Jesus Loves Me - Why Christianity Matters, Part 1

It's no secret that Christianity in America is under attack.

But here's the problem. Do the average Christians actually know what we believe and why? Could we be under attack because the very things that we say we believe, we don't really understand? Well, stay with me. You might be surprised at what you hear. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. Well, as many of you know, Chip's our regular Bible teacher for this daily program. But today he's passing the mic to his friend, John Dickerson, to share a new series, Jesus Loves Me. You know, as society continues to drift further from the truth of God's Word, we realize it's vitally important to turn to biblically grounded voices like John to share a different viewpoint for what we're experiencing in our world. We believe that through his insight and the wisdom of our entire teaching team, we can better encourage and support Christians everywhere. Now, for those who don't know, John is an award-winning journalist and lead pastor at Connection Point Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. And before we get started, let me encourage you to download our message notes. This tool has all the scripture references, some notable fill-ins, and much more. We've also included some of John's specific insights to help you get the most out of this series.

Get them under the broadcasts tab at LivingOnTheEdge.org, app listeners tap fill-in notes. Okay, here's John now to kick off this series with his message, Why Christianity Matters. This series is all about the Christian essentials. In other words, if you were in a room with no internet access, no Bible, no book, nothing, and someone said, what's Christianity about? What do I have to believe to be a Christian?

Or how do I access the power of God? By the end of this series, you're going to know with confidence exactly what you could say to them. And actually, it's all summarized in that song. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

And what we're going to do each week of this series is look at the significance of each of those words. What do you have to believe about Jesus to be a Christian? What do you have to believe about his love and about yourself and about the Word of God? We're starting off the series with kind of the so what question, does it matter? I mean, we live in a society that increasingly says, well, you believe what you believe, I believe what I believe. Really, ideas don't matter that much. Beliefs don't matter. Just as long as you're nice to people and you're a good citizen of society, then everything's okay.

So in that kind of society, does it really matter if we get Christianity right or wrong? And that's what we're going to answer today. But I want to talk with you about that feeling when you're kind of stuck, you're kind of stranded and you realize I need some outside help. Maybe it's a situation where your phone battery dies and you're like, how am I going to access my life?

I need a charger, right? We all have these situations where we need some outside help. And what we're asking today is this, where can you access power to solve your biggest problems? We face things like a cancer diagnosis or divorce or a lawsuit against us or something that happens in our finances or a broken relationship with our kids or with our in-laws. We face these bigger problems and we need outside help to solve them.

Where is the power to solve those problems? Now, I want to tell you just a little bit about my life journey. Before I became a pastor, I worked as a journalist and news reporter. And part of why I got into that career is that I wanted to be a force for good in the world.

I wanted to help people. And so a lot of the stories that I did were investigative stories where we'd try to expose a problem in society. So things like drug crises or the immigration crisis and other things, especially there in Arizona where I was based. And so I, as a professional, was documenting these problems in society and very often would end up right on the front lines of those problems, walking the trails across the border from Mexico to Arizona, seeing where immigrants often die of dehydration in the desert there, seeing heroin addicts and meth addicts and learning where the product comes from and why people get into this addiction. And I was documenting these problems. And what I saw was that the best reporters and journalists, they kind of had this assumption that the way to fix the problems is we need to let society know about it, which is true.

The truth sets people free. But then there was this assumption that if we can get the attention of the lawmakers, the lawmakers will change the laws and then the problem will be fixed. Now lawmakers are very important and laws are very important. But here's what I started to see as a journalist. I did a story that did get the attention of lawmakers and then the lobbyists came in and they convinced the lawmakers to do nothing.

And then I saw other times where the lawmakers did change the law, but you can change laws and that changes the external, but laws don't change the hearts of people. So here's what was going on in my life. I was doing that for a career. Simultaneously, I was exploring the teachings of Jesus for myself in my personal life, in my private life. And I was part of this small group at a church, a lot like our church here. And in my small group, we'd open up the Word of God, we'd read the teachings of Jesus, we'd apply them to our lives.

And here's what I started to see. I started to see that the teachings of Jesus had the power to solve the biggest problems inside of me. That is, I would choose to believe in Jesus. He would actually change my nature and disposition. He would make me loving where I wasn't loving.

He would make me selfless where I was selfish. And I started to see, not only in my life, but in this group of other young men and women, we were all in our 20s, we were all right out of college, young professionals, we started to see the power of Jesus. And we started to see people in our group who had addictions and they were set free from their addictions. We started to see people who had broken relationships and Jesus started to mend and repair their relationships. And as I experienced the power of Jesus in my life, I came to this conclusion ultimately that Jesus is the solution to the deepest human problem. And that while laws and great investigative reporting absolutely matter, that the real solution for the world is the message of Jesus. And so I actually reached a point of crisis in my life where I had to decide, what am I going to spend my life doing?

Now God calls a lot of believers to work in journalism or in law making or other fields. But in my case, I remember this moment where I was sitting with a nationally known TV journalist, you guys would all know his face, and we were sitting at this place in Manhattan. And I remember this moment of crisis of just realizing, you know what? The real power to help the world is in Jesus. And I've experienced it. And I'm no longer embarrassed about the fact that I'm a Christian and I'm a follower of Jesus.

In fact, I'm so convinced of it because of what I've seen in my life and in real world experience that I'm going to give my life to that. And I mentioned this verse, Romans chapter one, verse 16. It says this, I am not ashamed of the gospel. What's the gospel? It's kind of a churchy word, but the gospel is this word that means really the summary of Jesus' life and teachings.

It means good news, that there's good news for everything that's broken in us and in the world. And that good news is found in Jesus. I'm no longer ashamed of that because it's the power of God. And that's where in my life I moved from thinking about Christianity as some belief system or some myth or just one religion among many to realizing a life-changing belief in Jesus connects me into the very power of God. And I had so experienced that and tasted that in my life that I was able to look at someone I looked up to so much and say, I'm no longer ashamed of the fact that I'm a Christian. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God and it brings salvation. Salvation means that we don't fear death because we know we'll have eternal life, but it also means in this life we have freedom from sin and addiction. We have the power of God in our lives.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God. It does bring salvation and it brings that salvation to everyone who believes. God gives this offer wide open to all of humanity. He desires that all people would come to salvation and receive this offer, but each of us have a free will.

And we get to choose for ourselves, do I believe or not? And it's the moment that we believe that it plugs us into this power of God to change our lives. So here's our big idea today. Our big idea is very simply this. Christ's message is the power to change our world and it's the power to change ourselves for the better. Christ's message, the good news that he brings or the gospel you can call it, it is the power to change our world for the better. It's also the power to change ourselves for the better. Now I was talking earlier about situations where you realize you need outside help and I think there's one most of us can relate to and that's when your phone dies and you don't have a charger.

Anyone else ever relate to that situation? Maybe it's just those of us who use our phones way too much, okay? But your phone or your computer or your tablet dies and you're in need of a charger and maybe you have like an Apple phone and someone has a Samsung charger so it doesn't fit. Or maybe you have a PC computer and someone has an Apple charger and you need this power but you can't quite access it. And so if that verse we read is true, and I believe it is, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, well how do you access that power? How do you access the power?

And I want to tell you a true story where I realize the significance of this. I was on a trip in the year 2007 to a country called Belarus and I got into my hotel room and I found myself in a dilemma. If you've traveled to Europe or Asia, maybe you've been in this dilemma, I went to plug my computer into the wall and here's the situation I was in. You see they have different power outlets over there.

That power outlet is shaped funny and, or they would say ours are shaped funny, but anyhow, I had a plug like this and the outlet was like that. And I found myself in this situation where I'm in my hotel room, all the electricity of a whole city's power grid is right there in the wall, but I don't have the right plug for it. And what I learned in that moment, now I know you guys are all smarter than me and if you've traveled internationally you packed your little adapters before you left, but I wasn't that smart, okay? I learned this the hard way that you need a little adapter. And here's what I learned. Accessing power is not complicated, right? Any kid can plug something in, now they probably shouldn't if they're too young, but you know it's not complicated, but it is precise.

In other words, these three pieces have to be the right three pieces. And I've learned that it's the same with accessing God's power to change our lives. Accessing God's power is not complicated, but it is precise. In other words, it's not as simple as just saying, yeah, I'm a Christian, therefore I have all the power of God in my life. No, there's three or four specific things that we do need to believe to actually be a Christian, to actually plug in to the power source of the universe and experience his power, his energy, his life change here in this life and in the next. And what this series, Jesus Loves Me, is all about is you knowing those three or four things for yourself. Now you hear them here and most of you have had a moment where you've heard this preached and you've believed it, but my desire for you as a brother in the Lord and as a spiritual leader is that you would know with confidence the essentials of Christianity so that you can go through your life. And someday if a coworker asks you, what do I have to believe to be a Christian? Or if you're tucking your kids or your grandkids into bed and they say, I wanna believe in Jesus, what does that mean? That you think, you know exactly how to answer them.

You don't have to look it up in a book, you don't have to ask someone you know. Well, it's all summed up in this little kid's song, Jesus Loves Me. This I know for the Bible tells me so.

And that you're in a place where you could just very simply walk through each of those words. Here's what Jesus means, that he's fully God. He's not just another person, he's not just a good teacher, but he was God who came to earth. What does it mean that he loves us? Well, it means that he willingly went to the cross to die in our place. He didn't just say he loved us, he showed it with actions. And after he died on the cross, he rose from the grave. He loves me. In other words, I have to believe some things about myself that I'm in need of a savior, that I've made mistakes, that I'm made in the image of God and I'm loved, but I do need his help, I need his forgiveness.

And this I know. Have you had a moment in your life where you've said, I believe in Jesus for myself, do you know it? Have you had a moment where you said, God, I need your salvation for me, I believe in what you did on the cross, I receive that free gift of salvation.

Have you had that moment? And then four, the Bible tells me so. That the Bible, we make it the standard for what we do and believe as followers of Jesus, and that keeps us plugged in to the power source. So if you look today on your way in, or if you're watching online, you can click below us, you'll see this little card. It says, Jesus loves me.

And you got this with your program on the way in. This gives you an outline, this is kind of a spoiler alert, okay? Because by the way, the essentials of Christianity shouldn't be like, come back next week to find out, like they're pretty well known, okay?

But this series is about you knowing them with confidence. You don't have to go to seminary, you don't have to memorize a bunch of books of the Bible to know the essentials. So this card is a tool for you, and by the end of this series, you'll be in a place that you can recite those little lines, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, and you can know the significance of each of those words, know it for yourself, and also know it so that you can share it with others. Who is Jesus? What does it mean that He loves us? Who are we?

How do we know it? Why does it matter that the Bible tells us so? Now here's the question we're asking today, because you might be thinking, okay, great, you're a pastor now, of course you care about getting Christianity right, that's what you do, why does it matter for me? So let's ask that question, does it matter if we get Christianity right? I mean, does it really matter, you know, in this day and age when it's like, well, you know, as long, pretty much as long as you're nice to everyone around you, it doesn't matter what you believe.

That's kind of the message of our day and age. So here we have this 2000 year old belief system that is all about getting a few beliefs right. Beliefs that Jesus, by the way, said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He didn't claim to be one way to God, He claimed to be the only way. So if you're upset that it's very black and white, take that part up with Jesus, okay, I didn't make that part up, but does it matter if we get the black and white things right? And I wanna start by sharing today, there's probably, you know, dozens of reasons why it matters, I'm just gonna give you four today. First one is very unexpected, and it's one that I, a conclusion I reached actually as a journalist, not as a pastor, and it's one you might not expect to hear in church, but it does matter if we get Christianity right first and foremost for society. It actually matters for society.

And I'll try to compress here about 10 years of research that I've done as a total nerd and investigator, but here's a few things I've learned. Number one, the fact that you and I know how to read today actually traces back to Christians. Did you know that the majority of people in world history never knew how to read, they were illiterate? Until about 300 years ago, most people never knew how to read. Now there were these groups of people who started making these little laws in their villages that every child in the village had to learn how to read. It was the beginning of what we call public education today. Who were these people and what motivated them? Well, these people were followers of Jesus, they were called Protestant Christians, who were very, very excited about the Bible, and they wanted all the kids in their village to know how to read the Bible. So they created a law, you can look it up, this original law was called the Ye Olde Deluder Satan Act, okay? The idea was that Satan deceives people, and if people can read the word of God, they'll find the truth, and so we're gonna make it a law that every child in our village is trained to read so they can read the Bible for themselves, and you can trace it back through history, this is not my opinion, that's where public education comes from.

Started in England and in Germany, and here in the United States through the Puritans. So whether or not we like Christians, whether or not you even believe in God or the supernatural realm, you know how to read today because of Christians. And Christians have impacted our world in a number of other ways that are almost so big that we could miss them. And one of the other unexpected ones is in women's rights, believe it or not. According to the World Economic Forum, they rank women's rights by all the nations in the world. Here's the listing of the 10 best nations for women's rights. Now, let's just, you know, address the elephant in the room here, that no nation has arrived on women's rights.

We've all got a long ways to go, okay? But there are nations that are much worse and much better at giving women equal and fair treatment. And these are ranked again by the World Economic Forum, not a Christian group. You don't have to read all these, but if you want later, you can watch this online, you can pause this, so you can go back and study anything I show you today.

You don't have to take my word for it, I'd encourage you to dig deeper into these things. So what I did is I just took the top 10 off of this list, there's about 200 nations, and then I looked at another group called the Pew Research Group to find out what is the percent of Christians in the populations of these nations. So I found like number one, Iceland, 85% of the people there are Christian. You average this out across the top 10 nations, 75% of the people, so that's three out of four people in the nations that lead the world in women's rights are Christians. These are very Christian influenced societies.

If you trace back through 50 years, you go back 50 years, these nations have been predominantly Christian for more than 50 years, in fact, most of these hundreds of years. Okay, now let's look at the other end of the list, because there are 10 worst nations in the world for women's rights. These are nations where women are still very often bought and sold into marriage.

You get young girls, nine, 10 years of age, sold into a marriage to some old guy they don't even know. This is places where women have to cover themselves up by law, places where women are often beaten, where they're not allowed to vote, where they're not given equal access to education. None of this is my opinion as a pastor, this is how the world works, that is sadly how women are still treated in many places of the world, like Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, et cetera. Now, what is the percentage of Christians in those nations? Did the research again from the Pew Research Center, and it averages out to about 8%, so less than one in 10 people in those societies are Christian. Of the 10 worst societies to be a woman in today, have any of them been predominantly Christian for more than 50 years?

No. And so here's what I concluded, not as a pastor, but as a journalist and researcher. If I love my daughters, if I love my wife, my mom, I want them to grow up in a city that has a bunch of churches in it.

You don't have to believe in God to acknowledge that reality of the world that we live in. Here's the summary of this research. On average, Christians make up 75% of the top 10 nations, but Christians are a fragile minority in the nations where women get the worst treatment. And this traces back through history that you can see the influence of Christian beliefs on these societies.

It's probably not what you expected to hear, but again, I encourage you, you can research all this for yourself, you can go online, check out every one of those nations for yourself. Would you believe it that the same thing I actually discovered in education? We know that where education goes, society improves because you get engineers who can make better things.

You get doctors who can advance healthcare. So I looked at the founding of the universities that lead the world today, and again, I wanted to use non-Christian secular researchers. So here's the top 10 universities in the world as ranked by a non-Christian group. Now these universities you might be thinking, oh, education, blah, blah, this is boring, okay? But this actually matters because it's graduates of these universities who launched the scientific revolution, who've given us eyeglasses and contacts and surgery and modern medicine and electricity, pretty much our whole modern way of life. Did you know our lifespan today is double what the historic average was?

Most people only lived 40 years on average. That was the average human life expectancy until about 200 years ago because of the graduates of these universities. Now every one of these universities, just like those nations, you can go and you can do the research yourself and see who started Harvard. Who started Harvard? Well, the guy's name is the Reverend John Harvard. He's a pastor, and he was a group of Puritan Christians who started a Bible seminary called Harvard College, and you can look at their founding documents. One is called the First Fruits of Harvard, where they say, dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the next generation.

In other words, we want pastors to be trained to lead our churches for our kids and grandkids. We're gonna start this college. That's why Harvard was started. What I did for all the top 10 is I went through and I looked at were the founders Christian? Yes, 10 out of 10 of the top universities in the world, the founders were Christian. But not only were they Christian, eight out of the 10 were overtly Christian in their mission statement.

So for example, I mentioned Harvard. If you look at Yale, the mission statement, the original mission statement says for the propagation of the Protestant Christian religion. So again, whether or not you believe in Jesus or God or the Bible, if you care about the women in your life, you want them to grow up in a Christian-influenced society. If you care about your kids and you want them to grow up to be educated and have good jobs, you want them to grow up in a Christian-influenced society. You've been listening to the first part of our guest teacher, John Dickerson's message, Why Christianity Matters from his series, Jesus Loves Me.

Chip and John will join us here in studio with some additional thoughts about today's program in just a minute. Let me ask you, do you know the core beliefs of Christianity? Forget what churches, denominations or notable pastors say for a second. What do God and his word actually state are the essential truths of the Christian faith? Well, in this 10-part study, author and pastor John Dickerson will help us discover what those are. By using the simple children's song, Jesus Loves Me, John reveals what these lyrics tell us about God, his love for us and the reliability of the Bible. So whether you're a new believer looking for guidance or you've been a Christian your whole life and need a refresher, this series will encourage you. Learn more about John's teaching or his helpful resources by visiting livingontheedge.org. Well Chip's joined me in studio now, and Chip as we get started in this new series from John, take a minute if you would and set the table for what he's going to share in the coming programs and what our listeners will learn.

Well Dave, I love to hear John's teaching and John and I were able to get together just recently with a group of other leaders. For those of you who don't know him, he's a young millennial that God has given a very sharp mind and he has taken sort of that classic song right, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And he takes those phrases and in a world where you know who exactly is Jesus and what is the Bible and what can you believe in, John is going to take that little song and he's going to help us understand historically and theologically but in a really practical way. What in the world does it mean to you in your pain, your challenges, your difficulties that Jesus loves you?

What does it mean the Bible told me so? Can you actually even remotely believe that that ancient book has answers for the challenges and the chaos of our day? So Dave, I think this is going to be one of those series that parents are going to say, wow, this is so good for my kids and then secretly say, you know, I heard some of this but I never understood it quite like John explained it. So stay with us.

This is going to be a great series. Agreed. And if you're looking for a way to dive deeper into John's teaching, download the message notes under the broadcasts tab at LivingOnTheEdge.org. They'll help you better engage with this important content and apply it to your everyday life.

Get them at LivingOnTheEdge.org under the broadcasts tab, app listeners tap fill in notes. Well, with that, here's Chip and John to talk a little more about today's message and preview this entire series. Thanks Dave. Well, John, it is so good to have you with us again and thanks for letting us partner with you and get this teaching beyond the walls of your church all across America and actually all across the world. And as we begin this series, you know, I gave people a little setup about, you know, why I think it's important, but I'd love to get your perspective.

What do you hope people will get out of this series? And even more importantly, why did you use this little song to teach the most basic and core beliefs? Do you really think that's an issue today and kind of where was your target? Yeah, Chip, what a great question.

And I do believe this is an incredibly important issue. I think many, many people in America call themselves Christians. And we actually know this for a fact that many of them don't actually believe the basics of Christianity. In our culture, the word belief, it's almost like we've changed the definition of it to mean what do I feel?

I'll often talk with people and they'll say, well, I'm not sure if I'm believing that because I'm not feeling it. But according to the Word of God, our beliefs are not our feelings. They're things that we choose to agree with God about. Is Jesus God? Am I a sinner? Am I in need of salvation?

You know, when I worked as a journalist and an investigative reporter, I saw people trying to make their lives better in every way possible through money, through fame, through controlling government and shaping laws. But none of those things ultimately deliver eternal life or full joy and fulfillment of this life. We know those things are found through Jesus. I think of that verse Romans 1, verse 16, where Paul says this, I am not ashamed of the gospel or the good news of Jesus.

Why not? It is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. So what we're doing in this series is we're answering the question, what are those basic things that you must agree with God about in order to receive salvation and experience this promise? You know, Chip, the other thing about this series is we all have kids or grandkids or people that we're trying to lead spiritually, and we want to make sure that they know the basic beliefs.

Sometimes when we sit down and think, where do I even start? We're not sure how to summarize it and simplify it down into a really simple but accurate package. And that's what this series, Jesus Loves Me, the book and everything that goes with it, that's what it's for. So if you're a parent or a grandparent, if you're a small group leader, a Sunday school teacher, that you can take your group, your class, your family through this study, and you can know the basic beliefs. They're not complicated, but they're so important.

They're simple enough to be summarized in a children's song, but they're important enough that they're a matter of eternal life or death. So that is my heart and my prayer. And why I created this entire series is to make sure that everyone listening knows for sure that they're a Christian according to Christ, and that the people we know and love and care about, that they know that they're a follower of Jesus according to Jesus. Great word, John.

Thanks. And to learn more about this book or the new online small group study that goes with it, go to livingontheedge.org. These resources will deepen your understanding of the Christian faith and give you the tools to encourage others to follow Jesus. Again, to get your copy of John's book, Jesus Loves Me, or to sign up for the online small group study, visit livingontheedge.org. And during this series, we've bundled these resources together at a special discounted price. So take advantage today. We'll listen to next time as our guest teacher, John Dickerson, continues his new series, Jesus Loves Me. Until then, I'm Dave Drewy, thanking you for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.