Why do people refuse to believe in Jesus?

I don't like to speak in universals. Back in school, I learned that if I was taking a test and was facing a True/False question, one of the surest clues that the answer is "false" is if it uses words like "all" or "every" or "never."

 

I saw all of that as a qualifier to what I'm about to say. There are always exceptions.

 

But I haven't met a lot of people through the years who rejected Jesus Christ for intellectual reasons.

 

I've certainly met a lot of people who claimed that they were rejecting him for intellectual reasons. Most of the time, though, that's not it at all.

 

I believe that the truth of Jesus Christ can stand up against any academic scrutiny. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is incredibly difficult to ignore if considered without bias.

 

I've even had conversations with people who admitted that the evidence was compelling... but in the end, they just couldn't believe it because they didn't want to believe it.

 

There are generally two reasons for that: (1) they want to live their lives however they want and they're afraid believing in Jesus will mean they'll have to leave behind things they want to continue doing or (2) they have a deep wound or resentment toward Christians or the church, generally.

 

From my experience, the 90% of people who reject for reasons other than intellectual ones are divided about 50/50 between those two camps. But here's the thing...

 

... I still like to address the reasons for belief, the evidence, the defense of the faith that we're called to give as witnesses to Jesus Christ, because in another 90% of the 90% of cases above, the people don't really even consciously recognize that's why they reject Jesus.

 

By stripping away the "veneer," the intellectual justifications for rejecting what they really don't want to believe, they have to confront the reality of what's really behind their resistance to the Gospel.

 

When you can strip away all the bramble, all the "reasons" someone says they don't believe and get to the heart of the matter, it can (ironically enough) sometimes bring people around completely.

 

When it comes to the first kind of people (the kind of folks who don't want to change their lives, and fear Jesus would make them do that if they believed) most of the time it has to do with the fact that they want to sleep with whoever they darn well please, whenever they please, and with as many people as possible.

 

I made the mistake of staying up all night once in college talking to someone about Jesus... only for him to admit at the end of the day that he wouldn't believe because then he couldn't screw whoever he wanted.

 

I know it's crass, which most reasonable people realize. But a lot of rejection has to do with exactly that. They know (rightly) that following Jesus means a denial of self, and a denial of self-seeking, pleasure-seeking behaviors. It means a higher view of intimacy that most of the world simply doesn't want to swallow.

 

Of course, the Christian view of intimacy is logical. Just look at all the problems we have in the world today. I know the idea of abstinence before marriage, and the restriction of all intimacy to within a monogamous marriage, seems ancient and backwards, but it's not at all absurd. God's design almost always works out better for people in the long run. Just think of all the problems we wouldn't have in the world (or how rare those problems would be) if people lived up the God's design? There'd be fewer fatherless homes, fewer abortions, less abuse, less objectification, very few STDs, less exploitation and abuse...

 

... but of course, to most people, those are all 'acceptable prices' to pay for our right to get off however we want, with whoever we want, as often as we want...

 

There are also the second types of people who reject Jesus because they have wounds/resentments on account of something Christians have done, or someone in the church did to make them feel unvaluable, unwanted, or unworthy.

 

These things need to be taken seriously. But at the same time, we have to stand firm and point out that we should never let what people do who misrepresent Jesus get in the way of who Jesus is for us. What Jesus came to do was to free us from our slavery to sin, from the grave itself, and from spiritual blindness.

 

Why would anyone allow an ignorant person, or even a host of ignorant persons, get in the way of that?

 

We have a God who understands what it's like to be rejected by religious people. That's what we're getting ready to observe this week, as we go through Holy Week.

 

It didn't take long from the time people were shouting "Hosannah!" and praising Jesus for their praises to turn to screams of "Crucify him!" Our Lord knew what it was like to be betrayed, to be rejected by his friends. He knew what it was like to have his love taken advantage of. He knew what it was like to embrace people who hated him...

 

But he still speaks in the middle of it all out of love. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

 

Why would we allow religious people get in the way of Jesus for us? Why would we allow hateful people who did things in the name of God, but misrepresent his heart totally, to ever stop us from receiving the love of Jesus?

 

Jesus died for us. He rose for us, too. It's not just a spiritual idea, but a historical reality. It's what separates our Lord from every other god that people have honored across the world anywhere, ever.

 

That's what this week is all about. You see, the people in Jesus' day didn't reject Jesus as the messiah because they didn't think he intellectually fulfilled what the Scriptures taught about the messiah. Look at what they said after they witnessed Jesus raise a man (Lazarus) from the dead!

 

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, 46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” Jn 11:45–48.

When I read that, I have to ask... were they really even listening to themselves? They were basically saying that Jesus' signs were so convincing that unless they murdered him it wouldn't be long before "everyone will believe in him!"  

 

It's pure idiocy! But that's how people respond to Jesus today, too. Even when confronted with the evidence, they realize that believing Jesus will require change... it'll mean facing fear (for them, it was how the Romans might respond... for us it might be what family/friends might think)... it might mean being honest about our wounds and resentments.

 

You see, a lot of people would rather murder Jesus in their hearts than actually take up their cross and follow. They have to cling to intellectual objections because they know if they recognized the truth it would change everything. And a lot of people don't like change, even when it's change for the better.

 

You see, a lot of us have gotten pretty cuddly with our idols. We've made warm blankets out of our sins. We've even held onto our resentments like some kind of security toy, like a teddy bear, and we're afraid to let them go...

 

Because when we do... it'll mean more than recognizing that something is intellectually true. It'll mean we have no choice but to follow Jesus all the way. That means dying with Jesus. But here's the good news. For those of us bold enough to take hold of him in faith, willing to follow Him to the cross, he will bring with Him into resurrection life.

 

That's what we celebrate today. Tell the good news!

 

In Jesus' name,

Judah