God Questions
This page contains supplemental materials for the “God Questions” sermon series. Each week additional materials will be added. For further detail on the scope and intent of this series, please click here.
Resource Library:
- January 8 – Is There Truth?
I think especially in our postmodern culture there is doubt regarding objective truth when it comes to matters of faith. We will look at some scripture passages but we will also need to engage this topic philosophically.
What about the Bible? For the next 2 weeks we examine “How can I know that the Bible can be trusted and if it can be trusted how do I allow God through the Bible to change my life?”
- January 15 – How Do I Know the Bible is True?
Many people think that the Bible is a collection of stories, or simply man’s opinions about God; this will address that particular question.
- January 22 – How Do I Interpret the Bible?There is a spectrum of ways that people interpret the Bible from a pure literal reading all the way to allowing our culture to be the framework to interpret the Bible. We want to understand how to appropriately handle the Word of God.
What is the Nature of a Triune God? These next 2 weeks we will focus on the nature of God being triune and the impact of that triune nature of God.
- January 29 – What does it mean that God is one?
Of course we will need to focus a little bit on the three persons of God in order to appropriately understand the oneness of God, but the focus will be the oneness.
- February 5 – How can the oneness of God subsist in three persons?
We will examine this and the interrelation of the three persons of the Godhead.
Why does God allow suffering? This next 3 Weeks, in order to understand suffering, we need to understand God’s intention for the world and the intention of humanity and what happened as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve.
- February 12 – How Do I Understand the World?
We need to look at God’s original desire for the world and creation and how that has been affected because of the fall. (This will help prepare the way for why bad things happen.)
- February 19 – How Do I Understand Humanity?
We need to look at God’s original desire for creating us in His image and how the fall affects who we are.
- February 26 – Where is God in the midst of suffering?
While it can be difficult to understand why God allows suffering, one of great truths of God is that He is at work even in the midst of our suffering doing things in our lives and hearts that wouldn’t happen normally.
Who is Jesus and why do I need Him? The next 6 weeks we will look at the nature and character of Jesus and how He and His work is absolutely essential to our salvation.
- March 4 – How come I can’t be good enough?
A common objection to the Christian faith and an element that is found in no other religion is that we can’t be good enough to make it to God on our own. This message will look at the biblical teachings on the nature of sin and will set us up for the reality that we can’t be good enough to come to God on our own.
- March 11 – What happens after death?
A look at Heaven and Hell. This is a subject that has drawn a lot of attention recently and we will examine the Biblical teaching on heaven and hell.
- March 18 – Who is Jesus?
Understanding that Jesus is more than a teacher, prophet or a good man, He is FULLY human and FULLY Divine; thus the only appropriate sacrifice for our sin. We will also look at C.S. Lewis’s claim that if you examine the life and teachings of Jesus you can only come up with three options: He is either Lord, Liar or Lunatic.
- March 25 – How Did Jesus’ Death Actually Purchase Our Salvation?
This is where we need to explain how Jesus actually took our sin in His body and suffered in body, soul and spirit the wrath that we rightly deserved.
- April 1 – What Must We Do to be Saved and Receive the Gift?
We will also look a little bit at faith and works and how works come from our faith but they don’t earn us our salvation.
- April 8 – Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?
We often talk about Jesus dying for our sins; is the resurrection just a happy ending to that story? Is it a fable? Or does the resurrection of Jesus provide a meaningful dimension to our faith?
- April 15 – What about sex and marriage?
Does God really care about our sexual practice and if so, why? This will look at God’s intention for marriage and sexuality.
- April 22 – Do I have to go to church?
One question/statement that we hear a lot is do we have to go to church? It brings up a great question that if we are saved by faith then why do we need church and what is the purpose of church?
- April 29 – What does the next 50 years hold?
April 29th will be the day that we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the chartering of IRPC. It should also be after we have our vote on whether or not we should seek dismissal from the PC(USA). The hope is that this will set the tone for our renewed vision forward.
- May 6 – How do I have a relationship with God?
We often talk about having a relationship with God and listening to God and determining His will and we often struggle with really understanding what a relationship with God looks like.
- May 13 – What is the role of men and women in life and in the church?
On Mother’s Day we will explore the biblical role of women in the church and see ways in which, the Old Testament, Jesus and Paul affirmed the ministry of women in the church.
- May 20 – What will the second coming be like?
There are a lot of questions related to the second coming such as, what is the tribulation, rapture, and 1,000-year reign of Christ? How can we come to understand all of these things and what difference do they make in our lives?
- May 27 – What about angels and demons?
Believe it or not I get this question a ton and this message will help us understand to a greater extent a Biblical understanding of angels and demons.
- June 3 – Can I lose my salvation?
We talk in the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions about “once saved always saved”. We certainly see passages of scripture that indicate this reality, but also passages of scripture that seem to indicate we can lose our salvation.
