Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Why it Makes Sense to Believe in God" by Hiram Kemp

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"Why it Makes Sense to Believe in God" by Hiram Kemp · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Americans who were described as having no religious affiliation whatsoever.
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Today, that number has climbed in between the ranges of 28 to 30 percent.
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Religious nuns, not Catholic nuns, religious nuns are people that claim no religious affiliation whatsoever.
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Along with that number climbing has also been a climb in percentage in numbers of people who claim to be atheist or agnostic.
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And while the new atheism movement that was popular and prominent in the early 2000s is fading to a large degree,
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there still is a good segment of our population who is claiming that they just don't believe in God at all.
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As Christians, we're people that are theistic in mind, meaning we believe that there is a higher power, divine being
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responsible for all that we see, believe, and experience. Genesis 1 and verse 1 says,
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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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We don't just believe in a higher power in a vague sense.
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Specifically, we believe in God who's manifested himself in and through the person of Jesus Christ,
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John 20, 30 through 31, and that everybody that believes on God through him can enjoy everlasting life.
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And it's our desire
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to sit across from all of our friends, family, and loved ones, and every image bearer in the world and get these truths across them
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about who God is, based on what scripture says, and how they can respond favorably and enjoy the benefits of Jesus's death, burial, and
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resurrection on their behalf.
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But here's what I want you to think about.
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What about people you know and love that are starting a few steps behind that one?
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I mean, what about people that you know and love that you can't sit down and get to Jesus with?
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You can't talk to them about the Bible. They don't even believe that God exists.
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The Bible says we ought to be equipped as the people of God with some tools in our arsenal.
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1 Peter 3 15 says, Sanctify the Lord God in your heart and be ready always to give an answer to
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everyone that believes, for the reason of the hope that's in you, and do it with gentleness and respect.
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We ought to know enough.
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We don't have to know everything,
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but there ought to be some tools in every Christian's toolbox to say, if a person doesn't believe in God,
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here's where we can start. Peter says, We have not followed cunningly devised fables, 2 Peter 1 16, Acts 1 and verse 3.
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Luke said to Theophilus, These are infallible proofs.
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These truths are
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rock-solid and true, and you can hang your hat on them, and we ought to be able to communicate those things to people
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we know and love and strangers alike.
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So tonight, I want to talk about why it makes sense to believe in God. The purpose of this lesson is twofold. In the first
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place, I want to talk about these things to equip us as Christians.
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Here's some evidences that we need so that we can sit down with people who don't believe the Bible and say, How about this?
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We'll just meet you on your terms.
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Everything we're going to talk about tonight is found in Scripture. All of the principles are in the Bible.
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But if I was talking to an unbeliever, this is what I would say. I'd say, Let's just meet on your terms.
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We don't even have to open the Bible for these truths.
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All of the truths that we're going to talk about tonight are embedded in Scripture, and we're going to quote some verses, and they can
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be discovered by studying the Bible.
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But all of these are also apparent and observable by everybody in the world, whether or not a person believes in God.
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So that's number one. Give us some tools. But here's the second reason for this lesson tonight.
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It's to help us be more observant of God's world and
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to see that God's world is shouting out loud to us if we're paying attention of His existence, of His presence here, and
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signpost that point us to Him. Psalm 77 in verse 19 says, God is present even though His footprints are unseen.
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And so tonight, here are the reasons of why it makes sense to believe in God. Number one,
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it makes sense to believe in God because of design.
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Our world is designed intricately, and that suggests somebody designed it. In Romans chapter 1 in verse 19,
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Paul says the invisible attributes of His creation are clearly seen, Romans 1 19 and 20, so that unbelievers are without excuse.
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Paul says that God embedded some things in creation, and if you look at creation,
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you can see what God's done, and that people that reject that and refuse to believe it,
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they're without excuse. According to Paul, belief in God is evident
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if you just look at the world and how it's designed.
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The invisible things of His attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and His
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divine nature. Paul says God has created the world in such a way that if you pay attention,
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you can see it. Truly, Psalm 14 in verse 1 is true. The fool is set in his heart. There is no God.
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Scientists talk about what they refer to as the Goldilocks method or the Goldilocks principle
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concerning creation in the world in which we live, and it's just rightness.
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That is, the conditions for our world and our universe
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seem to be just right for human civilization for us to be able to live here.
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Things seem to be set in just the right place, not too mild and also not too drastic, so that humans can inhabit our
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home, the place we know as Earth.
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Just think about some of these things concerning design as it relates to creation. The Earth is 93 million miles
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away from the Sun. If we were an eighth of an inch closer,
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we wouldn't be able to live here because we would burn to death.
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The moon is some 240,000 miles away from the Earth. If we were a tenth of an inch closer,
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we wouldn't be able to live on Earth because we'd freeze to death.
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It's as if somebody designed the world and put us exactly in the right spot that he wanted us to be in.
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The world is covered with 75% of the Earth is covered with water.
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If that weren't the case, the entire world would be in temperature sort of like a desert area.
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It'd be too cold at times and too hot at times for us to live here. If it was another liquid outside of water,
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we wouldn't have the hospitable home that we have so that people could live.
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It's as if somebody fashioned the world and gave us everything we needed
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so that we could live in the place that we know is Earth.
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Psalm 19 beginning in verse 1, David says,
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The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech. Night to night shows knowledge.
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There's no speech or language where their voice isn't heard. That is, nature preaches a sermon. If somebody doesn't believe in God,
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they don't need a verse. They need a breath of fresh air. David says,
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Just go out and look and behold and his existence is evident.
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Victor Glover has been in the news recently. Maybe you've seen the things that have been said about him.
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He's a NASA astronaut who was a part of the Artemis 2 lunar pass by mission. Nine days
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he and three others spent farther away from Earth than anybody in the history of the world. What makes Glover unique?
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He's a Christian. He's a member of the church.
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Not only that, he's an outspoken Christian member of the church and as they're on this mission,
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he's opening up his Bible and reading. It's been streamed live as he's saying
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he's had a unique perspective and been able to look at the world from a unique vantage point as an astronaut and he says,
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As I see those things and read my Bible, it all comes together and makes sense.
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The God that's described in Genesis 1 and verse 1, Glover says, When I see the world in the way that it's fashioned,
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it screams at me that somebody fashioned it and somebody designed it. Isaiah 48 and verse 15,
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God says, I created the world and I didn't leave it empty,
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but I created it so that it might be inhabited. And Glover says, From my standpoint after I looked at all the evidence
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and surveyed everything, it shouts out to me that the world is designed because the world was fashioned by a designer.
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But it's not just the world, it's the human body. In Psalm 139, 13, and 14,
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David describes the human body. He boasts that it is fearfully and wonderfully made and that's certainly true.
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You know, you have 9,000 taste buds.
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The human body has 37 trillion cells and 3 billion of them die and are replaced every minute.
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The human heart beats at about 72 beats per minute and every year your heart pumps around some
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600,000 pounds of blood over and over again. God's saying to us through the world and through the way that he's created us,
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I fashioned you, I've made you, I've designed you.
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If you went out into the parking lot and somebody raised the hood of a Honda, Toyota, Ferrari,
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and you said, How was this done? This looks intricately designed. And they said, Oh, no, absolutely not.
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There was a tornado that swept through a junkyard and it just so happened to place all of these things
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in the right place at the right time. And if you put the key in and give it some gas, it'll go.
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You wouldn't believe them. You say it looks designed.
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It feels designed because it is. And it makes sense to believe in God because our world's designed. Here's number two.
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Makes sense to believe in God because of math.
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We take numbers for granted all the time. You don't think about this.
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We take numbers for granted all the time.
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But the question is, where did they come from? And why does everybody everywhere agree about numbers and the way they work?
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Here's the only time you're going to get to talk during the sermon. I'm going to ask you a simple question.
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I think you know the answer. What's two plus two?
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That's correct. You all get a sticker. But here's the question.
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Why is it four? And why is it four everywhere all the time?
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And when did two plus two start being four? You can think about that question for a long time.
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But the answer is simply it just is two plus two is just four.
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And we accept it. We accept mathematical truths as simply being observable universally as being fixed.
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And reliable. But we never stop to think about how much of our world is based on numbers and how much of it we just simply accept.
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On the first page of the Bible, in Genesis chapter one, God not only names the days of creation,
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but he assigns numbers to each and every one of them. And wherever you go throughout the world, math and numbers, they're accepted.
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Our entire world runs on metrics and numerical measurements.
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There's times, there's schedules, there's clocks, and all of these things like temperatures.
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And then we have to ask ourselves, where did it come from?
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And why is everybody on the same page about numbers everywhere you go?
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Maybe it's because somebody wired the world that way.
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In Job 38 and verse four, God asked Job this question, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
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Of course, Job was nowhere. But then in verse five, God probes deeper.
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And in verse five, he says, and where were you when I laid its foundations?
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God's point to Job is if you're all knowing and you understand everything about reality,
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you would know something about this question.
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But the reality is Job doesn't, and neither do you, neither do I. And yet we accept it.
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The world runs smoothly because you can depend on it.
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Buildings stand by numerical structure and measurements, and everybody appreciates it.
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But nobody says, where did these numbers come from? God has given them to us.
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And math itself, the very numerical system, testifies to the God who ultimately gave it.
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You think about this. You can see two cars. You can see two chairs.
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You can see two houses, but you can't see the number two. It's just something you have to accept.
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You accept it as a number, but you don't ever say to yourself, and where did this number come from?
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It's just inherent in who we are and what we believe and what we accept.
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And it's one of those proofs that says maybe God fashioned the world the way that he did.
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Math says something to us about the way that the world is fashioned.
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You can see objects, but you can't see an inch. You can't see a mile.
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You can't see those measurements.
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You believe in these realities simply because you do.
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Not only that, but numbers themselves are endless because you can always add another number.
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And so the way humans get around this is we describe numerical numbers once they reach that value as infinity.
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You can't see infinity, but you know it exists because all you have to do is keep placing numbers.
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The truth is everybody in the world, their whole existence already runs on a non-material,
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eternal system that they can't see and yet they believe.
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And with that in mind, the leap to faith in God really isn't that far.
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If your life is already controlled and sustained by the realities that you can't see numerically that ever go on and everybody accepts,
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then surely you can bring your mind to conceive of a conscious mind that created all of those things to begin with.
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Here's number three. It makes sense to believe in God because of consciousness.
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The truth is you're not just here, but you're here in a specific way.
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The Bible doesn't just tell us that we're here. It tells us how we're here.
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Genesis chapter one says that God created human beings in his image.
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Look at Genesis 1, 26 through 27. Moses writes these words.
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So God said, let us make man in our image and in our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
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over the birds of the heavens, over all of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
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So God made man in his own image and the image of God made him male and female, created he them.
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God didn't just make you like he made everything else.
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Humans have a level and a depth of consciousness that allows us to think, to reason, to question, to probe.
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You spend time thinking about realities you can't see like truth and justice and mercy and those unseen realities govern your life.
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What is that? It's human consciousness to a depth and a level that nothing else that God created.
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Actually enjoys. You are not going to go home from this service tonight and find your cat or your dog sitting up eating kibbles and bits with their hand on their chin saying, hmm, I wonder what's the meaning of life.
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That's not going to happen. They're created just like you and just like me.
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But the level of consciousness that humans have, animals don't have it.
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We are the crown of his creation.
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Psalm 17 and verse eight says that we're the apple of his eye.
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We're God's representation throughout the world.
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Genesis five and verse two.
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And as a result of that, we enjoy a level and a depth of consciousness that the world doesn't.
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It's why humans can think and reason.
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Isaiah one in verse 18, God says, come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.
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You know why you can reason?
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You know why most human beings are logical, thoughtful people?
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Because we were created in fashion by a logical and a thoughtful God.
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You're able to think and have self-reflection.
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David is able to say in Psalm eight and verse four,
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what is man that you're mindful of him or the son of man that you visit him?
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You can examine yourself.
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Second Corinthians 13 and verse five.
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Paul says, let every man examine himself to see whether or not he's in the faith.
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You can even look back and reflect on your past behavior,
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things you liked that you did and things that you didn't enjoy.
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First Timothy 1, 13 through 15.
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Where does that come from?
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It comes from a God who created us and blessed us and has given us a depth of consciousness
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to be able to do those things.
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Think about humanity for a second and think about our innate desire to create,
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to innovate and to produce throughout the world.
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There's something in humanity.
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We've got labs that we do research in, construction sites.
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There's something in the human psyche that says, we want to further the world.
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We want to develop things.
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We want to make things better.
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Why is that the case?
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Why is it the case that you get in your car and go to the zoo and see monkeys,
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but monkeys don't travel to come and see you?
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I'll give you a hint.
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It's called God-given dominion.
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Genesis 1, 28 says, God has given us dominion over the world.
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And what we're doing in all of our innovation and all of our ways to work out this human
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consciousness through art, through literature, through technology,
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through problem-solving, all of it points back to our creator who's given us this dominion,
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who's shown us what it means to be a creator and are mimicking his behavior because we
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want to be like him.
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It makes sense to believe in God because humans enjoy a degree of consciousness
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which says we were created for something higher.
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Human beings can reason and think and create and solve because God's wired us this way
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on purpose.
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Here's number four.
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It makes sense to believe in God as a result of morality and outrage.
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Sometimes people study the Old Testament and they say, what happened to the Gentiles
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in the Old Testament that didn't have the law of Moses?
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Paul answers that question in Romans 2, 14 and 15.
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He says they didn't have the law of Moses, that was only for the Jews.
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But in Romans 2, 14 and 15, he says there was a law given to every human being and it's
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the law of morality.
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In Romans 2, 14 and 15, Paul says there's a law in your conscience and that conscience
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either approves what you do, excusing, or it accuses you.
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It tells you, hey, you're doing the right thing, keep doing it, or you're doing the
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wrong thing, stop doing it.
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But this universal morality that all the world enjoys is a reason to believe in God
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because the question is begging, where did we get that from?
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Everybody in the world has this.
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There are just some behaviors in every society that man has traveled to where
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they're murder, rape, lying, stealing.
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These behaviors are just universally wrong everywhere you go.
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There's this universal morality as if there's a universal moral lawgiver who's
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taught everybody.
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He's sort of downloading it on us.
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It's a part of who we are.
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It's just a part of the human kid.
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If you come into this world, you acknowledge and you accept that these
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behaviors are right and other behaviors are wrong.
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And Paul says, that's because that's the way that God made you.
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We've been wired to sort of think this way.
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It's sort of like breathing or blinking or swallowing.
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Nobody has to teach you these things.
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It's just an intrinsic part of what it means to be human.
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There's universal morality.
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What does Jesus mean in Matthew 7 and verse 12 when he says,
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all things that you would that people do to you, do also to them?
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He just assumes you want good things done to you.
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And guess what?
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You do.
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It doesn't matter which side of the issues you fall on, politically,
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socially, as far as the government.
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But here's what I can assure you.
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When you go home tonight, if you turn on the TV and turn on your
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news station of choice, pull out your phone, your tablet,
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your computer, and look on the news app that you like,
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here's what you know for sure.
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There are people on both sides of the aisle that are saying,
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these things aren't right and we want things in the world fixed.
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Children, as soon as they're able to sort of formulate sentences,
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it won't be long before they start saying something along these lines.
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That's not fair.
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It's not fair.
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There's this universal oughtness or should or should not about us that simply
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said, whether you believe in God or not, there's a universal principle that says,
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some things are right, some things are wrong.
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And morality says it makes sense to believe in God, not just morality though,
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but also outrage.
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When people are wrong, you just do something to a group of people in any society.
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And you know what they'll do?
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They'll march, they'll go to court, they'll cry out, and rightfully so,
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because what they're saying is, this is a miscarriage of justice.
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Things haven't been done right, and it's a reason to believe in God.
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There's that old statement in literature which says, if God doesn't exist,
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all things are permitted, and it's true.
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If there is no God, people can literally do whatever they want.
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Everybody can.
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And all we can say, the best we can say is we don't like it, we don't approve of it,
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but we couldn't say anything is objectively right or wrong, but
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we do this all the time.
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Every society, every culture has universal laws on the books that says,
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these kinds of behavior aren't right, and we're going to punish people that do that.
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But the question is, where did we get that from?
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I think we know.
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And we're the only species that God's created that can actually think these
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things through and think on these moral matters.
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The universal moral law suggests it makes sense to believe in God.
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Now, Christians, let me caution us as it relates to universal morality and
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the moral argument that we sometimes use to convince our friends and
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neighbors that there's a God who created the world and God exists.
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The law of morality, the principle of morality doesn't mean that people are good.
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It doesn't mean that people even do good.
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Sometimes you present this argument and an unbeliever says,
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have you been watching the news?
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Do you notice all the atrocities in the world?
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The moral argument for God's existence doesn't prove that people are moral and
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do good.
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It just simply proves that people care about it,
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that we know it should be a certain way, and why do we care if there really is no God?
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Micah 6 and verse 8, God told that prophet in the eighth century,
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he's shown you, old man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you.
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Do justice, practice mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
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If God doesn't exist, why are people so concerned with morality?
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Why is there universal outrage when things are done wrong?
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It's because we know better.
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Internally, we know things should be done and
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things shouldn't be done, and we want to see things done properly.
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After World War II, the Allied Nations got together and
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came up with what they called the Nuremberg Tribunal.
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The whole purpose of this was to try 24 Nazi rulers for
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what had happened to the Jews in the Holocaust.
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Hitler wasn't in this number and couldn't be tried because he died by suicide
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as things began to progress or really to decline for his regime.
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But these 24 others were tried before this tribunal, these justices.
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And the defense from the Germans was simply this,
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you guys can't do anything wrong, just we didn't do anything wrong.
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The prosecution said, do you look at what you did to millions of Jews?
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I mean, there were gas chambers and innocent people were murdered.
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And the Germans responded, but wait a minute.
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At the time that we did those things,
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the only thing we were doing was following German law.
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Check the books, there's no law in Germany against what we did.
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We were simply carrying out the authorities and
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the commands of those that were over us.
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Even this tribunal you guys have come up with,
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it wasn't fashioned until after the crimes of the Holocaust had been committed.
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And the justice that was leading the way for the prosecution,
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his name was Robert Jackson.
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He stood up and said, you know, you guys are right.
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There was no law in Germany against these things.
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There was no international law against these things.
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There didn't have to be.
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You violated a higher law, a higher moral law.
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And you know what law he was applying to?
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He was appealing to the moral law that's in everybody's conscience.
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And the court on that day decided in his favor.
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Whether those people believed in God or not, they had to because they know.
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Nobody has to open up a book and say, don't treat people this way.
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Nobody has to point this out to you.
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It's already written on your heart.
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You already know it.
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Isaiah 5 and verse 20 says,
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woe to those who call good evil and evil good,
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who put light for darkness, darkness for light, sweet for bitter,
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bitter for sweet.
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It made sense to believe in God because of morality and outrage.
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And until the world ends, people will be clamoring for what they believe is right.
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And arguing and pressing against things that they think are wrong.
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And the question is begging.
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Why?
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If there is no God, why do people even care?
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You can't help but care because you're fashioned and
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made by God who's wired you that way.
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Here's number five.
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It makes sense to believe in God because of beauty.
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Even Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolution and
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the writer of the book Origin of the Species said in one quote.
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He says, there are some people started to say that the world has some intrinsic
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beauty.
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And if the world has beauty for no other purpose than to delight the eyes of those
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that live on this earth or for variety or to please a creator.
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He says, if that's true, it's a death blow to my theory.
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Darwin says, if the world just has beauty for beauty's sake,
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he knows it flies in the face of naturalistic evolution.
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The world, if it was created or fashioned by evolution,
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has no need to have beauty just because.
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But you've looked around and you've seen and you know there's beauty.
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And the question is, why?
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Sometimes we say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that's true.
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But everybody that beholds acknowledges beauty.
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You and I may not agree on everything that's beautiful, but
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here's something we can't agree on.
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Everybody in the world acknowledges certain things as beautiful.
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And it's because we serve a God who's wired us to do that very thing.
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In recent days, people have said, whether I'm out running or at the store,
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they've said it to you too.
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We're enjoying some what kind of weather?
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Beautiful weather.
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Where did we get that from?
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Why do we acknowledge that?
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It's because God's wired us that way.
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Paul says in Acts 14 and verse 17, God didn't leave himself without a testimony.
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He did good.
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He gave us rain from heaven, fruitful seasons,
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filling our hearts with food and with gladness.
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1 Timothy 6, 17, God has given us all things richly to enjoy.
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James 1, 17 says, every good and perfect gift comes down from above,
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from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation or
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shadow due to change.
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You know you can see it.
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And if you can't see it, you can hear it.
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And if you can't hear it, you can taste it.
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And if you can't taste it, you can touch it.
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And even if you can't touch it, you can feel it.
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The world is filled with beauty because God in his infinite wisdom
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decided to sprinkle it throughout the world as a signpost to draw humanity
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back to himself.
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And so the Bible says things like, God has blessed you to be able to enjoy things
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that are pleasurable to the eye, Ecclesiastes 11 and verse 7.
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You can smell things that are delightful to your senses,
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Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse 13.
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There are things that are delightful to your taste, Proverbs 24 and verse 13.
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Some people are gifted with singing ability and the ability to play instruments
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of music, Ezekiel 33 and verse 32, and even joyful sounds to your ears,
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Psalm 89 and verse 15.
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Why so much beauty?
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And why can everybody, atheist, agnostic, and believer acknowledge it?
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Because it comes from a beautiful God who's pointing us back to himself.
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Here's number six.
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There's hope.
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It makes sense to believe in God because the world is filled with hope.
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Paul says in Romans 8, 24, Christians are saved by hope.
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But listen, Christians aren't the only one that hope.
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Everybody in the world has this desire for things to get better,
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and it's only humanity.
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Listen, your animals don't sit around and think, oh, I hope the gas prices go down,
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or we find a cure for cancer, or the wars cease.
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Animals don't do that.
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But you know who does?
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Humans.
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What kind of humans?
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All humans.
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There's this desire and a longing for hope for things to be fixed in the world
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that are broken, and it's a signpost.
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N.T. Wright calls it an echo of the voice.
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Of what voice?
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Of our creator's voice.
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It goes back to Genesis 1 and 2.
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Everybody in the world doesn't believe Genesis 1 and 2 in the creation account.
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But everybody in the world, whether they would put it in these words or not,
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everybody in the world believes in Genesis 3 and what happened.
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Whether they think that's how it came into the world or not,
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everybody in the world believes in sin and death and the corruption that has crept
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into this world.
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And every thinking person longs for the day when that's vanished or at least
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greatly minimized.
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Paul says, for by one man, sin entered the world, and death by sin,
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and death spread to all people because all of sin, Romans 5 and verse 12.
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And in humanity, there's this desire, this hope.
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Maybe after this regime, maybe after this election, maybe after this season,
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this cycle, life will get better.
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Why do you have that?
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Because hope is redemptive.
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It says to us our suffering and our hardship is for a reason,
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and it can be rescued.
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Hope is the anchor for the soul, Hebrews 6 and verse 19.
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Christians' hope is laid up in heaven, Colossians 1 and verse 5.
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You have the hope of everlasting life that God promised who can't lie,
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Titus 1 and verse 2.
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It makes sense to believe in God because God's the only one that can make sense
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of hope.
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If there is no purpose to life, then there would be no reason for people
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to hope, and yet you can't help it.
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You just do.
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Through the years, I've talked to skeptics and I've said to them,
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listen, you don't believe in God.
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For the sake of this argument, that's fine.
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But let's just say it were true.
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Let's just say that God did exist and there's a heaven and a hell.
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Which one would you want to go to?
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You know, they always say heaven.
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They don't just say heaven because they want to avoid hell.
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Obviously, that's a part of it.
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But you know what?
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Everybody always says, if it were true, which one would you want to go to if you
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could choose heaven?
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They always say heaven for the same reasons you do.
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Because if you live here long enough, there's enough heartache,
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enough murder, enough death, enough betrayal in this broken world that if
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somewhere, somehow, you could have another go at it and there could be another
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do-over, there's not a rational thinking person in the world who wouldn't take
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that up.
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And Peter says, that's exactly what you're getting.
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Nevertheless, according to his promise, we wait for a new heaven and a new earth
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in which righteousness dwells.
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There will be a do-over.
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And humans hold out hope toward that end.
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Our hope isn't just an abstract thought, it's in a person.
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Christ Jesus himself is our hope, 1 Timothy 1 and verse 1.
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Here's number seven.
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It makes sense to believe in God because of love.
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In every season of every life, the top song on the charts always deal
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with love.
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Humans can't get around it.
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We love because he first loved, 1 John 4, 16.
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1 John 4, 7, and 8, John says, God is love.
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And this is how we've learned what it means to love.
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It makes sense to believe in God because humans possess the ability to love other
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individuals, to love other things, to experience this emotion at all.
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John's specific.
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John doesn't say love is God.
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He says, God is love.
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But because of that, we can't live without it.
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Love is stronger than death, Song of Solomon chapter 8 and verse 6.
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
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endures all things, 1 Corinthians 13, 7.
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Love never fails, 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 8.
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And people have tried it.
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People have tried to come up with naturalistic explanations for love.
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You don't need God for love.
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People just love just because.
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And there's a sense in which just grant them that, okay?
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Maybe that's true.
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If love sprung from naturalistic evolution and explanations,
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you could explain some love, like your family, your friends,
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and your tribe, but naturalistic evolution wouldn't explain why people love complete
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strangers and are willing to, even on occasion, in heroic acts,
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sacrifice and give their life for them, Romans 5, 6 through 8.
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Naturalistic explanations of love would not explain why people just choose
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to willingly forgive other people that wronged them, who they don't have
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to forgive, who they don't owe anything.
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But love can.
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Biblical agape love can, Ephesians 4 and verse 32.
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Why people sacrifice and serve for people who are never in a thousand lifetimes going
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to be able to pay them back, Luke 10, 25 through 37.
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What's the motivation behind that?
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It's love, yes, but why do we do it?
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Because he did it first.
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John 3 and verse 16 says, for this is how God loved the world.
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He gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him might not perish,
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but instead enjoy everlasting life.
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God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
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through him might be saved.
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Everybody in the world is owed love, and it's a currency that everybody can use
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to pay, and you owe it to everybody you meet, Romans 13 and verse 8.
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It makes sense to believe in God because the world, in all of its darkness,
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is still filled with love.
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Here's the last one tonight, number eight.
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It makes sense to believe in God because of story and narrative.
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Human beings are people that tell stories.
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You can't get around it.
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If you hurt yourself tonight and you go to the doctor, he's not going to use these
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words, but you know what's going to happen.
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They're going to sit you down and they're going to say,
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tell me what happened.
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In a sense, they're going to say, tell me your story.
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If a crime is committed against you and you go to the authorities,
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they're going to get you behind closed doors, they're going to talk some things
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through with you, and then they're going to, tell me what happened.
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You know what they're going to say?
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Tell me a story.
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And the same thing is true if you try to get a job and the employer wants to know
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your background or your history.
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If you want to make a friend, if you want to fall in love,
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you can't get away from it.
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Human beings are hardwired for narrative and you just can't help but tell stories.
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We're fashioned for story, we're made for story, and there's a reason.
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Acts 17, 26 through 28, Paul says, God made of one man the blood of all nations
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that we should seek the Lord and feel after him and find him,
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though he be not far from any one of us.
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In him, we live and move and have our very being.
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We're also his offspring.
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We're hardwired for story because it's the way we're fashioned.
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It's a memory trace pointing back to the grand story of all things.
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It makes sense to believe in God because humans just naturally and intuitively
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think in this way of story, and logic, and good, and evil, and villains,
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and heroes, and we can't stop thinking that way.
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J.R. Tolkien was set to give his paper on fairy stories in 1938 at St.
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Andrew's University.
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He never made it, but the paper's published online.
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It's pretty lengthy, but you could go and read it.
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Tolkien summarized it this way.
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He said, the human heart needs five things, every human heart,
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whether we believe it or not.
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We want to get it from movies and books, but he says, you want five things.
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You want to see good triumph over evil.
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He says, you want to escape time.
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You want to escape death.
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He says, you want a love from which you'll never part, and you want fellowship
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with non-human beings.
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Every fantasy novel, every story, Marvel, Disney, they all drive
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at those five realities.
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And Tolkien says, we go to the movies and we watch the shows,
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we throw out the popcorn and we say, oh, that was a waste,
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that's just a movie.
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He says, we read the books and we close them and we walk off and say,
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that's just a story.
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But Tolkien says, there's a reason why your heart can't escape those realities
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because they're not just movies, they're not just stories.
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It's true.
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If you're a Christian, you will eventually escape time.
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Paul says, we will always be with the Lord, 1 Thessalonians 4.17.
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You will cheat death.
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Jesus says, if you believe in me, though a man dies, yet will he live,
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John 11, 25 through 26.
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You'll see the ultimate good triumph over evil because the devil,
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the false prophet, and all liars will be cast into the lake of fire,
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Revelation 20, 11 through 15.
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You'll have fellowship with non-human beings.
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You'll see God face-to-face, Revelation 2, 22 and verse 4.
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And in the end, you will finally have a love from which you can never part.
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Paul says, I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels,
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principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height nor depth,
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anything and all of creation can separate us from that love.
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Tolkien was saying, it's not just something we're drawn to by osmosis.
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It's not intuitive.
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You're drawn to it because you were made for it.
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It's not just we read stories, but we're actually in one, not ours, but his.
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The Bible makes five primary moves in story fashion.
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And when I say story, I don't mean fiction.
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The Bible is a story, but notice none of its books begin with once upon a time.
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They're rooted in rigorous truth and history.
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Moses starts with, in the beginning, God created.
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And the New Testament picks up on this.
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In the beginning was the Word.
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The Word was with God and the Word was God.
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It's a story, but far from fictional.
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And the five movements are creation, Genesis 1 and 2.
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The fall of humanity, Genesis 3.
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Redemption in Jesus Christ, John 3 and verse 16.
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Restoration of all things, Romans 8, 18 through 25.
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And ultimate glorification, Colossians 3 and verse 4.
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You're wired for story.
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It makes sense to believe in God because humans, we just can't stop telling
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stories because we're ultimately wrapped up in His.
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And until we see Him, until we experience Him face-to-face,
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we'll be looking for Him in the right hours.
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Everything we talked about tonight is rooted in Scripture, but you don't need a
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Bible for any of it.
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I want you to go out this week and appreciate and see how much people
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around us take for granted.
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We talk about the beauty of the world and never think about where it's come from.
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We see beautiful sunsets and mountains and fields, and we say to ourselves,
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that looks like a work of art, but just wait until you meet the artists.
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We talk about numbers as if we've come up with the concepts ourselves.
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We hope and desire for things to get better, not realizing who embedded our
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hearts with that hope to begin with.
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There's this longing and this desire for all of the things of story.
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And so we hide out in movies and in books, hoping that somebody will write
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our happily ever after.
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And the Bible is saying to us, it's already been written.
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It makes sense to believe in God.
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But as Christians, we don't want people to simply come to a knowledge and a belief
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of some higher power.
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Our belief in God is specific.
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It's text-driven by what the Bible says concerning the person of Jesus Christ,
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His death, His burial, and His resurrection.
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And once you get a person to accept these realities, that belief in God makes the
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most sense of what we can see in our world, then you point them to the person
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of Jesus, and then you point them to the text of Scripture, and ultimately,
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you point them to the baptistry to surrender their entire life to Jesus,
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and so they can spend the rest of their days telling his story to everybody
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that'll listen.
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Dale selected a song to encourage us tonight.
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If you need to respond to heaven's invitation, if we can help you in any way,
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let us know how we can do it as together we stand and as we sing.