Is God real? Does He care? Is He even there? Is He there for me? All questions sincere people ask all the time. Why? Because they’ve experienced heartache. They’ve been disappointed. They’ve been disillusioned.
What do I mean when I say disillusioned? I’m talking about you having certain negative realities discourage you, bring you down, and disenchant you with Christianity. I’m talking about you being turned off of God and being disappointed with Him due to other factors happening in your life.
What I want this morning is look at five different things that can cause this to happen. Things that can cause you to wonder if God’s there for you, things that can make you disillusioned about God, the church, and Christianity.
Okay? Let’s get started. What are some things that cause people to become disillusioned? What are some things that make people question God and give up on Him?
What Causes People to Doubt God?
1. Hypocritical Christians
It was probably about 18 years ago that I attended a Christian Athlete Hockey Camp. And it was really a lot of fun. They had players from the NHL there helping us to develop our hockey skills. Players like Jean Proniveau, Dwight Schoefield (who used to be a tough guy with the St. Louis Blues) and Mark Osborne, who played with the Leafs in the mid to late 90’s. And the thing about this camp was that it was Christian, and we would get together every evening for a service where we’d sing a bit and hear one of the professional hockey players talk about the importance of God in their lives.
But you know, I can’t remember anything any of them said. In fact, I remember very little about the camp... except for two little songs. One of them I learned at the back of the bus on the way to the rink. It’s not exactly politically correct, but this was what it said...
I know a girl named Sally Brown,
Weighs 390 pounds.
One day Sally went for a stroll,
Got hit by a truck and started to roll.
Sally got up and looked around,
Fainted right there and fell back down.
Obviously that song has had a lot of spiritual meaning for me over the years. And it stirs my heart anytime I think of it.
The other song is one that some of you may have learned someplace else, but I learned it at this camp:
I don’t want to be a goat, hope.
I don’t want to be a goat, nope.
Cause a goat ain’t got no hope, nope.
I don’t want to be a goat, nope.
And there were a bunch of verses to it but one that sticks out is:
I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
Always saying, never doing it.
I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
It’s amazing how easily one hypocritical person can completely turn someone off. And the sad fact is that there are a lot of hypocrites around. People who claim to believe in God and hold to Christian values but who live a lifestyle that doesn’t honour God and who treat other people with contempt, who don’t live like they say the do, and these people really embarrass the Church. They embarrass me.
And it’s a terrible thing when people look to these hypocrites as the example of what it means to be a Christian. But the Church should not be judged based on their actions, and God should not be judged based on their actions. Especially since God in no way condones a hypocritical lifestyle. In fact, Jesus often rebuked people for that very reason. What does the Bible say about hypocrisy?
1 Peter 2:1 (NLT)
So get rid of all malicious behavior and deceit. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with hypocrisy and jealousy and backstabbing.
Obviously, God does not approve of hypocrisy. It’s something He hates.
I believe it was Gandhi who said that he had often thought of following Jesus, and possibly would have, had it not been for Christians. He had met enough of them that they turned him off. And it’s really too bad that there were hypocrites who had infiltrated the Church, and it’s too bad that Gandhi allowed people who weren’t adequate representatives of what Christianity’s all about to make up his mind for him.
2. Previous Failure
Sometimes it’s not so much that people are turned off from God as it is that they feel God could never love them. They just feel like they’re not good enough.
When I was growing up I took piano lessons. But there was one girl who was actually a year younger than me, who was one of the best young piano players in the city of Fredericton. And it just so happened that we attended the same church. And I fell into the trap of comparing myself with her, and I just didn’t measure up. And I knew it. Compared to her I felt like a failure. So I wasn’t motivated to practice, I shied away from playing in public, and for a while my skills just weren’t developed. Now I eventually got over that, and today I can play in our services knowing that there are probably other people here that can play much better than me. That doesn’t phase me anymore. But for a while, I felt like a failure and it almost made me give up.
Sometimes our failures take the form of sin, things we do against God. In the Bible, David was a murderer and an adulterer. He had an affair with a married woman, got her pregnant, and then arranged for her husband to be killed. Nice guy. He failed, but God forgave him. Paul made a career out of attacking the early church and killing Christians. But God changed his life and made him into one of the greatest men of all time, the man chiefly responsible for spreading Christianity beyond the Jewish community. Peter denied that he even knew Jesus in order to protect himself, but Jesus later gave him the mantle of leadership over the early church. And then there’s Judas. Judas betrayed Jesus and handed him over to be killed. The reason I bring him up is that I believe that had he not committed suicide, Jesus could have forgiven and restored him, too.
The point is, no failure is final, whether it’s caused by sin or by inability or by any other factors.
Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
~ Zig Ziglar
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
~ Confucius
Do not allow any past failure in your life to put you down for the count. If we gave up and decided were weren’t good enough every time we fell down, none of us would have ever learned to walk.
3. Past Hurts
I’ve got an uncle who back when he was in college was hurt by the church. I don’t think I need to go into any detail other than top say that he felt betrayed and embarrassed and hurt by the church. And he has allowed that it affect him to the point that today God does not have any significant place in his life.
Anyone remember the song, “Broken Wings”? There’s some good advice in the lyrics of that song for anyone who has experienced any kind of hurt in their life:
BROKEN WINGS
by Mr. Mister
Take these Broken Wings
And learn to fly again, learn to live so free
When we hear the voices sing
The book of love will open up and let us in
Stephen Covey says,
“It isn’t what happens to us that does the serious damage, it’s our chosen response to what’s happened to us.”
~ Stephen Covey, Living The Seven Habits
Don’t allow past failures, even failures in your relationship with Christ, to make you give up. Make it your chosen response to get back up and try again.
4. Personal Pride
Personal pride is that voice inside you that tells you that you don’t need God. It tells you that you can get through life and make it to heaven on your own. This line of thinking has disillusioned many, and is, in fact, the basis of many cults.
I know plenty of people who would think, “You know, I’m a pretty good person, I’m a good neighbor, I’m kind to children, I don’t get drunk, I don’t swear, I don’t cheat on my taxes, I’m faithful to my spouse, I even attend church and put money in the offering.” But you know what? That won’t do it for you. They won’t guarantee you a ticket into heaven.
Billy Graham has traveled all over the world preaching to thousands and thousands of people, telling them about the love of God. But that’s not enough. He’s done a lot of work for God but that does not earn him a place in heaven. Mother Theresa during her lifetime cared for many of the worlds lowest people, the real down and outers on the streets of Calcutta, inspiring others to do the same. When she died there was a cry from all across the Catholic Church and beyond to immediately declare that she was a saint. But not even her humble lifestyle and sacrificing nature would have done it for her. If she had relied solely on her good deeds, there would have been something missing.
What does the Bible say?
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT)
God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Romans 3:28 (NLT)
So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
John 14:6 (NLT)
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
5. World Suffering
How can a loving God allow such terrible things to happen in this world? How can he allow a teenager to blow himself up in the streets of Jerusalem, killing innocent bystanders? How could He allow four airplanes to be hijacked and flown into the Wolrd trade Center and the Pentagon? How could he allow seven astronauts to be killed yesterday when the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up upon re-entry? How could he allow several more people to be killed yesterday in another avalanche in British Columbia?
We’re going to talk more about this in a couple weeks. For now, let me share this with you:
I caught part of an episode of Popular Mechanics For Kids a while back, which is actually a pretty good show. Anyone ever see it? In this particular episode they were discussing cross contamination. One of the kids that hosts the show showed one of the ways that cross-contamination with food can happen, leading to food poisoning. They showed him making a hamburger for his sister. He started by taking some raw ground beef and forming it into the shape of a burger. Then he put it on a plate, took it to the stove, and started frying it, wiping his nose a few times in the process. He took it off the stove while it was still pink inside (the burger, not his nose) and put it back on the same plate. Then he started taking lettuce and slices of tomatoes and onions, while never washing the raw meat juices off his hands, and put them on the burger.
About that time a health inspector showed up and explained everything that he did wrong, and talked about how all the food had been cross-contaminated and was dangerous. Was the health inspector the one who caused the problem? No, it was the kid making the burger. If anyone’s to blame it’s the kid who caused the cross-contamination, not the health inspector.
So why is it that we blame God for the cross-contamination we have caused in this world through our sinfulness? You know what I believe? I believe that Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world, free from disease and heartache and tornadoes and volcanoes and earthquakes and terrorist attacks. But when they disobeyed God and betrayed Him, sin entered the world and messed up everything. Adam and Eve were contaminated with sin, they cross contaminated all of creation, and it has been passed down through every generation right down to us today.
Romans 3:23 (NLT)
For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
It also tells us that God can remove the contamination from our lives, but won’t impose Himself on us.
Acts 3:19-20 (NLT)
Now turn from your sins and turn to God, so you can be cleansed of your sins. Then wonderful times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will send Jesus your Messiah to you again.
Well, those are five of the things that can cause doubts and disillusionment with God. And the truth is that from time to time we all encounter one of these factors or some other factors that cause us to doubt God. Let me give you four things to remember when that happens:
In Times of Doubt, Remember…
A. When we think God is still, He is active behind the scenes.
B. When we think God is removed, He is there holding our hand.
C. When we think God is silent, He is hanging on every word we say.
D. When we think God is going to fail us, He always come through.
The Main Thing
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. That’s the main thing.”
~ Steven Covey
The main thing for a Christian is to Focus On Jesus.
Focus on Him, not on everything and everyone else. If you base your faith in me or anyone else, you’re going to be disappointed. Because I’ll fail you and let you down. But focus on Jesus and He’ll never fail you.
Three things:
• Keep Your Eyes On Christ
In the passage we read earlier in the service,
Hebrews 12:2 (CEV)
We must keep our eyes on Jesus...
• Keep Your Mind On Christ
Later on in that same passage it said;
Hebrews 12:3 (CEV)
So keep your mind on Jesus...
• Keep Your Faith In Christ
2 Timothy 3:15 (CEV)
Since childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to make you wise enough to have faith in Christ Jesus and be saved.
