This past
week I watched a national TV interview with a famous mega-church pastor on Fox
News being asked for his wisdom about how we are to get through this difficult
time with the coronavirus. Let me repeat. He is a pastor being interviewed on a
national news program being asked why we should not be afraid or live in fear
because of the virus. What an incredible opportunity! Here is his chance to say
the name of Jesus to millions of people. I mean, as a pastor, surely that is
what he said, right?
“Take it
one day at a time and choose to live in a place of peace, not fear.” And with his perfect smile, he went
on to say that we should think happy thoughts, not depressing thoughts because
what we think, so we become. And while none of that is inherently wrong, during
the whole five-minute interview, not one time did he mention the name of Jesus.
He said “God” a couple of times but that works no matter what god you serve. It
works for Buddha or Allah or your higher power of choice.
I couldn’t
help but think of how someone like Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham,
would have responded to those questions. I’ve heard him interviewed before and
it doesn’t matter what question he is asked, Franklin Graham is going to bring
up the name of Jesus. “Bro. Graham, how do you like today’s weather?” “Well,
Bill, it’s a beautiful day and it makes me think of how beautiful it will be
when Jesus takes us home to Heaven!” You know, he’s that kind of guy which
may be the reason he doesn’t get interviewed as often as the other guy.
But there is
power in the name of Jesus! There is something about that name. And if you have
a hard time saying that name when somebody asks you for the hope that you have,
then there is a good chance you don’t know Him and if you don’t know Him then
you have no business being a Christian preacher.
The thing
about the name of Jesus is there is power in that name and because there is
power, when it is spoken, one of two things is going to happen. The person
hearing it will either accept it or reject it. There is no third choice.
Because of that, Jesus is controversial. He is controversial because those that
accept it want other people to have what they have. The people that reject it,
reject it because they don’t want to change their lives. They don’t want to
give up the power that they think they have and so they think the
people that accept it should be quiet and leave them alone.
In the seventh
chapter of Acts, Stephen was falsely accused of blasphemy and taken to court
where he was asked if it was true. He went into a long lesson on Israel’s
history that ended with Stephen accusing them of murdering Jesus, the Messiah. If
you are wondering, no, that didn’t go too well. They stoned him to death for
it. They rejected Jesus by rejecting Stephen and, while the first church was
just getting started, one of the church leaders was killed and a great crisis
started for the church that would continue until…well, it probably continues
even today in one form or another.
That crisis
led to the first church being scattered to the four winds. People lost their
homes and their jobs and their families all because they professed the powerful
name of Jesus. That sounds horrible, doesn’t it. It was horrible. It wasn’t
right. It wasn’t fair. How could God have allowed all this to happen? Was He
not aware or did He just not care?
Today, you
may be thinking the same thing about your situation. Some of you have been hit
harder than others but we are all suffering right now through no fault of our
own. Many have lost jobs. Many are hurting financially. We are all suffering relationally
and it’s just not right. It’s not fair. Why does God allow us to continue
suffering like this? Are we being punished or does He just not care?
Those are
important questions and they can be hard to answer satisfactorily but I believe
some of the answers can be found a couple of chapters later in the book of Acts.
We are continuing our study of the New Testament churches to find out what they
did right and what they did wrong so we will know what Christ Fellowship ought
to be doing or not doing. Last week we saw the birth of the church in Jerusalem
in Acts chapter two but that infancy didn’t last long. They had to grow up
quick.
This week,
we are in Acts chapter 11 and we see that some of the members of the
first church have fled the persecution in Israel and traveled all the way north
to the Greek city of Antioch. Now, Antioch was no small village. It had
hundreds of thousands of people and was a major seaport and crossroads. I read
that the city actually had marble roads and sidewalks for miles and miles. It
was very wealthy and very busy. Think of it as a mixture of New York City and
Las Vegas. Imagine leaving Lake Bridgeport and moving to Vegas. Yea, it was
like that.
So, let’s
turn to Acts 11:19-30 and let’s see what happened to the people of the
first church as they moved away. Now those who
had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed
traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among
Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to
Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the
Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people
believed and turned to the Lord. 22 News of this reached the church in
Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw
what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain
true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the
Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. 25 Then
Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he
brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the
church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians
first at Antioch. 27 During this time some prophets came down from
Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through
the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman
world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) 29 The disciples, as
each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living
in Judea. 30 This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas
and Saul.
There is a
quote attributed to Martin Luther that says, “Apart from the church,
there is no salvation.” What do you think about that? Is that true? Is
salvation provided by the church? Of course not. Salvation, the assurance of
Heaven when we die, is not provided by the church but only found in the grace
of God through His Son Jesus.
But what is
the church? The church is just the saved ones, the called-out ones and who is
going to tell the unsaved if not the saved? If somebody is lost on a trail in
the wilderness, who can save them except someone who knows the way? That is the
reason that the church is not just raptured up to Heaven already. We are left
to tell others. It’s the one job Jesus gave us before He went back to Heaven.
As He said in Matthew 28, “As you go,
make disciples.”
That is
exactly what the first church was doing all the way up in Antioch. I love that
is says they were telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus in verse
20. Notice that it does not say they were inviting them to church. There is
nothing wrong with inviting someone to church. In fact, that is often where the
conversation should start. But that is definitely not where the conversation
should end.
If there is
any good with this virus, it has taught us that the church is not a building.
It is not something that happens at 1301 N Main St. The church is a group of
believers that have jobs, go to school, share joys and hardships together and every
once in a while, we get to meet together as a group and make God look good in a
corporate way. That’s the way it should be. That is what the first church did from
the beginning and what they continued to do as they scattered during their
crisis. As they went, they made disciples even in New York / Las Vegas /
Antioch.
Now, notice
what happens when they did what they were supposed to do even in the midst of
their crisis. It says in verse 21, “The
Lord’s hand was with them.” We see in the Old Testament that there
are two ways that the Lord’s hand can be with you or on you. The Lord’s hand
can be on you in judgment or in blessing.
There is a
short passage of scripture in 1 Samuel 5 that talks about how the
Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant and took it to a city called Ashdod.
Let’s just say that God was not pleased with that decision and it says in 1
Samuel 5:6, “The LORD's hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its
vicinity; he brought devastation on them and afflicted them with tumors.”
If you don’t think God causes bad things to happen sometimes, ask the
Ashdodians how they felt about God’s hand being on them. Oh, wait. You can’t.
There are no more Ashdodians.
God’s hand
can be on you in judgment or in blessing and for the church in Antioch, it
provided blessing. And what kind of blessing? Surely it means they were healthy
and wealthy, right? No. Not necessarily. But God blessed their efforts and it
says that a great number of people had their lives changed because of it.
Let’s
continue on looking at what that church did in verses 22-23. “News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they
sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God
had done, he was glad and encouraged them…” Stop right there. News
got back to the first church there in Jerusalem and they told Barnabas, one of
their main members, “Hey, go check out these stories of what our brothers and
sisters are doing up there in Sin City.”
Barnabas was
the right choice, too. His name actually means “Son of Encouragement.” It
wasn’t his birthname. It was a nickname because that is exactly who he was and
what he was. We have several Barnabas’s (Barnabi?) in our church and they play
a vital role. I told Linda Pierot the other day that I remember the very first
time I saw her because she walked into our church building one Sunday morning,
late of course, but she walked in smiling and nodding and saying, “Amen” and
she never stopped. She is a “Son of Encouragement.” That is a gift that a lot
of people don’t have but everybody needs to be.
God-given
gifts can be a tricky thing in the church sometimes. I believe God’s hand of
blessing is on a person who admits that something is not their gift but they
are willing to do it when they see a need. On the other hand, there are some
people in some churches that think they have a gift and want to use it.
That can be a problem. But whether or not you are actually gifted with
encouragement or not, you need to be an encourager.
It has been
really windy lately and the other day I was out on the back deck and I watched
this buzzard trying to fly into the wind. He was making some progress but you
could tell he was straining. He was basically standing still and working really
hard. Finally, he had evidently had enough and he took off the other way like a
jet. He had the wind behind him and he was moving fast. It might not have been
the way he wanted to go but he was making good time.
Ministry is
like that sometimes and we all have our ministries. What we need is somebody to
be the encouraging wind beneath our wings so we can really do what we are
supposed to do without a lot of resistance. So…now, I would like to sing a solo
of “Wind Beneath My Wings” and dedicate it to all you encouragers out there.
What do you think? No? No encouragement from anybody to do that? It’s not my
gift, is it? That’s okay. I understand. Let’s move on then. 😊
We have seen
that the church in Antioch, in the midst of their crisis, was continuing to
make disciples and telling the Good News of Jesus and the Lord’s gracious hand
was on them and blessing them. They had some natural encouragers in that church
and were hitting on all cylinders in a land that was foreign to them and not
where they really wanted to be but where God had called them to be for the good
of the global church and for the glory of God’s name.
Now, if you
go back down to verses 27-29 of our passage, you will see something that
corresponds to encouragement. It says, “During
this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of
them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe
famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the
reign of Claudius.) 29 The disciples, as each one was able, decided to
provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea.”
We’re not
going to get bogged down with a lot of details or a history lesson or a debate
on theology here but there is one main take-away I want to look at here. John
MacArthur says succinctly about this when he says, “Like the apostles,
the prophets were not a permanent order. Having fulfilled their foundational
purpose, they gradually faded from the scene, to be replaced by the evangelists
and the pastor-teachers.”
So, when it
says that some prophets came to Antioch from Jerusalem and prophesied, it is
like having a guest preacher and that preacher said there was about to be a
great famine and so the gist of this passage is not that there was a great
prophecy or there were prophets that we should emulate, but that in view of
that famine, the members of the church in Antioch, knowing the poverty that the
persecuted church in Jerusalem was undergoing, decided to send them some
financial help.
“Oh, here he
goes, Agnes, talking about money again! That’s all he ever talks about. Money,
money, money.” Well, I hope you know that’s not true. I also want you to know
that I don’t know who gives what. It’s not my business and I’m not the least
bit worried about our finances here at Christ Fellowship. That’s not because we
have a lot of money in the bank but because our God is loaded and He protects
and provides for us beyond all we could ever imagine. I don’t bring up giving
so that the church bank account will grow. I bring it up so that your treasures
in Heaven will grow.
Matthew 6:19-21 says, “Do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where
thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break
in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also.” You store up treasures in Heaven by giving here on earth. That’s
what the Bible says, not what Todd says.
But Todd
does say that if you are a member of this church, you ought to support this
church financially and with your attendance, virtually or in person. But if you
are watching this on Facebook and you are a member somewhere else, support that
church, not this church. Yes, you heard me. Don’t send your money here if your
membership is somewhere else. If you want to support this church AND your
church then that is fine for your over and above gift to come here.
Most of you
know that our church tithes ten percent of our income to support five other
ministries. Those ministries, in turn, support ministries and missionaries all
over the world. So, when you give a dollar to Christ Fellowship, a portion of
that goes around the world to help further the Gospel, just like the church in
Antioch did.
Luke 6:38 says, “Give,
and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together,
running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will
be measured back to you.” Now,
the mega-church pastor I talked about at the beginning might tell you that means
that if you give the church $50 then God will give you $500. But it doesn’t
necessarily work that way. It might. God can do whatever He wants, but it
probably won’t. How it usually works is that God honors your sincere gift in a
way that He blesses you with His gracious hand in intangible ways – His
protection and provision that we usually can’t see – but also in ways that we
won’t ever see until we get to Heaven.
Now, would
you rather have $500 in this life or God’s gifts that are beyond all we could
ever ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20) in the next life for eternity? $500 would be
nice. No doubt. But that is not what this verse is talking about. We give
because we want to be obedient. We give because we love and want to support
other ministries and we give because we will be rewarded for it in Heaven. That’s
a pretty good deal.
This church
in Antioch was in the middle of a huge crisis. The church in Jerusalem was in
an even bigger crisis. The church today is in a crisis as well but I sincerely
believe that this virus is not our biggest problem. The church has always been
in crisis and it always will be because we represent the name of Jesus and some
people are always going to reject Him through us.
In the midst
of this crisis and any other crisis we have to continue telling other people
the good news about Jesus and what He has done in our lives. We have to keep
encouraging each other. Who else is going to? And we have to continue to
support our church, for the sake of the church but also for the sake of the
other ministries and for the blessings God wants us to have in Heaven. When we
do those three things, we will see God’s hand of blessing on our church, virus
or no virus.
Today, if
you don’t know the good news about Jesus Christ, let me tell you. He has
changed my life like He has changed the lives of so many people in our church
and He can change yours. I don’t care how bad you are or how bad you have
messed up. You would be hard pressed to top some of the horrible stuff some of
us have done but God forgives when you repent and turn away from that
lifestyle. All you have to do is believe and confess with your mouth that He is
Lord of your life and He will come into your life and His mighty right hand
will be on you with blessing instead of judgment.
He gives
peace and joy in this life even in the difficulties and the crises of this
world. Plus, you have all the assurance of Heaven when you die. What’s that
worth? Trust me. It’s a pretty good deal. Do it right now wherever you are as
the music plays.
https://youtu.be/Q6HnFuzSJdQ
This You
Tube video is about Nick Vujicic who was born without arms or legs but has
managed to figure out how to not only survive but thrive in this life. I
watched videos of him skydiving, playing golf and basketball, swimming and
doing what he seems to do best, public speaking. He is married with four kids
and has published eight books and I can’t imagine what difficulties he has had
to overcome.
Living life
without arms or legs is not fair. He has to work way harder than most people to
do the most basic things in this life and I understand that he tried to commit
suicide as a boy but he has forced himself to do what he has to do. He devoted
himself to learning how to overcome his disability and make the best of an
unfair situation.
He says in
his book Life Without Limits, “We may have absolutely no control over
what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. If we choose the right
attitude, we can rise above whatever challenges we face.” I like that quote
but there is more to being able to thrive in an unfair world. I understand that
Nick Vujicic is a devout Christian so I know he would agree that, as Christians,
when we devote ourselves to doing what God wants us to do, we also have the power
of the Holy Spirit living inside of us to help us.
The apostle
Paul wrote, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,
who is in you?” (1 Cor. 6:19) So, when we devote ourselves to doing what we
are supposed to do and we choose the right attitude and with the help of the
Holy Spirit, whether something is fair or not doesn’t really matter, does it?
We can do what God calls us to do even if we are not as well-equipped as
somebody else or maybe not as well-equipped as we used to be.
The question
is, how bad do you want it? How bad do you want to be obedient? How bad do you
want to be blessed? How bad do you want to do what God has called you to do or
be? How bad do you want to change the life of your neighbor next door? How bad
do you want to change the life of the person you work with? How bad do you want
to change the world or even your child or grandchild?
If you have
your Bibles handy, turn to the Book of Acts, chapter 2. Acts is after
John and before Romans in the New Testament. It is the story of the first
church. I have always said that this church reminds me a lot of the first
church. It started small. It had some of the most loving and dedicated people.
It had a few hoodlums in it but overall it was a world-shaking powerhouse of a
church and it should be studied and used as a model.
So, I
believe it is appropriate to start our new sermon series right here. For the
next six weeks or so, we will look at different churches in the New Testament
to see what they did right and what they did wrong and hopefully learn what
this church is supposed to do in this weird and unique time in which we live.
Even just
two months ago, if I were to study this passage and prepare a message from it,
I would have gone a completely different route. But everything has changed in
the last couple of months, hasn’t it? People in the church and even outside the
church are asking questions about what the role of the church is nowadays. Who
is the church? Where is the church? What are we supposed to do and not do? Who
is our authority? What can we do? What do we have to do? And the big question
is, how do we do it when we can’t even meet together?
These are
questions that our parents and grandparents never had to ask. Over the years in
the United States, the church has had some persecution. It has been
misunderstood and put down and ignored but the church has always been able to
meet together and be there for each other and so many of us have soothed our
consciences by inviting people to church as we try to comfort them in their
difficulties but we can’t do that anymore. That may change tomorrow but we need
to know what the role of the church is in these unique times.
In Acts
chapter 2, in the passages preceding the verses we are going to study this
morning, Peter stands up to preach his first sermon and he hits it out of the
park. I remember the first time I preached. It was at a nursing home in Ft.
Worth and a little old lady in a wheelchair kept screaming at me, “That’s a
lie!” I’ll just tell you, nobody got saved that day. (True story.)
But Peter
stood up to preach, yes, that Peter. The same Peter that just a few days before
had denied three times even knowing Jesus. But today he stands up and tells
them the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ and 3, 000 people got saved. That’s
a humdinger of an altar call right there. But can you imagine the questions
those people had? Can you imagine the problems and the challenges? I don’t have
time to go into it all but if you research the times they lived in, you will
see it was not a good time to be a Christian and so you might think that the
church would be slow in taking off but it was just the opposite.
Let’s read
about that first church in Acts 2:42-47. They devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
43Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the
apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common.
45They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46Every
day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in
their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and
enjoying the favor of all the people. And the LORD added to their number daily
those who were being saved.
How many of
you believe that God never changes? How many of you believe that God’s Word,
the Bible, is completely true and inerrant in every verse? How many of you
believe that God’s overall will for the first church is the same as God’s
overall will for the church of today, specifically Christ Fellowship?
Be careful!
Are you sure? Are you sure that God wants us to look like this church in Acts?
I mean, how can we? We aren’t able to meet like they could. This is not an easy
model to follow on a regular good day much less today. Let’s look closer at
what it really says and then we will see what we can do. We will see just how
close we can get to it in these unique days.
Let’s start
at the beginning in verse 42. It says they devoted themselves. They
devoted themselves. We could stop right there. Thanks for coming. See you next
Sunday. Just devote yourself. Actually, there is more to it than that so let’s go
further. What does it mean to devote yourself and to what are we supposed to be
devoted?
I always
like to look up the main words in my concordance to see what they mean and what
they meant to the author and when I looked up this word that the King James
translates as “steadfast” it says it means to continue strongly. There are
other variations but it always means to continue. To keep on continuing and to
never stop. To make it a priority and to keep making it a priority. To stay
strongly involved.
Then look at
what they were continuing strongly in. It says they devoted themselves to the apostles’
teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and prayer.
They devoted themselves to what we would call the church. Remember, they didn’t
have the New Testament like we do. They were living it and so they were devoted
to what the apostles taught. And what did the apostles teach? They just taught
what they had learned from Jesus.
The only
difference between an apostle and a disciple is that the apostles were actually
with Jesus all the time. But even today, we say that a disciple is just one who
is learning from Jesus and telling others what you know. They devoted
themselves to discipleship. So, the first church was learning from the apostles
what we are learning from the Bible. They devoted themselves to the apostles’
teaching which is discipleship.
They also
devoted themselves to the fellowship. That Greek word is “koinonia.” It
means sharing and fellowship and being intimately together as family, sharing
the good times and the bad as they come. How appropriate that our name is
Christ Fellowship because think about what happens around here when somebody
gets a new job…or loses their job. Think about what happens when somebody gets
married or a baby is born…or somebody dies. Either way, the family – the
fellowship – the koinonia – comes together and either celebrates or mourns.
I was
laughing earlier this week as I remembered one of our infamous game nights
where we played spoons and Ruby Wisdom and Trey Pittman were down to the last
spoon. If you don’t know, spoons is a card game and I don’t think it is meant
to be full contact like we do but anyway, Ruby and Trey were the last two and
one of them grabbed for a spoon and the other grabbed at the same time and they
went to wrestling and fighting and fell over on the floor and all of us around
them were screaming, “Kick him, Ruby! Bite him! C’mon Trey, get the spoon!”
And we laughed until we cried at their game of spoons. That is part of
koinonia.
But koinonia
also means coming together and crying bitter tears when a family member passes
away. It means sharing the good times and the bad. It means asking for prayer
and celebrating answered prayer. It’s just what family does and I honestly
don’t know how people do it that don’t have a church family.
They devoted
themselves to the teaching and to the koinonia and to the breaking of bread.
We’re still in verse 42 but this passage talks twice about breaking
bread, here and in verse 46. Now, I like a church that likes to eat but the
words used here are slightly different. They actually come from the same root
word and mean basically the same thing. But taken in context, we know that one
means to eat a meal. I’m sure, like good Baptists, they had several casseroles
and there was always that one dear sister who brought her famous dessert and then
there was the bachelor who was encouraged to just bring…I don’t know. Bring
some ice or some plates or napkins or something. Right?
The other
use of the word means to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. I believe, in context,
the first usage means this. They devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper or
Communion. Can you imagine taking the Lord’s Supper from Peter or one of the
others that was there with Jesus in the upper room and heard Jesus say, “This is my body that was broken for you”? How
powerful that must have been. But there is something powerful about taking the
Lord’s Supper anytime because Jesus said to do it and He blesses it when it is
done. So, Christ Fellowship does it often.
The last
thing in this verse that is says they were devoted to is prayer. They
devoted themselves to prayer. They continued strongly in prayer. They believed
in the power of prayer. You might have heard the story of the little boy trying
to sit through a church service in the south but he was fidgety and talkative
and finally his father had warned him for the last time and just snatched him
under his arm and headed out the back door with him. The little boy, knowing
what was about to happen, hollered out, “Hey! Y’all pray for me now!” That’s
somebody that was desperate for prayer and didn’t mind asking for it. That’s
how we should all be. I say all the time that everybody we know should probably
be at the top of our prayer list.
Now, as I
was thinking about what all this means to us as members of Christ Fellowship in
April of 2020, I came across a couple of quotes on prayer that I would like to
share. The first is from E.M. Bounds who said, “What the Church needs
today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel
methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use--men of prayer, men mighty in
prayer.” I thought that was so appropriate for what we are living through
today even though Bounds died over a hundred years ago.
The other
quote I found was from Martin Luther who died nearly 500 years ago. He said,
“Pray as if everything depends on God, then work as if everything depends on
you.” I believe those two quotes sum up perfectly where we are today. If we
are going to be the church that God has called us to be and continue strongly
in all the things that the first church was devoted to and continue to minister
to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated as God has called us
specifically to do then we have to start with prayer.
We never
have been a church of great wealth or lots of people and people have never
expected much of us because of it. I remember being told years and years ago, “Todd,
you can’t just run 20 people til Jesus comes.” Well, how many people we
have is not my big concern because when Jesus talked about the church, He said
He would build it and if He wants us to run 20 people that’s okay. Now, here we
are in April of 2020 and we can’t have more than 10 people in the building.
So, it’s a
good thing that the church is not in this building, isn’t it? You are the
church and the church is you and goes with you wherever you go. Now, like the
man born without arms or legs, we have to decide how bad we want to do what we
are supposed to do. We have some great challenges in front of us because God
does not change and His Word does not change and His greatest commandment is
still to go and make disciples. We are still supposed to devote ourselves to
being the church and doing what the church is supposed to do.
I don’t have
any doubt that this virus is not going to affect us forever. Someday, I think
sooner than later, we will be able to meet here in this building again and we
are gonna have a throw-down, good-time party. Just be preparing for that. Okay?
But, honestly, I am thankful for what I have learned from all of this about
what it means to truly be a church. I think we have pawned our responsibilities
off on the church that meets at 1301 N Main St for too long. It’s easy to
think, yes, we are the church but the church meets at this building and if it needs
to happen, it should happen here.
When in
reality, we have to be devoted to what the church has always been devoted to
even if it means doing it off campus. We aren’t going to do anything worthwhile
without bathing it in prayer. That’s where it starts. But maybe it leads to
having small groups of 4-6 in our homes to watch the Sunday service on Facebook
Live. Maybe it leads to having small groups in our homes for Bible study to go
over what Ben emails us during the week or maybe something God lays on your
heart to share. And, of course have a snack to eat, right? That’s just
biblical.
I am
thankful for the technology that we have and we are going to continue to use it
to the best that we can. I’ve tried to send a few videos out to encourage you
the past few weeks and so you don’t forget just how ruggedly handsome I am. 😊 But I don’t want to overdo it either. I am not the church. We are the
church and as always, the body of the church is made up of many members.
Scripture uses that metaphor a lot describing how each member of the church is
like a body with different parts but it’s just a metaphor and the metaphor
breaks down when we can’t all be together in one place.
That’s okay,
though, because we are still a body with some members gifted to be able to
teach or sing or show mercy or give hospitality or any number of other gifts
and talents. What is your gift? Where are you talented? Now, how can you use
that gift to God’s glory and for the edification of the church but not in the
church building at 1301? I thank God for this opportunity we have been given.
The church is not closed. It has been set free!
We have
challenges today that have rarely, if ever, been faced before and the thing is,
it will get worse as the years go on. We will come through this virus thing and
we will meet together again but scripture warns us that the church will suffer
persecution in the last days so we are able to use this time as a warm up. The
question I come back to is, how bad do you want it?
How bad do
you want to change the world? Maybe the better question is, how bad do you want
to change the lives of your kids and grandkids, Christ Fellowship? Devote
yourself to the things mentioned in this verse; to the things of the church.
Look, I’ll be the first to tell you that church is not going to save you.
Church doesn’t save people. It doesn’t change people’s lives. Jesus does that.
But people find Jesus and get power from Jesus and are blessed by Jesus by the
church – you.
I heard the
story of some friends who were in the middle of a big discussion and they saw
the preacher walking by and so they brought him over to help solve the problem.
One of them asked the preacher if you had to go to church to get to Heaven and
the preacher immediately said “No.” They all laughed and relaxed and one
guy said, “See! I knew you would understand how things work, preacher.”
And the preacher said, “Well, I don’t understand though. I don’t understand
why you would want to go to Heaven if you don’t want to go to church because the
only people there are going to be church people doing church stuff.”
The church
has changed in some ways in the past couple of months. There’s no doubt about
that but it’s not all for the worse. We are able to reach and minister to
people that we couldn’t before. And we are given opportunities every day to do
what the church is supposed to do every day instead of just once a week in a
building. That’s a good thing. What is your role in all of that? That’s the
question that you need to ask God in prayer right now.
Let’s bow
our heads and close our eyes and devote ourselves to prayer. Maybe you don’t
know how to pray. Maybe you aren’t a member of this or any other church. Maybe
you don’t know Jesus as a Savior and Friend. I would love to help with that. If
you are reading this as a letter or on our website, please contact me and allow
me to introduce you to Jesus, my friend. If you see this on Facebook, please
reach out and let me know how I or this church can help you.
Being a
Christian doesn’t mean you are perfect and it won’t make your life perfect, not
by any measure. But with your devotion to God comes a peace and joy in this
life that passes all your understanding. And you get the assurance of life in
Heaven with all the other members of the body of Christ but mainly with God the
Father, through His Son Jesus and all you have to do is believe and allow God
to change your life. Do it right now as the music plays.
Three
brothers all got married about the same time and were sitting together bragging
about how they had given their new wives duties. The first man had married a
woman from Oklahoma and had told her that she was going to do dishes and
house cleaning.
It took a couple days, but on the third day he came home to a clean house and
dishes washed and put away.
The second man had married a woman from Louisiana. He had given his wife
orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking.
The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better.
By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there
was a huge dinner on the table.
The third man had married a girl from Texas. He told her that her duties
were to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, laundry washed and hot meals on
the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the
second day he didn't see anything, but by the third day some of the swelling
had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye - enough to fix
himself a bite to eat and load the dishwasher.
Don’t you
hate when people brag? And I will admit, in Texas we do a lot of bragging.
You’ve heard it said that it ain’t bragging if it’s true, right? No. It’s still
bragging and nobody wants to hear that. Do you know what people brag about?
They brag about whatever is most important to them. If you want to know what
you or anybody else thinks is most important in this world, listen to what is
bragged about.
If I were to
ask you today what is the most important thing in your life, you might say
something about God or Jesus or going to Heaven or something like that. Those
are good churchy answers but if I were to ask you at the store in the middle of
the week, would your answer be different?
Scripture
warns us in several places about bragging. Proverbs 27:2 says, “Let
another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own
lips.” Matthew 6:2 says, “So when you give to the poor, do not
sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
streets, so that they may be honored by men Truly I say to you, they have their
reward in full.”
But there is
one place that says we have something to brag about and I want you to see it.
Turn to the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is between Isaiah
and Lamentations in a part of your Bible that probably doesn’t see much
daylight and probably not the first passage you think of on Easter but with
God’s help, I think we can tie it all together. We are finishing up our series
on apologetics today. Hopefully we have given you some ammunition to use as you
talk to your unbelieving and skeptical friends and neighbors about the Lord.
While almost
nothing spiritual can be proven mathematically or scientifically, we have shown
why we believe that the universe was created by God, that Jesus is the only way
to Heaven and why we believe that scripture is the inerrant Word of God among
other things. So, building on those foundations, we will show what we believe
and why we believe it when it comes to the subject of God’s existence.
Just like
believing in Jesus or the Bible or almost anything else, if somebody just
doesn’t want to believe in God, you are wasting your time arguing and debating
with them about His existence. But if an unbeliever has an open mind and is
willing to accept some answers that will change their life, then Jeremiah
9:23-24 is a good place to start. So, let’s do that right now.
Now, if you
read this passage to an unbeliever and they continue to not believe what
Jeremiah said, don’t worry. It is hardly the first time that somebody
disregarded what Jeremiah said. In fact, in forty years of preaching and
prophesying what God wanted Jeremiah to say, not one person believed him. Not
one person was saved. Not one person repented or had their lives changed so
don’t be surprised if somebody receives this with a hard heart and a stiff
neck. Everybody else did. But, like Jeremiah, we have to keep preaching it and
being obedient because we also know that God’s Word will never come back void.
(Isaiah 55:11)
Jeremiah
9:23-24 says, “This is what
the LORD says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong man boast
of their strength or the rich man boast of their riches, 24but let the one who
boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD,
who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I
delight," declares the LORD.”
Now, I don’t
know about you but I think that sounds like big talk. Jeremiah says to brag
about knowing and understanding God. That’s serious bragging even for a proud
Texan. In fact, I thought we couldn’t understand God. I thought God said His
ways were above our ways and His thoughts higher than ours as it says in Isaiah
55:9. Can both be true? Let’s look at it closer.
Those two
words, “understand” and “know” mean basically the same thing as Jeremiah spoke
them in ancient Hebrew. The original word for understand is “shakak” and
the word for know is “yada.” They both mean to observe or to see, to pay
attention to, to ponder and in doing so, to prosper.
Now, if
scripture is true (and we hopefully showed why we believe it is absolutely true
and inerrant last week) then how could you possibly know and understand or pay
attention to something or someone that didn’t exist? Jeremiah tells us to pay
attention to God. Understand Him. Know Him and in doing so, you will prosper.
Now, don’t get too anxious about that word “prosper.” We will talk about that
in a minute. For now, let’s think about how we know that God exists.
I would say
that first off, we know God exists because the Bible that we know
is true tells us He exists even right here in this passage. In fact, God
Himself gives us one of His many “I Am” statements in verse 24.
God says, “I Am the Lord.” If scripture is true then God exists because
God says He exists.
An atheist
was rowing on the Loch Ness in Scotland one day, when suddenly the Loch Ness
monster attacked and grabbed him from his boat. He panicked and shouted "God,
please help me!", and suddenly, the monster and everything around him
just froze. A voice from the heavens boomed "You say you don't believe
in me, but now you're asking for my help?" The atheist looked up and
said, "Well, ten seconds ago I didn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster
either."
Some people
wouldn’t believe in God even if He spoke to them but God tells us right here
that He exists. Secondly, we can know that God exists is because nature
declares He exists. Romans 1:20 is so plain when it points out that “since the
creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine
nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so
that people are without excuse.” We can “see” God at work in nature.
We can “see” Him and observe Him and pay attention to Him when we see a sunrise
or sunset or when we see a flower or a newborn baby.
If you could
talk to a person in the deepest, darkest part of Africa who has never heard the
name Jesus or formally been taught anything about God, they would almost
certainly tell you that there is some kind of higher power just because of what
they see around them in nature. If something is created, there has to be a
Creator.
The third
reason we know God exists is because man’s heart declares that He exists.
You don’t have to raise your hand but how many of you were not raised in church
and went through most of your life trying your best to do what you thought
would satisfy you? You tried drugs, booze, sex, rock ‘n roll and maybe even
driving a Ford and nothing satisfied you.
In all of
that, you knew there had to be something more. There had to be something else,
something better. Finally, one day something happened that made you turn to God
and you found the satisfaction you were looking for. You have heard it said
before that there is a God-shaped hole in your heart and nothing else will fill
it but when it is filled, you know it.
One last
and best reason that we know God exists is because He wants us to know Him.
There is a view of God that, while acknowledging that God truly exists, says
that He is distant and removed from creation. He started creation, wound up the
clock, and then left. He is sort of an absentee father. This is known as deism.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Those Hebrew words translated
“know” and “understand” in Jeremiah 9 mean to have an intimate and personal
knowledge of. We look at, observe and have personal knowledge of God.
What a
mind-blowing thought! I understand why some people want to explain that away
because it is hard to believe. It is hard to believe because we can’t
understand why holy God would want to have a relationship with us. We can’t
believe He would want us to know Him and fellowship with Him. And do you know
how we know that we know that God wants to have a relationship
with us? Because He sent His Son Jesus to provide the way to do it.
If you still
have your Bibles handy, turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 20. We don’t
know a lot about Mary Magdalene. She is mentioned several times in all the
Gospels but we don’t know a lot of details about her. She obviously loved Jesus
and was one of the few who was around to show it in His life, death, burial and
resurrection. She had spent years watching Him, observing Him, paying attention
to Him and pondering what He said and taught.
But even she
didn’t understand why He had to die. She was crushed. If you have lost a close
loved one, you know what feels like having a lung pulled out when they die.
This was how Mary was that Sunday morning as she went to the tomb of Jesus. She
didn’t understand. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. The trials were a sham.
They were illegal. Everybody knew it and yet they still pronounced Him guilty
and killed Him on a shameful cross.
If we can
attempt to put ourselves in Mary’s shoes we have to understand that her grief
was absolutely overwhelming. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t
thinking straight. All she could do was cry. But first thing Sunday morning, as
soon as she could, she made her way to the tomb. She just wanted to pay her
respects and remember her friend but when she gets there she sees the worst has
happened. It looks like somebody had rolled the big stone away from the tomb
and when she looked inside, it’s obvious that somebody has stolen the body.
Can’t you
imagine? Now she’s sobbing. She can’t breathe. The pain is more than she can
handle. Maybe you have been there. Let’s pick it up in John 20:10-18. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
11Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look
into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been,
one at the head and the other at the foot. 13They asked her, "Woman, why
are you crying?" "They have taken my LORD away," she said,
"and I don't know where they have put him." 14At this, she turned
around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15He asked her, "Woman, why are you
crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking
he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me
where you have put him, and I will get him." 16Jesus said to her, "Mary." She
turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means
"Teacher"). 17Jesus said, "Do
not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my
brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God
and your God.'" 18Mary Magdalene went
to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the LORD!" And she told
them that he had said these things to her.
"I
have seen the LORD!" She had spent years with Him, listening, watching, observing but now she
can truly say she has “seen” Him. She understands Him now and is now prospering
for it. Do you remember how the words in the passage in Jeremiah tell us to
know and understand God and if we do we will prosper? This is what prospering
looks like.
It is what
Job said in the last chapter of his book (Job 42:5) after his long ordeal and
having everything taken away from him but knowing in his heart that there was
still a God. He said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen
you.” He wasn’t talking about seeing God physically. He knew God existed
like Mary Magdalene knew God existed because they had seen Him work in their
lives in personal and intimate ways.
We prosper
when we truly see God through His Son Jesus. We may have everything taken away
from us. We may lose our best friend. We may contract an unseen virus or any
number of other bad things may happen to us but it is always in the bad times
that we are able to truly see God. When we understand that Easter is not for
bunnies and egg hunts and pictures and big hats (okay, nobody wears big hats
anymore anyway) we start to see that Easter means Jesus is alive and well and
provides a way for us to have a relationship with and spend eternity with God
the Father in Heaven. That is prospering.
How do we
know that God exists? I can’t prove it mathematically or scientifically, at
least not in a way that will convince someone who doesn’t want to believe. But
I know because my lighthouse in the storm, my Bible, tells me that Jesus is the
Way, the Truth and the Life and no man gets to the Father except through Him.
(John 14:6)
Because there is an Easter, we celebrate Christmas. Because
there is an Easter, we celebrate every Sunday. Because there is an Easter,
because Jesus rose up alive out of that grave and defeated death and Hell and
sin and Satan, I can have a relationship with God. I can have forgiveness of my
sin. I can have peace and joy in this life and assurance of eternal life in
Heaven with Him and I celebrate that every day and I say with Mary and Job and
Jeremiah and every other true believer, I have seen God!
How about you? Have you seen Him?
Again, I don’t mean physically. I mean have you seen Him in a way that you
know that you know that he is real and is at work in your life? Have
you gone through the rough times and come out on the other side by His grace
and mercy with a renewed passion for Him, prospering in this life? You can.
Let’s bow our heads and pray right
now as the music plays. If you have that relationship with Him, just spend a
minute thanking Him for what Easter means to you. If you don’t, then right
where you are, go to God in prayer and tell Him just like you would tell a
friend that you need forgiveness. Tell Him truthfully that you want to turn
away from that sinful lifestyle and want to turn to Him, believing in His name
and in His power that you can. Do that right now.
It is Sunday
night about 8 pm on October 30, 1938. Families all over America are sitting
down in their living rooms to gather around the family radio for their evening
entertainment. Some may have hoped to hear some big band music or maybe the
Andrews Sisters or Bob Hope. Some wanted to hear a funny story by Jack Benny or
hear another episode of “The Shadow.”
But as the
music played on CBS that night, a reporter broke in to announce that an
explosion on Mars had been detected. More details to follow. Then the music
started again but not for long as the reporter then announced that a UFO had landed
in a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey. He described the UFO as a large
metallic cylinder and then, to his horror, described an alien life form coming
out of the UFO.
“Good heavens,”
he declared, “something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. I can
see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet
leather. But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I
can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it’s so awful. The eyes are
black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva
dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.”
The “reporter”
goes on to describe mass horror and devastation with other “reporters” from all
over the world reporting similar catastrophes. Some of you may recognize this
as a radio dramatization by Orson Welles called “The War of the Worlds.” It was
meant to just entertain but actually created a nationwide panic as people all
over thought their world was being attacked by aliens from outer space.
We laugh at
the ridiculousness of this now but the people that heard it were convinced.
Their lives were shaken by it and I’m sure some of them had a hard time believing
anything they ever heard again. It was so well done and well-acted and
thought-out that a lot of people were completely fooled. Do you think anything
like that could ever happen again? It happened once. What is to keep it from
happening again?
Every Sunday
morning we gather together in person or by video and we talk about, sing about,
pray about things we have read in the Bible. Our lives have been changed by it.
Our futures are guaranteed by it. We claim it as our rock and our light and the
answer to all our problems and we justify everything we do, say and think by
what it says. It’s kind of a big deal for us around here, right?
What if it’s
a scam? What if it’s an elaborate hoax? What if it is not really true and it’s
all made up and God is not real, Jesus never died for us, He never rose again
and everything we count on was made up by some guy a thousand years ago as a
joke? That would change everything, wouldn’t it? If that is true and God never
gave us His Word then think of how many things would change.
We get our
laws, our morality, our history and our peace from scripture. How we act and
how we think of others is all dependent on what the Bible says and if we ever
found out it wasn’t true, I don’t think it is an over-statement to say that our
society would collapse. If scripture is not true, then there is no God and
there are no morals and there is no reason to live or allow others to live
except for the most basic of instincts and desires.
So, how do
we know? How do we know that what we read in this book is God’s Word? How do we
know that all 66 books are what He wants us to know? How do we know that every
different author of these books was inspired by God and not just having a dream
or ate some bad pizza the night before? Those are big questions that need to be
asked if we are going to point to scripture and tell people it is truth as we
witness to them.
We are
continuing our sermon series on apologetics this week and if you will turn to 2
Timothy chapter 3, we will see what scripture has to say about scripture
and then we will decide if we can believe it or not. Apologetics is just knowing
what you believe and why you believe it and everything we believe as Christians
is based on what the Bible says. So, it is vital that we are able to answer the
questions that come up about the validity of our source of knowledge. You can
expect people to question the Bible. They should. There are not a whole lot of
trustworthy sources of truth in this world so let’s talk about how we know
scripture is truth.
In 2
Timothy, Paul is writing to his young preacher boy, Timothy, to encourage
Timothy with literally Paul’s last words. This is Paul’s last letter to write
and so you can imagine it includes what Paul thinks is most important. The
whole book is so relevant to us today but especially the third chapter. He
starts the third chapter by telling Timothy there will be terrible things
happen in the last days. They will be perilous, treacherous, dangerous times
and people will be so ungodly. Does that sound like truth so far? Let’s read 2
Timothy 3:16 to get some more relevant truth for our study today.
Paul says, “All Scripture
is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training
in righteousness.”
All
scripture is God-breathed. Some versions say, “given by the inspiration of
God” but the NIV translates it best here when it says it is “God-breathed.”
Ok, I’m gonna teach you some Greek this morning. It is, in fact, all the Greek
I know and I only know it because I looked it up this week. That word
translated “God-breathed” is “theopneustos.” Say it with
me. Theo, which means God and pneustos which means air, wind or breath. We get
the word “pneumatic” from pneustos. Theopneustos. It is only used here in the
Bible but there is another time when scripture refers to God breathing and it
is found all the way at the other side of the Bible in Genesis chapter two
where God breathes into the nostrils of Adam and it says, “the man became a
living being.”
Now,
obviously this was before the six-foot rule came into effect with the Coronavirus
but God breathed life into Adam and He did the same thing with this book. He
breathed life into it by inspiring some forty different authors over the course
of 1500 years, give or take a few, to say what he wanted said to all of
mankind.
But can you
believe that? Can you believe what the Bible says about the Bible? Well, the
Bible actually encourages you not to take my word for it. You should see for
yourself. In 1 John 4:1 it says, “do not believe every spirit, but
test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have
gone out into the world.” And in Acts 17, scripture applauds
the Bereans for checking things out for themselves. It says, “Now these Jews
were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all
eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
So, who
should you believe? How about Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United
States? He said, “Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your
liberties. Write its precepts in your hearts and practice them in your lives.”
How about good old Ronald Reagan? He said, “Within the covers of the
Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.” Charles Spurgeon
said, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.”
And Abraham Lincoln said of the Bible, “Take all that you can of this
book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier
man.”
Let me read
one more. The great scientist, Isaac Asimov said, “Properly read, the
Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” Okay, you can’t
win ‘em all and you can’t believe ‘em all either. So, how else can the Bible be
proved? Well, the Bible makes claims on the basis of history and
eyewitnesses.
The
Gospel writer, Luke, starts off his book by saying, “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of
the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from
the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them
to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for
some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” In other words, Luke saw what he saw and wanted to
write about it as an eyewitness.
Another eyewitness,
Peter, said in 2 Peter 1:16, “For we did not follow cleverly
devised stories when we told you about the coming of our LORD Jesus Christ in
power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” We can prove these
men lived and worked and how they died so the words of eyewitnesses are powerful.
But I hear
ya. Some people say they don’t believe the Bible that we have is the same as
the Bible that was originally written. That would be a good point if it were
true because maybe the Bible started out true but has been corrupted after all
these years and translated into all different languages and just in English we
have a hundred different versions of it. We don’t even have original
manuscripts so how do we know?
Well, let me
give you some details. If you want this to show your unbelieving friend, you
can go to our church website tomorrow or the next day and I will post this
whole sermon on there if you want to plagiarize me and that’s okay because I’m
plagiarizing somebody else much smarter than me. But for the Old Testament, we
have three main Old Testament manuscripts: the Masoretic text (a Hebrew text
dating from about AD 1000), the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew
dated 3rd century BC), and lastly the Dead Sea Scrolls (408-318 BC). All these
are in significant agreement, although there are some minor differences. (And
by minor differences, I mean, like, how Nebuchadnezzar is spelled and stuff
like that.) Therefore, we can be sure that the Old Testament we have today is the same as the one Jesus used
(which Jesus freely quoted from) and is the same as Jews were using 400 years
before Jesus came!
The New
Testament situation is slightly more complex. There are thousands of Greek
manuscripts (the language the New Testament was originally written in). And
while none of them are complete, there is a ton of overlap and what is written
in one is the same as what is written in another to the point that New
Testament scholars estimate that we can be 99% certain that the text we have
today is completely original! (https://www.biblword.net/is-the-bible-true/)
By
comparison, Homer’s Iliad has only 643 manuscripts and nobody questions its
validity. But there is something about the Bible that makes people want to
question it and need to question it because to claim the Bible isn’t true is
way easier than trying to live by it. And if you believe it’s true then that is
just what you have to do.
Look, where we
can check biblical claims against verifiable truth, the Bible proves itself
accurate. History, archaeology, science, and philosophy have shown
Scripture to be factual and consistent. (https://www.gotquestions.org/is-the-Bible-true.html) There are the Old Testament
prophecies that came true in the New Testament. We have talked about this
lately so I won’t go into it again but those are easily verified and prove the
validity of scripture.
Part of how
we know scripture is true is just its endurance. Ever since its beginning,
people have tried to do away with it. It has been banned and burned and taken
away and yet, as Isaiah 40:8 reads, “The
grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.” Even today, it is forbidden in places not far
from here. According to a December 2001 decision by a Saskatchewan court of
appeals, the Bible is now considered hate literature in Canada if it is quoted
verbatim and in context, specifically if it’s used to condemn homosexuality. But
there is a double standard for the Koran as it’s not been labeled as having
hate speech, even though it contains verses that demand the death of all who
reject Allah. (https://faithinthenews.com/)
So, I’ll
tell you one of the ways I know that scripture is true is that all the people
that want it banned and say it’s not true and get so upset about it or the Ten
Commandments or any part of scripture being read – all those people live in
such a way that they look and act and sound miserable. If you have no peace and
no joy in your life and you hate the Bible, that tells me a lot about the
Bible. Do you know what I mean?
It’s sort of
like, as a Christian conservative, I know that if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck
Schumer and the whole Democrat party are against something, it must be
something to support. That’s not the only litmus test to use but it definitely
helps me. If I know that Cher or Madonna say I should do something, I know I
should do just the opposite, right? That’s the way it is with the Bible. When
the world wants it banned but don’t have a problem with any other religion, we
must be on to something.
So, if you
want or need to prove the Bible is real and true and God-breathed then those
are some of the ways that you might go about it. You can tell what other
respected people think about it. You can show how it lines up with history and
how the authors were often eyewitnesses to what they wrote. You can prove it is
consistent by comparing all the old manuscripts or even comparing it to
respected archaeology, science, and philosophy…and that
will be fine if you want to do that. Boring but fine.
Admit it.
You won’t hurt my feelings. Hearing about how many manuscripts there are for
the Old Testament and the New Testament is not exactly fascinating, is it? It’s
boring. I’ve struggled with that all week long preparing for this message. I
have struggled because if somebody doesn’t want to believe the Bible, no amount
of proof will change their mind. If somebody is dead-set against God and His
Word, then you can talk and argue and debate until you are blue in the face and
they will not allow themselves to be convinced.
They don’t
want to be convinced because, like I said earlier, if you truly believe the
Bible, then you have to live it out. You have to do what it says. It WILL
change your life. If you realize that the Creator of the universe has written
you a letter telling you the best way to live, you should read it and believe
it. He sent you this letter because He loves you so much that He would even
send His only Son to die for you and He wants to spend eternity with you. And
if you can read about Jesus being crucified and dying for your sin and NOT be
changed by it then no amount of pie charts, graphs, letters, notes, manuscripts
or any other kind of proof is going to change your mind.
I’ve told
you before that going to the jail is one of the highlights of my ministry. It
is so much fun to talk with those guys, many of whom have never set foot in a
church building but got their hands on a copy of the Bible, read it and had
their lives changed completely. I see it all the time. We have men in our
church that were in that exact situation. They had no hope, no peace or joy and
they got a jailhouse copy of the Bible and now they are different men than when
they went in and have been for years. That’s just fun to watch and that is how
I know the Bible is true.
I ran across
a blog awhile back written by a woman who is just an average, ordinary (maybe
even boring) old mom but her words were powerful and obviously given by God. Forgive
me for reading but she is a better writer than I am a speaker so listen to
this.
Reading
the Bible all the way through changed my life forever. Before then, my
understanding of Scripture was like a collage of little pictures glued together
on a poster board. I knew bits and pieces of the Bible and a lot of Bible
stories, but I didn’t understand how everything fit together. I didn’t have
context for the things I knew, and I kind of thought the God of the Old
Testament and the God of the New Testament were at odds with each other.
That
January with my discipleship group’s encouragement and accountability, I opened
my Bible to the book of Genesis and began to work my way through its pages.
Averaging three chapters a day, I walked with Abraham in the deserts of ancient
Mesopotamia and wrestled along with Sarah as she waited for her promised son. I
observed the brutality of mankind and how it infuriated God. The stories of
God’s wrath actually began making sense to me. Who would want a God who didn’t
get angry at oppression and injustice and rape and infanticide and the idolatry
which led to it all?
Page
after page, I saw the suffering sin always brings and God’s continual, tender
call to His people, “Come to me. Make me your refuge. Give your hearts to me
and no other. Turn from your sin and suffering and come to me.” The Bible
wasn’t a rule book; it was a love story.
Even now,
the very same God who called Abraham is calling us to Himself through the
Scriptures. His love for us pulses through every point of time and pursues us
right now—even through the modern-day technology of this blog! Every time you
open your Bible and read its words, you are close enough to God to feel His very breath.
Isn’t that
good? When I grow up, I want to write like her. See, the Bible is God-breathed.
Every word is what God wants us to know so that it changes our life for our
good and His glory. When you read and believe and live out the Bible, that is
the proof that others really need to see and it’s not boring. It’s not a book
of rules. It is a love letter from all-mighty, all-loving, all-powerful God who
wants you to live a full and abundant life here on earth (John 10:10) and to
have eternal life in Heaven with Him when this life is blessedly over.
There is a
lot of bad news in this world nowadays. But we are not the first generation to
go through difficult times. Through the Bible we can learn how to act and what
to expect and how to get through these difficult times through the stories and
lives of people all the way from Genesis with Adam and Eve to the lives of Paul
who wrote our text for today to John who wrote what God told him to write in
Revelation.
Their lives
were changed. How about you? Do you have a relationship with the Author of this
best-selling book? You can. You can be forgiven of your sin. You can have a new
start. You can have peace and joy in this world and the assurance of life in
Heaven when you die. It’s a pretty sweet deal because all you have to is
believe and allow God to come into your life and start to change your life.
Do that
right now in prayer as the music plays.