Coming Back To God

Some of you will find the material that we’re going to cover this morning much of it to be a review if you’ve been with us here for any length of time. These are very serious days and many men, many people are re-evaluating their relationship with God, and they are considering coming back to God. Now, there is a problem. I do not want to entrust myself to God unless God is in charge of things. But, if God is in charge of things, it looks like He’s not doing a very good job. This is a tremendous issue that people, whether they can articulate it or not, have when they consider having a relationship with God.

I don’t want to have a relationship with God if He’s not in charge, but if He is in charge, it doesn’t look like he’s doing a very good job. Now, let me briefly mention who I think this message is for. First of all, if you are a Christian, it is entirely possible that events of recent days have shaken your faith. Yes, you have entrusted yourself to Him, but now you have a question about whether or not He’s really in charge. And so for you, hopefully, this message will be an opportunity for you to tighten down the bolts on your faith a little.

Or, you might be an inquirer, someone who would be, perhaps, interested in faith, Christianity, but you have some honest doubts about Christianity, about God. You have sincere questions that you would like to have answered, and you are looking for some hope. Now the goal here this morning is fairly simple. I want to show you or, at least to begin to demonstrate to you, that it is not unreasonable to believe that Christianity is true, that you don’t have to trick yourself into becoming a Christian, that Christianity perfectly explains what we see going on in the world.

Here’s the challenge that we have. A lot of men have, in their view, feel like they have tried Christianity, found it wanting, and rejected it when in reality they’ve never properly understood it to begin with. C.S. Lewis, when he was the President of the Socratic Club at Oxford University, used to debate agnostics and atheists. He made the comment, he said, “It was interesting because we found that we had to first correct what seemed to be their ‘almost bottomless ignorance’ of the faith they supposed themselves to be rejecting.”

I live on a lake, and on this lake we have about six Ospreys that fish the lake. They are a beautiful and a majestic bird to watch as they circle around and dive into the water and catch their fish. From time to time, however, we have an American Bald Eagle that comes through and also does a little fishing on the lake. There is no comparison between an Osprey and an Eagle. Sorry, there is just no comparison between an Osprey and an Eagle. So, I’m always anticipating the arrival of the Eagle because we never know when he or she, whatever it is, is coming or going, and it’s only every now and then. Every time I look out the window and I see an Osprey circling around in the sky, I say, “Is that it? Is that the Eagle? Is that an Eagle?” Then I say, “Oh no, it’s not an Eagle.” But, you know something? When the Eagle is there you don’t say, “Is that an Eagle?” When it’s an Eagle, you know it’s an Eagle. You don’t have to ask twice. That’s the way it is with God. Once you have seen the real God, you don’t have to ask, “Is that the real God?”

Now, Frederick Taylor, in the early part of the 20th Century, the father of scientific management, said this, “Your system is perfectly designed to produce the results you are getting.” You’ve heard this before, right? “Your system is perfectly designed to produce the results you are getting.” Now, what Frederick Taylor meant was that if you’re manufacturing cars and every third car that rolls off the assembly line is missing a front right fender that your manufacturing process, your system, is perfectly designed to produce that result. But, it also is true that we each have a belief system, if you will, that is also perfectly designed to produce the result we’re getting.

Now, what I would like to do with you this morning is show you three Ospreys and one Eagle. When you read the literature on life and spirituality, you’ll basically come up with four systems. There are four different kinds of systems by which people live. Only one of them is the real thing. They all claim to explain or cope with the world the way we see it. In other words, if God’s not in charge, I don’t want to entrust my life to Him, but if He is in charge, it doesn’t look like He’s doing a very good job. There are four systems that try to explain the world the way we see it.