Mini Sermon

lMini Sermon

STUDY CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE P1

Good Morning

We are about to enter a study of God’s Word. Our foundation scripture is found in Mathew 16; 21-23.

21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savours not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. KJV

 In our foundational scripture we hear Jesus telling His disciples plainly that He had to go to Jerusalem, and He told them what would happen to Him there. He said He would suffer at the hands of the   leaders and the leaders’ priests and the teachers of religious law. He told them that He would be killed, and that He would be raised on the third day. But Peter took Him aside and corrected Him. “Heavens forbid, Lord,”im. “Heavens forbid”Him

 He said” This will never happen to You!” Jesus turns to Peter and says “Get away from Me Satan! You are a dangerous trap to Me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, and not from God’s point of view” Amen. I believe that we are all guilty of that. Remember our teaching this morning is Christian Evidence and here we have evidence that even His disciple Peter told Jesus “You don’t mean that Jesus, Your are just saying thar, We hear what we want to hear, don’t we? Another example is when I quote a price to someone, like on a set of speakers. Those are 39.95 a pair and the young man turns to his mother and tells her “Mom the speakers are only thirty a pair. “We hear what we want to hear and believe what we want to believe. However, God wants you through this teaching know His Truth not ours. Just like the disciples didn’t grasp Jesus, true purpose because of their preconceived notions about what the Messiah should be. Many of us will not grasp the truth even after this teaching. So, I want us to bow our heads as I pray over us.” Father God Jehovah, we come to You through the Holy Spirit and in the Name of Jesus asking that the power of Your Holy Spirit would bring the Truth to each person gathered here this morning. We rebuke the Devil and all the demons that will try to prevent this teaching from becoming a part of our daily lives and personal knowledge in Jesus Name. Amen.” There is also  another teaching in our foundational scripture I want you to be aware of and that is this. Peter, Jesus’ friend and devoted follower who had just eloquently proclaimed Jesus ‘s true identity, sought to protect Him from the suffering He prophesied. But if Jesus had not suffered and died, Peter would have died in sins. Great temptations can come from those who love us and seek to protect us. Please be cautious with advice to a friend and never say “Surely God doesn’t want you to face this”. Often the most difficult temptations come from us while trying to protect our friends or family from discomfort. If we remember in Jesus’s wilderness temptations, Jesus heard the message that He could achieve greatness without dying. Matt 4:9 And saith unto him, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. KJV. In our foundational scripture, He heard the same message from Peter. Peter had just recognized Jesus as Messiah; here however, he renounced God’s perspective and evaluated the situation from a human one. Satan is always trying to get us to leave God out of the picture. Jesus rebuked Peter for this attitude.  The purpose of this teaching is to survey in systematic and comprehensive fashion the “many infallible proofs” of the unique truth and authority of Biblical Christianity. Through this study we will see that, not only is there no mistake or contradiction in the Bible, but also there are innumerable evidences of its divine inspiration and authority. Not only are there no legitimate objections to a true Christian theology, but rather there are overwhelming evidences that Christianity is uniquely and completely True. Other religions depend on subjective experience and blind faith, tradition and opinion. Christianity stands or falls upon the objective reality of gigantic supernatural events in history and the evidences are there to prove them. There are two terms, that will be used throughout this study. The terms “apologetic and evidences” Apologetic involves the systematic scientific defense of the Christian faith in all its aspects against the intellectual attacks of its adversaries. There are various philosophical systems of apologetic, each attempting to build a logical defense of Christianity upon its own specific or implied presuppositions. The aspect of apologetic which is more positive and objective setting forth concrete reasons for accepting, the Bible as God’s Word and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, as what is commonly understood as the field of Christian evidences our teaching is from God. God speaks to us from, Ps 119:142 Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth. KJV. God telling us that His righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. Amen. He speaks from Ps 117:2 For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the LORD endured for ever Praise ye the LORD.  The truth of Lord endured for, how long?? During this teaching I want you to be aware that it isn’t the things that go in one ear, get it all mixed up, then slip out our mouths. Don’t let that happen to us during this teaching.  A Jewish proverb tells us that, “Man finds God through truth”. Jesus Himself speaks to us from the book of John. John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. KJV. Many people that profess Christianity advocate almost and completely subjective approach to Christian truth. Many believe that the Bible is not really reliable in its traditional literal and historical sense, they feel the religious experience must be realized either through some sort of subjective “encounter” with Christ or else through involvement in social action movements. The emphasis is on “relevance” and fulfillment”, rather than truth. There are many false systems of belief such as “Christian Science, Spiritualism, Buddhism, and Communism! Those who follow these teaching will often profess to have found real peace and satisfaction through submission to them, but this fact hardly prove that these false systems are therefore true! Let me give you justification for understanding and using Christian evidences to prove our faith and belief. Number one the Bible commands it. God speaks to us from 1Peter. 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asked you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.KJV   God is telling us this morning that we must worship Christ in our life. And if we are asked about our Christian faith always be ready to explain it.  Are we ready to explain our love for Jesus? The Greek word for “answer” is apologia for which is derived our English word “apologetic”. God speaks through Paul Col 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.KJV,  Let your conversation be gracious and effective so you will have the right to answer for everyone. The right answer for everyone. Also when you tell others about Christ, it is important to always be gracious in what you say. No matter how much sense the message makes.  You will lose your effectiveness ,if you are not courtious. Each one of us likes to be respected, and in return we must respect others,if we want them to listen on what you have to say. No truths are simple, especially those of Scripture. But as we pursue them and participate in them  more fully, they begin to to reveal to us a life deeper and more integrated  than we never could have know otherwise. When we begin to use the evidences of Christianity, there is the possiblity that we may develop an overly argumentative, too- critical, possibly , possibly even bitter and sarcastic, attitude toward our opponents. This must be avoided. Our purposes in using 5th evidences  is not to win arguments, but to win souls and also to win a more favorable  intellectual environment  for the present of the Gosple. Many of the Scriptures in join the defense of the faith, also give this, also give this  same caution. Remember the words of , 1Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: KJV. Also God teaches us through Paul in  2 Tim 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; KJV This is what God is teaching us this morning.from His scripture, we must not quarrel ,but must be kind to everyone. We must be able to teach effectively and be patient with difficult people. We should gently teach those that oppose the truth. Why, Paul give  this reason in the last sentence of verse 25, Paul says, Perhaps god will change those peoples hearts,and they will believe the truth Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, not us, or our system, not our wonderful personally, God , only God can change a person’s heart.Good teaching never promotes quarrels or foolish arguments. Whether we are teaching our children, our grandchildren, a leading Bible Study or preaching in the church, remember to listen to people’s questions and treat them respectfully, while avoiding foolish  debates. If we do this, those who oppose ue will be more willing to hear, what we have to say and perhaps turn from their error. Plato 300 years before Christ, predicted , if ever the truly good man were to appear, the man who would tell the truth, he would have his eyes gouged out and in the end be crucified.That risk was once taken, in its fullest measure. The Man appeared He told the world about itself and even made preposterous claim:” I am the truth” . As Plato foresaw , the Man was crucified . That Man was Jesus Christ. The early Christians. Even the early Christian  consistency  Christian evidences in their witnessing. This was especially true of the evident value of the resurrection of the We are in the study of Christian Evidences., are we understanding the things of God this morning? The second point for using  Christian Evidences to prove faith and belief is (2)  The early Christian consistently used Christian evidences  in their witnessing. This was especially true of the evident value of the Resurrection  of Christ recorded in the book of Acts and the book of Romans. The evidence value of the objective testimony of their own transformed lives through out the New Testament. God speaks to us  through Paul in 1 Tim 1:12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;13 Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. KJV   Wow, thank You Lord. Here we have Paul telling us how thankful he is to Christ Jesus our Lord. He then gives Christ praise  for considering him trustworthy and appointing him to serve Him. Paul goes on to say, Even though  I  used to scoff at the Name of Christ I have hunted down His people harming them in every way I could. Have you ever scoff the Name of Christ ? How about when things are not going the way we want them to.Maybe we were behind in our bills or going through a bad marriage, about to lose your car, have you lost your job, have we ever scoff at the name of Jesus. Paul explains , God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Paul did it in ignorance and unbelief, how are we scoffing  the Name of Christ? In ignorance and unbelief, or because we are not getting our own way or able to do our own thing? Paul goes on to Praise  God, he says in verse 14 ,  “Oh! How kind and gracious the Lord is, He filled me completely with faith and the love Christ Jesus. Then in verse 15 Paul gives us a beautiful Christian evidence when he say,” This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it; Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I was the worst of them all.”  Paul states in verse 16 that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ could use me as a prime example of His great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they too, can believe in Him and receive eternal life. Paul sated that he was the worst  of them all,  even worst then us, and what did we learn? That God had mercy on Paul, just as He will have mercy on us, if we will let Him. The third point for using Christian Evidences, to prove our faith and belief is,(3) The almost universal climate of skepticism and unbelief today,together with and app-calling ignorance of the Bible and Christian doctrine. The fourth point  for using Christian evidences to prove our faith and belief is (4) It is true that many who today are strong and fruitful Christians  were either won to Christ initially by the use of  Christian evidences  or else were materially strengthened in their faith and witness by means. Or on the other hand those Christians who rely exclusively on their personal feelings and experiences in their belief in Christ and the Word, to often lose their zeal and settle into a rue of a routeing  fruitless Christian life. Where do we stand with this today, have we lost our zeal and settled into argue  of a routine and fruitless Christian life? Jesus speaks from the book of John. John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free .KJV Amen