2 Cor. 5:7
1) Some think “walking by faith” means “walking by blind faith.”
2) The Christian faith is not a blind faith.
3) Today we want to consider three of the ways Christians “walk by faith” and “not by sight.”
a) The Christian belief in God is based on “faith” instead of “sight.”
b) Not one has ever smelled God, touched God, or heard God speak.
4) Rom. 1:20 says God is “clearly seen” through the “things that are made.”
5) God has left behind an abundance of evidence to believe in Him.
a) The evidence from creation does not give us all the facts about the Creator.
b) It does provide us with enough information to say He exists so we need to look for Him.
ALONG WITH GOD CHRISTIANS HAVE SOME FAITH IN SOMEONE CALLED JESUS.
a) Just as with God, not one of us has ever met Jesus.
b) We have never touched Him or heard Him speak.
c) No one has a picture or video of Jesus.
2) While we have no real physical evidence for the Lord, we can be sure of His realness.
a) Thomas Jefferson lived.
b) Socrates, Marc Anthony, Nero, and Alexander the Great are also known to have lived.
3) We use “faith instead of sight” for historical characters because we have sufficient evidence.
a) This is also true for Jesus.
b) Josephus is a well known historian who talked about the Lord.
4) Our evidence for Jesus comes from the hand of many writers.
5) Among those who spoke about Jesus were four men by the name of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.
a) It is true that these men were followers of Jesus.
b) These men either lied, they told the truth, or they told some truth and some lies.
6) Since these men lived at the same time as Jesus, they were in a position to record the truth.
7) Acts 26:26 – READ
a) Paul boldly said Jesus’ life was not lived in a “corner.”
b) Jesus was one of the most public people of all time.
c) In Jesus’ day the land of Israel was about the size of New Jersey.
d) Imagine someone going around the entire state of New Jersey for 3 ½ years.
8) Jesus left behind a footprint that is so huge no amount of dirt can cover up His tracks.
BECAUSE OF THE EVIDENCE WE HAVE FOR GOD AND JESUS WE BELIEVE IN THEM “BY FAITH” INSTEAD OF “BY SIGHT.”
1) Our next and final area – the Bible – falls into this same category.
2) Why should we have faith in the Bible?
3) The Bible is distinctive in every way.
4) One of the great proofs for the Bible is predictive prophecy.
5) One author listed more than 8,300 predictive verses.
6) If all or most of these predictions were very vague or mainly failures, that would be one thing.
7) Are we walking by faith or sight?
8) We start walking by faith through conversion.
9) We have faith (Heb. 11:6), we repent (Acts 17:30), confess Jesus (Rom. 10:9-10), and are baptized by faith for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 22:16- Mk. 16:16; 1 Pet. 3:20-21).
10) Once we become a Christian we continue to walk by faith versus sight, but this is NOT blind faith.