Does God exist
Notes
Transcript
Does God Exist? Jeremiah 9:23, 24
By Dr. Kent Spann
If I asked you what is the greatest thing in the entire world to you? The answers will vary among people. How can you tell what really is the greatest thing to a person? By their boasting. People boast about what is important.
What is the greatest thing in the entire world? According to Jeremiah 9:23, 24, it is knowing God. In this passage, there are three powerful truths.
Truth #1: God is real.
Truth # 2: God is revealed.
Truth # 3: God is relational.
Jerimiah 9:23-24
23 This is what the LORD says:
“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches,
24 but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the LORD.
Truth #1: God is real.
How can you know and understand someone you do not believe is real? For many the existence of God is where the journey of knowing and understanding God begins. What do I mean “when I say He is real? I mean two things:
(1) God exists, and
(2) He is absolutely supreme.
God exists.
There is a view of God that thrives in our world today called atheism. Atheism says there is no God.
When we think of atheism, we automatically think of Communist China, North Korea, or Cuba, but folks, it exists and thrives in our society.
In our world, we call it naturalism. At the heart of naturalism is atheism—there is no God.
In response to those who deny the existence of God, either practically or philosophically, God says in verse 24, “I am.”
There are tremendous evidences for the reality of God that we can give to those who declare there is no God.
Scripture declares that He exists (Gen. 1:1).
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
NIV
Now, some would look down on this evidence because they don’t believe the Bible to be true.
When we deal with those who do not believe the Bible is true, we have to go back to the evidence for the truth of Scripture.
When a person comes to acknowledge the truthfulness of Scripture, and if he is intellectually honest, then he will have to acknowledge that there is a God.
Nature declares that He exists (Rom. 1:20).
Romans 1:20
20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
NIV
As we look out at the universe, there is a great awareness that there is a God who has created all that we know.
A look at the universe confirms this in our hearts.
One of the world’s most loved comic strips is BC. In one strip we find a caveman kneeling in prayer.
“It’s not easy to believe in you, God. We never see you. How come you never show yourself? How do we know you even exist?” What follows is a flower springing to life beside him; a volcano erupting in the distance; an eclipse of the sun, turning the sky black; a star shooting across the stratosphere; a tidal wave rushing over him; lightning flashing; a bush “beginning to burn; and a stone rolling away from the entrance to a tomb. The caveman pulls himself from the mud, dripping wet, surrounded by darkness. “OK, OK. I give up! Every time I bring up this subject, all we get are interruptions.”
Many are like the caveman. The evidences are everywhere around them, but they can’t see God in it.
Their minds have been trained to see nature through the lens of naturalism.
Man’s heart declares that He exists (Rom. 1:21).
Romans 1:21
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
NIV
A small boy was flying a kite high in the sky one April afternoon when a low drifting cloud encircled the kite and hid it from view. A passerby asked the little boy what he was doing with that string in his hand. “I’m flying my kite,” the child responded. The man, looking up and seeing only the cloud in an otherwise clear sky, said, “I don't see a kite up there anywhere.”
“Mister,” the little boy replied, “I don't see it either, but I know it’s up there because every once in a while there’s a tug on my string.”
“We feel that tug in many ways.
From the very beginning there is awareness in people’s mind of God, whether you are talking of a sophisticated Westerner or a person who comes out of the jungle for the first time.
Where did that come from?
One of the arguments for God is called the moral argument.
It points out man’s sense of right and wrong that spans time and culture, and the need for justice to be done.
Where did the sense of right and wrong come from?
The moral argument says that God is the source of right and wrong, and He will someday dispense out justice to all people.
Reason declares that He exists (Ps. 14:1).
Psalms 14:1
The fool says in his heart,
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
NIV
The atheist says that Christians have to leave reason at the door to believe there is a God.
The truth is the opposite, according to Psalm 14:1. What is a fool?
It is somebody who has lost his or her reason or can’t reason properly.
Folks, it is more unreasonable to deny the existence of God than it is to acknowledge the existence of God.
“There are two great arguments from reason.
The cosmological argument proves the reality of God from cause and effect.
The universe had a beginning.
Anything that has a beginning must have been caused by something else.
Therefore, the universe was caused by something else, and this cause was God.
The teleological argument proves the reality of God based on evidence for intelligent design.
All designs imply a designer.
There is a great design in the universe.
Therefore, there must be a Great Designer of the universe.
God is absolutely supreme. He is the Lord.
There is another worldview that has gained great popularity: polytheism.
Polytheism says there is a plurality of gods.
Polytheism is at the heart of Hinduism, from which many New Age religions evolve; Buddhism, which is on the rise in the U.S.; and Mormonism.
It is also at the heart of the statement, “It doesn’t matter which religion you adhere to, just as long as you sincerely believe.”
It implies that there are many gods and all are equal.
God makes it clear in Jeremiah that He is absolutely supreme; that is, there is no other God besides Him (Deut. 4:35; 6:4; 1 Tim. 2:5).
Deuteronomy 4:35
35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other.
NIV
Deuteronomy 6:4
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
NIV
1 Timothy 2:5
5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
NIV
Truth # 2: God is revealed.
There are many in our world today, even in our churches, who acknowledge the reality of God but would say that you cannot know this God.
In Jeremiah 9:24, God makes it clear that we can know Him.
We don’t have to go out and create our ideas of God; we don’t have to hold panels to guess what God is like—we can know Him.
Now, here is the key: we can know Him because He has chosen to reveal Himself.
I want to share the two primary ways He reveals Himself to us.
First He reveals Himself through Jesus Christ (Matt. 11:27; John 14:5–14; Heb. 1:1–4).
Second He reveals Himself through the Scriptures.
We can know God. We can’t know everything about God, but we can know Him as He has revealed Himself.
That leads to the most important question—why has the incomprehensible God chosen to reveal Himself? Let’s look at truth #3.
Truth # 3: God is relational.
God reveals Himself because He is relational and wants to have a relationship with us.
There is another view of God that, while acknowledging that God truly exists, says that He is distant and removed from creation.
He started creation, wound up the clock, and then left. He is sort of an absentee Father.
This is known as deism.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Hebrew word translated “knows” in Jeremiah 9:24 means far more than intellectual knowledge.
It means an intimate and personal knowledge.
What is God telling us here?
He wants us to know Him individually.
He wants us to know Him intimately.
He wants us to know Him increasingly.
Conclusion
God is real, and He has chosen to reveal Himself to us because He is relational.
Excerpt From
Nelson's Preacher's Sourcebook
Thomas Nelson
https://books.apple.com/us/book/nelsons-preachers-sourcebook/id6443651804
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