Can You Trust The Map? Series

INTRODUCTION

 An atheist was out fishing near Europe, when all of a sudden a huge dragon type amphibian began to come out of the water. With snarling teeth it moved closer to the atheist. In desperation the fisherman shouted "Dear God, Please save me!" All of a sudden, everything stopped moving and the heavens opened and a deep voice said, "I thought you didn’t believe in me?" The atheist said, "Give me a break, two minutes ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness monster either!"

 Today we are going to start on a journey in which we are going to try to uncover some treasure that will change our lives.

 How many of you when you were children used to dream about finding buried treasure in the back yard or out is some field somewhere?

 There have been movies made about people finding a secret map that would lead them to some long lost treasure.

 Today we are going to start on a journey through the gospels in an effort to find Jesus.

 What I mean by that is that we are going to go on a journey with Jesus through the Gospels in a effort to get to know Him better, to find out what Jesus is really all about and who He really is.

 It is my hope that during this journey that we will embark on together that you will come to not only realize who Jesus is from an intellectual stand point, but that in the depths of you heart, you will know Jesus. It is my hope as you discover the Jesus that your life will not be the same. We are going to see that we can believe in the Jesus in the Bible.

 Many times in church, we will tell you what you ought to do, but we do not really spend a lot of time getting to know the WHY. That WHY is Jesus!

 Before you embark on a journey to look for treasure, you need to have a map to follow.

 Today I want us to start our journey by trying to answer the question; “Can I trust the map?”

 The map that we are going to use on our journey is the Bible.

 There are people today who make a living at treasuring hunting. If you watch the Discovery channel, they will show people who are looking for lost ships. Before these people just take out to sea, they spend a considerable amount of time researching any maps they may have. They do not want to waste time by following a faulty map.

 Today we are going to take a look at the Bible to see if we can trust it as a map to God.

 As we start out on our journey, you will see that we can trust the Bible as our map to God because of the sources that were used to make the map. Secondly we will look at the method used to compile the map and finally we will look at the reason for making the map.

 I hope that after today’s message that you will value the Bible that you have because it will lead you to Jesus.

 Let us start our journey in Luke 1:1-4!

SERMON

WE CAN TRUST THE MAP BECAUSE OF:

I. THE SOURCES THAT WERE USED TO MAKE THE MAP 1-2

1. Primary sources were used.

 What is a primary source?

 A primary source is an eyewitness or someone who directly participated in the activity in question.

 Look at what Luke says in verses 1 and 2. (READ)

 A primary source is not someone who heard something about something; it is an eyewitness. Luke says that the sources that he used were those who were eyewitnesses.

 In a court of law, we do not accept hearsay evidence. The most accepted form of evidence is an eyewitness.

 Luke says that he used eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

 In other New Testament books they said they are writing as a servants of the word, they were saying that they were eyewitnesses. Listen to a couple of passages: 1 JOHN 1:3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

 2 PETER 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

 ACTS 4:19-20 But Peter and John answered and said to them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard."