Several weeks ago, we had a guest speaker, Bruce Woolever, speaking about his mission work in India. Bruce attended our Sunday School Class where we were able to ask questions and discuss various issues of how faith is shared in India and Pakistan. One of the things that Bruce said has given me great insight not only in the religious climate in India, but also in the religious climate in the United States.

Bruce was saying that Hinduism is the predominant religion of India. People can believe in any of about 3 million gods, a god for every little thing in life and for everything that happens in the world. This allows
each family or individual to have his or her own personal god to worship. Now when it comes to sharing faith in Jesus Christ, according to Bruce, it’s easy to preach or proclaim Christ. The Hindus want to hear about this God, and they will even accept this new God and pray to him. Hindus are very hungry and willing to receive Jesus.

But here’s the rub. While many Hindus will accept Jesus Christ as God, they will not accept him as the one and only god. They might accept him above other gods, but they will not accept him as the one and only real God that we worship. They are willing to worship Christ as God, but only as one god among many. They still want to worship their other gods. This narrow, exclusive claim that Jesus is the one and only rea; God people can worship does not sit well with the religious climate in India.

Christianity has some of the same problems here in the United States. A majority of people here in this country will claim that they believe in God, and if pressed will say that Jesus is God’s son. In their minds, this makes them members of the Christian faith because they are very religious; they believe. What many of these people won’t agree to is letting Christ be Lord of their life, that is living their life like Christ and letting
Christ direct them. Nor will they make worship a priority in their lives. People will tell us you that they don’t believe in any other gods, but the fact that they can’t let Jesus be the only influence in their lives says
differently. Anything that competes with or has a higher priority in our lives than Christ Jesus is our god, whether it be money, power, fame, our job, our hobby, whatever. Given the choice to put Christ first or down the list behind any of these other attractions, tells us who we really serve and worship.

Let me tell you a personal story. One of my leisure time activities is the sport of tennis. I was never a star player, I just enjoy playing for the exercise and the social outlet. I played on the college tennis team and I
played in a few local tournaments when I was young. I also had been called to the ordained ministry at age 11 so that my education was geared to preparing me for the pastorate. Going to church was always important to me. But tennis tournaments were always held Saturdays and Sundays, which meant if you won your
matches on Saturday, you had to play the semi-finals on Sunday morning. This was never a problem for me, because I was never good enough to get to the semis; in fact, I was lucky to just win the first match..

One time when I was in college, my friends and I decided to play a tournament during the Summer about 50 miles away. I won my first match Saturday morning by forfeit because my opponent called in sick at
the last minute. My next match was against an older gentleman who was a member of the tennis club where the tournament was being held. Warming up with him, I could tell I was the better player and thus I was
sure to win. This would be my best showing ever. Sure enough, I took an early lead. Now I was on a roll, but I knew that the next opponent,whoever that might be, was going to clean my clock. But that was okay. I was
on a roll, until it started to rain. We had to stop the match, and then all play was suspended for the day because of rain. We were then told that we would begin at 9 am the next day, Sunday morning.

Now I had a dilemma. I always went to church on Sunday mornings. Nothing took priority over the worship of God. And yet I was beating this guy and I was not going to let this gentleman win by forfeit. So I
made the decision to skip church and play tennis. My mother was not happy with my decision and questioned my priorities. But I was 21, an adult, and I made the decision to not go to church this one Sunday. After an hour’s travel, I arrived shortly before 9 am where I waited 3 ½ hours to play. When I inquired
where may opponent was, I was told, “He’s coming.” Because he didn’t show up after a reasonable time, no longer than an hour, he should have been forfeited. But you see, he was a member of that club, and his club members bent the rules for him. Actually they broke them. Finally he showed up at 12:30 ready to play.
The reason he didn’t show up earlier? He went to church.

We started playing again. Shortly it began to rain, and the match was called again. We were told to come back at 5 pm Monday night and resume play. I stated that I worked a full time job and didn’t get home until 6 pm, and I still had an hour’s drive to get here. “Then you’ll have to forfeit,” they said. When I protested that they had made special considerations for my opponent, they repeated, “You either play at 5 pm Monday or you forfeit.” I had to forfeit.

I left there humbled. I won’t say God had a hand in that situation, but if God did, God has a ironic sense of humor. From that experience I learned never to put God second. For me, worship belongs to God and everything else takes second place. And it reaffirmed for me, that unless Christ is first in my
life, then I don’t really worship him as Lord.

Paul fell into that same situation in Athens. He wasn’t really in Athems by choice; he had been run out of Thessalonica and Beroea in the North and was waiting in safety for his traveling companions to join him. While in Athens, he toured the city, visited its cultural spots, and talked with the philosophers about faith and theology. Paul was invited to debate his faith with the other learned men of his day, and while some scholars state that he used this opportunity to proclaim Christ, I think he was doing more philosophical
debating than preaching. In any case, he called their attention to a place that he had visited that was filled with all kinds of monuments to all of the known gods of their world. He said, “I can see from this place that you are a very religious people. And as I was touring this place, I saw a monument to “the unknown God.” I want to tell you who this unknown god is.” And then Paul proceeded to tell them about Christ Jesus and the resurrection.

Now it appears that people were willing to hear about Jesus, but when Paul says to them that Jesus’ resurrection was the decisive act of God for the world, that is, that they must repent and accept Christ as their only Lord and master, they ridiculed him. It’s one thing to claim that Jesus is a god; it’s quite another to say that he is the only God and demands our total allegiance. The Greeks, like the Hindus of India, were not going to limit their religious worship and devotion to just one god.

Yet that is precisely what Christianity demands. God acting in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus has announced to the world that not every god we worship is real, not every opinion we hold is holy, and not every action we do is right. God has shown humanity through Christ Jesus that this is what God looks like, this is how God acts, this is what God desires from the world, and this is how humans ought to live. When the Apostle John says, “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. It is only through Christ that we can know
God and receive salvation,” he means that there is no other way to come to God. We can’t go to heaven by recognizing other gods while trying to keep Christ at the top. We can’t go to heaven by just acknowledging in our hearts that there is a higher power than ourselves and we accept that as fact. We can’t go to
heaven and live life any way we want as long as we show up periodically at church and put in our time. We can’t go to heaven by just doing good things or by just obeying the 10 commandments. We will not get to heaven if we do not believe and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. God through Christ Jesus
calls us to be radically changed, transformed into new human beings, giving up our self-centeredness and placing our total allegiance in Christ Jesus. “In him we live and move and have our being.”

You see, the resurrection is God’s answer to the world that there is only one way to know the true God. Try as we may, working through our modern day gods, we will always fall short of who we are called to be in the eyes of God. It is only through Christ, accepting his lordship over our lives, that we truly find and live the faith and the being that God has given us. Only through Christ will we find and live true happiness and joy and fulfillment.

The question that is always before us on this first day of the week, Christ’s resurrection day, is, “Whom do you serve?” Who is your Lord? To whom do you owe your total allegiance? Worship is not a time to find those warm and fuzzy feelings that make us feel good that we have done our duty. Worship is a time when we are confronted with a life and death decision. It is that decisive moment when we are asked, “Christ died for your sins and God raised him from the dead. Now what are you going to do about it?”

What are you going to do about it? Now is the time to decide.