Is it Reasonable to be a Christian?

Hello. Good morning, everyone, and Happy New Year to you all.

If you've not met me before, I'm named Steve, the lead pastor here at St. Paul's.

I hope that this year, 2026, is a year of you know God's richest blessings.

One of the things, I'm not sure what you have planned so far in your New Year's resolutions

and what you're hoping for 2026, but one of the things that we can all look forward to

in 2026 is that it is a census year, and so expect that at some point this year to have

people knocking on your door and having copious amounts of questions about your life to fill out.

The last national census we had, happens every five years, 2021, revealed that 45% of our

neighbourhood here in Chatswood have no religious belief at all. In fact, it is more than 10% higher

than the average in New South Wales and across Australia, so we are a highly non-religious area

where we are. We also rate rated much lower than the state and the national average.

For those who are claiming, those who do have religious belief, those who are claiming to have

a Christian faith. So not only are we not religious, we are very low when it comes to

the idea of those who would identify as Christian. And so as we kick off a brand new year in 2026,

the question I'm asking is, is it reasonable to be a Christian? Not just in this area, but is it reasonable

to be Christian at all? And so over the next four weeks, we're going to be unpacking that question.

And really, the answer to it, we're going to keep landing on is very much a resounding yes.

As time goes on, more and more are resounding yes. We'll be exploring why faith in Jesus Christ

is reasonable, why it's plausible, why it is good, why it is desirable, in fact. And so if you are,

for instance, maybe an agnostic, tuning in over the next few weeks, I want to ask whether you are 100%

certain that you want to stay uncertain about God. If you are a sceptic tuning in, I maybe want you to

consider what kind of God it is whose existence that you would deem implausible. What kind of God

would that be? And if you are a Christian tuning in, my hope is in the next few weeks,

you become more confident in terms of hope in Jesus, but also that you would be more confident

that it is good and plausible and right and desirable to continue to grow deeper in Jesus

in 2026 and you'd have a plan to do so. And so this morning, what I'm really wanting to do is just

to briefly consider whether it's reasonable to be a person of faith in an increasingly secular era and

neighbourhood, and whether it is reasonable to have faith in God and particularly to have faith in Jesus.

That's our journey this morning. So is faith reasonable? Now, history is full of famous and brilliant people

looking at evidence for God's existence and moving in two totally different directions. At the one end,

for instance, you might have the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell.

He was asked very late in life, you know, if he, what he would say if he discovered there was in fact a God

after he died. What would you say in that moment? And his reply was, God, you didn't give us enough evidence.

That would be his reply. On the other hand, you've got other people on the other end of the spectrum,

again, likewise, brilliant people, famous people, Elizabeth Anscombe, who may not be famous to you all,

but in actual fact, one of the most famous philosophers in the English language, Elizabeth

Anselm, she actually looked at the evidence for God and moved from atheism towards and to Christianity.

So looking at the same evidence and at the same time as Bertrand Russell and moved in two different directions.

And the list on both sides is long and distinguished. So how do we account for that? How do you account

that you've got same people looking at the same or different people look at the same evidence and going

in two different directions? Now, the more common argument used today in our culture to solve that

problem is that religious people, they ground their life in a thing called faith, but secular people

ground their life in logic and reason and science. Hence, the title of this series is Let's Be Reasonable.

Religious people have faith and something deep inside of them that they need fulfilling and they

therefore have a bias towards religion and an emotional need to believe in something beyond

themselves. Secular people are just, well, they're just not, they're just unbiased. They don't have that

bias, they're objective and they look at life entirely rationally. That's how it's generally argued in our

society nowadays. And frankly, it's just simply not true. In his book, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor,

what he calls this view, the subtraction story. This is where a person might say, well, you know,

I used to believe in God and the supernatural, but because of science, because of reason,

I just subtracted God. And now I just see things the way they actually are. You know, I'm just unbiased.

It's a common view that, you know, you'll see an atheist will debate with a Christian.

You believe in one God, what about everyone else who believes in multiple gods? You've deleted all

those other gods and I've just gone one extra step and deleted your God as well. That's all I've done.

The same principle. That's how an atheist will argue with the subtraction of story.

The reality is though, to move from belief in God to non-belief is a shift from one set of beliefs

beliefs to an entirely new set of beliefs. It is not a move from belief to non-belief.

It is a move from one set of beliefs to an entirely new set of beliefs.

One of the very first sets of beliefs a secular person adopts, an atheist will adopt,

is called exclusive rationalism. And it's the belief that science is the only arbiter of what is real

and factual and that nothing should be believed that unless it can be decisively proven with evidence

and observation. Now, that sounds reasonable. It's, of course, it's actually irrational, but it sounds reasonable.

For instance, just take that statement on the board. What is, for instance, the observable proof?

What is the factual evidence that that statement is true?

That is, the very claim of exclusive rationality can't even meet its own criteria.

That statement can't be proven factually at all.

Even reason and proof must start with faith in reason and proof.

In some kind of concept, exclusive rationality depends on the belief that human senses,

our eyes, our ears, our minds, our memories, are not tricking us in any way.

It has to start with that assumption.

Observation and scientific evidence can neither prove that there is a God nor disprove that there is a God.

They can't do either of those things.

And so all varieties of secularism are set to beliefs,

not just simply the absence of a belief or the absence of faith.

And therefore, it needs to be proven.

I saw an interview between the comedian Ricky Gervais and US comedian, talk show host Stephen Colbert.

Gervais is an agnostic atheist.

Colbert is a confused Catholic.

So they go well together.

And Gervais was explaining how his entire worldview relied completely on science.

That was it.

Completely on science, evidence, fact, logic to explain all things.

He made it clear that he was not a person of faith.

He had no faith at all whatsoever.

He was just purely a person of logic and fact.

He then made a comment in the course of the interview about how the universe started from this freakish,

minuscule burst of light that happened billions of years ago.

And Colbert, in this moment, was very sharp, very quick.

He jumped in and said, can you actually prove that statement?

Can you actually prove that statement?

He said, aren't you just relying upon what Stephen Hawkins himself was,

declared an opinion?

And at that moment, you can see Gervais was really thrown back a little bit.

And then Colbert jumps in and rescues the thing.

And they had a bit of a laugh and they moved on kind of stuff.

But in other words, what he did was, it was actually a step of faith.

It was actually a step of faith.

His entire worldview was began with a step of faith, with a belief in something.

You see, theism nor atheism can be 100% proven by data.

They are systems of thinking and believing that need to be compared to one another

to determine which one makes the most sense,

which makes the most sense of our experience of things we know and need to explain,

which one makes the most sense of our social experience

and addresses the problems we face in living together as human society.

And which of these is most logically consistent internally as a belief system,

without importing ideas from other worldviews and systems?

Which brings me to the second point.

Is faith in God reasonable?

If, therefore, we can establish that all people exercise faith to some degree,

is it reasonable to have faith in a God?

Believers in God have argued that God's existence cannot be proven empirically

empirically as if God were like a physical object that you can put in a science lab and test.

But the existence of God can be logically inferred.

Logically inferred.

And, in fact, many scientific theories work on exactly the same principle,

the logical inference that something is true.

Physics is mainly based on logical inference.

And Christianity suggests there are very significant clues that point to the existence of God.

Psalm 19 in the Old Testament tells us that God has put his fingerprints everywhere in the universe.

The heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day, they pour forth speech.

Night after night, they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech.

They use no words.

No sound is heard from them.

And yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to mention just two clues.

There is at least more than 30 big systems of clues.

They're big systems of clues.

I'm going to just mention two very briefly.

There is the cosmic wonder clue.

Modern science is completely insufficient to explain the existence of the world.

Because there are two unavoidable questions.

Two unavoidable questions that need to be asked.

First of all, how did the indescribably variety of life in this universe come to be?

You know, there's more than 900,000 species of just insects.

How did all of that variety come to be?

How did we go from a single-celled life in prehistoric soup to mosquitoes and giraffes

and the billions of other things in between?

Now, there's an infinity of articles or books or conferences or TV programs or PhD theses.

Studies have been devoted to that topic.

And it's a widely discussed topic.

And the general view is a thing called evolution.

And that is it all happened by accident and it's just kind of evolved from there.

It's become, it's no longer a theory, it's become regarded as fact.

But the second unavoidable question, and biologists want to talk about evolution all the time,

but the second unavoidable question is this one.

What happened to bring life into existence in the very first place?

What happened there?

And that question is very rarely ever asked.

Much less is it answered with any scientific credibility.

How does, and this is the massive question,

the massive question,

how does life come from no life?

How does that happen?

In 1952,

at the University of Chicago,

two scientists tried to replicate

what you might call the Big Bang,

to get life from no life.

It became known as the Miller-Urey experiment.

It's quite a famous experiment.

In 1952.

And they were able to produce

a change

in four elements.

But they weren't able to produce life.

And certainly not able to produce life

that would produce life itself.

In the end,

in 1952,

it was a

failed experiment

to produce life from non-life.

That's

1952.

Think of the

scientific advancements that we've had

since 1952,

in the last seven decades.

I could

rattle off a long list.

Initially,

I did have a long list of everything that's happened

since 1952

in scientific advancement.

And the Miller-Urey experiment

has never been advanced upon

since 1952.

No one,

no scientist,

has been able to go

take life

out of no life.

And this is the question

that science,

frankly,

cannot answer

and their entire

worldview hinges on it.

That an atheist worldview

hinges on this one.

You see,

what Christians have been saying

for centuries

is that the existence

of God

is inferred

from the existence

of life itself.

Life must come

from something

that is already

alive.

It cannot come

from something

that is dead,

that doesn't exist.

In his book,

The Language of God,

scientist

Francis Collins

puts it like this.

we have this

very solid conclusion

that the universe

had an origin,

the Big Bang,

15 billion years ago.

The universe began

with an unimaginable

bright flash of energy

from an infinitely

small point.

That implies

that before that,

there was nothing.

I cannot imagine

how nature,

in this case,

the universe,

could have created itself.

And the very fact

that the universe

had a beginning

implies that someone

was able to begin it.

And it seems to me

that had to be

outside of nature.

And so,

ironically,

for the rickage of aces

and so on of this world,

science itself

has given us

a strong case

that there is something

beyond the natural world

that brought it

into existence.

And which even now

upholds the existence

of this universe.

universe.

That's the first clue,

the cosmic wonder clue.

The second one,

which builds on that one,

the second clue

for God's existence,

is the fine-tuning

design of the world.

At one point,

the most famous atheist

in the world,

a guy named Christopher Hitchens,

admitted that the fine-tuning

of the universe argument

was an argument

that was not trivial.

The most difficult one,

you had to think about it hard,

the most difficult one

to actually get over.

And so,

the fine-tuning argument

is kind of like this.

Think of existence

as a set of dials.

Every one of those dials

must be at exactly

the right point,

precisely at the right point

for life to exist.

Even a slight variation

on any one of those dials,

on any one of them,

would be enough

for life to no longer

be able to exist.

On any one of the dials.

And the irony is,

it's with the advance

of science

that we're discovering

that this clue

is getting stronger

and stronger

and stronger.

The scientist Carl Sagan

once said

that there are only

two parameters

for life to exist.

In other words,

there's only two dials

on the deck.

With the advance

of the decades,

science has discovered

literally

hundreds of parameters,

hundreds of dials

that need to be

fine-tuned perfectly,

not just in this world,

not just in human life,

but also in the universe

for life to exist.

And the possibility

that those dials

came to accidentally

be set

at exactly the right spot,

at exactly the right time

for life to begin,

and

to have stayed

statically

in those spots

for life to continue

to go on existing

is a massive leap

of faith.

And it's also

a rejection

of scientific evidence

that shows

the universe

is not static at all.

You see,

believers in God

suggest

the fine-tuning

of physics

makes much more sense

in a universe

in which there is

a creator

and a designer

who constantly

has his hands

on those dials.

To quote

Collins again,

if any one

of those constants,

one of those dials,

was off

by even

one part

in a million,

or in some cases

one part

in a million million,

the universe

could not have come

to the point

where we see it.

Matter

would not have been

able to coalesce.

There would have been

no galaxy,

no stars,

no planets,

all people.

And so it would be

more reasonable

to conclude

it was something

intended

and designed.

Even the

famous atheist

Richard Dawkins

says that

the characteristics

of our world

is the characteristics

of design,

even though he himself

rejects a designer.

Is that

conclusive proof?

Not at all.

Because it suggests

only that it's

more likely

that there is

a God

than there is

not a God.

But even

those two

cannot just

be dismissed.

The distinguished

physician

Lewis Thomas

wrote,

I cannot

make peace

with a randomness

doctrine.

I cannot

abide the

notion

of purposeless

and blind

chance

in nature.

And yet

I do not

know what

to put

in its

place

for the

quieting

of my

mind.

So there's

just two

of the

at least

30

extensive

clues

for the

existence

of God.

Now none

of these

clues

are so

strong

by themselves

as to

false

belief.

But

they do

make it

entirely

rational,

entirely

rational to

believe in

the existence

of God.

And in

actual fact,

with the

advance of

science,

and it is

rapidly

advancing,

it becomes

more and

more

irrational

to be an

atheist

based on

scientific

evidence.

evidence.

I can

cope with

an

agnostic,

but an

atheist to

say that

they are

rational is

to deny

the

scientific

evidence.

Now the

clues for

God not

only do

not prove

God's

existence,

but all

they really

do is

they get

us to a

point where

there's a

potential for

some abstract

God out

there.

what Christians

believe is

that the

main way

we know

specifics about

this God

is that this

God has

revealed

himself in

the person

of Jesus

Christ.

And so

is faith in

Jesus reasonable

in 2026?

Now God

has not

revealed

himself,

not first

through our

thinking,

but through

God or

through our

assumptions

about God,

but that God

has specifically

spoken to

us.

He speaks

to us

according to

Psalm 19

in the

Creator,

all his

fingerprints

everywhere,

but he

speaks to

us very

specifically,

very

specifically

in his

Son,

the Lord

Jesus.

Hebrews

1,

read out

to us

by Janet,

is referring

to Jesus

when it

makes the

claim that

Jesus Christ

is the

final and

decisive

communication

of God

to humanity.

In the

past,

God spoke

to our

ancestors

through the

prophets

at many

times and

in various

ways,

but in

these last

days,

he has

spoken to

us by

his

Son,

whom he

appointed

heir of

all things,

and through

whom also

he made

the

universe.

The

Son is

the

radiance

of God's

glory and

the exact

representation

of his

being.

And so

it's not

surprising if

that's true,

that there

is a

God and

this God

has revealed

himself by

sending

his Son,

the person

of his

Son,

the second

member of

the Trinity

into his

world so

that we

might know

God.

If that

is true,

it's not

surprising why

Christians would

call Jesus

Christ the

single most

influential

person who

has ever

lived.

A greater

percentage of

the world's

population than

ever before

is Christian.

And

Christianity

adds to

its ranks

just under

19 million

new Christians

every year.

And

Christianity

is the

one major

religion in

the world

that is

most equally

distributed

throughout all

the continents

of the

world.

No other

faith has

so extensively

crossed

cultural

divisions of

humanity and

found a place

in so many

diverse cultural

contexts,

from the

intellectual

elites to

the uneducated,

for the

poor to

the rich,

from the

west to

the east,

everywhere.

Why has

Jesus

affected so

much of

humanity?

The answer

to that

question can

only come by

looking at

his life,

his words,

and his

actions.

You see,

in Jesus,

we see the

qualities and

the virtues

that we

would

ordinarily

consider,

incompatible

in the

same person.

That is,

Jesus combines

both high

majesty with

the greatest

humility.

He joins

the strongest

commitment to

justice with

astonishing

grace and

mercy,

and he

reveals a

transcendent

self-sufficiency

and yet an

entire trust in

and reliance

upon his

heavenly father

at the same

time.

We are

surprised with

the person

of Jesus

to see

such

tenderness

but without

weakness,

boldness

without

harshness,

humility

without

an

uncertainty,

indeed

accompanied

by a

towering

self-confidence.

He's

unbending

convictions

but

complete

approachability,

his

insistence

on truth

but always

bathed in

love,

his power

without

insensitivity,

integrity

without

rigidity,

passion

without

prejudice.

That's

his life

and it's

perplexing,

it's a

paradox.

People

who have

read and

pondered

Jesus'

words,

his deeds,

his life

have

groped

for good

ways to

explain it

and to

try and

describe what

they see

in the

person of

Jesus.

And many

throughout the

history of

this world

and 19

million people

a year

continue

to realise

that the

remarkable

claims that

Jesus had

about

himself is

the only

way that

you could

land with

the person

of Jesus.

You see,

what is so

surprising

about Jesus

is that

his claims

were so

entirely

self-focused,

self-centred,

but his

character and

his actions

were so

completely

unself-centred,

other-person

centred,

we never

see him

pompous

or offended

or standing

on his

dignity,

he's

approachable

to the

weakest

person

and the

most

broken

person,

we don't

ever see

him moody

or irritable,

there is

an unsurpassed

moral and

spiritual beauty

about his

character and

the teachings

of Jesus

Christ.

Houston

Smith in his

book,

The World's

Religions,

he wrote

there that

only Buddha

and Jesus

so impressed

their

contemporaries,

so impressed

their contemporaries,

that their

contemporaries

were asking

the question,

not just

simply,

who are

you,

but what

are you?

Your life

is not

normal human

life,

what are

you?

Only

those two

figures had

characters that

transcended

ordinary human

life to the

degree that

that question

was necessary.

Buddha

asserted

with absolute

clarity

and with

a deep,

deep emphasis

that he was

not divine

in any way,

that he was

not an

angelic being

in any way

whatsoever,

he was fully

human.

On the

other hand,

Jesus

repeatedly

and

continually

claimed to

be the

God

who created

all things.

Jesus

made that

claim of

himself

clearly

and that

creates an

enormous

challenge for

us

because

Jesus is

one of the

very few

persons in

history of

humanity

who founded

a great

world

religion.

He belongs

to a very,

very small

group of

people who

have founded

a great

world religion,

who have

had a

massive impact

on millions

of people

largely because

of their

brilliant

teaching,

but also

because of

their

admirable

lives and

characters.

But the

difference

between

Jesus

and the

others in

that small

group

is that

he was the

only one

who claimed

to be

God.

God, the

only one

who claimed

to be the

God who

created all

things.

Buddha

emphatically

said that

he wasn't.

Muhammad,

of course,

would never

ever have

claimed to

be Allah

and nor

did

Confucius.

Jesus

is the

only one,

God,

but he's

also part

of a

second

group of

people who

claimed to

be God.

Of course,

there are

plenty of

nut jobs

out there,

isn't there?

And what

makes him

unique in

this group

of people,

what makes

in fact this

whole group

of people

unique,

apart from

Jesus,

is that the

members of

this group,

this small

group of

people who

claimed to

be God,

were only

able to

convince a

very small

group of

people,

that they

were in

fact divine,

that they

were in

fact God.

So why

did Jesus

succeed?

Succeed as

the only

person who

ever claimed

deity and

founded a

major religion,

in fact the

largest one.

How was

he able to

do that?

Firstly,

because his

life was

exquisitely

beautiful.

It is

extraordinarily

difficult to

claim to

be God,

to claim to

be perfect,

to claim to

be divine,

and then at

the same time

get everyone

you live with

to be convinced

of that truth

as well.

God.

I mean,

his disciples

were with

him for

three years.

On the

most part,

if we had

12 people who

lived with

us for

three years,

you wouldn't

get past

lunch on the

first day and

your claims to

divinity would

be crushed.

The evidence is

there for all

to see.

The other

reason that

Jesus was

worshipped by

Jews as

God very

significantly is

that he in

fact came back

to life after

he was

crucified on

a Roman

cross.

And so in

Jesus Christ is

a man who

claimed to be

God, yet who

lived a life so

great that he

became the only

person to

convince a

sizable part of

humanity and

continues to do

so, that he

was in fact who

he said he

was.

And what that

means is that

none of us can

be indifferent to

that claim.

No one can be

indifferent to

that claim.

It's not just

for people of

faith.

We cannot

resolve the

issue by

saying he

was only a

great teacher,

good bloke.

work because

all of his

declarations of

what he said

about himself

do not allow

us just to

land at that

point.

We can't

say, well, he

never really made

those claims about

himself because

all the historical

evidence is there.

We cannot be

content with the

explanation that

he was deranged

or that he

was a fraud

because of the

clear evidence

of his wisdom

and his

greatness and

the impact of

his life on

his followers

and because of

the historical

case for his

resurrection.

And that

leaves us with

the final

possible

explanation,

namely, that

Jesus Christ

is who he

claimed to

be.

And that

is the

creator God

coming into

earth,

siding with

us to

reveal the

God who

made it all

and who

sustains it

all.

You see, as

the creator of

the universe,

he makes

claims on

every single

one of our

lives.

And what

he said to

Thomas in

John 14,

and it's a

little verse

that came

straight after

what was

read,

still stands

for your

life and

for my

life.

This is

still the

claim over

your life

now.

Jesus said,

I am

the way,

the truth,

and the

life.

And no

one comes

to the

Father

except

through me.

And so

in the

next three

weeks,

Nick and

I and

John,

we're going

to be

unpacking

each one

of those

claims.

Jesus is

the way,

he's the

truth,

and he's

the life.

And as

hard as

it is to

believe that

he is

God,

come to

earth,

the more

you

investigate,

it becomes

harder,

much more

difficult not

to believe

it.

It is,

in fact,

reasonable to

be a

follower of

Jesus in

2026.

And I

invite you,

if you're

someone who

does not

know him,

I'd invite

you to

explore him,

make that as

a massive

priority for

your life

in 2026.

2026.

And if

you do

know him,

to make

a plan to

go deeper

to know

him more

in 2026.

as

Thank you.