Ten Reasons Why I believe in Jesus

Reason #10: The Spread of Christianity

 

1 Peter 3:15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect.

 

This verse calls us to give a reason for our hope.  Because we have set apart Christ as Lord, we need to be able to share why.  We need to be able to sit down at Starbucks and share with anyone and everyone why we believe what we believe.  If you Christ is your Lord… If you have set him apart in your heart…  If you live primarily and solely because of Jesus… why?  Can you tell me, why?  Can you convince me, why?  Can you clearly and gently and with respect, share with anyone the reason of your hope?  That has been the challenge of this year.  Our theme for 2010 is… A Reason for Hope!  We have been studying why we believe what we believe.

 

And we have made lots of progress.  We have been studying the Jesus Body List.  This is a memory device which is designed to help us be prepared.  Let's briefly recap where we have gone so far this year.

 

10 Ceiling             Spread of Gospel & Early Witness

9 Point                   Prophecies - Psalm 22 is all about Jesus

8 Face                    The Face of Jesus - I am willing

7 Collar                 Christ and Lord - Jesus Christ?  Come back to this and ask YHWH

6 Shoulder            Sharing Jesus in Praxis - next week

5 Love Handles    Liar, Lunatic, Legend or Lord       

4 Rear                   Resurrection - 10 Reasons why

3 Muscle              Miracles - John 14:11 - Believe on the evidence

2 Knees                Knees of Prayer  Abba Father

1 Toes                   Teachings  - Matthew 5-7 - Sermon on the Mount & Grace!

 

 

We have two and a half reasons left.  So my plans are to do, #6 next week; #7 the rest of the story the week after that and then review all this material in detail as a package.  That is going to be an overwhelming sermon.    But this morning I want to go to reason #10.  I apologize for this being a bit confusing.  That is what happens when you have a series within a series within a series.  I didn't realize it was going to be difficult to get back out of it. It was easy to get into but hard to back out of; this morning Reason #10.

 

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The single most striking thing about early Christianity was its speed of growth.  In 25 AD there were no Christians at all; only a young hermit who lived in the Judean wilderness eating locust and wild honey and preaching that the kingdom of heaven was near.  By 125 AD, the Roman emperor had established an official policy about the punishment of Christians.  In just 100 years Christianity went from zero to a powerful force over the entire Roman Empire.  That is amazing.  It is Acts 1:8.

 

Acts 1:6-9  So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"  He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

 

The last words, spoken directly to the disciples, as Jesus ascended back to heaven, were a call to take it to the ends of the earth.  It just 100 years those disciples who heard this challenge, did it!

 

The question I want to ask this morning is, "How did this happen?"  How could 12 uneducated, discouraged disciples, without any money or position or power in the world, have done it?  They didn't even have access to the internet.  Why did early Christianity spread like wildfire across geographical, political, social and ethnic boundaries to turn the whole world upside down?  Reason #10 of Why I believe in Jesus is the amazing spread of the Gospel across their world.  But How? 

 

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There are, I suppose, a number of different ways we could answer this question.

 

WE COULD SAY…

 

The world was ready for it. 

The Romans controlled the world.  There were roads everywhere.  Travel was fairly safe. The government was stable.  Commerce was thriving.  People were moving about.  There were common languages; Greek and Roman to communicate with everyone.  You could answer, why Christianity spread so rapidly, by pointing to the entire infrastructure of the Roman Empire was ideal for the growth of a new religion.  That is kind of what Paul said in Galatians.

 

^NLT Galatians 4:4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son.

 

There is some truth to this.  God's timing was right.  But I hardly think that is a complete answer.  The timing was right, but it was just as right for all religions to grow and only Christianity did.  The answer, I suspect, is much bigger.

 

The method was right.

Christianity spread because it was a word of mouth, person-to-person, one-on-one, grass-roots method of spreading.  Any advertiser would tell you the best way to sell a product is word of mouth.  When I go to see a good movie and I tell you Toy Story 3 is the best movie ever.  You are more likely to go see it than if you see a commercial saying it is the best movie ever.  Every movie is the best movie ever according to advertising.  We have learned to discount all that.  But we tend to believe what the people we trust tell us.  Christianity then hit on the right method of selling the message. 

 

Christianity spread across the empire because individuals told their neighbors and ordinary people sharing the good news with others.  It wasn't a great PR campaign, but rather sincere people sharing the reason for their hope.  They gave an answer to everyone who asked for their hope!  It was a great method. 

 

Sidebar: when we get ready to grow, the method is still right.  Share our hope with our neighbors is still the right method.    

 

Why did Christianity grow?  The world was ready and the method was right.  Well, that still begs the question.  Why did these early disciples share it with their neighbors?  The method was right but the method was an outgrowth of the message.  If the movie was lousy, I am not going to tell you to go see it.  They shared the Gospel with their neighbors because it was good news.  We still need to ask why was it good news?

 

Other religions were weak.

Anthropologists tend to answer our question by pointing to the other religions of the 1st century:

-Stoicism was too lofty and dry for the people of the 1st century.  It was no fun.

-Popular paganism didn't work and was morally bankrupt.  The depravity was horrible. 

-The mystery religions of the time were dark, forbidding and too esoteric and secretive.

-Judaism was law-bound, hard and way too introverted to appeal to many.

 

So when Christianity burst onto the scene with its positive message of hope and answers to real questions and a call to live a better life, it grew like gang busters because the competition was so lame.  Obviously, once again, there is some truth to this.  But it still begs the question.  Why was the Christian message superior to all the others?   Where did that message come from?  

 

Christianity cared. 

One of the answers that is given as to why Christianity grew is it introduced a caring community to the world. 

 

Galatians 3:26-28 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

Imagine this message of equality and unity being delivered to a world where well over half the population were slaves.  There was a social structure in the Roman world of classes of people.  From the Emperor down there were layers and layers of social structure.  Into that setting, came a message saying "We all are one in Christ!"  Here is a community that invites you to be equal with all other members of that community; it gives even the lowliest slave personal dignity and status.  It cares for its community.  There is love and support and healing within this community.  Wow!  In contrast to a brutal world, Christianity created a haven of love and respect.  No wonder it grew.  Who wouldn't want to be a part of this kind of respect and dignity and care?  We are going to follow this thought further next week.  But for now, we still need to ask, from where did this compassion come? 

 

There was a mission.

We are getting closer to the heart of the matter.  The early Christians believed that their message of the Gospel was for the whole world.  This was a significant shift in religious thinking.  Most religions of the 1st century were self-focused.  They were geographical religions.  They were for their people and their people only.  Most religions were attempted to gain some advantage over the rest of the world.  But Christianity at its heart was focused on world mission.  They were committed to spreading the Gospel to everyone.  

 

Matthew 28:18-20  Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

 

They took this commission very seriously.  Religion to them wasn't something to be hoarded and kept secretly to oneself or even one's own kind.   At the heart of it, it was to be shared! 

 

“Christianity did not spread by magic…Christianity summoned proud pagans to face torture and death out of loyalty to a Jewish villager who had been executed by Rome.  Christianity advocated a love with cut across racial boundaries.  It sternly forbade sexual immorality, the exposure of children and a great many other things which the pagan world took for granted.  Choosing to become a Christian was not an easy or natural thing for the average pagan.  A Jew who converted might well be regarded as a national traitor…Pliny thought it normal to interrogate, with torture, slave girls who happened to be part of the early Christian movement…  Why then did early Christianity spread?  Because early Christians believed that what they had found to be true was true for the whole world.  The impetus to mission sprang from the very heart of early Christian conviction.”  - N. T. Wright -

 

They believed the Gospel was to be shared with the whole world.  This conviction explains the spread of the Gospel.  But it doesn't explain where this conviction came from.

 

The Message

Beyond the conviction that the Gospel was for all and that it created a caring community, was the heart of the message; salvation.  It was more than good timing.  It was much more than weak competition.  It was more than the compassionate community of the church.  It was more than a passion for the mission.  The reason Christianity spread was the message of the Gospel!  It was a message of salvation.

 

1 Corinthians 15:1-4  Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

 

The message that took the world by storm was a message of hope and forgiveness and new creation and new beginnings and eternal life!  The message was magnificent! 

 

The Power of Jesus

But, behind this magnificent message is the person and power of Jesus.

 

Acts 10:36-44  You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.  You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached--  how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.  "We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.  He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-- by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."  While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.

 

This is the 10th reason I believe in Jesus.  The power of Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, spread the message far and wide.  No other explanation satisfies.  No other answer is complete.  No other reason is enough.  The only reason why Christianity spread over the world was, the story of Jesus was true and full of his power! 

 

Los Alamos Church of Christ

June 27, 2010