This was a message that was preached to emphasize basic steps that must come before and follow after one places their trust in Jesus Christ as Savior.
The
Essentials of Faith
Introduction:
What
comes to your mind when I read my sermon title, “The essentials of faith?” If
you are like most people, I would expect you to start thinking of what we refer
to as the “core doctrines” of the Christian faith. For
those who have been around the church long enough you might automatically think
about such important beliefs as: the existence of God, the sinfulness of man,
the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, the second coming of Christ, and
so forth.
Well,
those subjects have certainly been the essential or core beliefs of the church
for a long time, but today I want to speak to you about some essentials of
faith that I think must precede these other doctrines we hold dear. The
“essentials” that I am talking about today are prerequisites to the kind of
faith that accepts specific doctrines such as those I just mentioned.
As
a way of introducing our subject today I want to ask three important questions
for your consideration.
1. Whom do you trust?
2. What do you know?
3. How will you respond?
Let
us take a look at some Scriptures to find the answers to these vital questions
about life.
Whom do you trust?
Trust
is a very important subject that involves the matter of faith. In
this sense, we are not merely speaking of religious faith specifically, but also
the kind of faith that enables you to trust the words or actions of any other
person.
A television program preceding the 1988 Winter
Olympics featured blind skiers being trained for slalom skiing, impossible as
that sounds. Paired with sighted skiers, the blind skiers were taught on the
flats how to make right and left turns. When that was mastered, they were taken
to the slalom slope, where their sighted partners skied beside them shouting,
"Left!" and "Right!" As they obeyed the commands, they were
able to negotiate the course and cross the finish line, depending solely on the
sighted skiers' word. It was either complete trust or catastrophe…. (http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/t/trust.htm)
In
this account, the skiers who couldn’t see
had to make a willful choice to trust the instruction and guidance of the
partners who could see. Without that
inherent trust, they would have never been able to ski down the slalom course successfully.
In
all areas of daily life we are constantly required to make decisions about whom
to trust or what to trust. Sometimes those decisions are of little consequence,
so we may not put much effort into checking the reliability of the object of
our trust. At
other times the potential consequences are of great importance, which require
that we give great diligence in order to determine whether the object of our
trust is truly worthy of it.
In
the specific realm of religious faith, the same principle is at work. We must
decide if we are going to put our trust in God, the creator, or are we going to
put our trust in some other object or philosophy of man.
Several
of the Bible verses that were read earlier spoke of the value of trusting in
God. There comes a point in our lives when we look around at the world of
nature and decide that the same God who created such a magnificent world can
surely take care of me. (Romans 1)
Then,
to think that God not only created it all, but He set it up so that it runs
perfectly and every little part of the creation does what it was designed to
do. If He can do that then He most certainly can order my life and enable me to
fulfill the purpose for which He created me as well.Am
I really going to trust Him, or am I going to set myself up as the final
authority and follow my own limited knowledge and understanding?
I
don’t know about you, but I think it makes a whole lot more sense to put my
trust in the God who created it all!
Am I going to trust the Word of God as the revelation of God’s will and purpose for me
and for all of mankind?
A
lot of people these days reject the Bible as the reliable and authoritative
Word of God, but the alternatives that they come up with, in my opinion, are far
more inferior than the source they have rejected. The same people who claim
that the Bible cannot be trusted, think that it makes perfect sense for us to
trust them. Why
in the world would I reject the revelation of the One who created the whole
universe, and put my trust in the knowledge, intellect and reasoning of someone
that is so limited that they haven’t even visited every place on this planet,
let alone the rest of the universe? Why
would I reject the One who has lived forever but put my trust in someone who
has only lived several decades?
I
don’t know about you friends, but I think it makes a whole lot more sense to
trust in God than in any of the ideas and philosophies of man. It
makes more sense to trust in God’s Word than to trust in someone who has only a
fraction of knowledge compared to God’s Word. The Bible has been around for
millennia and it still confounds some of the most educated.
It
still surprises some of the so-called experts when they discover that God’s Word
accurately defines and describes something they never realized before. We
may not understand everything we would like to understand, but we can still
trust in God like Job who said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
What do you know?
The
second question I want to explore with you today definitely relates to the
first one because it is impossible to acquire knowledge without making a
commitment of trust in the source of your knowledge. This question pertains to the matter of
truth. What is truth? And, how does
one know that the knowledge they have received is true?
Investigations
of truth have claimed the earnest attention of people for millennia. Every
human being wants to know that what they know and have learned is true. We want
to have the assurance that we have not been deceived into believing errors.
One
of the points that you have heard me mention before is the fact that some
people claim you can’t ever know for sure what is true. They scoff at the
suggestion that there is something called “absolute truth.” (That is, something
that is true for all people in all places for all time.)
Truth
was something that Jesus spoke about often, and the Bible certainly makes some significant
claims about the truth. Jesus claimed to
be the embodiment of truth when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the
life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” (John 14:6)
He
further claimed that God’s Word was the source of truth when He prayed,
“Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.” (John 17:17)
But,
as I said, we are living in a day when most of the philosophical and
educational experts proclaim that it is impossible to know any absolute truth. They
are quick to point out that modern science has demonstrated over and over that
many things we used to think were true, have been proven to be false. So
these “experts” tell us we can’t know anything for sure as absolute truth.
(What
amazes me is: these same “experts” are the ones who get colleagues fired from
their teachings positions if they question the absolute dogmas of evolution or global
warming! So, I guess we are to conclude that there are at least two absolute
truths – i.e. all humans descended from apes, and we are going to melt the
globe by burning fossil fuels and releasing carbons into the atmosphere.
Oh,
there seems to be another absolute truth according to some of these same “experts”
– i.e. anyone who doesn’t endorse the idea of gay marriage is a dangerous bigot
to be feared and destroyed. I hope I don’t sound too sarcastic.)
Well,
I better swerve back on topic and stay away from political hot-button issues! I
simply wanted to point out that many who claim there is no absolute truth
really do believe there is, they just don’t like the truth that Christians have
accepted.
There’s
no better example in Scripture for knowing truth than we find in John’s first
Epistle. Even though he was writing in a time period when only certain people
claimed to have superior knowledge of truth, John repeatedly uses the phrase,
“we know,” “we know,” “we know,” throughout this letter.
In
just 5 chapters, John uses some form of the word “know” at least 37 times. It
certainly sounds like John, who was an eyewitness of Jesus Christ and His
ministry, knew some things with absolute certainty. He knew he had the truth,
because He had seen and learned from the One who was the embodiment of truth.
Do
you know the truth? Have you accepted and believed the truth about God, about
man, about sin and about salvation?
How will you respond?
The
third and final question I think we need to consider today has to do with the matter of obedience.
It
seems perfectly logical to me that if I have accepted the fact that God can be
trusted, and if I have accepted the Word of God as the reliable revelation of
truth, then the sensible and logical thing is for me to respond to His truth
with heart-felt obedience.
It
often troubles me, and even confuses me how some people who claim to trust God
and claim to believe the Bible as God’s Word, take the matter of obedience so
lightly.
When
God revealed His will and His truth to Adam and Eve, He expected obedience. The
consequences of their disobedience reveals how important it really was for them
to obey. When
God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses (not 10 suggestions), He expected obedience. When
God revealed His truth in the Bible and took such care in preserving it through
the centuries so we could have it and read it, I believe He expects obedience.
I
know that there is confusion at times about what exactly applies to our culture
and what only applied to ancient culture. That’s not my main concern. I’m
concerned about the people who openly admit that they are disobeying God’s
Word, but they go on anyway. They acknowledge that the behavior they’ve chosen
is sin, but they persist in it anyway.
Dear
friends, I’m just simple enough to believe that God expects obedience out of
His children.
Jesus
said to his disciples, if you love me keep my commandments.
Conclusion:
These
three questions I’ve covered this morning are questions that must be settled
before anyone can truly have a genuine relationship with the Lord.
At
the beginning I mentioned that some decisions about placing trust in someone or
something have little or no consequence, but other decisions have tremendous
consequences.
These
decisions I’ve been talking to you about today have the greatest consequence of
any decisions you could ever make.
The
choice of whom to trust will determine whether you and I go to heaven or hell
and that consequence will last forever and ever.
Whom
do you trust? What do you know to be true? How will you personally respond?
I
hope that everyone one of us here today can sincerely and truthfully say:
“I
trust in the God of heaven, creator of heaven and earth and in His divine
revelation, the Holy Bible.”
“I
know for certain that God has provided redemption from sin through the blood of
Jesus Christ and I have been redeemed by faith in the blood that was shed for
me.”
“I
intend, by the grace of God, to carefully learn what God wants from my life and
then obey His will as He reveals it to me.”
“I
expect to live for God all the days of my life and when this life is over, to
live in His presence for all of eternity!”
No comments:
Post a Comment