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Andy Stanley - The Fundamental List Part 2 Fundamental 2 · Andy Stanley Sermons

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So, like most fathers, I have had multiple father fails through the years,
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and I thought I would share one with you because you would like to
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hear that. So here's one of my biggest ones. When my kids were
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little, of course, they wanted to go to Disney, and I didn't
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want to go ever to Disney. And that's not because of Disney, that's
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just a personality thing. And so I had a stall tactic. My stall
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tactic was this, Hey, I really want to go and be so great,
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but let's wait till we don't have to take a stroller. You know.
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I think we should all be able to do Disney on our own horsepower
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and walk. This was kind of like a stall. If you're a young
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father, you just you know, put that one away somewhere, yees.
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So I just want us to enjoy it. I don't think we're gonna enjoy
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it with a stroller. I wasn't gonna enjoy it at all, but I
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anyway, I ultimately did so anyway, so we just put this off and
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put it off, and then finally it's like, Okay, our kids' friends
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have been to Disney like nine times, our kids have never been. It's
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time and so we just we planned a trip Disney and Ali was old enough
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for what she could walk most of it, and so no strolder. So
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we planned this trip and we show pictures and of course our kids are excited
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about going to going to Disney World. The first time we talked. Didn't
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have to talk him into it, but Sandra's parents decided to go with us.
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That was another thing. We need lots of hands, okay, you
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know, so we all are going. We've looked at pictures, we've talked
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about it, we've planned it, you know, all this excitement, all
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this enthusiasm, and so we get there, this is years ago, and
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we're parked and you know, one hundred miles away, and then we're walking
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up to the entrance to the Magic Kingdom and it's Andrew and I were in
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the front, and then Ali our daughter, and Garrett, our other son,
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and Sandra and her parents are lagging behind because we didn't bring a stroller
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anyway, and so Andrew and I are in front, and we're about to
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walk into the interest of the Magic Kingdom, and suddenly Andrew just stops and
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he's standing there, and I realized what had happened, and I knelt down
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beside him, and I literally said, it's a lot bigger than you thought
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it was, isn't it. He said, yes, sir, I know
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because the pictures, the pictures weren't They weren't inaccurate, but pictures just aren't
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adequate, right, you know, for a child to imagine what they're about
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to walk into. And the pictures went wrong. But they were just pictures.
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Our descriptions of Disney weren't dishonest, they were just they were just descriptions
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and the actual thing was much larger and much grander than they could possibly imagine.
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And this is the case with so many things where we look at a
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picture right and see the reality, or we read a description, or somebody
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gives a description, and we say this all the times. You know that
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just it doesn't it doesn't do it justice. That that just doesn't do it
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justice. There's those things don't do it justice. And the same is true
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when it comes to God. This is why I absolutely love the lyrics to
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this particular song that we sing over and over. It's one of our favorite
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songs that some of our musicians wrote. Whatever picture I have when it comes
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to God, it isn't big enough. Whatever picture I have, it isn't
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good enough. Whatever picture I have could not possibly sum you up. It
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couldn't sum you up. The pictures and the words and the descriptions just aren't
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enough. Today we're in part two of a series we began last week.
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Not of all of our series build the parts don't always build on top of
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each other, but this one certainly does because the title of this series is
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the Fundamental List, and we are actually putting together or building a list,
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and the subtitle is recovering the Essentials of our faith. So if you miss
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part one, you really need to catch up, and you need if you're
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gonna follow this series, don't miss a single part because they build on each
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other. And the point of this series is we're asking the question what must
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a person believe in order to be a faithful follower of Jesus? Not what
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must a person do? We talk about that all the time, and we
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will always talk about that because doing is what makes the difference, not simply
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believing. But it's important, especially with things going on in our culture,
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to ask the question, Okay, but in order to be a faithful follower
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of Jesus, what do I have to believe? What's essential? And what's
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peripheral, what's essential, and what's non essential, what's essential versus just traditional
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or what I've always been told. But when I get right down to it,
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it's not really essential to hold on to those particular beliefs. And this
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is not only important, it's confusing. And one of the things that makes
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it so confusing is that Christianity is like a giant house made up of only
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living rooms, and all the giant living rooms have double doors to the outside
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world. And each one of these living rooms are full of people who are
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inviting people into their particular expression of or their particular tradition of Christianity. And
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each one of these and this is just a few of many, many many,
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we could fill you know, the whole proscenium with, you know,
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different living rooms of traditions of Christianity. And the thing about each one of
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these is they all come, and you know this, they all come with
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their own terms and conditions, own terms and conditions, their own traditions,
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their own interpretations, their own translations. They don't even all use the same
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Bible. In fact, pretty much the only thing they have in common is
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that they're all absolutely confident that they're right and everybody else is not right,
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that they're misinformed or uninformed, or they just haven't caught up, or they're
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not onto the thing that God is doing in this generation, and so they
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set themselves apart. And the other thing that makes this confusing is that in
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every generation, including ours, but all the way back really to the second
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century. In every generation, new and novel ideas get intertwined, are woven
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into Christian traditions. New things, novel things, and sometimes toxic things,
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harmful things get woven into certain expressions of Christianity, and over time this is
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the real tragedy. Sometimes those new and novel things that get woven in rise
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to the point where they're considered essential. They become part of a tradition's theology,
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They become doctrine and dogma. If you don't believe this, you're not
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a true Christian. If you don't believe this, you're not a real believer.
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If you don't believe this and embrace this idea, of this notion,
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you are not actually a follower of Jesus. You're out. And when that
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happens, some of you you would say this is your experience in church.
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When that happens, non essentials become obstacles. Non essentials eventually become obstacles.
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Obstacles to a person's faith, obstacle to somebody who's leaning in and trying to
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figure out what is this all about? I want to follow Jesus, but
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now I've bumped into something that I'm not sure that's part of the equation.
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I think maybe you just you just made that up. And when that happens,
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thoughtful, mature people step back to reconsider, step back to rethink,
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step back to decide, can I be a part of that? And sometimes,
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and maybe this is your story as well, sometimes their faith survives because
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they just go find another living room. They just walk out of that one
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and say, you know what, that's not it part of it, right?
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But I you know, if that's how you treat people, and if
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I have to treat people that way in order to be a part be a
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Christian, I don't want to be your kind of Christian. And people find
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a different living room. But a lot of people just step out of the
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living room and say, you know what, I'm done with Christianity, I'm
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done with faith, I'm done with church. It was either so harmful,
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so hurtful, or it was so harmful or hurtful to someone they love.
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They're like, I just can't do that anymore. And part of it is
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because you're thoughtful and you're mature. You begin to compare the teaching of a
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church and the practice of a church and the values of a church. You
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begin to compare that to what you see in Jesus in the Gospels, and
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you realize something's just off. I mean, I'm no Bible scholar, I'm
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no preacher, I'm no theologian, but there's I just can't imagine that's what
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this is supposed to be. Like that the tone and the posture, the
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tone and the posture and the approach to life and the approach to relationships is
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just it's just off. And it's like it felt, even though it was
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a church, kind of felt un christ like. And these people knew the
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Bible verses. You just wondered if they actually knew Jesus. And the problem
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was that the Bible. The problem is people use the Bible and use versus
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in the Bible to elevate an agenda and to elevate something that they just want
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to do, and the way they feel and the way they think, the
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world should work, and it happens all the time. In fact, I'll
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tell you a secret, and I really don't want this to leave the room.
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This is very this is I've never shared this publicly. Okay, if
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you give me a Bible, and I have so many Bibles, but if
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you give if I have a Bible and you tell me what you want to
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justify with the Bible, you give me a minute, I'll find you a
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verse. You give me a minute, I'll find you a story. You
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give me a minute, I'll find you a passage. And consequently, and
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you know this because you're smart people. You know history. Through history,
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people have leveraged things versus stories in the Bible to support, to support all
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kinds of horrible things that are extraordinarily un christ like. And when that happens,
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over time, people step away and either step away from faith entirely,
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or they step away from a version of faith and go and find themselves a
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different one. And maybe that's your experience. Again, they knew all the
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verses, you're just not sure they knew Jesus. So here's the question.
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What's fundamental or what's essential, and what's merely cultural, what's merely familiar?
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What's comfortable, what's fashionable, but what's essential, what's peripheral. And this
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is I think in our current moment and our cultural moment, I think maybe
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this is more important than it's ever been in our lifetime. Not more important
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than it's ever been, but more important than it has ever been in most
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of our lifetime. Because when cultural and peripheral, when cultural and peripheral are
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considered essential, in other words, when new and novel ideas and harmful ideas
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get woven into the fabric of certain threads and certain expressions of Christianity, when
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cultural and peripheral are considered essential, Christianity are the Christian faith eventually becomes untenable
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and unlivable for someone. It's no longer good news of great joy for all
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people. It becomes good news of great joy for a segment of people.
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And that's a problem because when Jesus showed up on planet Earth when he was
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born, the message was called the Gospel, the good news. And if
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it's not good news, maybe someone has woven into the fabric, or woven
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into their tradition, threads of things that are not good news, that are
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toxic, that are divisive, that are harmful, So in part one,
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as we make this list, we began with Peter's declaration of who Jesus is.
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Jesus said, who do you guys say that I am? And Peter
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said, I think I know who you are. You, Jesus are the
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king. You are God's final king. You are God's anointed one. Just
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like prophets and priests would anoint a man to become a king, we think
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God has anointed you to be his final king. And because of that,
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we think you were, in some unique way, God's son and his final
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king. And Jesus didn't say, let's tone it down. Jesus said,
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correct, In fact, Peter, not only is it correct, you didn't
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come up with this on your own, my father in Heaven revealed this to
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you. So we decided last week it is absolutely essential. In fact,
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this is the essential of all essentials, the one of the essentials in terms
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of what we have to believe to be a faithful follower of Jesus. It's
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essential to believe that Jesus is who Jesus claimed to be God's final king.
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So item number one on our list is this, Jesus is God's son and
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our king. But Jesus unlike other kings, did not come to draw attention
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to himself. Jesus came to do something else, and that's what leads us
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to our second essential. So during Jesus' final conversation with his apostles, right
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before he would be arrested and crucified, they're celebrating Passover together. We've talked
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about this multiple times, and he downloads. It's like he's kind of catching
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everybody up and if I forgot anything, let me tell you now, because
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we're about to have a major disruption. So he's talking about all kinds of
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stuff. And it's important to remember that in this conversation he's been with them
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for three years now. They've camped together, they've walked together, they've traveled.
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There are so many days that we don't know what happened that aren't recorded
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in any of the gospels. But he has been with them, really almost
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day and night constantly for three years. And yet in spite of all that,
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they are still confused. It's evident to Jesus they're still confused about the
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purpose of Jesus' activity among them. They're confused about why did you drag us
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all over the place, Why did we have sit through the same sermon over
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and over and over. Why all the miracles, I mean, we thought,
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we knew, we thought that. In fact, we think we're at
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the end. We're in Jerusalem, and we think maybe tomorrow or the next
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day, you're going to throw off your rabbinic road and proclaim yourself as Messiah,
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and we're going to establish a brand new kingdom on earth and expel the
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Romans. And you know, it's going to be like the days of David
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and Solomon again. So they had expectations. So consequently, like all of
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us, they got Jesus in the God box. And in this conversation,
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Jesus continues to say things that don't fit with the God box, and it's
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so troubling to them. So consequently they missed, have missed. Jesus realizes
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the purpose of him living among them, and unfortunately many Christians, most Christians,
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a lot of Christians have missed the purpose of Jesus living among them as
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well. That we are in some ways just as confused as the Apostles.
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And here's why. The primary confusion arises from the way that the Bible is
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traditionally talked about and taught. It rises from confusion based on the way the
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Bible is traditionally talked about, how people talk about the Bible, present us
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with the Bible, and the way they teach the Bible. The problem is
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not the Bible. The problem is the way the Bible is presented, talked
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about, and oftentimes taught. And here's the problem. Because of the way
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we received our Bibles as children. If many of you are like me,
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you got a Bible when you're child. It was all mapped and wrapped.
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And this is God's word and the way it was presented to us, the
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way it was taught. We have a tendency to equalize. This is so
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important, to equalize the importance of everything in it. It's all from God.
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Therefore it's all important. It's all equally important. And consequently, the
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events recorded in the Gospels, the four accounts of the life of Jesus,
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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John we're gonna talk about while we have
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four in a minute. The accounts of jesus life recorded in the Gospels get
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reduced to Bible stories, which equates Jesus' story with everything else and all the
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other stories in the Bible. But if you don't hear anything else. You
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got to hear this, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not
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Bible stories about Jesus. Has it ever occurred to you or have you ever
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thought about the fact. We have one account of the flood, we have
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one account of David and Goliath, great story. We have one account of
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no we have one account of the partying of the Red Sea. We have
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one account of so many incidents when it comes to the Old Testament and the
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history leading up to Jesus. When it comes to Jesus, we have four
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accounts of the same person, all written within the first century. Why so
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much about Jesus Because what we find in the gospels, these are not Bible
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stories. They are not equal to everything else in the Bible. Something dramatic
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had happened, something new had happened, something that eclipsed really the significance of
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everything that had happened before. But this is hard to keep in mind because
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of how the Bible is presented to us. So anyway, back to our
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situation with Jesus. So he's in this room, They've had this discussion.
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He's talked about so many troubling things, things that just do not fit in
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the box. They are trying to keep Jesus in and well, I want
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to pick it up with a statement that when Jesus made this statement, they
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should have all gotten up and left the room. Here's what he said because
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they're troubled. They're very troubled by what he said. And he says,
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guys, don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Don't
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you just believe in me? What if I said that, Hey, things
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are tough, you know, things are going crazy in American politicals, chaos
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and stuff in the world. But wait a minute, don't don't be troubled.
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You trust God, don't you. Well, yeah, well just trust
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me. You should all get up and leave the room. Okay, there's
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no place for that. This is the moment, this is the dynamic in
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the room. He was saying, I want you to trust me like you
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trust God, and he equates himself once again with God. But it gets
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worse or better depending on how you listen to this. So here's what I
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want us all to do. Okay, if you're watching online or whatever you
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are, just we're all gonna use our imagination. And this is hard for
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us, especially if you were raised in church. I want, for just
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a minute for you to take all of your presuppositions and all your categories about
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God and Jesus and the Bible, the whole thing, if you could,
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and this is hard, I want you to kind of pick it up and
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set it beside you for just a moment. Now when you leave, make
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sure you take it with you. We don't want to clean all that up.
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Okay, But anyway, for just a moment, if you can just
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imagine, okay, imagine that you are in this room, that you are
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sitting on the floor against the wall. It's not lit very well. It's
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at night, and it's oil lamps, a little smoky smell, the food,
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the sweat of the men, it's hot. And sitting at this table
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is a man in a robe with a beard, and he says the following
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things to the men in the room. I want you to put yourself there.
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You're not reading the Bible. You're not hearing somebody read the Bible.
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You're hearing a rabbi from Nazareth say the following things. And he's in the
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city of Jerusalem. He should know better. You ready, everybody there,
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If you know me, you will know my father as well. If you
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know me. I there's a man saying this. He's looking at you and
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saying, if you know me, to the degree that you know me,
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you know God. When the implications of this statement settle in on you,
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when they get from your head to your heart, this will redefine your view
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of God. Let me say it a different way. When you hear God
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and when you hear Jesus, is there attention? Do these two words God
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and then the name Jesus do they conjure up? If you're honest, different
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emotions. Let me ask you this way. Don't answer out loud. Which
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one do you like better? Which one do you think you'd be more comfortable
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with? Com here? If that creates tension, you have some d and
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reconstructing to do about your view of God. That, like everybody in that
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room that you are sitting with in your imagination, like everybody in that room,
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there is a tension that Jesus came to resolve. And as long as
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many of us have been in church, and as many times as we've heard
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the Bible stories, there's still a tension. There's God and then there's Jesus.
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And Jesus smiles at them in the room and he smiles at you,
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and he says, there should be no tension. He doubles down. Look
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at this, he says, Look, from now on, if you know
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me, you will know my father as well. And from now on you
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do know him. If you talking about God, you do know God.
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You do know the Father, and you have seen him because you know me
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and you have seen me. And they respond just like they should. This
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is the Bible is so honest. They don't go, we believe, and
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we're in They're they're like, this is too much. Wait a minute,
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I mean, and Philip, Philip who's sitting there, finally says what the
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rest of them are thinking? And I love this. He's he's trying not
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to be impolite. He's trying not to be offensive. I mean, you
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don't you don't say Jesus, nah nah, what else you got? I
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mean, they just they were just in Bethany and he raised a man from
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the dead. Okay, not like just died, like been dead dead,
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like had the funeral dead and raised his Lazarus. So I mean, they
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know they're not dealing with a mere moral but God in a body sitting here
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in sandals with a beard. I mean it's just and so Philip says,
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Lord, you know he's so respectful. I love this, so honest,
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Lord, just just show us the Father and that will be enough for us.
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Just look, we're not I'm not disputing you, I'm not arguing with
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you. We're just confused and we do want to know what God is like.
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We do want to know what God is like, right well, we
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want to know exactly what God is like. Just show us the Father and
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that will be enough for us. Because hey, we have Torah and that
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helps. When we have the prophets and that helps. We have the psalms
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and that helps. We have the temple, we have the priests, we
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have our history. But there's so much mystery, and God seems so far
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away at times, and the Romans are here and none of this makes sense,
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and our God box it shrinks and then it gets larger, and there's
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so much confusion. But we do believe you've come from God. Would you
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just show us the Father? Would you just make it clear for us?
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I love this, Jesus is thinking, but show you the Father? You
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mean to show you the Father? Guys, what do you think I've been
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doing for the last three years? Why do you think I stuck around?
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I mean, you guys are great, But you know, why do you
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think I stuck around for the last three years? Why do you think I
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dragged you around? Why do I make Why is it I make sure you
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were there for what you were there for? Guys. I didn't come to
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provide more Bible stories. I didn't come to provide more Bible stories. The
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reason I came is so that you could know what the Father is like,
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don't you he says, don't you know me, Philip? Even after here
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it is? I love this. Don't you know me? Philip? Even
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after I've been among you for such a long time. Do you think of
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how many miles we've walked together, how many campfires we built together, how
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many conversations we've had, how many things you've seen me do? How many
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questions I've answered and answered and answered and answered, how many boneheaded ideas you
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guys had? And I'm like, no, we're not going to call down
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fire and burn up the Samaritans. That's not what we're here for. I
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mean, why do you think I have been among you for so long?
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Anyone again here says anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, How
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can you say, show us the Father? What if he's right? What
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if Jesus is as close as you will ever get and as close as I
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will ever get to knowing what God is like? What if? What if
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you stop short of Jesus, you miss God, You go past Jesus,
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you miss God? What if he goes on? He Saysys, Look,
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guys, the words that this is so amazing. The words I say to
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you, I do not speak them on my own authority. All those great
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stories you love, I didn't come up with that. I'm not even here
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to come up with stuff. I am here passing through to you the words
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of the Father so you can hear think of it. Guys, when I
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spoke to you, you were hearing directly from God, your Father. The
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words I say to you, I don't speak of my own Already read it
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is the Father living in me, who is doing his work. If you've
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seen me, you've seen the Father. If you've heard me, you've heard
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the Father. If you've watched me, you've been watching the Father at work.
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He would say later, I don't do anything on my own initiative.
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The reason I'm here is so that you can know what God is like,
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I came to remove some of the mystery. I came to add some personality.
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I came to do what God wants me to do, so that you
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can know what he's like. I'm the King, but I'm not even here
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on my own behalf. I'm here on his behalf because he wants to be
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known. And you've seen the brochures, and you've read the descriptions, and
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you know about his mighty deeds in the past. But now He has come
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to dwell among you to reduce the distance. You want to know what God
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is like. You want to know what God likes. You want to know
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what God has to say. Would you like to know how God would respond?
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Jesus says, it's simple. Just watch me, listen to me.
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Jesus is as good as it gets. Jesus is as close as we get.
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So the Gospels so important if you're going to be a faithful follower of
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Jesus. This is essential. The Gospels are not additional Bible stories. The
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Gospels are not Bible stories about Jesus. The Gospel. It's why we have
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four. It's amazing the gospels. You know what they're for. They document,
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This is amazing they document jesus explanation of what God is like, and
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as obvious as that should be, it is so difficult for us modern Christians
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to wrap our minds around that because again of the way pastors refer to and
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teach from and use the Bible. And I can say that because I'm one
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of them, and I understand that. I understand the tension, and I
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don't think anybody does it on purpose. But when we got our Bible all
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mapped and wrapped with a concordance, it's like it's all inspired. Therefore it's
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all equally important. No, it's not. Think about this. If Jesus
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was telling them the truth, then when you open your New Testament, and
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if you have a read letter Bible, you see those red letters, or
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if you just have a regular Bible like I use, and they don't have
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the red letters, but you see, when you read the words of Jesus,
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you are reading literally the words of God, your father. I mean,
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it's one thing for God to inspire a prophet to write something, but
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Jesus is speaking directly on behalf of God because he's God's son and God's spokesman
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to the world. An he didn't just come to teach us cool things.
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He came to reveal what the Father values than who the Father values, and
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how the Father responds to sinners and repentant sinners, and prodigal sons and prodigal
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daughters and prodigal everybody. It's amazing because again, when we equate, when
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we equate the importance of everything in the Bible, we unintentionally negate or minimize
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the unique purpose of Jesus, not the unique purpose of his death, the
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unique purpose of his life. But here's an interesting thing. This is why
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we should another reason we take the seriously. I'll tell you who didn't make
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that mistake. I'll tell you didn't make that mistake. In the first century,
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there's a Pharisee who was absolutely committed to Torah and absolutely committed to God's
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covenant with Israel because he was a Hebrew, absolutely committed to it, who
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then becomes a Jesus follower and abandons the old covenant embraces the new Covenant.
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In fact, he's the one that gives us the language the Law of Christ,
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abandoning all those laws to embrace the Law of Christ. And Saul of
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Tarsus, who becomes the Apostle Paul, who was a pharisee, tells us,
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look, I've been on that side, and now I'm on this side.
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And this side wasn't wrong, it was just inadequate. But the reality
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of what that pointed to has come, and all of you need to join
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this side. And so he preaches to first century Jews, Hey, what
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God promised to do in the past, he has done. He has shown
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up in the person of Jesus, Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and you
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need to join me in following him. That everything that came before was fine,
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that it was a sign that pointed to something. What has happened in
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our midst and our generation is far superior to any of that. He writes,
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those things, those things were but a shadow of the things to come,
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of the things that were to come. You can tell a lot about
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a thing by a shadow, but you can't tell everything about it by a
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shadow. You can tell a lot about a thing by the brochure and the
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picture and the description, but you can't tell everything. And then he says
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this, but the reality. The reality, however, the reality of what
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casts that shadow in the past is found in Messiah Christ, God's final King,
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the shadow castor has arrived. When John, who spent all those years
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with Jesus, sat down to begin his gospel, he's an old man,
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you know, he's dictating this. He's trying to figure out, how do
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I start this story? I mean, how do I start this thing?
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And other people have written about it. Luke says, a lot of people
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tried to write about it because it was such a big deal. And John
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begins his gospel. Some of you memorize some of this. He's like,
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ah, I just start this. In the beginning, not God created the
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heavens and earth. We got that part. In the beginning was the logos,
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the word, and the word was God. And it came. Oh,
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I got it. I came and it dwelt among us. He lived
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among us. Literally, he camped out and pitched his tent with us so
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that we could know with the Father. It's like what came before wasn't wrong,
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it was just incomplete. The author of Hebrews echoes this. You gotta
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read this whole passage. I'm just going to give you just a snippet.
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Listen, this is what the author of Hebrews. We don't know who wrote
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the New Testament document we call Hebrews. The law is only a shadow there.
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It is again nothing wrong with it, it's just not the reality.
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The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not
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the realities themselves. And again we have such a different context than they did.
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But here's their context. Since the beginning of the world, men and
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women have been searching for God. The pagan world was extraordinarily religious. They
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didn't have religions. That was a modern concept, but they were by our
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definition religious. Everybody believed in the gods, and they would add gods and
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subtract gods, and your gods are bigger than my God's. But everybody had
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gods. Everybody was constantly looking up trying to figure out what is it like,
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what's going on, what's behind all of this? And until the arrival
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of Jesus, even the Jews to some extent, they wondered and they wandered,
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and they tried to figure this out. And then with the arrival of
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Jesus, God made it as clear as it could possibly be made clear to
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mortal people. He accommodates to our capacity, but he sends God in the
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flesh to dwell among us, and so many people recorded the words in the
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works of Jesus that four survived antiquity. He came to show us what God
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is like, and he came to show us who God loves us. Jesus
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didn't simply have the best explanation for God like some of the Old Testament writers
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had explanations for God. Jesus this is the bottom line. Jesus is the
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best explanation of God. What if that's true, What does that do to
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your view of God? What does that do to my view of God?
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What excuse does that take away in terms of how I view people or treat
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people. What does that do to my priorities? What becomes more important?
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What becomes less important? So the second thing that we must believe in order
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to be a faithful follower of Jesus is that Jesus came to illustrate and to
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demonstrate what God is like, to reveal in the word he uses, to
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reveal and to explain the Father. That we are not left to draw conclusions
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about God based on our personal experience. Our emotions are even nature. If
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you want to know what God is like, it's this simple. This is
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why it's so brilliant. If you want to know what God is like.
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God is like Jesus, and that's good news because that means God loves you
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personally and God has forgiven you because Jesus was given the authority to forgive sin
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at will. But if that's true, perhaps you have some un learning to
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do. Perhaps you have some homework to do, Perhaps you have some questions
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to ask. So I want to end with the question where we basically started
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one more time. Does your view of God the Father align with your view
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of Jesus the Son. When you think God and when you think the name
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Jesus is their attention. If so, you have some work to do.
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If they conjure up different emotions, perhaps you have some work to do,
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and you will not know. According to Jesus, you will not know what
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the Father is like until you take the time to discover what Jesus is like.
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And you get the clearest picture of Jesus in the gospels by following him
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through the gospels. So wrapping up fundamental number one, Jesus is God's Son
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and our king. Fundamental number two, Jesus came to illustrate and to demonstrate
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what God is like. But Jesus came to do something else as well,
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within the context of this, and we're going to pick it up right there
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next time. In Part three of the Fundamentalist Recovering the Essentials of our Faith,