How Can I Believe In God? Series

How Can I Believe in God?

Series: How Can I Believe?

Brad Bailey – April 15, 2018

Main point: To help engage some of the reasonable basis for believing in God….while recognizing that it is a relationship between ourselves as finite and God as infinite which cannot reduced merely to our reason.

Intro –

Today we are continuing our series entitled… “How Can I Believe?”

In the seven weeks ahead, we are going to engage seven questions:

• How Can I Believe in God?

• How Can I Believe in the Bible?

• How Can I Believe in Jesus?

• How Can I Believe in One Ultimate Truth?

• How Can I Believe in a Good God in a Suffering World?

• How Can I Believe in God and Science?

• How Can I Believe What is Often Associated with Hate and Hypocrisy?

Today…we begin with: How can I believe in God?

I know that some are here for whom this has become so true as to find yourself almost beyond questions. It may not seem natural to engage such a relationship to such a mere rational assessment. And indeed, it shouldn’t.

Yesterday we celebrated my wife’s birthday. And if you asked me to tell you about the love that I have for her… it would a rich response…but if you asked me to prove her existence…or perhaps prove that love itself even exists… in many respects the whole process would be limited.

So we are wise to understand that a relationship does not come from mere mental assessment.

But I think many if not most of us may appreciate the man who said to Jesus,

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” - Mark 9:24

Jesus heard an honest heart. It reflects the reality that when we speak about the larerger questions of life, we always are speaking abut that in which we may have both reasons to belive…and things we don’t understand. We will always be developing an ability to trust what we don’t understand by what we do understand…and that is really what faith is.

So I want to help us to know that faith has it’s questions …and it’s reasons.

Many may be aware or familiar with what is often referred to as the “New atheist.” Over the past decade… the voices of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens rose up as emboldened voices of atheism… denouncing belief in God. They each wrote books meant to reach popular culture…and engage in a lot of public venues.

Those who have written assessment of these new works in particular…. Nearly all have the same observation… there is nothing really new in the arguments they offer.

So what is creating a new force against belief in God? It’s not primarily new insights…but new antagonism towards the ills of religion. [1]

This recent movement …arose in light of the events of 9/11.

Watching those planes fly into those buildings… it left a deep impression in all of us. We watched one of the greatest atrocities done in the name of God. We have a history of wars that claimed religious identity…across religious identities. So I certainly share their disdain.

But I wonder if that really says more about us…about the human nature than the existence of God. The truth is that people have used the name of God to rally what is really just their own pursuit of power… their own justification to stir hate. Claiming God is both one of the easiest ways to justify human violence… and one of the most evil. The truth is that people have carried out horrible acts regardless of any meaningful religious meaning. It is human nature.

But of course, they don’t just attack what they deem to be the effects of religion…but ultimately the basis for religion or beliefs.

They deem belief in God in the most condescending way.

From what I read… hear… what many of their own colleagues hear…is that while bright and bold… there is something quite simplistic in their assessment. They are simplistic in what they generalize about what people belief…and they are simplistic in grasping the limitations of what we really know.

The Bible never argues for the existence of God. It begins instead with a simple, majestic sentence:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” - Genesis 1:1

The Bible begins with a declaration… not with an argument.

There is a God who created all things.

If you do not start there, you will miss the central truth of the universe.

That’s what Proverbs 1:7 means when it says…

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge…” - Proverbs 1:7

All things begin with God.

All knowledge begins with God.

It is in precisely this sense that the Bible proclaims that those who deny God are “fools” (Psalms 14:1). It is not a matter of intelligence… IQ…but of wisdom.