storyteller knows the whole truth, and I don't have any

problem with it, pointing to that there's limited perspectives for

some parts, But it.

Makes a claim to absolute truth.

Nobody can know the full truth, and I know that

for sure is a shockingly absolute truth statement. So don't

buy the seemingly humble, fake lie that says, trust me,

nobody knows the whole truth. That's the most truth saying

thing that you could possibly say. And so it raises

not a question about limited perspective. It raises the question

of whether or not we can evaluate what is true.

In fact, this parable, instead of proving that all religions

are equal and just have a limited perspective, is accidentally

showing us something much more important. Truth claims are inescapable.

Even the person saying there is no truth is making

a truth claim. And so the question for us isn't

like is it weird or ignorant to make a claim

to truth. The question for us is which one is true?

Are you hearing me? You must?

It is actually sloppy to go everything's true, everything is

not it's true, And even saying that is a truth claim.

It is inescapable. That we must deal with truth. We

have to. I was thinking, if you've been in one

of my Bible classes as an intern or a student,

you will hear me say many times. I know lots

of Christians who say, my whole life is based on

the truth of who Jesus is I make all my

decisions in this, and yet they spend no time investigating him.

I know plenty of Christians who do not and have

not read this revelation of who Jesus is to be.

Have integrity about what we believe. We love the Lord

God with all of our heart and all of our

minds and all of our strength.

There is integrity and invaluating what is true. Everybody having

some summer fun.

Yet, so the question is not what's the most interesting perspective,

or what's my cultural.

Upbringing, or how am I biased towards this?

The question about this is which one is true? And

as I said at the beginning, I urge you test it.

I can't give it to you today. Test it, study,

try evaluate. You're gonna hear me say many times today.

I do not hold my position as a Christian lightly.

But this is a question and evaluated truth. So let's

just put this out there to begin with. Some people

are like, well, aren't all religions basically saying the same thing. Also,

I often think that they think there's a lot more

kind of religion options than actually exist in the world.

There are lots of little side kind of religious options.

But just know they fall into these major categories. Let's

do a quick preview of those. Buckle yourself down for

this exciting content. Judaism teaches that God is one, whole

and only one person and just, and that the Messiah

that is long awaited is yet to come. Islam teaches

that God is one, only one, distant and transcendent in

a way that can make that being unknowable, but deserves obedience,

and Jesus was a prophet, not divine, and most certainly

not crucified and certainly not resurrected. Hinduism includes millions of

gods that allow that could be devised by people. Basically,

in Hinduism, if you believe that thing is a god,

then it is a God, and that each soul is

caught in a cycle of karma and reincarnation forever leading

nowhere well eventually to nothingness. Buddhism in its original form

teaches that there is no God.

At all, and that the only.

Path to life is by extinguishing desire, figuring out you

don't exist, nothing exists, and when you finally figure out

that nothing exists in your past pain, then you can

reach nirvana. Pantheism says that all things are God, and

the divine is impersonal.

It's just like the force.

Naturalism says that nothing exists beyond the physical and material universe. Christianity,

Listen is unique in teaching that God, out of love

and compassion and desire for his creation, became a human

being in the person of Jesus, died to absorb human

sin and physically rose from the dead.

To redeem the entire creation that he loves.

These are not different paths up the same mountain. These

are different mountains, right, Like, they're totally like what is

the nature of reality?

What is the path to get there? Who is God?

And what is not God?

There's no way with intellectual integrity to say that these

are all leading the same place. We must ask the

right question again, which one is true?

Now?

Usually a course on comparative religion is at least forty

five hours long, and I have sixteen more minutes, So

let me whet your appetite today to do some more evaluation.

And I'm just going to focus on this question. I've

spent a lifetime asking this question why Christianity, what makes

it unique and worthwhile? And I have a one word answer, Jesus.

Jesus is unparalleled in any way, shape or form. There

is no other religious so called leader that is anything

like Jesus. No other founder of a religion has said

anything like Jesus, done anything like Jesus, or operating in

the ongoing current authority of Jesus.

It is Jesus, period done.

If somebody asked me why Christianity, my first answer would

be Jesus. Like this is not comparable to some other

leader that says they had a revelation. Jesus is not

a teacher alone.

He is the teaching. He is the point. He isn't

a guide to the way, He is the way. This

is incomparable.

I'm just telling you in all world religion, there is

nothing like it. And it is an exclusive claim. Jesus

says in John fourteen six, I am the Way and

the Truth and the life, and no one comes to

the Father except through me, which means Christians we cannot

hold and everything goes claim because that claim is exclusive.

Jesus is saying.

It's a wide open claim that says my arms are

open to the whole wide world.

But it's an absolutely exclusive claim.

I am the only way and truth and life, and

not I point to it or I can.

Teach about it. Here's a book on it. Jesusays, I.

Am the way he is uniquely this revelation. Robbi Zacharias

wrote in his book Jesus among other Gods, Jesus doesn't

offer a system of thought. He offers himself that is

not only uncommon, it is absolutely unique. It is unparalleled

in the so called world of religious options. Why Christianity Jesus?

The next question might be why Jesus and friends. The

Apostle John wrote at the end of his book, if

I gave you all the reasons for why Jesus, I

suppose there wouldn't be enough books in the whole world

to tell you the story. I am going to attempt

in the next twelve minutes to boil it down into

five things that you can meditate on in your own heart,

that you can share.

If somebody asks you why Jesus.

I want you to be able to say one, two, three, four, five,

why Jesus. You can remember anything that you can put

on one hand, why Jesus. Let's start with number one,

his birth?

Why Jesus? His birth? Now, almost everyone on the face

of the earth knows the story of Jesus. Virgin birth.

There's a Snoopy special about it, right.

It's like people know this story and so they get

caught thinking, oh, this is the point.

The point is.

That his you know, he was born from a virgin

That is a miracle.

That is not the point.

The point of Jesus being reborn by the spirit of

God is God is screaming a declaration over the world.

The world is broke and I am restarting it. This

is the start of the new order, new creation. I'm

making all things new. I'm making all humans new. And

the first born in the new order is Jesus, and

everybody who gets reborn into his life is part of

the new heavens, new Earth that lives forever. Like his

life is this hollering declaration from God that he is

making all things new. He's restoring to think like the

only other humans he made out of nothing were Adam

and Eve. So he's reaching back and saying, let's here's

the new start that will bring us to the goal

that we have always had. And when we're reborn into Him,

we are reborn into that new order. When you become

a Christian, a new thing is made in your life,

is found in Jesus life.

You are new. And sometimes Christians will say to me,

what do you think it's going to be like to

live forever? Like I can't even get my brain around eternity.

What's that going to be like?

And I'm like, you are reborn into eternity right now,

you are currently living eternally.

How does that feel like? Day by day? Cool? Because

that's exactly what it's going to.

Be like, Like, it's not a mystery because you were

doing it right now. Reborn into Christ. You are in,

You are reborn into His life.

Number one is birth number two his life.

Jesus lived the only sinless life that has ever been

recorded and is unquestionable. His life is impeachable and impeccable.

And the record of it here is, like I said,

it is inpeachable in a book that is quick to

share people's mistakes. There's no other record of any human

on the face of the earth.

A religious leader, most.

Certainly not the Buddha, who is trying to get his

own profound suffering to discover that there was nothing, most

certainly not Mohammed and Islam. Go read about the life

of Mohammed, yur will find them deeply morally questionable material.

Not Moses, not Isaiah, none of the prophets. Only Jesus

Christ has lived a perfect and sinless and powerful life.

He combined humility and courage, and truth and grace and

strength and gentleness, and along the way he demonstrated his authority.

He healed the sick.

Gave sight to the blind, He cast out demons with

absolute authority, calm storms, raised the dead. His life was

marked by unparalleled divine authority, testifying miracles and compassion towards

the most vulnerable.

There's never been anybody like Jesus, because I I just

tell go read. There is is no comparison.

You know what the best news is his perfect life

becomes our model and gift. You know that, God says

Romans eight twenty eight through thirty. The goal, God says,

the goal for every Christian is that you would be

transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Like I'm You're

gonna be reborn, You're gonna share in his death and resurrection.

And then i Am going to make you into him

the theological words. I'm gonna impute who Jesus is into

you and empower you by the Holy Spirit. So that's

how you will grow up. It's like a blueprint that

has been put into your life. How is the house

of your life meant to be built in the image

of Christ? His integrity around other people, his love for

the vulnerable, his compassion, his ability to be just but

not full of rage, his ability to be gentle.

All of those are gifts to us as a.

Blueprint, empowered by the Holy Spirit to live this beautiful

life that Jesus lived. His number three, his birth, his life,

number three, his teaching Jesus, I.

Don't know what else to say. I'm going to run

out of superlatives.

He has peerless ethics, he has unmatched in this Please

go read, go read philosophers, teachers of ethics, and theologians.

His teaching, particularly his teaching on the Sermon of Them

Out Matthew five through seven, is praised across centuries as

the highest moral vision ever given. He taught radical forgiveness,

love for his enemies, truthfulness, generosity, purity of heart. His

teaching was good and good for us and makes a

good life. Anybody else in this room is another nerd

check for the day. Familiar with a famous theologian and

mathematician named Blaze.

Pascal. Oh yes, my people, Boom boom boom.

You'll love read Blaze. Pascal PONCEI is thinking. Blaze is famous,

most famous for a bet called Pascal's Wager, and he says,

let me make you a bet. This is a thought bet.

It's a thought experiment, and it goes something like this.

Let's say I bet that Jesus is true. If it

turns out I'm right, Jesus is true, I gain everything.

If it turns out that Jesus is not true and

I just lived by his teaching, then I have lost

very little, and I've lived a meaningful and beautiful life.

Any person who teaches esthics would see that. Conversely, if

you do not believe that Jesus is true, and you

make your own path and live your own life, you

gain the very little good of leading a self determined life.

And if it turns out that he is true and

you're wrong, you lose everything. Like if Jesus real, you

have everything to gain and little to lose.

If he isn't real, you have very little to.

Gain and everything to lose. Like his teaching makes good life.

Number four.

His death, we all know that Jesus walked deliberately towards

the cross. Consider that he predicted it, he embraced it.

He chose a public, painful and premeditated death in our place.

Isaiah fifty three says he was pierced for by He

was pierced for our transgressions, and by his wounds we

were healed.

Have you considered this that Jesus chose this kind of death?

If the theological point that most of us get stuck

on is Jesus needed to die and we needed to

participate in that death and new life, have you considered

that he chose this pain filled, shameful, embarrassing, long, brutal,

and bloody death. Why did the King of Heaven choose

to die that way?

He is making a point in.

The very way he chose to die, because it screams

into the heart and conscious of every Christian, no matter

where they're at, or where they came from, or what

they've done. Jesus says, I have taken your shame, your sin,

your public humiliation, unto myself, so that every Christian declare,

my God knows suffering, My God carried my suffering, My

God carried my sin.

My God knows.

Prissely, the worst than it is to suffer the consequences

of sin, and he carried it victoriously, just his death

is chosen. Death on our behalf is extraordinary. Roman says,

there is now no condemnation for those who are in

Christ Jesus.

How could that be?

And the scripture declares because that person died with Jesus

meaningfully participate in his death. A new person is born,

and that new person is set free in Jesus, and

there is no condemnation for the set free. There is

only a constant invitation towards confession, realignment, learning to be

like Jesus, and walking home all the way to the end.

It's an extraordinary gift, his.

Birth, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection and ascension.

Jesus rose physically and bodily from the dead, just as

he said he would. The resurrection is the cornerstone of

our faith. As Paul says in One Corinthians fifteen seventeen,

if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is

futile and you're still in your sins. And then he

goes on to say, but Christ was verifiably raised from

the dead, fulfilling every promise that he ever made about

himself and sealing his ability to deliver on every promise

that he has made to us. It is a historically

verifiable and true bodily resurrection. And you do that, and

then you can say every other promise I made to

you is true. But I think we sometimes leave out

the next part. He was resurrected, and then he ascended

into his rightful place. And it is his ascension into

his rightful place, his full divine authority on the throne

of heaven, where he sends his Holy Spirit into us,

so that with his full authority, his work is exponentially

multiplied through every believer. He is no longer trapped in

one place at one time. He is the God of

Heaven who lived in bodily form, suffered death, and now

has absolute authority and absolute power to empower us, his believers,

to act on his behalf.

And continue to expand his kingdom.

It's just this incredible gift that his resurrection is our future,

and his ascension guarantees our authority now in our total

place in his kingdom. Put all five of those together,

and maybe you can even say them with me. Why Christianity, Jesus,

Why Jesus is miraculous and divine decale birth, his perfect

and powerful life, his peerless and beautiful teaching, his chosen

and brutal death, his verified resurrection and ascension. Why Jesus,

nothing else looks like that? And what does that mean?

For you and for me? His birth means you are

a new creation. His life imbues you with a blueprint

and a life worth living.

His teaching gives you a beautiful way to live.

His death means your sin is fully paid for, and

his resurrection and ascension are our reward. And nothing hear

me say, and I have spent the time, Nothing in

comparative religion promises anything even remotely close to this. It

is the most true, most powerful, most honest, most extraordinarily

Like if you thought there is a God that knows everything,

can be everywhere and loves human beings, this is the

most reasonable answer to that question. This just the evidence

is overwhelming? Can I give you one thing to think on?

Evidence does not equal seeing. You can see the evidence

and still close your heart off Roman's one twenty six.

The whole earth, all of creation, declares the wonder of God.

So nobody is without excuse, and yet still people give

themselves plenty of excuse. When I was living in Massachusetts,

I would often tune in to NPR there because they

would broadcast these lectures.

MIT and Harvard would bring in the smartest people in

the world to talk about a topic.

And then you had to either be at MIT or

Harvard to watch it, or you could listen to it

on local radio.

That was it.

They wouldn't get sent anywhere else, so I would tune

in and listen in this one time, I'm driving in

my car and I'm totally tuned in, and I listened

to a panel of the smartest people in the world

speak with awe about the beauty and order and structure

of the universe. They described the world as elegant and

mathematically exquisite and simultaneously simple and complex and vast and intimate.

And I sat in my car with tears running down

my face. I said, yes a man, and amen and amen,

this is my God who made this world. And they

get to the end of that lecture and one of

the person on the panel turns to the other panelists

and say.

And this is how we know there is no God.

I about drove my car off the road, and I thought.

All the struggling to show somebody something that is true,

like all the apologetics in the world, and you can

look straight at evidence and still not see it.

So that's my plea to you as we leave today.

If you are a Christian that follows Jesus, love him

with all your heart and all your time, and all

your pain and all your passion, all of your mind,

seek him and know him and love him.

You will not break it. He will only grow stronger

in your relationship with Jesus.

And if you do not know my Jesus, who I've

done my best to tell you about today, and you

think this all sounds like malarkey, well then I just

invite you to say I will not choose an intellectually

sloppy path to this decision. And I'd invite you to

ask say out loud or say it in your own heart, Jesus,

if you're out there and your truth, then you can

show me he will take you up on this challenge.

I am convinced beyond any doubt that Jesus is the

Way and the truth and the life. Are all religions

the same, plainly and obviously know they're observably and logically

in spiritual not the same, and Christianity is not merely

a better option, it is the true option. Christianity will

satisfy your intellect, your soul, and your life because it

is true and truth by its very nature, sets humans

free and changes everything.

Seek what is true.

And i'd invite you come into the identity and the

kingdom that has been offered to you in the way

whose name is Jesus Christ, because it has been waiting

and prepared for you since the.

Beginning of time. Come in his name. His invitation is

wide open. Lord. It is in your name that we

pray and we celebrate you. Amen. Awesome word for us.

Today, I want to encourage you to pull out your

cell phone and go to your Venture app and click

on the next Steps button. Like Pastor Christian said, forty

five hour class summed into thirty minutes thirty three he

had a little extra time. But there is so much

more to unpack and we've provided a lot of great

resources for you to continue your study on this topic

through our Venture Next Steps on the app, So make

sure to check that out this week, continue to wrestle

with it, continue to chew on it. But with that,

I want to invite you to stand on your feet

this morning. Thank you so much for being here with us, Adventure.

It's always good to have you here. It's always good

to see you and on behalf of Internationalized Scream Day.

Enjoy your roup, be your float on the way out.

God bless see you guys later.

Thank you again for joining us. If you enjoyed today's service,

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