When thinking about the ways in which God leads His people, R. Kent Hughes said, “God can use unhappy, perplexing failures to bring fresh purpose and direction to our lives… Even when we are at fault, God will use our failures to bring greater blessing… God will lead us according to his own perfect plan for our lives and ministries. We must be careful not to box God in by our prior experience. The most important thing by far is our attitude… We need to yield to his caring hand.”
Bryan Risner and his family are the newly elected missionaries to the country of Romania. Listen to him share God’s mission and vision for their lives.
Tolerance has become a buzz word in the twenty-first century. In a study prepared by Probe Ministries International, Scott Scruggs wrote, “In response to a survey concerning beliefs about God, a sixteen-year-old girl replied, ‘In my mind, the only people who are wrong are the people who will not accept different beliefs as being, well, acceptable.’ This girl believed that the only real sin is to not accept or tolerate other people’s beliefs.” If tolerance is respecting someone’s beliefs, does that mean that we are being intolerant if we attempt to convince someone to be a Christian? Does the Bible teach us to be intolerant?
In this message, we will take some time diving deeper into the fourth chapter of Ephesians. We spent a great deal of time focused on the single phrase “speaking the truth in love” in this morning’s message entitled, “If Christianity is all about love, why are Christians so intolerant?” So tonight, I hope to take a wider view of Ephesians 4 to discover some of the values that define the Body of Christ.
Today, people are constantly saying things like this: “That may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.” In postmodern society, God has been removed as the foundation for morality, human dignity and truth. People in a postmodern society determine/create truth that promotes their agenda. There is no right or wrong—true or false. They do not have any moral absolutes; rather, postmodernists believe that all different perspectives should be celebrated. With this kind of worldview, how can we communicate the truth of God’s Word to them?
We have come to the fourteenth message in this series—TRUTH: Relative or Relevant. Today we ask, “How can the Bible really be the inspired Word of God?” The Bible says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” You see, the Bible is a human book that people wrote, edited and crafted; and at the same time, it is a divine book that God spoke, shaped, and inspired.
Can a person actually trust the Bible? In the face of this question, most scholars—both secular and Christian—after having looked at the historical and literary evidence, agree that the Gospels, along with the rest of the New Testament, are “the best-attested documents in antiquity.” But many people in our society today think that it is ludicrous for a modern, educated person to consider the Bible legitimate. In this message, we will explore the historicity of these ancient documents to consider just how legitimate it is to trust the Bible.
The Messiah was the promised hope that would bring that freedom to everyone who trusted in Him. God appointed a time before the beginning of time that would be the best case scenario for the Messiah to come to the earth. The Messiah had to come at the right time so that He would fulfill all that was prophesied about Him in the Old Testament and enable the gospel to be spread throughout the known world.
What if there is only one way that leads to God? What if all the other religions in the world are leading people down a path to eternal destruction? What if Jesus is exactly who/what He says He is—the Way, the Truth and the Life? It is true that each of us has the right to believe what we want—but let me say again that we can be sincere about our beliefs and still be sincerely wrong. The culture says, “What is true for you isn’t necessarily true for me.” This brings us back to our original question, “Is TRUTH relative?” Do we determine what truth is, or is truth absolute?
For many years, attempts have been made to disprove the historicity of the man called Jesus of Nazareth—His virgin birth, His sinless life, His gruesome death and His miraculous resurrection. The foundation of the Christian religion is based upon WHO He is, as much as WHAT He taught; so opponents of Christianity have spent countless hours attempting to discredit the claims of Christ followers and bring into disrepute the One we worship as the Messiah—Jesus Christ of Nazareth. What proof do we have for the resurrection of Jesus?