Our Prayer
Our PrayerHeavenly Father, I know that I have sinned against You and that my sins separate me from You. I am truly sorry. I now want to turn away from my sinful past and turn to You for forgiveness. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that Your Son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins, that He was raised from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become my Savior and the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send Your Holy Spirit to help me obey You and to convict me when I sin. I pledge to grow in grace and knowledge of You. My greatest purpose in life is to follow Your example and do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Hey Gang,
Last week I wanted to open the class with this video, you can click on the link to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44M6nCDFEg4
My reason in showing the video was to introduce a man by the name of Charles Templeton, I'll bet most of you never heard of him, I hadn't either. Anyway, Templeton was Billy Graham's "Best Friend." He also co-founded "Youth for Christ" and Billy was the first evangelist that they hired. Charles and Billy would travel worldwide and conduct many crusades together and Billy Graham would say that Charles Templeton was, "one of the few men I have ever loved in my life." But their directions in life would soon hit a crossroad and Billy would go one way and Charles would go another. We all know what happened to Billy Graham, but Charles Templeton in 1957, at the age of 42 would leave the ministry and become an Agnostic!
His last book was "Farewell to God: my reasons for rejecting the Christian faith." Why? Because of Apologetics. Templeton had a lot of doubts about God that he couldn't explain, much less defend. He would tell Lee Strobel in an interview that it all began with a photograph. A picture in Life magazine of a black woman in northern Africa, where they were experiencing a devastating drought, holding her dead baby and looking up into heaven with the tortured look of Why? Templeton would say, "Why would a caring and loving God allow the death of an innocent child and torture this helpless mother when all they needed was Rain."
Templeton had a lot of questions, some I've already shared, but he would also question why a loving and caring God would allow a devastating illness like Alzheimer's to destroy a person's mind and family. Interestingly Charles Templeton would die in 2001, at the age of 86 from the very disease he questioned.
Our entire series over the next 12 weeks will be on Apologetics: Being able to explain and defend your faith to the skeptics of the world that don't believe. 1 Peter 3:15-17 says that we are all expected to be apologist and that we should expect and "be prepared" to give an answer for what we believe.
Our lesson this week is on the very existence of God, Charles Templeton's main doubt. There is an interesting close to Lee Strobel's writing on Charles Templeton that I will share this Sunday.
Hey Gang,
We are beginning a new 13 week series on Apologetics, now if you missed last Sunday's lesson, here is a brief review.
1 Peter 3:15-17 says that we are all expected to be apologist. This simply means that we must be prepared to explain and defend what we believe about our faith. Why you might ask? Because I'm sure there have been times in your life that you have been challenged on what you believe and I'm sure that there have been moments when you too have questioned things in life. Questions like: Why does God allow so much suffering in the world? Can reason and faith really co-exist? Why is there so much contradiction to creation? Is Jesus really the only way, even if millions of people have never heard of Him? Would a caring and loving God really consign so many people to an eternity of torture in hell just because they didn't believe in the right things about Him? If I am plagued by doubts, then is it still possible to be a Christian?
We discussed 4 essential ways, last week, that we can make our case for what we believe:
- We must first make Christ, Lord in our hearts.
- Apologetics is not for winning an argument, we should be gentle and respectful in our response.
- Look for common ground with the person you are talking to, you need to connect.
- Just tell your story, a changed life is a powerful apologetic.
This week we will explore the very case for God's existence through the following questions: I don't know scientific statistics enough to reason apologetically, how can I answer these questions? I hear scientific arguments all the time against believing in a Creator, can they all be wrong? I see news stories questioning who Jesus really was, how can I be sure? I see people worship themselves more than other gods, what can I say to them?
We missed several of you this past week, hope that you had a good and restful Labor Day weekend! Dave Auler shared with us on Sunday about the mission trip to Honduras and it was quite a trip - they will be sharing more during the Wednesday evening service this week. I will send the prayer requests out separately by email. Hope you have a blessed week!
See you on Sunday.
In His Love,
David and Susan
