This morning I’m going to begin a series entitled “Faith Has It’s Reasons.”
Several months ago…a discussion with the staff encouraged me to do a series of Sunday morning messages addressing the common questions that are posed in regard to knowing God.
Purpose is too fold
1) To help us communicate the reality of God to others
“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15
2) Second purpose of this series is to strengthen you own faith, by realizing (or realizing again) just how reasonable it is; that faith has its reasons.
• Some of us here may not feel that reason plays a big part in our faith; Perhaps your experience of God is simply conclusive enough. I share those feelings and that experience. But I also know that all of us can become clouded in our minds and hearts; we get distracted and discouraged…our experience and emotions feel adrift…and our thinking becomes clouded…
I believe this series will strengthen your own faith…your own recognition of God…and your resolve to release your life to Him.
Place of Reason
On a practical level…relationship can never be reduced merely to reason;
…the mind and heart and soul all work in conjunction.
If I’m in conflict…how I feel relates to how I think and vice versa…each can open the other up or close…
That’s how God describes humanity’s relationship with him…hardened in heart and blinded in mind
Pharoah…10 plagues…others gave favor to Israel
Religious Leaders…Christ was a threat to their control/power…but one (Nicodemus)
So it is that in recognizing the reality of God, we must consider our minds as well as our hearts. This is especially true of recognizing and reckoning with the reality of God…the existence of God.
For God does not exist merely as part of the temporary, touchable world; but beyond it and through it.
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO IAM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.” Exodus 3:14 (cf. John 8:58)
I am equals the self-existent, eternally existent, one. Implication for the role of science; science measure matter and therefore science by nature cannot discover God, only a world consistent with the existence of God.
C.S. Lewis explains…Looking for God-or Heaven-by exploring space is like reading or seeing all Shakespeare’s as one of the characters. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as Lady Macbeth…
My point is that, if God does exist, He is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play than as one object in the universe is related to another.
If God created the universe, He created space time, which is to the universe as the metre is to a poem or the key is to music. To look for Him as one item within the framework which He Himself invented is nonsensical.
If God exists, mere movement in space will never bring you any nearer to Him or any farther from Him than you are at this very moment.
GOD IS NOT ONE OF THE CHARACTERS, He is the creator. God is not found in creation, but through it. Atheist and Christian debating “God is nowhere” “God is now here.”
The difference is the space we give to recognizing him. C.S. Lewis “We can ignore but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. The real labor is to remember to attend. In fact, to become awake. Still more, to remain awake.”
Romans 1:20-21
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Romans 1:25
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
Romans 1:32
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Here the Bible reminds us of our nature to turn away from God, but it also points to where the most basic connection to the existence of God lies…in creation, and in our conscience and souls.
1. Creation-The Cosmological Evidence: If all that exists as we know it is by nature dependent, then it is logically compelling to recognize it is contingent on a source outside itself that is eternally independent.
Cosmological = Logical (Reason) and Cosmos (World) = Reason for the world. Begins with the principle of sufficient cause.
Everything known to us in creation is contingent…dependent (trees need air, sun, etc); nothing is independent or self-caused.
All of which appears to reveal the existence of an eternal, powerful source outside itself.
Can think more simply of a circle
Points to a source outside the circle, eternal, unlimited, powerful and those kinds of adjectives come close to describing God…disturbingly close for those who have sought to deny Him. Because it is a logical compelling argument that makes perfect sense.
2. Creation The Teleological Evidence: If the design is complex, purposeful, and personal in nature, it reveals a designer more powerful, purposeful, and personal than chance.
Begins by recognizing the relationship between the design and the designer.
A fitting principle to consider in our modern times, when so many are able to design and create so much. We live in a highly creative world…from artificial organs to powerful computers and software…none of which compare to the ultimate complexity and intricacy and design of the world we live in…the bodies we live in.
Who is responsible? Can we as creative people deny creativity around us? Does not our design logically and compelling reveal a designer?
Of course this confronts the notion of all we know coming into existence by chance.
The Big Bang Theory has sought to suggest that chance created all, beginning with a random chance collision of two spheres of gases.
Yet no one can explain where those gases came from or relate easily to the mathematical probability of ever producing even a single cell.
Darwin, (in Origin of Species) “To suppose that the eye, with so many parts all working together could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”
The Teleological evidence of creation calls us to look at the world consistently; To look at the beauty of creation, the complexity of factors that sustain life, the personal nature of our beings,…to hold a child in your arms…and assume the same logic as you do when you look at a television or computer...Ask yourself what is rationally honest.
3. The Human Conscience-The Moral Evidence: To assume or call upon any sense of “rightness” or moral nature is to assume moral source beyond material world.
How does one account for the common moral nature found across cultures and continents?…the “oughtness” that even if clouded, is common in humanity?
Are gases, germs, and genes capable of creating a moral code of values and implanting them in the human mind?
The moral evidence simply says that there is either chance or order; if our existence is one of chance we can’t appeal to order, including any sense of right or wrong.
How often those who want to enjoy freedom from the existence of God express their feeling of rightness or wrongness of an issue…or their commitment to a cause they believe is right. Our consciences, even if clouded, knows of a moral nature… a nature of which points to an ultimate source of order.
4. The Human Soul-The Evidence of Human Desire and Experience: Our deepest longings point to a source of satisfaction.
“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire for which no experience in this world can satisfy, the probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” C.S. Lewis
“There once was in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say only by God Himself”…Pascal
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has NOTHING I desire besides you. Psalms 73:25
“The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire. God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and pose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”…C.S. Lewis Problem of Pain p.115
This morning…
…If you are a Christian you have a living relationship with God…Holy Spirit within you…KNOW THAT YOUR MIND NEED NOT BE A SOURCE OF DOUBT…BUT OF STRENGTH.
If you are not yet a Christian …you’re seeking to know God.
JESUS…LIFE’S ULTIMATE QUESTION
Oct. 26, 1997
Intro: Last night we changed clocks…because of particular practical needs…time is changed. On a grand scale God has done the same…Based on a need in the human condition…God is said to have entered the world not simply to change temporal time, but eternity…and this in the figure known as Jesus…Jesus the Christ.
It fascinates me that this figure…Jesus…never pursued widespread prominence in any common practical manner. Didn’t write a memoir or best seller; didn’t head for the big cities; didn’t seek to reach the social and political leaders of the day…rather he proclaimed and demonstrated the Kingdom of God and said “wait and see”…and that’s precisely what happened…all human history is dated around his life…2,000 years later lives are equally challenged and often changed…
Recently a man was sharing a scent not so hard to imagine…airport…several planes unloaded…his terminal corridor became a solid flow of people heading towards the main terminal…one of those golf cart like carts began heading towards them…with an amber light flashing…and intermittent beeps it was forcing the mass of humanity to one side or the other…everybody had to make a choice.
A fitting image of how God’s Word describes Christ’s coming into our fallen world…a world worthy of judgment will be judged not by how we meet God’s standards but how we respond to the one who extends his grace and pays the price for our debt…how we respond to Jesus. A judgment in which there are those who chose, those who refuse; no middle camp, no middle ground.
Lewis p 339 quote
What is it about Jesus that demands such reaction?
Not a question of his existence…His life is profoundly rooted in history
Go to Encyclopedia. learn of his life and times. Encyclopedia Britannica used 20.000 word’s describing the person of Jesus, more space than Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, or Napoleon.
Go and visit his birthplace…where he was baptized, taught and was crucified.
Nor is it his basic ideology and values that are so confronting, and controversial.
• Nearly everyone appreciates …and we even are astounded at what he taught regarding concerns for truth, justice and the poor; His contributions to human history are unparallel and unquestioned; transforming barbaric cultures; establishing a basis of dignity and equality for all people, including women, children, the sick and socially outcast. Neither his mere existence or example that force a choice.
What truly confronts us…and demands a choice is this, HIS CLAIM TO BE FROM GOD…TO BE GOD’S ONLY SON…GOD INCARNATE-to be God entering creation like a painter painting themselves into their own painting, or a writer appearing in their
own movie…as Alfred Hitchcock frequently did. (Heb. 1:1-3) and with that to be OUR SAVIOR, forgiving our sins by offering His own life, calling us to REPENT…to RECEIVE HIM…To FOLLOW HIM. It’s those I AM statement he made that remove all room for neutrality or mild approval.
“Jesus said, “Iam the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;” John 11:25
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 (cf. John 6:35, 40; Mark 14:62)
When Peter said, You are the Christ, the son of the Living God, Jesus said, You got it right Peter…I am…and that’s what God will build his eternal Kingdom on.,
When on trial, the high priest along with Pilate asked, Are You the Christ? “I am” (MK. 14:62)
When the priest heard his claim he tore his robe from top to bottom. He chose his response…and many have refused Him as well; but millions of others have received him, found his forgiveness and love; worship him unashamedly, follow him courageously…no matter the cost.
THIS MORNING I POSE THE ULTIMATE QUESTION TO US;
• What is your response to Christ? Who is Jesus to you?
• The question is not about cultural or family background, or do you attend church. THE QUESTION IS WHO IS HE TO YOU?
I want to take a few minutes to consider with you the basis of this question; to ask you to reason with me in your heart as well as your mind for honest reasoning must search the heart as well as satisfy the mind. I want to begin by EVALUATING THE ATTEMPTS FOR ANOTHER OPTION…That is, any other option than reckoning with Jesus for who he claimed to be; and consider if any such options have a greater basis of reason.
1. A MYTH…that is, that he never really made such claims…that his disciples and those who knew him made it all up…and therefore we must go back and decide who he really was.
This is really a modern idea, generally reflecting modern circles of disbelieving scholars in search of an “historical” Jesus; By historical they want to come up with an alternative to the historical records. Theories range from: to simply removing portions of the Gospel records based on the presupposition that they reflect the wishful thinking of those who actually knew him or of him.
It may strike you as a rather unusual or even arrogant to claim to better understand history than those who wrote it at the time, not to mention all the centuries that followed. But the real question is,…first of all does it have a greater reasonable basis?
The gospels claim and read as simply historical
“That which was from the beginning, which we have HEARD, which we have SEEN with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have TOUCHED this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” 1 John 1:1 (cf. Luke 1:1-3, 2 Peter 1: 16-21)
Full of historical detail and their human foolishness…reads like a “tell it like it is” accounting, no attempt to be poetic or profound; for separate sources, each confirming the essence of account with out trying to corroborate the exact chronology as simply no sign or sense some fantasy or false ideal, but rather a pulling of actual accounts together.
• The reliability of the Gospel records are unparallel, 10 times the reliability of tets…that is, the amount of early manuscripts, then the second most reliable piece from history…which is the Iliad.
• The Gospels accounts are too early to be a fabrication of facts. Those that attempt to presume that the uncomfortable claims are mythical admit that they would have to develop 2-3 generations later…even centuries later nothing like that with the New Testament; Jesus died in the year 30 AD; the Gospel accounts were immediately reported in both oral and likely shorter written forms until formally compiled between what generally scholars believe to be 50-75 AD. Within the lifetime of those with whom Christ lived.
• The Gospel accounts are recognized by early historians. Josephus, the Jewish historian, writing about AD 93 or 94 in his Antiquities of the Jews, speaks about the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. This version is based on the Greek text, which dates from the fourth century:
• About this time there arose Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be lawful to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful deeds, and a teacher of men who gladly receive the truth. He drew to himself many both of the Jews and of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, on the indictment of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who loved him at the first did not cease to do so, for he appeared to them again alive on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and ten thousand wonderful things about him. And even to this day the race of Christians, who are named after him, has not died out.
• The divine claims are the very basis…and the most reasonable basis for the trial and crucifixion of Christ.
He wasn’t crucified for being a good teacher…he was put on trial and crucified for his claims of being God…the Christ…Messiah…the Savior sent to forgive all sins.
[Might add, if these early Gospel accounts are a lie, one would have to answer who invented the lie and for what reason. A liar always has a selfish motive…at least a protective motive. To proclaim Jesus as the risen Messiah only meant suffering his same fate.]…So why the current fascination with the option of presuming Christ as we know him to be a myth? Perhaps, it’s in part because sensationalism sells; because public attention is more often a product of marketability rather than merit, and questions its appeal more than its approach…which is equally true of the next option (confused)
2. A GURU – that is, his claims are true but not meant to be taken in their common Jewish/Western meaning, but rather in an Eastern-Mystical sense…that he intended to show us how we can all be gods. First of all, those claiming such an enlightened understanding would have to conclude that Jesus utterly failed, that he never got his point across for 2,000 years. Often developed by claiming that Jesus went to India as a boy and learned from the Hindu gurus.
Problem is, there is simply no historical basis for either such influence in his life nor for perceiving his own teachings in this light.
• Jesus is fundamentally Jewish in the context and content of all he said and did.
• Eastern mystics believe God is unknowable except as common impersonal/force, Jesus as a Jew proclaimed God as distinct from the world, and knowable.
• For Eastern mystics, God is passive; for Jesus as a Jew, God is the active initiator.
• For Eastern mystics, there is no judgment…no hell; For Jesus as a Jew, there is ultimate justice and judgment….the simple fact was, Jesus was a Jew and never told anyone to convert from Judaism. He said he came to fulfill the Law and the prophets, not to destroy them.
The only way to promote such a depiction of Jesus is to pick a few of his words out of context, connect him with early Jewish mystics-which in truth were still Jewish in their beliefs-and then ignore all primary historical accounts and rational thinking.
I would contend, there is simply no comparably reasonable basis for assuming Jesus to be a guru, and his claims to be anything else than what they are.
…so if the most reasonable belief is that Jesus’ claims are real, and clearly understood, only two options remain.
3. A LAIR – His claims are an evil hoax that went to far. If not truly divine, then the most deceiving and evil of all men.
• Yet historians clearly recognize that his life has set the highest standard of morality…the polar opposite of an evil man in every regard.
• Who would die for a lie? If just pulling everybody’s leg about the deity thing, don’t you think that when he was hauled up on the cross and raised the nails to his hands…he’d say “just kidding.”
RATIONAL LYING ENDS WHEN THE LIE DOESN’T WORK!
It’s neither fitting of Jesus nor logic to consider him a liar…which leads to the only other option.
4. A LUNATIC-that he sincerely but wrongly believed his claims. If not divine, then completely demented and psychotic.
• Certainly there are those in mental institutions today who believe they are Jesus; and there have even been a few who could convince a few others of this if they were all kept secluded; but their instability of thought never holds up in the broader public perception.
Such rare personalities have a consistent and clear profile: narcissist, inflexible, and an ability to love and relate to others in a stable way…to name a few.
…the polar opposite of Jesus. Experts in psychology have looked at Jesus with a fine tooth comb and haven’t found even the smallest sign of instability. He is a picture of profound emotional and relational stability; steady in adversity, calm in a crisis, stable in relationships…no reasonable basis to accept him as a lunatic.
Leaves us only one option…HIS CLAIMS ARE TRUE, that he is who he said he was, just as those who first knew him discovered he was…and from this we can add another line of reasoning, and ask if there is any.
CONFIRMING EVIDENCE WE MIGHT EXPECT IF DIVINE.
1. We might assume that his life is the fulfillment of that which God had prepared and pointed to.
Over 300 references to the coming of the Messiah in the Old Testament…written over a period of 2,000 years.
God wrote an address in human history using the science of probability, we find the chances of just 48 of prophesy being fulfilled in any one person to be one in ten (one followed by 157 zeros.)
2. Might expect him to have led a perfect life – If I claimed …divine…perfect…my family and any of you who know me could wipe that thought out in a moment. The truth is, if you go poking around into the private lives of any religious leaders…divine perfection simply won’t be an option.
Yet one time Jesus even asked a group of his most ardent enemies if they could find any wrong in him…and his detractors stood in total silence. Here was the great chance to finally shut down this figure who had threatened them so much…but they couldn’t.
3. Might expect MIRACLES…power over sickness…over nature…which Jesus demonstrated…and even secular historians refer to.
4. Might expect him to overcome death. He did! and the historical evidence, which is beyond us to take up this morning, has equal historical basis.
He’s the only figure who asks you to follow him who isn’t in a grave somewhere!
He’s the only figure who asks you to follow him who isn’t in a grave somewhere!
This is the risen Christ who confront every life.
• His claims are true and leave no room for simply mild approval.
• Rather his claims call us to surrender our autonomous and self-willed lives to His forgiveness and leadership or face a future on our own.
• There is no more truth to reckon with; like the cart in the airport, the amber light is coming, the beeping can be heard.
• How often weather forecasters have warned of storms…like those in recent years…and many ignored them…or thought they could take their time.
• Often we fear that if we choose one side…that of choosing Jesus, then it has implications for those we love…we think somehow we can refuse sides and avoid the implications of what those we love decide. The truth is, to make no choice is to make a choice, and a wrong choice can’t help anyone.
• Or perhaps, you’re tempted to sit back and think that to choose Jesus is too exclusive; in an age of open mind-ness
• The truth is exclusive; 1+1=2, not 3 or 4, and you can’t change it by refusing it.
• We do well to recognize that while open-mind-ness may appear virtuous; the truly great virtue is open heart-ness, and that is what Christ offers us.
• How often we want to keep our ideas of God abstract and safe. As C.S. Lewis describes…
IT’S NOT A GAME; Don’t be fooled to believe we live outside the basic reality of responsibility. I believe we live outside the basic reality of responsibility. I believe each of us has in some way been visited by Jesus…told “you know I’m real...the road you’re walking on is a dead end…you need my forgiveness…freedom from your shame…my love at the center of your life.
This morning I want to give you a chance to respond…to change “What do I do?”
• 1. Admit your sinfulness…fallen short…self-willed
• 2. I’m choosing to turn from my self willed life to receive Christ…his forgiveness, grace, and leadership in my life.
If you’ve made that decision to do so this morning, would you simply raise your hand in acknowledgement. Many of us have done this in the past and it’s not my desire to put you on the spot, but even as he died for you I’m simply asking you to raise your hand for him. He will seal it!!
To all of you who have already believed. :How close are you following him? The Bible says some followed him “from afar.” Has the person of Jesus become something on the side of your life? Do you want to give him the centrality in your life?…to follow him more closely?
If you or someone you know still needs to answer the question of Christ or the Christian faith (you can find us on our web sight)
C.S. Lewis’s Miracles
Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. “Look out!” we cry, “it’s alive.” And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back…I would have done so myself if I could…and proceed no further with Christianity. An impersonal God…well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads…better still. A formless life-force, surging through us, a vast power which we can tap…best of all. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband…that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s search for God”!) suddenly draw back. Supposing he had found us?
He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6:35
For my Father’s will is that every one who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6:40
