Why I Believe - Why I Believe in the God of the Bible, Part 1

You know something we hear all the time is that Christianity is so narrowminded.

I mean how can you say that there is only one God mean as long as a person is sincere in their belief doesn't really matter.

Today I want it really does. And I'll tell you why this Edition of Living on the Edge Chip Ingram the mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians the Bible to nearing the end of our series why I believe for these last two programs, chips, challenge us to really think about God in a different way that will not only deepen our adoration reinforce our trust in everything he says and but before we begin.

If you've been in this series would you take a minute after this message and shirt with a friend make you do that that your finger map by sending them the free MP3s. You'll find that LivingontheEdge.org okay here now is chip with a stock why I believe in the God of the Bible. I was recently walking through the hallways of our church in between services and I mean it was chaotic. You know one service was coming and another was leaving and people had their kids in the place was super crowded and I was walking I saw an Asian couple that were just standing there. I couldn't tell whether they were lost or needed help with their child or I were a multicultural church so lots of people from all kind of backgrounds and so I just was prompted I said excuse me, I hope you'll everything okay and they said yes actually you can and then it went from not their child being in the class to. He said you know, my wife and I been coming for several months and were exploring Christianity and the place has been very warm here our children the impact on our kids is really good and that my wife actually after the first few months she put her faith in Christ, and we were just sitting here talking because were on our way back to Asia and were gonna visit our families and we come from a multi-multi-generation of Buddhist, and we want to thank you we feel like the teaching is been clear. We feel like it's been intellectually grounded that you know we had no idea about the history of of Christianity in and the reasons to believe in and I'm on the verge of making that commitment.

But he said the price will be very, very high because when we tell our relatives that we are trusting in Christ were telling them that they are wrong and past generations are wrong and I don't know about you but there's probably not anything more unpopular but more important than asking and answering the question, is it intellectually feasible that there is only one true God and that God is the God of the Bible.

It was talked about a lot of reasons why I believe and we talked about thinking through faith issues, but this is at the core and this is our final time together so want you to really lean back and in more than just taking information, ask yourself, do I really believe in, and I want you to know that I always know there's a in a mixed group of people and whether it's small groups or big groups. You know I want to give you a chance before we end our time.

If you have never placed your faith in Christ you have that opportunity. But I want to know why. I believe there is 320 million gods in the world today. There's 22 major religions, each with 1/2 million followers, or more so, the question you gotta ask is, why do you think the God of the Bible is the one true God. Now, just so we are unequivocal. God makes no bones about this he writes through the prophet Isaiah. This is what the Lord says Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty, I am the first and I am the last.

Apart from me there is no God, who then is like me, let him proclaim it, let him declare and laid out before me. God is very very clear with Israel and is will learn Jesus is very very clear that there is a narrow road, and that he is the way he is the truth. He is the life. No one comes to the father except by him now before we jump into this. There's a couple big word presuppositions that I need to talk to you about a presupposition is an unconscious set of thoughts or values that are so part of the culture and so part of your life that you don't even know you believe in, but you just believe them.

But like the foundation of the house that's underground. Everything is upon it so we have presuppositions, especially about religious things and in our culture today. I think there's two presuppositions I want to talk about get really clear on and then I will walk through very systematically the reasons why I personally believe that the God of the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one true God.

A presupposition number one is it.

Aren't all religions.

Essentially the same answer is no.

Now if you kinda listen to pop psychology or I was recently on a plane with a fellow from another country. He lives in the Bay Area and we got into discussion about religion in relationship with God and he basically said, well, you know, I know all religions are basically the same.

You know like Ms. God is on the top of the mountain and there's many paths and people go up different paths and they give him many names, so this is very very common very very common. What I can tell you since I studied this if I got a Buddhist, a Taoist, a Mormon of someone from Islam. Someone from Judaism.

Believe me if I got the top seven or eight religions and got these guys in a room and say okay now line out what you actually believe do they conflict at all.

Will the Eastern religions are all impersonal God is not even a person a specific other religions are dramatic, they would start arguing what I can tell you is you can choose to believe what you want to believe but one of the options is not all religions are basically the same, possibly with the exception of Baha'i Baha'i is a sort of interesting religion members sitting actually next to a lady was Baha'i and I asked her what she believed and she said everything 12 conversation with an amazing wife. But here's what I want you to know it's very clear that there is distinctions between religions in terms of who God is, what it means to have a relationship with him. What it requires to have a relationship with him and what each of the different religions teach the second presupposition is does it really matter what a person believes as long as he or she is sincere and practices those beliefs. These are so common the fellow that I was talking to on the plane.

Our discussion first was wealth are basically the same, and he said oh you're probably right now Buddhist are really different than this and that group is really different and but he said you know as long as there sincere I mean this is in the in the water system. This is what people unconsciously believe and what I want to tell you is that the answer is no, you can be very, very sincere, but you can be very sincerely wrong. In fact, think about this. Imagine if you will. You use your child is very sick and you go to the doctor and he writes a prescription, and is little bit hard to read, and the pharmacist sincerely fills it out and he sincerely believes this is the prescription and gives your child something different in your child dies. Being sincere isn't good enough, or in our relationships. No one buys that. Imagine your mate falls in love with someone else and says I'm very sincere. I used to love you now I love them. Is that okay or current example I will guarantee those in Isis are absolutely sincere. They actually believe in their Koran in the radical version that you are an enemy and you're an infidel and they are sincerely killing people thinking they're doing it for God.

But think of this. Even all the world religions you know who. One of the great heroes.

This is Jesus. They don't believe is the son of God.

But Jesus, he's the ideal man. He's the most loving, he cares for the poor, the marginalized, we all want to be like Jesus.

Would you like to hear what the most loving person who's ever walked the earth, says this is the loving Jesus enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow that leads to life and only a few find Jesus is not was is the most loving person in the world and what he says this is not about sincerity it's about accuracy. Now we need to be sincere in our love for Christ that. Here's what I want to do and some of this will be review, but I want to pretty quickly go through. These are the reasons why I'm not throwing my brain in the trash, but that I absolutely believe the God of the Bible is the one true God.

Reason number one. The historical evidence Christianity is subject to objective verification it happen in a crucial place crucial time real people, real events in space-time history. I can verify that we've already talked about the actual historical events from archaeology that the trustworthiness of the manuscripts of the Bible, the evidence from extra-biblical sources so it's not just what the Bible says about Jesus is what even historians have said, and then the eyewitness accounts. I mean in any court of law been on a number of juries.

I don't know how that works but I end up on juries, and I mean when you have two or three eyewitnesses. It's a slamdunk.

There's 500 eyewitnesses and it didn't happen out there somewhere it happen work to be verified right in Jerusalem. The second reason that I believe God of the Bible is the one true God is. The prophetic evidence predictions of specific future events with 100% accuracy.

Confirm the authenticity. I call it the Isaiah principle. Follow along as I read this passage from Isaiah chapter 44 versus 24 to 28 this is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb. I am the Lord, the maker of all things, who stretched out the heavens to spread out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners who overthrows the learning of the wise, and turns it into nonsense who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers who says of Jerusalem, it shall be inhabited of the towns of Judah that they shall be rebuilt and all of their ruins. I will restore them, who says to the watery deep be dry and I will dry up your streams who says to Cyrus. He is my shepherd and I will accomplish all that I please. He will say of Jerusalem, let it be rebuilt and of the temple. Let its foundations be laid. God is authoritatively saying I am the Lord God Almighty, and he makes prophecies that are very very specific that are undeniable and that art vague.

Now this is one that I wanted you to get.

I spent a lot of time in one of the other messages talking about prophecy and the fulfillment of all the prophecies of Jesus, but this is 150 years before Cyrus was born and Isaiah is getting up clear prophecy from God telling what's going to happen hundred and 50 years, Cyrus the great is born and if you go into this passage very specifically all the specific things that God says. This person will do is accomplished and he names them by name and in Jewish prophetic literature. It's quite different than today. Often people make lots of predictions you know like summer right. Some are wrong. Here's the way it worked with God of real profit is right 100% of the time he's not one of God's prophet and if you claim to be and you're wrong. It's the capital offense. So what I want you to know is that my faith is in a God whose sovereign who knows the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end.

The third reason I believe in the God of the Bible is I just call the philosophical evidence. The triune nature of God and the testimony of Scripture best answers life's most timeless and difficult questions that we could spend years on this one and this is an area that was really a part of my coming to know Christ and really believing what's true, it's a bit on the metaphysical and the philosophical side but let me just highlight three things that the God of the Bible answers that other religions down number one.

The problem of unity and diversity.

If you look at Egyptian gods. If you look at Hindu gods. If you look at the the Western gods of of the Greeks and the Romans they solve the problem of individual gods diversity if you look at the Eastern gods of Buddhism or reincarnation. What you find is the Eastern's they solve unity were all one in one drop, going back into the ocean. The challenges the individual gods competed with one another. The gods of unity are impersonal and only the tri-unity of the one God three persons in one essence really answers the question of how can there be both unity and diversity in the world. Second is the problem of evil and justice. Every religion has this problem. How do you account for the evil and the suffering and the injustice in the world. Many religions have a God that has a good side and a bad side order of theirs to gods or at the end of the forest right you know the dark side of the force. It's interesting biblical Christianity answers this I think in the most compelling way. God is a good God who is perfect, who's made a perfect world. He gives humankind, mankind, freedom, and the world that we live in is not the world that he desired. It is our sin that separates and brings what was called the fall and now we have a good God, whose sovereign, who gave us freedom to accept or reject him and that the evil in the world is a temporary evil that he will actually come and die in our place to pay for our sin and then make all things right so evil and suffering has a very clear source and beginning and there is a good God who gives us the freedom but in essence is willing to love us so much to solve that very problem.

I think the third philosophical issues I would just call it the enigma of man. I mean, think about this mankind is noble, creative mean our technology.

We put a man on the moon.

We have a cell phone for everybody in the world the week medicine, heart transplants, heart-lung transplant, mankind is brilliant, amazing, creative art, music, and yet on the other side.

The enigma is cruelty, hate, jealousy, prejudiced, Hitler, Stalin, the Holocaust, I mean it's it's hard to imagine how the human species could be so beautiful so wonderful so noble so made in the image of God and yet so cruel.

The history of mankind as war after war after war after war on unmentionable cruelty and pain and and and and the marginalizing of people that look different different color hatred and starvation. How can that happen.

The Bible would say man is made in the image of God and so he's noble but he's a fallen, sinful creature and he needs to be redeemed. The fourth reason that I believe in the God of the Bible. It is all just call it the evidence of impact you. Every religion has impact.

You can go different countries and you can know sorta what the religion has been and you can come to look around and say well this is what is produced after hundreds of years. I spent some time in India a lot of time in China time in the Middle East.

I don't know anyone that travels in India for business that it's it's heartbreaking. I mean, so much of India despite the the technology and the growth in some areas is the same that has been you see there's a caste system, formal or informal, and people are getting what they deserve. So I shouldn't help that person because you know that's karma they're just getting what they deserve and there is poverty everywhere fearful of their ancestors, limited education except for missionaries came in and begin to do the teaching and create the hospitals that were Christians. The impact of Christianity. When you begin to study what happened as a result of the teaching of Jesus. And actually the laws of the Old Testament, the nation of Israel from one nomad I mean Abraham you know he is running around on a camel somewhere and God chooses him. And from that he develops this nation.

Abraham and then Moses the laws of Israel. We don't think about all the ceremonial laws. Guess what they did know about germs the circumcision on the eighth day they did know. That's when the blood clots.

I mean, you think of the laws of of hygiene you think of the economic laws. Here is a religion that says this is what we can do for the poor.

Every seven years were to reset the dial every 50 years. Economically working to reduce things back to the way it was. So you don't have the super Rich and everyone else is poor. I mean, what the Bible has done what God is done the mustard seed conspiracy. This tiny little group of people following Jesus that gets birthed. The changes the world. The liberation of women that the liberation of slaves. The basis of our jurisprudence economic impact the care for the poor Wilberforce you know, he stood on Scripture in England and stopped. It took decades and stop the horrendous slavery that was happening. When you find and do research, you find that Christians have been in key areas that have changed the course of history. Listen to part one of the trips message why I believe in the God of the Bible will be right back with his application for this teaching. Let me ask you how confidently can you answer questions about God and the Bible.

You're pretty sure of yourself or you feel unprepared.

Wishing you would've paid a little more attention in Sunday school through the six part series chip will help you better understand the bedrock concepts of the Christian faith and how you can communicate the truth and engaging ways to others of you want to learn more. Let me encourage you to check out trips book.

Why I believe, or the small group resources. These are the perfect tools to help you go deeper. For complete details, go to LivingontheEdge.org the chipping room up or call AAA 333-6003 trips with me in studio now and chip at the end of your message today. You mentioned that you've spent a lot of time abroad so I was just wondering if you could take a minute and share with this ministry is doing all over the world and all people can be a part of it work. I'd be glad to Dave. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever helped a believer in China or Singapore or maybe Indonesia really grow in their faith or dealt with some of their problems or maybe have you sat across the table from a pastor in Egypt or the Middle East and said let me give you some resources to help you in your church. Well, if you're a supporter of Living on the Edge you've actually done that so much of what we do is not only here in America.

But God has opened unbelievable doors across the world and as you support Living on the Edge financially and as you pray for us. You are actually a part of ministering to those people. In fact that's what the Bible says because we are a body and what I want you to know is that is that continues to expand one of our greatest needs is for monthly partners. It's great to have people given worse. So grateful.

But it's the monthly partners that we can know that this amount of money is going to come in each month allows us to plan and strategize because the needs here and around the world are expanding like never before. If you would like to become a monthly partner can I encourage you pray and ask God what he would have you do and whether it's a small amount a big amount you just do what God asked you to do.

And as you give monthly. I want you to know were going to help fulfill the great commission together.

Thanks so much for whatever lead you to do thinks chip was you heard God has called this ministry to help Christians really live like Christians both here in the US and all around the world. So if you like to help us fulfill that mission. We love to have you join the team by becoming a monthly partner set up a recurring donation of LivingontheEdge.org or via the chipping remap or you can now text the word donate to 741 41 that's donate to 741 41 thanks in advance for doing whatever God leads you to do all that chip. Let's get to that application.

You promised. As we close today's program. I went through what I call for reasons that I have personally come to of why I believe in the God of the Bible of the historical. The prophetic the philosophical and then impact and I really want to encourage you as we think through this together. And as we learn how to articulate this to people in our culture that somehow think that if you disagree with them that your narrower bigoted. The fact of the matter is, is that there are some really sound reasons that are verifiable about why we believe in the God of the Bible is so don't miss next broadcast.

But here's the thing for today. In reality, every religion or truth claim thinks their way is the only way so the fact the matter is his Christianity is not alone. The real issue is what is really true as soon let me just ask you, in light of your study or lack of it of other religions or Christianity in general, or even your family of origin and where you come from, what choices have you made and what do you believe honestly about the God of the Bible. Here's what I can tell you, and why this series is so important.

It is going to be more and more challenging and the cost of being a follower of Jesus is getting higher and higher, and so as a follower of Jesus, it's going to be important for you to know what you believe and why. And then be able to articulate that in a kind and winsome way and I want to speak to some of you that you might even call yourself a skeptic in the farthest thing from a follower of Christ. But as I was speaking you said yourself.

Almost reluctantly I should check this out. I want you to know there is a God who loves you and whose for you and wants to reveal himself to you. And can I encourage you to give us a call or email us in the book why I believe it's my personal journey. I've done the research and I would love to share that with you.

Thanks, Chip will to order your copy of why I believe go to LivingontheEdge.org or call us at AAA 333-6003 chip's motivation for this resources to reveal the concrete facts that Christianity is built on and how you can take that proof and one simply defend your faith during this series, we discounted chips book so order yours today for complete details, go to LivingontheEdge.org or give us a call at AAA 333-6003 hapless nurse top special offers will join us next time as chip wraps up this series, but until then, this is the making you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge