What Must We Know Series

If a rocket going to the moon is off by just 1 degree when it takes off from earth, it will miss the moon by a long shot and the cost of that will be immense. The same is true with our Christian lives. If we want to be true disciples of Christ and live as he commands, there are certain things we must know, or we will miss the mark and the cost will be great.

If we are to be a disciple making church we all need to know the very basic things that are non-negotiable in the Word of God. So I’m not going to assume that we all know these things, and so even those who have been in the church for a very long time are going to have to sit and listen for the next couple of weeks as I bring to you the basic necessities of the faith, what we need to know and what we need to do. There are many things in Scripture and practice that are open to interpretation and many ways to skin some cats, but not the things we will talk about the next two weeks.

Today’s message is motivated by a couple of New Testament passages. The first is from Ephesians and is part of the passage that I used last week to base my role as a pastor on. Ephesians 4:12-16 (READ, emphasis on13-15). And the other passage is Paul’s warning to Timothy in 1 Ti 6:3-5(READ). Whether we like it or not, doctrine (truth) is important.

Those verses are simply saying, there is truth, and we need to know and be grounded in that truth if we are to grow in maturity and become like Christ.

So let’s all start at the beginning. A couple weeks before Christmas I asked you to come up with a one minute presentation of the gospel that would be so much a part of you that you could rattle it off any time you needed to. Knowledge naturally breeds boldness, because we can answer arguments, we feel confident in what we know. The more we know the word of God, the more confident we feel in sharing our faith. Wouldn’t it be nice to have people say, “Well, I don’t necessarily believe what those Calvary Baptist folks do, but they sure know their Bible”. Well, today I want to expand that gospel message and of course we can then condense it again as needed, but we need to know the full plan of salvation if we are to be saved and if we are going to bring others to Christ.

The entire Bible is the plan of Salvation from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. It begins with the simple fact that God created us and the creation is never higher than its creator. Now right here is already where many people get hung up and even Christians disagree about this whole creation vs evolution thing.

Now pastor don’t get into that one. Let the scientists worry about that. I would if they made any sense in this area. And if it didn’t take so much faith to believe what they tell me. Think about a giraffe for a minute. Do you know how a giraffe gets blood from its heart all the way up to that brain several feet away. Well they have a 25 pound heart that’s 2 feet long. Now evolutionists will say that they adapted to have a long neck so they could reach food and of course their heart grew to accommodate this.

But there has never been a fossil found that shows a giraffe with a shorter neck. In fact there has never been a fossil found that shows any species has changed throughout its history, only different species. Even Charles Darwin said this was the major flaw in his theory of evolution, and it’s a pretty big one.

How about the bumble bee that science says can’t fly, or the fascinating bombardier beetle who has the ability to blow out of its backside, at just the right time, the perfect percentage of toxic gas that will repel predators, but at the same time not blow up its bottom. It takes less faith and there is more scientific evidence to believe there is a creator than to believe in evolution.

How about the eyeball? There is one serious scientific theory that says the eyeball evolved when these blind lizards were out in the sun for so many thousands of years that they developed a little spot on their head like a freckle, and over many billions of years this spot became an eye. Do you know how sophisticated the eye system is? Now I spent too much time unprotected in the sun when I was young and have a couple moles on my back. Now never mind skin cancer, I’m worried about these suddenly popping out as eyeballs one day. Of course it might come in handy seeing out of my back but then I’d have to go around without a shirt, and we don’t want that.