Why God

Good to be back.

Kind of uh a crazy week in Fargo for our family as you know we have moved now from winter sports into spring sports.

And there was that nice little break in between of going from basketball and the craziness of pursuing our kids and that, but now we're chasing them around in baseball and track and all the things that come with that.

So this week was my daughter, is her first week ever in her first track meet ever in her life.

Now I did track when I was in sixth grade, you know, they had the school track meet, that one day what the track and field day.

I don't know if you guys had that, and uh I got a a participant's ribbon, so um I ran the 600 is what I think.

Yeah, I ran the 600 in that event, and um I got a real good start.

It's all about the ending though, right?

Nobody told me that there were one and a half times around that track.

Who knew?

But uh as many of you are aware, that uh with it of course comes busyness and all those things, and uh it's good.

I love baseball.

I helped uh coach my kids, my boys in baseball for a few years, taking a little break right now as I work on some studies.

But uh I love coaching baseball and being on the baseball field.

I again was one of those things that um I wasn't a superstar in baseball either, any more than I was in track.

But uh it's just good to be outside in the spring and to get out of the house a little bit, isn't it?

And uh, you know, my daughter, she's doing three events in her track experience, and those events are the the four by one relay, is what she did this week, and uh she did the 100-meter sprint, and then she did hurdles.

And uh, you know, I just it it's bad.

I think like the only hurdle, the the biggest hurdle of all is like signing up for track.

That's hurdle enough.

Who running is hurdle?

The word running is hurdle enough to keep you from doing track.

And uh, you know, nobody's even chasing you when you have to run.

And um then you put hurdles in front of you, I mean, real hurdles in front of you, the kind that you can trip and fall on, and I approach those and imagine that and just know that I would stop, like perhaps you've seen the horses that are going through the steeple chase who'll stop in front of the obstacles and be afraid of those obstacles and and not approach them.

And uh this morning in the next couple of weeks, I have the privilege of being with you, and I'm grateful for that opportunity, but uh, we're gonna talk about some of the hurdles to faith.

And uh so many of our friends come into faith or are see us, perhaps is a better way to see it, and say maybe there's something there, but there's hurdles, there's things that are keeping them from coming to the place where they choose to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

And some of those hurdles that we will be talking about in these next three weeks, we're gonna ask these three and to some degree answer these three questions of why God, why the Bible, and why church?

Because those are just three questions that tend to keep people from pursuing Christ.

And so it's really in the context of apologetics, and this word apologetics is kind of we hear it, but uh most of us, if we've never heard it for the first time, the first time we hear it, we think of apology like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm a Christian.

And that's not really what apologetics is.

Apologetics really is it's from the Greek word apologia, which is to make a defense.

And so then we go to the other extreme and we get this idea because we we this word to make a defense, we get this idea of being defensive.

And we want to, well, you can't attack my faith, and we get defensive about it, and that's not really what it's about either.

I remember as a young Christian early in my faith, that people would come to me and I would be that type of Christian, and you know, the Bible thumping is what they would call us.

You'd smack people over the head with your Bibles until they came to faith.

One day when I was in the Air Force, uh, another airman, his name was Jeff, came around the corner and he says, Man, it's hot as hell in here.

I said, Jeff, how hot is hell?

I don't know, never been there.

No, I had lots of choices.

I said, Well, you're going there.

That's not actually what I said.

I said, Well, he went on and says, I've never been there.

Have you?

I said, Well, no, I've never actually been there either, but I know someone who went there and set the captives free.

So let me tell you about this, Jesus.

Now, he wasn't really interested in a conversation about Christ at that moment because he was just complaining about the temperature.

I remember another time sitting at the table with my grandparents and talking to them about faith as I was a young Christian, and my grandfather was talking about, you know, I used to ride behind the team of horses as we pulled the plow across the field, and I would look at creation, and that's all the God I needed was just to look around and see the scenery and the beauty of that, and that's creation.

But he stopped there at creation, which I laid into him.

That's not enough.

That's not enough for faith.

You can see the beauty of that, but the creation points us, but it's not enough.

And later I wrote a letter explaining to him in Psalms how the heavens declare the glory of God, but but faith comes through Christ.

And I was very zealous, and I would tell my friends and my family members about Jesus, but what would happen in the demeanor and the approach for which I used, they were put off.

And the conversations were few and far between after that because I was more defensive.

And so when we think of apologetics, we want to sometimes think about dismantling people's roadblocks, you know, destroying the hurdles.

But a better way to think about this is not about dismantling and destruction, but more in line with a dance.

Because they have questions and they're in process, and it's not probably going to happen in an instant.

In fact, most of you who are here who came to Christ, there was an instant and a moment in your life where you can say, This is the time where I received Jesus Christ into my life.

But it wasn't that one-time moment.

There were other people where there were family members, there were events, there was the process that God used over the course of your life, whether you accepted Jesus at seven or seventy-three, there was a process and people in place that God used.

And you're just one piece of the puzzle bringing you to faith in Jesus.

So when we talk about apologetics, I want to think of it more like a dance.

And ultimately, what apologetics is is really it's about bringing lost people home.

I remember when I was oh, a teenager, I imagine.

And my uncle was an alcoholic.

And he had gone, he had been off uh liquor for a while, had stopped drinking for a while, and then went off the wagon, as they say, and got consumed again by alcohol.

And my dad and a friend of his drove to Texas to pull them out of that.

And it was that kind of desire to come and rescue people from those moments of perishing, of destruction, of hurt, to bring them home to a place where they need to be.

And that's what apologetics is.

It's going, even though they may not want us to be there sometimes, because my uncle certainly did not want my father to be there.

He resisted any assistance.

But he did what it took to bring him home.

And that's what we want to do, is we want to bring people home.

You know, 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 15 says this be prepared to make a defense.

1 Peter 3:15

And that's where sometimes we get this idea of being defensive, but it's not that.

It's bringing people home.

And we see that again and again in Luke chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

It talks about the lost coin and the lost son and the lost sheep, and all of that is about bringing people home.

So this morning, as we enter the series, the Y series, let's think about bringing people home.

If you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to Mark chapter 2.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

In Mark chapter 2, beginning at verse 1, it says it says this A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

So many gathered there that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.

Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them.

Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus, and after and after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven.

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, Why does this fellow talk like that?

He's blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, Why are you thinking these things?

Which is easier to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up, take your mat and walk.

But what you may know, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home.

And he got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all.

And this amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, We have never seen anything like this.

You know, when we look at this verse, we see some hurdles, don't we?

The first and most obvious hurdle in bringing this man to Jesus is that he was a paralytic.

He couldn't bring himself to the feet of Christ.

His life depended on others to bring him to Christ.

There was the hurdle of the crowds that kept him outside the door.

They were there and he couldn't get in because the crowds kept him away.

And so these four friends take the pallet and they go up to the roof.

And can you imagine that scene?

I love the concept.

And couldn't you imagine that would have been a great illustration of somebody dug through the roof right now?

Now, it might be an expensive illustration, but it'd be really cool, wouldn't it?

Somebody digging through the roof, you hear some dust flying down and the sound of saws on the roof.

And then down a cot comes lowered to the presence of Jesus.

These men were willing to do whatever it took to get their friend to Christ.

And yet another hurdle arose as the Pharisees began to debate, and it was a religious hurdle.

Well, who can forgive sins?

Then they began to have this debate about theology, and this theology kept them from really understanding what had happened.

And so this hurdle of religion got in the way.

All these hurdles, but these men were willing to do whatever it took to get their friend to Christ, and that's the attitude that we need to have when we're considering our friends who are far from God.

What are you willing to do to bring your friends to Christ?

So this morning, as we consider why God, it's one of the greatest hurdles of all, particularly in a world of scientific theory and evolutionary theory.

So many times in our world we've rejected faith and the things of faith.

Now, on a positive note, we're getting a little bit more spiritual in our understanding of life and all those things across the culture, but there's still this way that we write God out of the picture.

And so often we write God out of the picture, for numerous reasons, we write him out of the picture because of an intellectual roadblock.

Some people, because of the scientific method, say, well, God cannot be proven.

Little um side note is neither can George Washington.

Because the scientific method demands that you be able to recreate something in the laboratory.

You create a hypothesis and you prove it in the laboratory, then you are able to prove it again.

But history is outside the realm of scientific method because you cannot repeat something in the laboratory again and again.

That is a historical event.

Some people have, you know, uh informational overload or informational roadblocks.

They just don't have the information to make the decision.

In a marketplace of ideas that we are bombarded by, there's just too much to choose from, so they decide not to choose at all.

For some, it is a willful roadblock.

If I trust Christ, then I have to stop living the way I'm living.

A little over a month and a half ago, two months ago, I was uh speaking at Cooper Sound Bible Camp for the men's retreat.

And there was a man there.

And maybe you read about it in the newspaper about two years ago.

This man was camping with his three boys in a campground up by Bottenhill.

And while they were sleeping in the tent, or at least preparing, the boys were asleep, the dad wasn't yet asleep.

Another man tore through the campground, went off the road, and plowed through their tent, killed the three boys.

And he's at this men's retreat saying, if I trust Jesus, I won't be able to kill that man when he gets out of prison.

That was a willful roadblock.

Part of me says, I get it, right?

And another girl counseled once in a youth ministry event said, My sister got killed in an accident two months ago.

She never trusted in Jesus.

And so I'd rather spend eternity in hell with her than go to heaven and be with Christ.

Now there's others that aren't quite so dramatic that just simply say things like, if I follow Jesus, I have to stop drinking.

If I follow Jesus, then I have to stop sleeping with my girlfriend.

If I stop, you know.

But that's a willful roadblock.

Well, today we're going to look at some of the intellectual roadblocks, address those through some of the arguments.

And see that again, that's the problem with this whole apologetics language, is they talk about the cosmological what?

Argument.

And the teleological argument and the moral arguments.

And those are the things we're going to talk about, but this whole idea of argument says that we're going to have an argument.

And again, it's not about an argument, but and you got to understand this isn't just for the people that we're talking to.

This is for us too.

Because I know personally in my own life, when there have been times when I said, God, is this really worth it?

Is this life is too hard?

Following you is too hard.

And then I say, wait a minute, there are good reasons to follow Jesus.

And reason and information and arguments really aren't enough to point anybody to Jesus, but it's a reason to give us a seat at the table to say that we're not just some sort of wax that just believe in crazy things.

There is good reason to believe in God.

One of those arguments, as I mentioned, is the cosmological argument.

And the cosmological argument is an argument for first cause.

It says that everything that exists had to have a beginning.

Now I'm not going to really dive into these with great depth.

There's lots of lots of resources out there for you to read about, you know, if you're really wanting to get into the full depth of this, you can go and read these.

So we're just going to brush across the top of the surface.

But let's take, for example, the chicken and the egg.

Well, where did the chicken come from?

Well, if you say that the egg came first, well then, well, there had to be a source for the egg because something had to sit upon the egg.

But then if, so at least today as we know it, if you live on a farm or anywhere near a farm, or if you eat chicken, you know that there's a chicken, and that chicken came from an egg, and that egg came from a chicken, and that chicken came from an egg, and that egg came from a chicken, and the egg, you know, it goes back, right?

But somewhere there had to be an egg or a chicken.

There had to be a first cause.

Ultimately, as Christians, we have to say, well, which did God create first?

Because there had to be something before all of those before anything existed at all.

Same thing with a tree.

Where did a tree come from?

Well, a tree came from a seed.

Where did the seed come from?

The seed came from a tree.

Where did the tree come from?

A seed, and you go back until something had to have a first cause.

There had to be something that started it all.

Even the scientists today understand that there had to be a start.

They call it a Big Bang.

So even they use a cosmological argument to say, where did things come from?

There had to be a start to the process.

The cosmological argument, I believe, is the best argument, the best explanation for why the universe exists instead of nothing at all.

It's because something, someone, God, started it all.

He put it in place.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The second argument is this the teleological argument.

And teleological comes from telos, which means I just lost it.

The best it's it's order, design, uh, to an end.

It's created with a purpose.

And I love the work of um Kennedy on this, and he talks about not JF Kennedy, but I can't think of his first name either right now.

But uh he really goes in, he talks about the important the way the design that the earth was made.

You know, if the earth was just a little bit closer to the sun, just a tiny bit, we would cook.

If the earth was just a slight bit away from the sun, we would freeze.

The earth with its poles, if it was tilted, you know, the earth is the only planet tilted on an axis, and because it's tilted on an axis, it keeps certain parts warm, certain parts cold.

If it were tilted a little bit less, the polar, the caps would continue to freeze and encompass it, and the the middle of the earth would burn up.

But it's just created like this.

Now imagine, if you will, perhaps you're on the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Coast Trail or on a hike up to Yosemite or Yellowstone, and there on the trail you look down and you you see one of these.

And you say, Isn't that a wonder of nature how how erosion and all that thing wash that together to make this on the ground by chance?

None of us would say that.

We'd look at that and say, Oh, would you look at that?

That's uh I don't even know what brand watch I have on.

Iron Man.

And you'd go, there's a company somewhere that put that together.

And if you walked over to the airport, you wouldn't say, Somewhere, there was an explosion at a metal plant that caused all these pieces to come together and form an airplane and put it on that tarmac.

No, because you know that there's an end to it, there's a purpose, there's a design, and behind the design, there's a great designer.

Another argument is this, talking about the, you know, if you took this watch and I put it in a in a brown paper bag and I took a hammer and I started smashing it together.

And and then I took the pieces and I began to shake.

You know, all the pieces there that are required to make a watch, but how many years would I have to shake that bag before that watch actually came together to form a watch again?

All the necessary elements were there to create a watch.

But unless there is someone to put it together, it's not going to happen by chance.

See, I believe that a good reason to believe that there is a God is because of the complex order of the universe.

Behind it, there is a designer.

Third argument is the moral argument.

And basically it's this within each and every one of us, there is a moral law that is written on our hearts.

Whether you're a believer in God or not a believer in God.

And we live in a world of moral relativism, right?

What's what you believe.

You believe what I believe is what I believe, and you don't tell me what to believe, I won't tell you what to believe, and we'll be happy.

And they think that's great until you slap them in the face.

What you do that for?

I don't know, because I believe I'm supposed to slap people in the face.

Well, that's not right.

Because inside them they have a moral belief of what is right and what is wrong, and what is of value and what is not of value.

And within each and every one of us, there is a moral code.

Now they want to push and tweak that sometimes about what's moral and what's immoral.

But there are general principles of murder and values of love that they agree upon and define similarly.

The moral argument reasons that there is a moral being that infused all of us and all of creation with these moral laws, and is good cause for me believe to believe that there truly is a God.

But for me, the greatest exper the greatest argument of all is that of experience.

And if you still have your Bibles, turn over to John chapter nine.

There's a story.

Rather, the account.

You know the word story implies that it's fiction, right?

It's not a story, because this is an historical event.

You understand that, correct?

So this tells us about a time in Jesus' life where he encountered a man who was blind.

He'd been born blind, and they began to have this debate about why he was born blind.

Because was it a sin that he committed or sin that his parents committed?

And there was this argument.

And Jesus says, it's neither of those, but that glory of that God would be glorified in this.

And so Jesus brings the blind man to himself, and then he looks down on the ground and he takes some mud and then again.

Just imagine these scenes.

You know, a cot coming down from the ceiling.

Now here's a blind man, and all hears this.

He's like, what is going on?

Because he has no idea he's blind, right?

And Jesus spits in his hand, takes some mud, and he begins to make the mud with the dirt, and he spreads it on the blind man's eyes.

Then he says, Go wash in the pool.

Take a dip in the pool and wash it away, and what happened?

The blind man now could see.

And then the Pharisees show up and they begin to argue and say, What happened here?

Who did this?

Tell me who it was, and the blind man said, I don't know who it was.

It's Jesus.

Well, who is this Jesus?

And they had this argument about who Jesus was.

And sort of they're going on with the arguments, and they have a fit about it because Jesus healed on the Sabbath.

So the healing part, but there's also, they had these crazy rules, these Pharisees.

One of the rules was on the Sabbath day, you are allowed to spit on a rock.

But if you spit in the dirt, you have sin because that dirt is making mud, which is used for mortar to lay on bricks, and that's work.

That is a sin.

So if you're going to spin on Sunday or Saturday, spit on the rock.

And they had this stupid argument, right?

And again, they're pressing in.

They call the parents, was this your son who was born blind?

He said, This is my son who was born blind.

And they're saying, Who healed him?

They said, Don't ask us, ask him.

He's the one that was healed.

And they get to this place where finally they come to the man, they say, Who was it?

And he says, This in verse 25, let's just read it.

Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know.

One thing I do know is I was blind, but now I see.

Because I can share the cosmological argument, and I can share the teleological argument, I can share the moral argument, and people will say, Well, that's ridiculous.

But what they can't do is say, you know what?

When I was 18 years old at the University of Nebraska, I was far from God.

I had no meaning and I had no purpose in my life.

I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing.

And I was living for the world, and I was living, all my majors were big money majors.

And the reason they were is because I thought money would bring me the satisfaction that I was looking for.

But in the process of all that work and all that effort, I could not find satisfaction.

So I continued to look for it in the pleasures of the world.

Until one day, my college roommate's girlfriend says to me, I thought you said you were a Christian.

Well, I'm a Christian.

She says, No, you're not.

You certainly don't act like one.

And then the Holy Spirit got a hold of my life that weekend as I was driving in my car.

And the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin and my need for a savior.

And in that moment in my car, I said, God, here is the steering wheel of my life.

And I gave my life over to Him.

And I said, No longer am I the one in control.

Because here's the thing: what we wrestle with when we wrestle with why God is who is the supreme being in your life, you or Him.

And I gave the steering wheel of my life over to Jesus that day.

And they can argue all they want about cosmology and teleology, but they cannot argue that Jesus made a difference in my life.

The Bible says in James that draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

They cannot deny the experience of which you speak.

I was blind, but now I see.

The realization is that as we think about this, because the teleological, the cosmological, all these arguments, they point to God, or gods, or small g God, or the God of Islam.

They don't point us to Christianity, they point us to a supreme being.

In fact, in James it says, even the demons believe in what?

They tremble.

It's not enough just to know that there is a God.

Because if there is just a God to whom we are accountable, that is indeed a fearful thing.

The Bible says we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And to know that, and uh in Romans 6, it says the wages, what we've earned, what we've deserved, like a job, you get a wage for what you've done.

The wages of sin is what?

Death.

If there truly is a God to whom we are accountable, the standards of which we cannot meet, we are in dire circumstances.

But last week you celebrated the fact that Jesus overcame the power of sin and death.

Jesus, the Son of God, fully God, fully man, was sent to this earth to pay the penalty for your sins.

The last thing Jesus said when he hung there on the cross was to telestai, Greek word for it is finished, which literally is an accounting term that says the debt is paid in full.

The debt that you owed to the God, the supreme being of all the universe, the one who created the heavens and the earth, the one whom the mountains and the stars and the heavens declare the glory of God, that God to whom you are accountable, you cannot live up to the expectation.

This God is a holy God that will allow no sin to go unpunished.

He is a just God.

But he's a loving God who sent his son Jesus into this world.

It's not enough just to have the knowledge of God.

And the truth is this is the Holy Spirit has convicted every one of us of our sin and our need for a Savior.

And what we want to do in that moment when we've been convicted is say, there is no God.

Because we want to keep on living like we've lived with ourselves on the throne of our lives.

If there truly is a God who is a holy God and a just God, then we have to deal with that God.

And the only way to deal with that God and to satisfy his justice is the wage of death.

And Jesus paid that wage on our account when he died on the cross, and the debt was paid in full when he rose again.

That we may stand in the presence of God for all who trust in him will be saved.

But apart from him, you are separated from God and deserving of God's wrath.

If there truly is a God, you need to deal with that.

We need to deal with that.

And the only way to deal with that is by faith in Jesus Christ.

Many of you here today, I'm sure, have made that decision.

If you're here today and you have not trusted in Christ, you know right now that the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart.

I'm convicted of this in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

Nobody comes to the Son unless the Father draws him.

So right now, God and his Spirit are drawing you, and you've encountered Him.

You will make a choice whether you deny that encounter or not.

God makes Himself known.

He is not a God who is far off, but a God who is near, and He makes Himself known.

Don't tune him out.

Listen to Him and the power of His conviction and the drawing power of the Father to draw you to Himself.

All these arguments are great to show that there's reason behind our faith.

But they're not sufficient for faith.

That's up to you.

Will you pray with me?

Lord, I thank you that our faith is not an unreasonable faith.

When I look out on the morning sky or the evening sky and see the intricacies of your creation, I'm convinced that you exist.

There is no other explanation of that chance can describe to explain how these things came to be, except that there's a design that is created by an intelligent designer.

And I believe, Lord, that with your design, there are absolutes and values and standards by which we are called to live, but with of which we all fall short.

And because we fall short, this sin in our lives is deserving of death.

But you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, to pay the penalty for our sins, to purchase for us a place in heaven, that you offer to all who believe.

If there's someone here today that is far from you, that has never trusted you, that has denied you, but today can for certain say that they've heard your voice and the calling of their name by you to faith.

I pray, Lord, that they would make that decision and say, I trust Jesus Christ today.

I invite him to be the Lord and ruler of my life.

I step aside of trying to run it my own way, and I give him the authority of all, the creator of all, the right to be the God in my life that he is.

I pray for those who may be making that decision today that they would talk to the person who brought them, or talk to the person beside them, or talk to a pastor here on staff, or talk to myself, or or an elder.

And I just pray that they would make known the decision today to follow Christ.

For the rest of us, Lord, who have trusted Christ, we thank you for the reminder that you are the God who is in control and that our faith is not unfounded, but it is upon a sure foundation that you are a God who is real.

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.