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Following Jesus
Earthly Cross
His Name Is
Apostles Creed
Dealing with Feelings
Jonah
Get Real
Promised Land Living

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson

Secretary Patti Hall

PASTOR'S PENS 2005

Grace Church of Burlington March 13, 2005 "Theology is practical: especially now...If you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones — bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas."   C.S.             Jaime O’Neill is a college teacher from the West Coast. Over the years he’s become increasingly concerned about the lack of knowledge among so many of his students. It’s not that he was concerned about their lack of technical knowledge or complex facts, but that so many of the general "facts" that they thought they knew were just wrong. One day he decided to do something about it. Hoping to demonstrate to his students just how lacking they were in the basics — not simply to expose or to take pot shots at their ignorance, but to help them see that they had a problem and that they could hide it no longer, O’Neill devised an eighty-six-question quiz on general knowledge. He then gave it to his college English class. There were twenty-six people in the classroom, ranging in age from eighteen to fifty-four, all of whom had completed at least one quarter of college work. Remember now, these eighty-six questions were not what you would call complex, technical, or tricky. They were simple facts about the world around them — facts about people, facts about geography, facts about life in general. Professor O’Neill was so startled by what he discovered that he recorded his findings and later wrote about them in Newsweek. Here’s a sampling of some of their wrong answers: "Ralph Nader is a baseball player. Charles Darwin invented gravity. Jesus Christ was born in the 16th century. J. Edgar Hoover was a 19th century president. "The Great Gatsby" was a magician in the l930s. Franz Joseph Haydn was a songwriter who lived during the same decade. Sid Caesar was an early Roman emperor. Mark Twain invented the cotton gin. Jefferson Davis played guitar for the Jefferson Airplane. Benito Mussolini was a Russian leader of the 18th century. Socrates was an American Indian chieftain." And on and on it went. Most students answered incorrectly far more often than they answered correctly. Several of them meticulously wrote "I don’t know" 86 times, or 80 times, or 62 times.             This morning we are concluding our series, We Believe on the Apostles’ Creed. Do you now have a better handle on core Biblical truth? Hopefully, it also wet your appetite to dig deeper in the Word and to more faithfully study God’s Truth.  But what if someone gave you a piece of paper with eighty-six questions on it - just basic information about your faith? How would you do? Or what if someone comes tapping at your door this next week and questions the Deity of Christ or the Trinity, will you be able to answer their arguments? The next time someone from work suggests that there is no God, or that it really doesn’t matter what you believe, or that we evolved billions of years ago, or that all religions are the same . . . are you now better able to answer them?             Why is it so important to be well grounded in the truth of God? Why not leave that responsibility to the pastors and professionals? Let me suggest six specific reasons. There are probably more but I believe that these six are essential.             1. Knowledge gives substance to faith.   On what do those who do not know the truth rely? On emotion, on someone else’s opinion, on a book, on tradition, or some other empty, humanistic hope.  And the result? Their faith lacks substance. That is especially revealing when they are under attack or when testing comes. That thought introduces the next benefit.             2. Knowledge stabilizes us during times of testing. When we know what God has said, and then go through a period when the bottom virtually drops out of our life, we don’t panic, we don’t doubt, we don’t bail out of our faith. The knowledge we have gained stabilizes us and equips us with essential, calming fortitude when those inevitable trials come.             3. Knowledge enables us to handle the Bible accurately. By knowing the general themes of Scripture, we are better able to handle the Scriptures intelligently and wisely. A working knowledge of the doctrines, for example, gives us confidence in using Scripture.             4. Knowledge equips us to detect and confront error. When you know where you stand spiritually, no one can get you off course. When you’re hearing erroneous information, you don’t need someone to nudge you and say, "Did you get that? Listen to that. That’s not true, is it?" Or, "You know, in light of what Scripture teaches, what he just presented is out of whack." Why? Because you have a firm handle on Biblical truth. Your spiritual antennae have been sensitized.             5. It makes us confident in our daily walk. Show me a person who stumbles along in the Christian faith, and I’ll show you a person who isn’t exposing himself or herself to a consistent intake of the Scriptures. The learning process has somehow been stifled, interrupted, or put on "hold." Biblical knowledge and personal confidence are inseparably linked together.             6. A good foundation of spiritual truth filters out our fears and superstitions. How important! I think we would all be amazed if we knew how many people lived their lives out of superstition and fear. A firm handle on God’s truth has a way of silencing those erroneous voices that would otherwise siphon our inner energy and immobilize us.             This morning as we finish, We Believe, I hope that it has become "I believe." If we do not have a firm handle on doctrine, Scripture says that we are spiritual infants, "tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" (Eph. 4:14). Without a firm anchor on doctrine, we are in danger of spiritual shipwreck.