If there is a God
I told you a couple of weeks ago about a conversation I had as I was getting ready to go to a revival service at a Church in Sterling. And as we were talking I asked them if they would like to go with me, and they said no. But then as we talked the conversation got really interesting. As we began to talk about Church and our beliefs they made the statement “I don’t know if I even believe there is a God anymore”. They said they believed there was one before but that’s because that’s what they were taught growing up but now after all life has thrown at
them they didn’t believe anymore. We had talked about things that had happened to them over the years, we talked briefly about passages in the bible that seemed to contradict each other and we talked about how they didn’t want to go to church and be like all the hypocrites who act one way while they are there and another when they are in the world. Now I don’t know about you but the 1st thing I wanted to do was give an answer to all their questions so they could have a relationship with Christ like I do but while we were talking I began to realize I couldn’t. I mean I know God is real but how can I convince someone else of His existence
I Guess I could have looked up some scientific evidence that even the scientific community has only come to realize over the last 100 years or so but was written in the Bible over 2000 years ago.
Or I could have talked about archeological evidence that has been discovered over the last 100 years or so that supports the accuracy of Biblical history.
And after all that maybe I could have gone into the logical theory that a world like ours so complex and so organized that the probability of it happening by chance is so minute that it would be like walking along the beach picking up springs and glass and putting them all in a bag and then shaking it until all the pieces meld together to form a perfectly working watch.
Maybe then I could have convinced them that the Bible is valid enough to prove God must exist.
But the Bible says in James 2:19 “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; The devils also believe and tremble”
But that’s not really what they were looking for when they made those statements is it? Most people aren’t simply looking for head knowledge about Gods existence they are looking for a personal relationship knowledge, a knowledge of the heart a knowledge obtained through the Holy Spirit, a Spiritual knowledge that leaves no room for doubt.
We can believe there is a God but without that personal relationship with Him we will always be facing this world alone and therefore always wondering If there is a God.
I know a lot of preachers don’t like giving a title to their sermons but I chose this particular title for 2 reasons
1) A title like this isn’t something you would normally hear and so I am hoping it will help the message stick to your memory and
2) It is an honest question asked by millions of people every day. C.S. Lewis, the author of “The Chronicles of Narnia”, was known as a man of strong faith. However, when his wife died he was crushed, so much so that he began to question what kind of God he was serving and at that point you are in fact questioning his very existence.
In fact during the summer of 1983 (part of my testimony) I questioned God and his existence. Alone on a dark highway at 2 or 3 in the morning .At that time there was no shortage of young people and with the oil wells everywhere there was plenty of money to spend so every night there was a party somewhere. And so every morning I would find my way home usually walking along that highway. And during that summer something started bothering me deep down inside. I began to realize that I was alone, It wasn’t that I was walking alone at night and it wasn’t that I didn’t have friends or family it was much more than that, I would look up at the stars stretching out as far as I could see the vastness of the universe and how insignificant I was. For some strange reason I knew something was wrong, something was missing and so I found myself doing the only reasonable thing a guy all alone in the middle of the night could do ( I started picking a fight with God ). Over a few weeks time I asked him every question that had ever been on my mind including how I could know he was even real. It wasn’t long before God began not only to reveal Himself to me but put me in a situation that allowed Him to answer my questions. So I want you to know that I know what I am talking about on this particular subject.
I am going to give you a few scriptures to find and mark in your Bibles so we wont have to stop and look for them as we go along
1st John 5:14-15
John 3:16
Matthew 11:28-30
Isaiah 43:10-13
Now the 1st thing I want us to look at is:
If there is a God what is His will concerning our getting to know him?
Look at Isaiah 43:10-13 with me; “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me,…..”This is a passage in which God is speaking to His people and what He is saying is you are the ones I have chosen, that I have handpicked so that you will know and trust me and that you will understand that I am God that there was no God before or after me and apart from me there is no savior………God wanted them to know him
Now look at Matthew11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden ,and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” In the Old Testament God wanted His people to be witnesses of him so that they could know and trust Him. That was Gods will for them, He wanted them to be witnesses of Him so they would have no doubt about his sovernty but in the New Testament Christ (God in the flesh) wants those who labor, who? “All ye who labor” All, Everyone to what? learn of Him.
God does not hide who He is from us as a matter of fact Gods very plan of salvation requires we know Him.
John 3;16 says “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.
And in Romans 10:14 it says “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”
“Whosoever believeth in Him and “how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard”
and heard hear means to learn about or to know
so in other words God loves us so much that He gave His son up to die on the cross for us so that whoever ( you, me, anyone) comes to learn about and know Him here ( in the heart) in a way that they can believe in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.
IT IS GODS WILL FOR US TO KNOW HIM
So what’s next?
IF THERE IS A GOD HOW CAN WE KNOW HIM?
Well the 1st answer any Christian would respond with is the Bible. And that is true, From Genisis to Revelation the bible reveals every aspect of Gods character. But since the question is if there is a God, it might not mean much to someone if you told them that.
If I don’t know if there is a God why would I turn to the book that tells me he exist?
Well, there is another way as well. Ask
1st John 5:14-15 says “and this is the confidence we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us; And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of Him.”
Okay here we go again, Robert why would I do that if I am not sure there even is a God?
I am convinced that no one can honestly say, from their heart, without question that there is no God
They can only honestly say they are not sure
And what I am telling you is this
IF THERE IS A GOD AND
IT IS HIS WILL THAT YOU KNOW HIM AND
THE BIBLE SAYS IF YOU ASK ANYTHING ACCORDING TO HIS WILL YOU KNOW YOU WILL HAVE IT
In other words if you seriously ask him to reveal himself to you he will, its not that he has to because he promised it is simply because he said he would. He will make himself known to you
Matthew 7:7 says “ask and it shall be given you: seek and ye shall find: knock and it shall be opened unto you
The response I got was something like “ Do you know how stupid I would feel talking to something I don’t even know exist?
WOW That actually makes sense doesn’t it?
So how can we look at this in a way in which it doesn’t seem so stupid?
Imagine for a moment you are out walking in lets say a public park or a national park and you come upon a cave, nothing big like Indiana Jones or anything but still one that reaches back a ways. And you venture in to look around, you can see people have been in there by the graffiti on the walls and so you don’t think it’s a big deal if you go in and look around for a moment. But as you start in you look around and you notice there isn’t anyone around, as a matter of fact you don’t recall seeing anyone around the last hour or so.
While your looking around you feel the ground begin to shake underneath you, you know you have to get out but before you know it your on the ground, you struggle to your feet and look to the entrance when you hear a loud rumble and everything goes black.
You open your eyes in total darkness not sure what just happened, its so dark your not even sure if your even alive or not when you realize you are alive and your trapped inside the cave. It is so dark you can’t see anything but you make your way to where you think the entrance was looking for even a sign of light. You frantically start pulling rocks and dirt away trying to make a way out but you realize there’s no way you can do it by yourself. Exhausted you fall to your knees in despair trying to think of what to do. You think to yourself there wasn’t anyone around when I came in here so you drop your head believing all is lost.
And then in the dark silence you hear a noise on the other side of the wall (click, click, click, click)
Now let me qualify this, you don’t know if it is someone outside tapping on the rocks or a rock shaken loose up top bouncing down the other rocks.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to think to yourself I am going to feel awfully stupid if there isn’t anyone out there?
Or are you going to be like I would and scream like a teenage girl at a Justin Beaber concert
I am going to call for help if I think there is any chance I will be heard
Folks if your in a dark scary place all alone and you need a Savior and the only way that can happen is if you call out why would you feel stupid.
Talk to God and ask Him to reveal Himself to you and I guarantee you He will.
Maybe you’re here today and God has already been speaking to you and you know you need to respond then I hope you will. Don’t worry about the people around you The Bible says in Matthew 10:33 “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men I will also deny before my father which is in heaven”.
Maybe you’re here needing to rededicate your life, You have come to a saving knowledge of Christ but you haven’t been following Him like you know you should don’t let this time pass without doing that
And finally you may be here looking for a group of believers to worship the Lord with and you feel God is leading you here then come and we will rejoice in having you here with us
Whatever decision God is leading you to do please do as we stand
The Great Commission
A couple of weeks ago after I preached Steve told me what his message was going to be about and how it was so neat how it was actually going to build on what I had just preached. What’s cool is that I will be somewhat building on steves message. A couple of weeks ago I preached about the question of if there was a God? Last week Steve preached about obedience, about what it means to obey and how when we are in a position where we need to obey we are expected to not only understand the instructions, not only understand what it means to follow those instructions, but we are expected to do what we re instructed to do. Steve said there are over 1500 commands; I think it was, in the New Testament alone.
II Timothy 3:16 says “All scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
So it is important to know the Word of God so that we might be able to understand what God has instructed us to do and so we might understand it correctly and so we can follow those instructions “instruction in righteousness”
In II Timothy 2:15 Paul said to Timothy “Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
So now what am I getting at? Well I just wanted to reiterate a little about what steve preached about. About obedience and about keeping Gods commandments.
John 14:15 the Bible says “If you love me, keep my commandments”.
Turn with me to Matthew 28:19-20 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost :Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am eith you always, even unto the end of the world.”
When we hear it quoted from scripture like this, I am sure most everyone here recognizes this as the Great Commission. I am also sure that if I were to ask you specific questions about these verses such as who do these verses apply to you would probably say all of us who have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. If I asked you who it is we are suppose to go out to, you would probably say everyone, all nations. And of course what we are suppose to do is explained pretty clear, teach, Baptize, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
Isn’t it funny how it all changes when we start talking about weather you or I should go to Africa or China or Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else in the world where we might experience hardship. Suddenly we’re not talking about the great commission anymore but now we are talking about Missions and Foreign missions at that. And the very first answer you will hear is God didn’t call me to missions. I mean God didn’t call me to missions he called me to lead music at Denton Baptist Church. God didn’t call George or Bill to do mission work he called them to be Deacons and that’s all. God called Steve to lead youth and Dennis as Sunday school director or God called this person to be a good husband or a good wife to live a good example for others to see and that’s all but he didn’t call me to the mission field. Does anyone in here this morning really believe that God just called them to show up at church every Sunday and be a good person and that’s all. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe God has called everyone of us to the foreign mission field, nor do I believe God has given to us all the same spiritual gifts necessary for us to do that kind of work however the Bible says he has equipped us all with the necessary gifts needed to do our part of the Great Commission.
1st Corinthians Chapter 12 The Bible talks about Spiritual gifts and how each of us have been given different gifts by the same spirit
1st Corinthians 12:11-12 says “But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. (12) For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.”
Okay, so you may not have been called by God to get up leave your home, leave your country to spread His word. God may not have imparted on you the Spiritual gifts necessary to fulfill a task like that. You may mot have the ability to learn new languages or the patience to cope with new cultures. So your right God may not have called you to the foreign mission field but does that mean the Great Commission of Matthew 28 doesn’t apply to us. Of course not it says “go ye therefore and teach all nations”
We live in North America and there are more than one nation in it.
We live in the United States and that is a nation in itself
We live in Oklahoma where we are a State within a nation
We live in Grady or Comanche counties
We live in Central High, Sterling, Marlow, Elgin the community surrounding Denton Baptist Church THIS IS OUR NATION
Just because God hasn’t called and equipped you or I to go somewhere else doesn’t mean he hasn’t called and equipped us to reach out to the community right where your at. I mean who else is better qualified and equipped to relate to our neighbors and friends than you and me?
Turn back to Matthew 28:19-20 again “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:”
What does that mean? It means we need to 1st of all start going to them, reaching out to them talking to them and stop expecting them to come to us.
It means to teach them the word of God especially the good news of Jesus Christ.
Well I don’t know what to tell them, I’m not good at quoting scripture and stuff. That’s okay, Yes the Bible says in II Timothy 2:15 that we need to study and know the word of God and that is something you and I should work on but until then you know who Christ is and what he has done for you don’t you? So share that with them.
The other night, Dennis was talking about things that are happening around us right now in regard to false teaching. Things that sound good on the surface and tickle the ears but teachings that fall short when held up against the rule of Gods word. Dennis mentioned how the Bible says this is one of the things that will happen in the end times. And as we talked about it someone, I think it was Bill made a good statement, He said something like, even though the Bible says these things must come to pass it doesn’t mean we just let it happen. Then he said when are we as a Church going to get excited and do something about all this kind of stuff? Now that’s a good question. When? When are we going to do something? And what can we do? Matthew 28:19-20 fulfill the great commission.
Christ may have been talking to all the disciples at once but it wasn’t an all or nothing command, it wasn’t an everyone go or no one goes kind of thing. Each person it called to do Gods will according to Gods purpose for them and as we hear Gods call we need to start moving forward weather anyone else is moving or not
The commission was to Go, and Ill be with you always
Not wait for others
The question was when will we get excited and start doing something? I don’t know, but you do because you’re the only one who can answer it for yourself. So that means the question really is when will you?
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