Core Beliefs
Tying it all together
Intro: Over the past couple months Mike has been taking us through Plattsmouth Bible Church’s Core Beliefs.
Mike has talked about such things as The Bible, God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Human Condition, Salvation,
Sanctification, The Church, Satan, and then finally the end times.
We got a lot of logic out of this series and a lot of this shed light on what it means to be a believer in Jesus Christ here and
now.
So, what now? We have been going through all of this doctrine and teachings and now that we know a bunch of stuff,
what now?
If you look at the sign outside of our church building right underneath where it says “Come as you are” (BTW Thank God
for that) it says the Berean Fellowship of Churches.
Often times I get asked “what kind of church do you go to?” I answer “Berean”. Most people are like “Berean - you
mean like Burrito?” They have no idea.
Well, thanks to our friend Google, I found out just what a Berean is - it comes from the book of Acts.
“As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On Arriving there they went to the Jewish
synagogue. Now the BEREANS were of more noble Character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with
great eagerness, and examined the scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true.”
So sometime in our small little fellowship’s history, there has been kind of a search for truth. Obviously truth is important.
We live in an age where can get information very easy, we click a few things on the Internet and we can get fed a million
different versions of truth.
That poses the question, what do we do with knowledge?
The First thing you should do is challenge it. That passage of scripture I just read you says that Paul preached the word; the
Berean’s heard it and then examined the scriptures daily.
Now that was a bit harder back then because I don’t think the printing press was invented yet. People got together in the
temple and they went and read them, and sure enough what he was saying was true.
Now most of us have our own copies of the Bible and how often do we go and actually read the scriptures for what they
say?
Whenever I hear Mike speak I try and get a Bible out and I look it up myself and see if what he says is true, and, I must
say, he does a pretty good job of it.
We need to have questions about God. We need to challenge what we believe because it is in the word of God that we
find truth.
So what is so important about truth?
If you look in the gospel of John 8:31 “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, Then you will know the truth
and the truth will set you free.”
Truth sets us free.
Knowing the truth makes it possible to live the life that Jesus lived.
When it comes to faith, everyone has it. Everyone has a worldview, and the way of Jesus is the best way to live.
It’s quite complex and quite simple.
-Being honest is a better way to live.
-Listening to the wisdom of others is a better way to live
-Forgiving people is a better way to live
All of this is found in the Bible.
If you open your Bibles John 17:17 “Sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth”
We don’t have it all together and there has to be a return to the word of God.
Back in the day, people did not have copies of the Bible. The result was a church that was preaching that you could buy
your way to Heaven. Pretty much taking this god and turning him into someone we can feel good about. In fact the church
made a lot of money by telling people if they just paid some money.
A guy by the name of Martin Luther came and wrote up this document and nailed it to a church building and to make a long
story short, people experienced God in a way they never thought was possible.
And the churches Luther was speaking against went through their own form of reformation to fix them. I am not bashing
on Catholics. I know some Catholics who are Bible Christians believe it or not.
The point is throughout history people have been asking questions about God.
In Isaiah 58:8-9, God is telling us that we are not going to be able to fully understand his ways. “For my thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my
ways higher than your ways.”
You see God is so smart. I think he knew that people would be trying to figure him out.
The writer Rob Bell puts it this way - “The second God is figured out with nice neat lines, we are no longer dealing with
God, we are dealing with someone that we made up.”
Doctrines Help us understand God. Doctrines are Not God.
All of these things we talked about over the past couple of months are teachings. Only God knows everything.
I am not going to lie. I do not like the fact there are so many churches in Plattsmouth or in area for that matter. What I don’t
like is how divided the church is at times.
Last week we went over the end times. Churches have split over something that God has in his control and it is not
something that we are really supposed to understand. It hasn’t happened yet. Or The Free will verses Predestination
Debate. Does God choose us or do we? and what happens is you get a group of people who take different passages of
scripture and they argue.
I have a book called debating Calvinism and it’s great because it gives us the chance, but sometimes I wonder if God is up
in heaven just laughing at us here on Earth. We cannot figure him out.
Basically what we need to do is study the word together. As One Body. Our youth ministry has a name called 17:11 and
we take it from two passages of scripture: John 17:11 and Acts 17:11.