Church of Christ Sermons and Lessons for 2011
Speaker	Sermon/Lesson Title   (Right Click to Download)	Audio Video  Text	Category	Date Added	Lesson
Bobby Stafford	The Existence of God		Apologetics	June 12, 2011	Sunday AM Sermon

The Existence of God

Introduction:

  Does God exist?  This is possibly the most important question in all the world.  If He does exist, what is He like and what does He desire of me?  The answers to these questions are of the utmost importance.  It is the first of these questions that we will turn our attention to now.

Body:

  I. The Need for This Study

• If God does exist, all people are answerable to Him.  Everyone is under His authority and obligated to Him for his own existence.
• Those who claim to believe in God must prepare to defend their belief.     I Peter 3:15 – provide a reason for their faith.
• God claims to exist and that He is the only true God.                       Isaiah 41:21, 44:6-8, 45:18, 20:22, 46:9-10
• Therefore, this study is vital!

 II.  Cosmological Argument

• The universe and all that it contains is undeniable evidence for the existence of God.
• The universe exists; therefore, its existence must be explained in some way.  It cannot explain its own existence.  Something else must account for it.
• We know that when something exists, it can’t come from nothing.  Stated, differently, every effect must have an adequate cause, something sufficient to produce it.  Hebrews 3:4  At the beginning, there must be an initial cause, a being with no beginning and no end, the “I Am.”  Romans 1:19-20
• The only reasonable explanation for the existence of this world is an eternal Creator!

III. Teleological Argument

• Our universe, from the smallest particle to the largest, exhibits design.      Psalms 19:1
• Who in his right mind would ever believe that a computer, with all of its many intricate parts, came together by accident?  Ridiculous!  But yet many believe crazier things than that – like our human bodies came together by chance.  Psalms 139:13-16
• Not only is design evident in our world, but so is beauty.  Where did beauty come from?  “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”  Ecclesiastes 3:1 
• Note:  Christ’s words in Matthew 6:28-29  “So why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:  They neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”  NKJV

IV. Moral Argument

• Almost all men everywhere believe in the existence of right and wrong.  They possess a sense of justice.  Where did this come from?  Could minerals and air mix and develop a human mind over time?  Ridiculous!
• The fact that humans possess a moral nature is strong evidence for a holy and just God from whom they received it.             Romans 1:18-20
• Note especially Paul’s reasoning in Athens.  Acts 17:22-29
• He not only gave men a moral nature, but He is also going to judge them.  Acts 17:30-31

"Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and Said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:  To the Unknown God.  Therefore, The One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:  God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of man to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’  Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.  Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained.  He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”   NKJV

Invitation:

     Ample evidence exists to convince anyone of the existence of God, an infinite, all-powerful Being. 

     We will be called into account for what we have done with that evidence.

 

Bobby Stafford

June 12, 2011

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