Where is God in my story?
A growing number of people are showing up during the week, seeking help. Some have gotten behind on rent or a utility bill. Some need money for a car repair, or help with fuel. Many are under-employed. They're willing to work, but their lucky to get 10-15 hours a week.
I always ask people to share their story. I want to know, "Who are you? What are your hopes and dreams? What's happened throughout your life? What led you into your present situation? Where did you grow up? Do you have family?"
If you're willing to listen people really want to sort through things. A question I always ask is, "Where has God been at work in your story?" You'd be surprised how people light up when asked! People have amazing testimonies about the goodness and greatness of God, if we'd just ask. But many just raise their eyebrow as if to say, "God?"
And I'm like, "Yea! You did come to a church! What thoughts do you about God? Do you know God? What do you believe? Are you seeking Him? Trusting Him? Are you praying?" For some the very idea of God is ludicrous. You might as well be talking about fairies and leprechauns. But I'm totally serious. I want to know, "Is God a compelling reality in your life? Do you believe He exists? Do you believe He sees you and knows your needs? Do you trust Him to meet all your needs in Christ Jesus?"
Some people believe God exists, but they live as though he does not. Still, believing that God exists is a major paradigm shift, for most people. It's an extraordinary leap, tantamount to jumping off cliff, and hoping someone or something there is out there to catch you.
As much as any, this passage seems to describe the leap. Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."
Wow! I just need to believe! How easy right? For some, it's literally that easy. When I went to Bible College I was surrounded by young people who had always "just believed" and never struggled with any doubt whatsoever. When I expressed my doubts and personal struggle to believe, or refused to jump on the bandwagon and sway my hips to the praise songs, believers looked at me like I was a space alien!
William Lane Craig is onto something, when he writes, "I think the Church is really failing these kids. Rather than provide them training in the defense of Christianity's truth, we focus on emotional worship experiences, felt needs, and entertainment. It's no wonder they become sitting ducks for that teacher or professor who rationally takes aim at their faith." (On Guard, p. 20).
Should it be abnormal for us to "...always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you?" (1 Peter 3:15). This morning I want us to consider the proposition of faith that "GOD IS..." If this were the start of a sentence, how would you finish it? How would you defend it?
What if we were to suggest that GOD IS, as in GOD JUST EXISTS...
The number of people, statistically, around the world, who take God's existence at face value are staggering. Percentages range from 80-95% of people believe in God. Left to their own, people intuitively believe God exists. Every culture no matter how remote, no matter how far back in history, has always accepted some idea of God.
It's only later in life that we get the notion of God educated out of us. For me that started in my High School science courses. Professors and students challenged my beliefs, and I wasn't equipped with any kind of defense.
Intuition is how many people come about a belief in God. Here are couple verses that explain how intuition works: Ecclesiastes 3:11, "[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Romans 1:20, "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 people are without excuse."
An example of intuition is astronaut Eugene Cernan. Cernan flew into space three times on Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17, and left the last dusty footprint on the surface of the moon. His wife famously remarked, 'If you think going to the moon is hard, try staying at home.'
In a Time Magazine interview Cernan said, "What I saw as I looked at the Earth from the moon was that it was all too beautiful to have happened by accident. This could not have been the result of two dust particles coming together. I wanted to do grab that crescent Earth, put it in my spacesuit and take it home and show it to people. Looking up at the Earth, I had the sense that I was sitting on God's front porch." (http://science.time.com/2012/12/13/last-man-on-the-moon-a-talk-with-gene-cernan/)
Nothing had prepared him for the immense sensual overload. Outer space was dead and empty while earth was simultaneously alive and vibrant. He thought it would be fascinating to set foot on the moon. But once he landed on the moon, he was absorbed by the sheer beauty of the planet earth! In another interview, he expressed that no one could walk on the moon or go into space and remain an atheist.
You don't have to be an astronaut to believe. There are dozens of creation Psalms in the Bible. An example is Psalm 104. In these Psalms, the sheer beauty of creation led the Psalmist to spontaneously acknowledge God's existence and praise him accordingly.
Or read Job 38-42. These are four of the most amazing chapters in all the Bible. God himself introduces (reveals) himself to Job as the creator of all things. Job is speechless!
You can worship from your own back porch! Watching a sunset. Standing in the ocean. Watching lightning and storm system from a distant. You can worship by aiming a microscope at a drop of pond water, and find it teaming with life. The Bible is filled with examples of people intuitively breaking into praise ... being overwhelmed by the beauty of creation. Read Proverbs 8:22-31, Psalm 19:1-6, Psalm 90:1-6, Psalm 102:25-27, Psalm 135:5-6, Romans 4:17.
Intuition is amazing! But intuition isn't a "proof" for the existence of God (though for all practical purposes, it accomplishes the same result). By the way, no amount of education will destroy human intuition about God. Believing in God is hard-wired into human beings, even from youngest age. Educators will never educate masses of people of their knowledge of God no matter how hard they try.
But let's go deeper with this idea that GOD IS and build upon it.
What if we suggested... God is the Powerful Creator of All Things?
We know the testimony of Scripture. Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Hebrews 11:3, "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."
John 1:1-3, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."
The Christian explanation is that an eternal God created everything that exists. The invisible God created everything that's visible. For the longest time, the Greeks (and some atheist today), believed that the material universe itself is eternal. Nothing was created. It's just always been, and will always be.
But this isn't the view of scientist today. One of the greatest discoveries in our modern era was made by Edwin Huble, after whom the Huble Telescope is named. As he peered into the universe at distant stars and galaxies, he noticed a red shift, due to the stretching of light waves as the galaxies moved further away. This has led scientists to accept a cosmic genesis, a cosmic beginning, a big bang, that marks the beginning of space, time, and matter as we know it. (Search for google images for illustrations of red shift)
I want you to imagine for a moment that the tip of this match represents the entire universe, including every galaxy. With the strike of a cosmic match, everything that now is, space-time-matter, was set into motion. But what caused this explosion? Who or What was the "first cause?" Who or what was the "unmoved mover" that set everything in motion? What power so great could possibly exist outside space, time, and matter that could bring space, time, and matter into its existence?
Could it be the invisible, eternal God... powerful creator, of Genesis 1:1? If you need to dig deeper, snag a copy of William Lane Craig's book "On Guard." You can get it on Kindle for next to nothing.
What if we suggested... God is the Loving Sustainer of All Things?
The testimony of Scripture is that God sustains, he perpetuates, he energizes, all things. Hebrews 1:3, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word..."
Colossians 1:16b-17, "... all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
1 Corinthians 8:6, "yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
Acts 17:28, "‘For in him we live and move and have our being.'As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.'" Job 33:4, "The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life." Psalm 136:5, ". . . who by his understanding made the heavens, his love endures forever." (he remains lovingly engaged!)
Scientists know that somehow, the universe had to begin, it started, it got created somehow, sometime, there was a big bang. But scientists also know that for the universe to go on existing, new energy has to continually be fed into the system. This is known as the second law of thermodynamics. Energy always moves from a concentrated state to a less-concentrated state. Energy expends and spreads itself out.
(Read about the Second Law of Thermodynamics)
(Search google for images of the Big Bang)
Take this match for example. When it's struck, it immediately catches flame. The flame it hot. So long as there is fuel, there is a concentration of energy. But every second this match burns, its fuel is consumed, and its heat is released into the universe. The heat quickly disperses into the cold, dark universe (or room).
It's like smoke from our Springfield power plant. The steam is hot, heavy, and dense as it comes out the smokestack. But as the steam hits the atmosphere, it's heat energy dissipates into the air and equalizes with the temperature of the sky. The vapor disappears with a short distance.
Or it's like the water in your bathtub. You are taking a bath, and the water is getting cold. So what do you do? You turn on the hot water. At the spigot, the water is scalding how. But as you run the water the hot water dissipates into the cooler water, there temperature becomes more equal. But the moment you stop pouring hot water into the system, the tub begins losing heat energy, the water temperature equalizes with the temperature of the room.
Here is the issue. If the universe if eternal. If the universe had no beginning. If the universe has had an infinite timespan (literally) to burn and burn and burn and burn. Why didn't the universe burn out trillions and trillions and trillions and googles and google and googles of centuries ago? Given eternity... given an infinite time span... why hasn't all the energy in the entire universe fizzled out, and equalized? Why hasn't there been a heat-death?
No credible scientist refutes the second law of thermal dynamics. But none can explain by who or by what or from where this perpetual, sustaining, seemingly infinite supply of energy is originating. Could it be as the Bible says... God is powerful creator and the loving sustainer of all things? We didn't start the fire. He started the fire, and "it's always been burning since the worlds been turning"!
What if we suggested... God is the Brilliant Designer of All Things
We all marvel over the creation of mankind. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Naturalists and atheists would say we fearfully and wonderfully evolved! The testimony of Scripture is known. God fashioned human life in all its brilliance and design.
Genesis 2:7, "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
Genesis 2:21-22, "So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man."
There are so many books and videos detailing the intelligent design of human beings, the human genome, it's not necessary I review all that here. I recommend you get a copy of a Case for Faith by Lee Strobel. It's an excellent resource.
There is near infinite sophistication in the design of just a single strand of DNA. There is more data in a strand of DNA than an entire encyclopedia. If you stumbled across an encyclopedia in the woods, chalked full of data, you would conclude an intelligent being put it there. But when it comes to science, naturalists don't make that leap of faith.
But there is more. There is also a sophistication to the design of the earth, and our universe. Our world has been lovingly fine-tuned to support our life here. This world has been fine-tuned to be inhabited!
Isaiah 45:18 says, "For this is what the Lord says-- he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited-- he says: "I am the Lord, and there is no other."
Christian philosopher Eric Metaxas explains the Fine-tuned by Design argument:
"There's more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces--gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces--were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction--by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 [100 million billion]--then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp."
"Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all "just happened" defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?"
"Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term "big bang," said that his atheism was "greatly shaken" at these developments. He later wrote that "a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."
Read the full article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
What if the God of Bible is the brilliant designer, monkeyer of physics, chemistry, biology of the universe? What if he is powerful creator, the great beginner, who set it all in motion? What if he is the loving sustainer, who sustains our very breath, every atom in the universe, by his power and love?
There is only so much that can be done on this subject in a sermon. A place for you to continue your exploration of faith is to snag a copy of "On Guard" by William Lane Craig. Let that book be a springboard to strengthening your faith. But let's move deeper than intuition and emotion when it comes to matters of faith. Give your kids deeper foundation so they're not so easy pickings for atheists and naturalists taking aim at their faith.
Let's endeavor to "...always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you?" (1 Peter 3:15).