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Elements City Church

The Case For Christ - wk3

The Case For Christ - wk3

We've been investigating the Case for Christ and as we wrestle with its credibility, there emerges this simple call to come home...

Locations & Times

Elements City Church

1825 N Alvernon Way, Tucson, AZ 85712, USA

Sunday 12:00 PM

Thanks for joining us...

Thanks for being with us, we pray that tonight would be encouraging for your week ahead. If you're a guest here with us, we invite you to fill out our communication card at the Next Steps table in the hallway after service, we'd love to meet you and we have a free gift for you. Click the link below to see THE WEEKLY - our digital announcements/info for all things happening in and around Elements...
http://elem.cc/weekly
We're continuing our series around The Case for Christ and the opportunity we've been given to investigate the credibility of faith. Many folks have questions, doubts, struggles and things they wrestle with as it comes to searching out and understanding Christianity and faith. Maybe as we lean into this series, some of your struggles will begin to sift out to a place of viability and possibility. If you've never read the book: The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel - why not give it a look. Lee was an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune who set out to disprove the claims of Christianity as an atheist and skeptic. After researching for months, interviewing specialist and weighing the facts, his journey took a turn toward God. Read the book. Go see the movie about his life that's in theaters now - it's a true, authentic look at his journey of skeptic into the case for Christ.
We all wrestle with things in life... you may even wrestle with faith. In fact, you may be here wrestling with faith, and what priority it should play or if it should play a role in your life at all. Maybe you’ve wondered if there is more to life than chasing the things under the sun and the normal rhythms of your days. Maybe you’d simply label yourself as a ‘searcher’, trying to search things out, to understand what’s true…maybe you label yourself a skeptic or atheist. But perhaps you're interested in wrestling with the truth for yourself. God loves to meet those that search...
Quick recap:
We said: if you’ll turn in God’s direction, you’ll find he’s always been turned in yours. …ask him to reveal himself to you. As we celebrated EASTER – we wrestled a bit with the reliability of the RESURRECTION. The resurrection of Jesus is either the greatest hoax perpetrated upon humanity or the greatest event in human history. There’s NO middle ground.
*If the resurrection is true, it changes everything!! It confirms Jesus’ identity as the unique Son of God and opens the door to eternal life for anyone who will truly follow him. IT MAKES a COMING HOME possible between humanity and God…
We like to make our own way. Whether it's in using our brains and thinking our way through situations. Whether it's out hustling others to make a way or simply outlasting them. We love to make our own way… the tenacity and grit it takes to accomplish goals & achievements in life. It’s a good thing in a lot of ways…but it’s a horrible construct to build your spiritual life upon.
Christianity has to be based somewhat on the merit system – right? "God helps those who help themselves” right? - BTW…you won’t read that in the Bible…
*Religion is based on your sacrifice and effort.
*Christianity is based on Jesus’ life and sacrifice on your behalf.
God cannot love you any more than he does right now. You are not too far gone for him to save you NOR are you too far good that you don’t need his rescue. You don’t need to work harder to gain his love and you cannot run far enough away to lose it. The posture the Bible clearly lays out for us, to attain life with God, through faith in Christ is not a posture of “performance”… it’s one of surrender.
Jesus made a way for us to get HOME – into a relationship with God. Jesus made a way when there was NO WAY for us to make our own…
THE QUESTION IS: Will you take a surrendered posture – and accept the way Jesus made? ...will you take him up on his offer and Come HOME?
Quote:
in "Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical" by Timothy Keller, he writes:

"…people come to faith in God through a mix of rational, personal, and relational reasons. Consider what Saint Augustine says to God in his Confessions (written in 397AD), to God: “For you have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”"
Follow the Road home to relationship with God...(the 'Romans Road' is 3 verses in the Book of Romans that describes this way home):
Romans 3:23 - “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 6:23 - “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 10:13 - “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
NEED PRAYER? we've got some of our prayer team and pastors available following service to pray with you.

Thank you for partnering with us to BE the Church in our city...

Thank you so much! All we do is fueled by your gifts. You can be a financial partner with us by giving in the boxes in the back or online here:*you can also help partner with us to give scholarships for students attending camp this summer
http://elem.cc/give

We'd love to have you finish this series with us...next weekend.

You're invited back for the next week as we wrap up this Case For Christ series and examine the implications this truth plays in our lives. You can find out more about all things around Elements via the WEEKLY - click below for more about kids ministry, student ministry, food distribution, small groups, serve teams and more...
http://elem.cc/weekly