Answering The Big Questions

Reasons to Believe: 2. Answering the Big Questions

Romans 1:18-25 (NLT)
But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress
the truth by their wickedness.
They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through
everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine
nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks.
And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds
became dark and confused.

Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.
And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look
like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a
result, they did vile and degrading things with each other's bodies.

They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things
God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.

Reasons to Believe: 2. Answering the Big Questions

Recently, I saw an interesting newspaper editorial posted online that expressed a point of
view that I think reflects the thinking of many people in our world today.
The writer expressed confusion over the many different religions in the world, and asked
this question:

When there are so many different religions, how can we really know which one is
true? Those people who firmly believe in their particular religion are indeed fortunate. They
require no proof, and no tangible visible evidence that their religion is truly representative of
the the one true God".
So let me ask you, Is that really the case?
Are we expected to believe in God, believe in Jesus, believe in the Bible, without any kind of persuasive evidence supporting those beliefs?

That’s really the question we are asking in this series entitled “Reasons to Believe”.
And my contention is that, No, in fact we don't have to just blindly step into faith without
thinking it through and investigating our beliefs carefully. I believe strongly that there are very
credible reasons why we can believe the Christian message, without abandoning our ability to
think and ask some intelligent questions.

And the question that I want to discuss this morning is this: As we look at the world
and the universe around us, “Does Christianity give us a Reasonable explanation for the kind
of world we find ourselves living in?”
Does a Christian worldview fit with what we see around us?

This present age that we live in today has been called "the age of information" and
rightly so. By the year 1900, approx 35,000 different books had been published in total since
the invention of the printing press 400 years earlier. Today, there are at least 600,000
different volumes published every year just here in NA, and that doesn’t even take into
account the vast storehouse of information (and misinformation, I might add) available today
on the Internet.
And so with this information explosion, our understanding and knowledge about the
universe we live in has grown immensely as well. The amount of scientific knowledge that has
been developed, the advances in medicine, electronics and communication even in the last
20 years are simply mind-boggling. And yet as our knowledge increases, as the amount of
information available to us multiplies, many people today find they still struggle with
discovering answers to some of the basic, fundamental questions about the real significance
of our existence, in this vast universe that we find ourselves living in.

The fact is that as long as mankind has been around, we have been endlessly speculating about the nature of the world we live in, and our relationship to it.
These fundamental questions about the meaning of life are built into our spiritual DNA. What
are those questions? There are many, but I think they can be boiled down to 3 basic ones.
The first question has to do with our past:

1. How did we get here? Where did we come from?
Up until the 19th century, the very fact that human life existed at all was seen as a
convincing argument that there must be an intelligent power behind mankind’s creation and
continued existence. It's only been in the last 150 years, that the Western world has begun to
speculate that the universe and ultimately mankind could have come into existence apart from
divine creation. But if you ask that question today: “Where did we come from?”, many people
today would contend that given billions of years of time, plus chance, plus an evolutionary
process based on natural selection, the human race has in fact come into existence without
the need for an Intelligent creator.
But let’s think about that for a minute. Does that explanation really hold water, given the
kind of universe we live in?
Does that make sense?
Let’s take this Phone for example. When you think about it, this thing is really quite an
amazing device. I can use it to take photos and videos, I can get directions with it, I can read
the Bible with it, I can play music with it, I can send messages to anyone in the whole world. I
can even use it to make phone calls! But as you look at all of the complexity and design
obviously inherent in this phone, any thinking person would naturally conclude that there must
have been someone who originally designed it, engineered it and built it.
But what if I told you “Well No! No one actually built this phone. It just gradually evolved into
it’s present state”

Would you buy that? No, I don’t think so!
And so the whole hypothesis that we are here as a result of a complex sequence of
random events, presents some glaring problems, even from a scientific point of view. For one
thing, science has yet to demonstrate how life could be generated spontaneously from
inanimate matter. Even if you buy into the evolutionary process, at some point that first living
cell had to be formed from non-living materials. But the odds of that happening by accident
are astronomical. It would be comparable to a chimpanzee sitting down at a typewriter,
randomly hitting keys and ending up with Hamlet's soliloquy.
All the scientific study of the last century has pointed to one irrefutable conclusion: Only life
can produce life. Even if you wait for a billion years, a living organism simply won't come
about by chance, much less so a complex human being.

If that is true, then the very existence of life on earth points to an intelligent living
power behind it. And in fact this is exactly what the Christian faith affirms: Romans 1:20
“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through
everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine
nature.“
Right from the very beginning, the Bible affirms that you and I are here because we were
intentionally created by an eternal, all-powerful God who exists outside of this physical
universe.
And it seems to me that to argue that we are just here by random chance requires a far
greater leap of faith, than to believe that there is a God who created the whole universe
But then as we look at our present situation, a 2nd question follows from the 1st: If a loving, all-powerful God put us here,

Why then, does the world He created seem to now be in such a mess?
If God is responsible for the world as we find it, why is there so much Evil, so much suffering in this present world? For many people this question becomes a major stumbling block to
faith in a loving, all-powerful God.
How could such a God cause thousands of people to perish in an earthquake in Turkey, or
allow millions of Jews to be annihilated during the Holocaust?
Either he must not care – which means he is not a God of love. Or he is unable to prevent it,
which means he must not be All- powerful.
First off, we need to acknowledge that there is no easy answer to this question. There have
certainly been many attempts to explain the problem of evil, by both Christians and
nonChristians alike. It’s a very tough question.
Now, for the person who doesn't believe in God, the question is, in a sense, irrelevant. If we
are only here by chance, then it is meaningless to speak in terms of good and evil. By what
criteria do we even determine what is good or what is evil?
CS Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, argued that the very fact that man has an
instinctive grasp of concepts like right and wrong or good and evil, is an indication that there
must be a God who planted those distinctions within us to begin with.
Historically, there are different ways of looking at this question.
Some religions see God as having both good and evil elements co-existing together. Others
have good gods and evil gods pitted against each other- with the outcome still in doubt.
Still others deal with evil by denying it's reality – they say that evil is only an illusion.

So what is the Christian understanding of evil?
I think there are 3 important points we need to make here:
a) God is Good The Bible affirms that God himself is not evil, or even a mixture of good and
evil. God is entirely pure, holy and good. He can not even allow evil to come into his
presence. And initially the World he created was also good. But God allowed the presence of an evil force to intrude into his creation. Why he did so, I’m not sure we completely
understand.
But it seems that rather than making men and women into preprogrammed machines, God
wanted to give us the freedom to choose between following him, or that evil force.
And the Bible tells us that we rejected God, we chose evil over good, and that has had a
far-reaching and devestating impact on our relationship with God, with one another, and with
the world we live in. Paul explains here in Romans, how mankind’s whole way of thinking
has become warped and distorted because we have turned away from God:

“Although they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him
thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds
became dark and confused… They traded the truth about God for a lie”
And we have lived with the terrible consequences ever since: War, famine, sickness, natural
disaster, death- all these things are a direct result of man's fall from God- as we now live in a
broken and imperfect world

b) God is Patient God could eliminate all the evil in the world at any time he wishes,
and in fact that is exactly what He will do at some point in the future. But don't forget that you
and I are part of the problem. If God was going to eliminate evil from the world completely, he
would have to destroy us all.

The fact that he doesn't is actually a reflection of his mercy and his patience, not his
lack of concern. 2 Peter 3:9
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is
patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”

c) But in the meantime, God has already taken steps to deal decisively with the
problem of evil. The Bible affirms that Jesus Christ, being both God and Man, came to bridge
the gap between a perfect, holy God and an imperfect race of humans stained by evil. He came to free us from our bondage to evil, and to ensure that one day all evil and suffering will
be eliminated from the world

That leads us to a 3 rd question regarding our Future:
3. Is there anything more? Is there anything beyond the 70 or 80 years or so of life on this
planet? Or is this all there is? All through history we have been asking this question.
The modern, materialistic viewpoint tells us that after you die there is nothing more. Your
heart stops beating, your brain goes to sleep, your body decays in the ground, and that's the
end. You are no more. It's all over.
As Shakespeare's Macbeth said despairingly: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing"
That is the conclusion that many of the modern existential philosophers have come to.
For them, life is a cry of despair and hopelessness.
But even today, in spite of our scientific, naturalistic mindset here in NA, people continue to
long for something more. Today there is a continued fascination with things like reincarnation,
commmunication with the spirit world, near-death experiences.
Something within us tells us there must be something more!

And the Bible gives us a very clear and unequivocal answer to this final question, Is
there anything more? It tells us that God has "planted eternity in the human heart" (Eccl 3:11).
We are not just meant to live for a few years and then disappear, we are meant to live
forever.

Jesus said "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me, will
live, even after dying" (John 11:25) Just as the lowly caterpillar's destiny is to eventually
become a beautiful butterfly, man's ultimate destiny from the Christian perspective is to be
transformed into the sons and daughters of God.
We were created to live forever!

And so as we look around us at the world we live in, as we look at ourselves, and we ask
some of these fundamental questions, What really makes the most sense here? Does it seem
logical, or convincing to you that you are only here by accident, to live for a few years and
then to pass into oblivion?
Or is there something that tells you, there must be something more! For me, the only way
that life has any real meaning or significance is if God is brought into the equation, and we
acknowledge him to be at the Center of our lives.
So we have tried this morning to see how the Christian perspective does in fact make sense
when we look at the world around us, when we ask the big questions, when we look for the
meaning and purpose of life.
But even that in itself is still not enough reason to believe the Christian message. I believe
there is even more convincing evidence: What if the God who created the universe, also
chose to reveal himself to the people he has created.
So in 2 weeks time, we want to ask the question,
“Is the Bible a reliable source of truth?”