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GOD CENTERED

WORLD VIEW

WINTER 2013-14: Personal Study Guide Ed Stetzer General Editor Trevin Wax Managing Editor

THE GOSPEL PROJECT FOR STUDENTS

PERSONAL STUDY GUIDE, WINTER 2013-14 VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2 PRODUCTION AND MINISTRY TEAM VICE PRESIDENT, CHURCH RESOURCES: Eric Geiger GENERAL EDITOR: Ed Stetzer MANAGING EDITOR: Trevin Wax CONTENT EDITOR: Andy McLean DIRECTOR, STUDENT MINISTRY PUBLISHING: Jeff Pratt DIRECTOR, STUDENT MINISTRY: Ben Trueblood Send questions/comments to: Content Editor, The Gospel Project for Students Personal Study Guide, One LifeWay Plaza, Nashville, TN 37234-0174, Or make comments on the Web at www.lifeway.com Printed in the United States of America

The Gospel Project for Students (ISSN 1939-0742; Item 005508013) is published quarterly by LifeWay Christian Resources, One LifeWay Plaza, Nashville, TN 37234, Thom S. Rainer, President. 2012 LifeWay Christian Resources. For ordering or inquiries, visit www.lifeway.com or write LifeWay Church Resources Customer Service, One LifeWay Plaza, Nashville, TN 37234-0113. For subscriptions or subscription address changes, e-mail subscribe@lifeway.com, fax (615) 251-5818, or write to the above address. For bulk shipments mailed quarterly to one address, e-mail orderentry@lifeway.com, fax (615) 251-5933, or write to the above address. We believe that the Bible has God for its author; salvation for its end; and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter and that all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. To review LifeWays doctrinal guideline, please visit www.lifeway.com/doctrinalguideline. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved. Photos: iStockphoto and Getty Images

TGP Personal Study Guide

SESSION 5

CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS

ave you ever heard of The Self-Realization Lake Shrine in Los Angeles? It is advertised as a spiritual sanctuary where one can retreat to hear the voice of God. In the midst of its beautiful tapestry of gardens, paths, and natural springfed lake is an area called the Court of Religions, created in honor of the ve principal religions of the world. When you enter this court, you nd 5 trailheads marked with the names of these religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Each of these trails meanders through the scenic beauty and serenity of the grounds until they all end up at a reection pool. The design of this sanctuary is a good picture of one of the leading thoughts in our world today. Many people view all the worlds religions as different paths leading to the same place and the same personGod. However, standing against the idea that all religions lead to God are the words of Jesus Christ. In John 14:6, Jesus makes a claim to be the exclusive path to God, saying, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. This week we will examine this assertion of Jesus Christ and see how Christs person, His teaching, and His resurrection make Christianity unique among all the world religions. Not only that, but we will see how Christs uniqueness is good news for a lost and dying world.

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READY YOUR HEART

THE REAL DEAL

John 14:6-11 Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. I LOVE PEARLS. To me they are more beautiful than diamonds. There is just something classy about them. I have pieces of jewelry made of fake pearls, like a necklace and some earrings. But for our rst wedding anniversary, my husband surprised me with a real pearl necklace. Because they are real, I always kept them in the original box, apart from the rest. When I took them off on one occasion, I placed them in my jewelry box with the others without thinking. The next time I went to wear them, I couldnt tell which ones were real and which ones were fake. They looked exactly alike. I wanted to wear the necklace my husband gave me, not just the imitation. I had always kept them separated, but now I didnt have a clue. I called my grandmother for advice. When I told her what happened, she chuckled and told me to rub them on my teeth. I thought for sure she was going crazy, but I did what she said. I rubbed both against my teeth. One set felt smooth and the other rough. She explained that real pearls have a gritty texture. My problem was solved. Often, its hard to tell who the real deal is. Just like my pearls, there are many imitators. Jesus is real because of who He is. His character and identity are unique. There are none like Jesus because Jesus is one of a kind. In John 14:1-11 Jesus tells us that he is the way. Notice that He doesnt say a way, or even the best way, but the way. He is, exclusively, the one and only, and the truth of that becomes all the more evident as we witness who He is in the Scriptures.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

How is Jesus different from other leaders of world religions? Since Jesus is unique, what does that say about other religions?

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READY YOUR HEART

TALK THE TALK

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. I LOVE TO TALK TRASH WHEN I PLAY SPORTSI have no shame in it. Basketball, football, golf, or ping-pong, it doesnt matter. I know how to talk a big game, and in some cases, I can usually back it up. One sport I have never talked junk in playing is baseball. Why? you ask. Because baseball is a game of failure. Think about this. Ty Cobb has the highest career batting average in baseball at .366. That means that in his entire career he only got a hit 36.6% of the time. He failed 63.4% of the time. I am no Ty Cobb, so I steer clear of talking trash in baseball. However, there was one guy who did talk a big game in baseball. His name was Babe Ruth. In the 1932 World Series, Ruth was up to bat with the game tied at 3. After being ridiculed by the other team, Ruth supposedly pointed his nger to the center eld stands. He was calling his shot, telling everyone the next pitch was going to be a home run. On the very next pitch, Ruth smashed the baseball over the fence to the exact spot he had just pointed out. What makes this story amazing is that someone who was talking a big game actually backed it up with action. Jesus made an even more amazing statement than Babe Ruth ever could. After having claimed to be the way, Jesus then claims to be the truth in John 14:6. Notice that He doesnt say that He merely speaks truth, or that He is a truth among many, but that He is the truthTruth with a capital T. All truth nds it source of origin in Him because of who He is.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

Have you ever talked a big game and not backed it up? How did that feel? What does it mean that Jesus is the truth? Do you trust that Jesus can back up everything that He said? Why or why not?

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READY YOUR HEART

MADE ALIVE
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. THE LAST TIME I WAS IN THE AIRPORT my ight got delayed for a few hours because of bad weather. Since we were grounded for the time being, I did what most everyone else did at the timeI pulled out my phone and started to check Facebook and Twitter and play some Angry Birds. After quickly getting bored with that, I pulled out a book and began to read. Everyone else was still on their phones or tablets, spread out over the sitting area. After about an hour, I looked up and saw that a few people were sitting by the wall with their phones plugged in. After another hour, I saw that a few more were crowding around the outlets on the walls, charging their phones, tablets, and computers. After a while longer, we discovered that the ight was going to be delayed again. We were now running three hours behind schedule. I took a look around and it seemed that everyone on my ight was huddled around the power outlets because their batteries were dying. When I saw that, it made me think about Jesus. Without Jesus we are dead because of our sin. And just like our phones, we can try to recharge some, but we will always waste away because we dont have the power within us to spiritually come alive. Thats why we need Jesus. In John 14:6 Jesus says He is the life for us. He isnt merely offering a type of life among many, but rather that through him, we have life that is everlasting. He is the only source of true life. We dont need other things or people to somehow make us feel spiritually alive. They cant do it. Only Jesus can. It is He who defeated death and secured for us life through His death and resurrection.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

What things other than Jesus do you often turn to in hopes of gaining life out of them? Do they work? If Jesus is the only way to have life, what does that mean for those who dont believe in Him? If Jesus is our life, and if we want people we know to have the same abundant life in Jesus, why do we nd it difficult in sharing with others who dont know Him?
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Jesus is Unique Because of...

I n John 14:6, Jesus makes a claim to be the exclusive path to God, saying, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. In this lesson, we will examine this assertion of Jesus Christ and see how Christs person, His teaching, and His resurrection make Christianity unique among all the world religions. Christs uniqueness is good news for a lost world.

Who He Is.

What makes something unique? People love to jump on the bandwagon of the latest fad or fashion. Something original pops up, and we are drawn to it. Soon, with everyone wearing the same style of clothes or listening to the same fresh song, the uniqueness wears off. What was once unique starts to look old. The term unique, at least in its biblical sense, means one of a kind, superior, or only. Its the kind of uniqueness Jesus claimed for Himself.

READ JOHN 14:6. Jesus claims to be the way. He is both the path and the destination. The path to God is not a list of actions. The path is a Person. Likewise, the ultimate reward is not heaven, but Jesusthe One whose presence makes heaven what it is. If Jesus is the prize of eternal life in heaven, then He must be the pursuit of our temporal lives on earth

 What are the consequences of disbelieving Jesus words

that no one comes to the Father except through Him? How would disbelief affect our identity? Our mission?

B  uddhism has the eight-fold path.

Islam has ve pillars. Other religions are based on teachers who show the way to God. What is the signicance of Jesus claiming not only to show the way, but to be the way?

What He Says.
Jesus is unique because of what He saysprimarily about Himself. He doesnt just claim to speak the truth. He claims to be the truth. Jesus is the truth because He embodies the supreme revelation of God. He is Gods revelation of Himself to us. The Gospel of John portrays Christ as being Gods gracious self-disclosure to the world.

If we are to take Jesus at His word, we must reject the popular notion of the day that Jesus is just one of many valid truths about God. It is precisely because Jesus is the sole truth of God that He says no one comes to the Father except through me.  How can Christians maintain a steadfast conviction in the truth of Jesus Christ and a humble posture toward those who do not believe? How does the gospel take away any reason to feel superior?

People in our society often confuse religious tolerance with relativism. Rightly understood, tolerance is accepting that people should be able to coexist with different religious beliefs. Wrongly understood, tolerance means all religious beliefs are equal. Whats true for you may be true for you, but not for me. Jesus shatters this notion. He is not the Truth for me or for you only. He is the Truth for everybody.

 Knowing that Jesus is the only Savior for all people, how should we think about global missions and taking the gospel to all peoples?

 How is Jesus claim to be the Truth for everybody impact our mission?

What He Does.

Not only does Jesus claim to be the way and the truth, He also claims to be the life. He is the Life, and He demonstrates this claim by dying on the cross for our sins and rising again to new life. Jesus is unique because He is the only Savior who has died and rose again. Also, Jesus claim to be the Life points us to His unique relationship with God and the fact that, apart from Him, we remain in our sin and in our need for deliverance. We need spiritual and physical life. The concept of resurrection is a distinctive belief that sets us apart from other religions. We need our spiritually dead hearts to be made alive again. We need our physically dead bodies to be resurrected. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus does what is necessary for our regeneration and resurrection.

 If you were asked to list the three most

important and unique aspects of Christianity, what would you choose? What separates Christianity from other religions?

Conclusion Most world religions understand and teach that something has gone wrong with the world, and they all claim to have a path back towards xing it and

 Why is it good to affirm and not soften the reality of human sinfulness?

coming to a right standing with God. In Islam, one can submit to the ve pillars of faith in hopes that the balance of their good works will approve them before God. In Hinduism, you have the teaching of Karma that stresses the need for good living in order to be reincarnated into a better status. In our post-modern world, there is the leading belief that truth is relative and there are many roads that lead to God. But the uniqueness of Christianity can be seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We see that Jesus is unique in who He claims to be as the Way. Jesus made a way for mankind when no way was possible for us to route back to God on our own.

 How would you respond to someone who says Jesus is unique in the inuence He has on our world but is not the Son of God?

ENCORE

CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE RELIGIONS Jesus is unique because of...

1. WHO HE IS (THE WAY).

by Afshin Ziafat

What makes something unique? People love to jump on the bandwagon of the latest fad or fashion. Something original pops up, and we are drawn to it. Soon, with everyone wearing the same style of clothes or listening to the same fresh song, the uniqueness wears o. What was once unique starts to look old. Many people view Christianity this way. Its a classic religious option with a timeless feel to it, but its certainly not new and exciting and fresh. Hinduism may seem more exotic, or Buddhism more acceptable, or Islam more rigorous. Or maybe the best approach is to disregard religious identity altogether and become one of the nonesthe growing number of people in society who check none of the above when surveyed about their religious aliation. The term unique, at least in its biblical sense, means one of a kind, superior, or only. Its the kind of uniqueness Jesus claimed for Himself. In John 14:6, we see that Jesus claims to be the way. In other words, He is both the path and the destination. The path to God is not a list of actions. The path is a Person. Likewise, the ultimate reward is not heaven, but Jesusthe One whose presence makes heaven what it is. If Jesus is the prize of eternal life in heaven, then He must be the pursuit of our temporal lives on earth. Most religions of the world understand that something has gone wrong in the world and that we need some sort of salvation. What sets Christianity apart from the worlds religions is the solution to the problem of sin. Jesus not only points to the solution; He is the solution. 2. WHAT HE SAYS (THE TRUTH). Since Christs grand statement in John 14:6 was precipitated by a discussion about the way, we should view His claims to be the truth and the life as being supports for Jesus being the way. Because Jesus is the truth, He alone is the way for humans to be reconciled to God. Jesus is unique because of what He saysprimarily about Himself. He doesnt just claim to speak the truth. He claims to be the truth. What does this statement mean? Jesus is the truth because He embodies the supreme revelation of God. He is Gods revelation of Himself to us. The Gospel of John portrays Christ as being Gods gracious self-disclosure to the world. This is why the uniqueness of Christianity is Jesus. He alone shows us who God is. Notice again the conversation He had with Philip (v. John 14:7-9). Jesus claimed to be the way to God because of who He was in relation to God. If we are to take Jesus at His word, we must reject the popular notion of the day that Jesus is just one of many valid truths about God. It is precisely because Jesus is the sole truth of God that He says no one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6) Were tempted to shy away from the exclusive claim of Christ in this passage. We worry such a narrow assertion will not be appealing in our modern world. But, ironically, throughout Christian history, its the uniqueness and exclusivity of Jesus Christ that has given Christianity its lasting
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ENCORE

relevance! To take away the exclusive part of the truth of Christ is to take away the entire truth of Christ. If you try to make Jesus just One of Many, you lose Jesus the One and Only. 3. WHAT HE DOES (THE LIFE). Not only does Jesus claim to be the way and the truth, He also claims to be the life. He is the Life, and He demonstrates this claim by dying on the cross for our sins and rising again to new life. Jesus is unique because He is the only Savior who has died and rose again. Jesus claim to be the Life points us to His unique relationship with God. The Bible portrays God as the giver and sustainer of life. As stated earlier, because of our sin, we are separated from God and therefore separated from the source of life. Thats why we grow old and die. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. And this is the reason why we need deliverance from deathin order to have Life and be reconciled unto God. We need spiritual and physical life. The concept of resurrection is a distinctive belief that sets us apart from other religions. We need our spiritually dead hearts to be made alive again. We need our physically dead bodies to be resurrected. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus does what is necessary for our regeneration and resurrection. Jesus did not come to make us better, more well behaved people so that God could tolerate us and accept us. Jesus came to make us alive when we were dead. No other religion portrays the state of humankind quite as starkly as Christianity. We are dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1). Neither does any other religious gure claim to have the power to bring the dead back to life. The religions of this world may contain teaching that can make you a well-behaved person on the outside. But only Jesus has the power to bring us from death to life (John 10:10). CONCLUSION Most world religions understand and teach that something has gone wrong with the world, and they all claim to have a path back towards xing it and coming to a right standing with God.  In Islam, one can submit to the ve pillars of faith in hopes that the balance of their good works will approve them before God.  In Hinduism, you have the teaching of Karma that stresses the need for good living in order to be reincarnated into a better status. Judaism emphasizes that those who are obedient to the law will live forever with God.  In our post-modern world, there is the leading belief that truth is relative and there are many roads that lead to God. But the uniqueness of Christianity can be seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We see that Jesus is unique in who He claims to be as the Way. Jesus made a way for mankind when no way was possible for us to route back to God on our own. Jesus is unique in what He says as He claims to be the truth. Jesus is the ultimate expression of God and without knowing Christ man cannot know God. Jesus is unique because of what He does. He claims to be the life. And He alone has defeated death through His resurrection. He alone can give life to mankind now and forever. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
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