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Some Things Are Just Essential – Christ

August 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment

essentials

 

 

 

 

 

Some Things Are Just Essential
Sycamore Creek Church
July 31 & August 2
Tom Arthur

 

 

Peace friends!

When you pack to go on a trip, what are the essentials?  When you buy a new car, what are the essentials?  When you go to the grocery store, what are the essentials you need to bring home?  Some things are just essential whatever you happen to be doing.  The same thing is true when it comes to our faith.  Some beliefs are just essential.  Over the next five weeks we’re going to be looking at five essentials of belief.

This five-week series is what we like to call a belief-series.  We do several kinds of series around here at Sycamore Creek.  We do Buzz series.  These are series designed to create a buzz for Big Day outreach events.  Then we do HABITS series about spiritual practices.  Once a year we do a vision series looking at the mission and vision of Sycamore Creek.  Twice a year we do a Bible series.  One series on an Old Testament book and one series on a New Testament book.  Then we’ve got the holiday series of Lent/Easter and Christmas.  And once a year we do a belief series looking at doctrine, theology, and beliefs.

Why do a belief series once a year?  Why do beliefs matter?  Beliefs matter because they have much to do with how you live.  If you believe in an angry God, then you’ll live like God is out to get you.  If you believe in an uninvolved and disinterested God, then you’ll live like God doesn’t care what you do.  But if you believe in a loving God, then you’ll live like you’re on God’s mission in this world.

A good sermon speaks to your heart (emotions), hands and feet (action), tummy (humor), and head (intellect).  Unless you think your brain, your mind, or your intellect is entirely unimportant, then our beliefs matter.  So once a year we seek to speak to the head, your mind and intellect.  That’s what we’ll be focusing on primarily over the next five weeks.  We hope to hit the heart, hands and tummy along the way too!

Sola?
Back in 2013 a big conference came to Lansing.  It’s probably not one that registered on many of your radars, but it was called Sola 13.  It was hosted by the more reformed & “conservative” churches in the area.  Some big name theologians and church leaders were in the area.  It was too good to pass up.  A couple of us went, but as I sat through some of it (I wasn’t able to attend all of it), I kept thinking, I agree with much of what is being taught, but I’d say it in a slightly different way or put a slightly different emphasis on it.  This series is an opportunity to chart a more moderate (or middle way) course for the essentials of belief.

The word “sola” is Latin for “alone” or “solely.”  There were five “solas” that were being discussed at this conference:

  1. (Sola) Christ Alone
  2. (Sola) Faith Alone
  3. (Sola) Grace Alone
  4. (Sola) Scripture Alone
  5. (Sola) God’s Glory Alone

These five solas come from the 16th Protestant Reformation.  The Protestant Reformation was a “protest” movement against the Roman Catholic Church.  It was a theological and political, even nationalistic, struggle.  The debates often ended in life or death decisions.  These solas really mattered to the founding fathers of the Protestant Reformation.

Most of you have probably heard of Martin Luther.  He was the German monk who first broke from the Roman Catholic Church to found the Lutherans.  In 1517 he nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door.  Luther was protesting most famously the Pope and the selling of indulgences (financial payments made to the church to raise money for remodeling St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and get your relatives out of purgatory).

But Luther wasn’t the only Protestant reformer.  Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin founded reformation movements that resulted in the Reformed and Presbyterian churches in Switzerland (Zurich and Geneva).  There was also the Radical Reformation which resulted in the Baptists, Mennonites, and other churches all across Europe.  They were non-conformists (now you know why it’s so hard to talk to some Baptists…it’s in the DNA of their founding!) and non-state sponsored churches.

Then there was the Church of England or Anglican Church and its off-shoots—the Episcopalian Church in America and the Methodist churches (and later the Pentecostal churches).  The Church of England officially broke from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 when King Henry VIII wanted a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, because she wasn’t giving him a son, an heir to the throne.  The Pope wouldn’t grant a divorce so King Henry VIII simply broke from the church and began his own.  He became the head of the Church of England which eventually charted a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism.  Methodists are the descendants of that “middle way.”  So let’s get back to the Solas…

Sola Polemics (Protestant vs. Catholic)
Each of the five Solas was an argument between the Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church.  The five Solas and their arguments were:

  1. Christ Alone – You don’t need priests (and their role presiding over sacraments) as mediators.
  2. Grace Alone – You don’t deserve and aren’t entitled to anything, especially salvation.
  3. Faith Alone – You didn’t earn your salvation by good works.
  4. Scripture Alone – The Bible is enough without regard to the church’s tradition.
  5. Glory Alone – You don’t worship saints, the church, or anything except God.

These five Solas were life or death matters for most of the Protestant Reformers so they put them in strong “argumentative” language.  These arguments from the sixteenth century are still alive today.  Protestants are still protesting the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.  In this series I want to chart a middle way.

Middle Way: Sola or Solus
Because the Church of England attempted a middle way between the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Church and the Methodist movement is a descendent of the Church of England (John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement was a priest in the Church of England during the 1700s), I’d like to suggest that these five Solas are best understood as five essentials or five primary beliefs.  They aren’t “Sola” or “only’s” but they are “Solus” or “Primaries”:

  1. Primacy of Christ
  2. Primacy of Grace
  3. Primacy of Faith
  4. Primacy of Scripture
  5. Primacy of Glory

Today I want to look at the Primacy of Christ or the Essential beliefs we hold in Jesus Christ.  I’d like to turn to the book of the Bible that tells the story of the beginning of the Church.  Peter has healed a man in the name of Jesus and has been brought before the religious court of his day to explain why he’s healing in the name of Jesus, who that same religious court had crucified only days before.

Acts 4:8-12 NLT
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people, are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead. For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says,

‘The stone that you builders rejected
has now become the cornerstone.’ (Psalm 118:22)

There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

Jesus Alone is Essential and Primary
Let’s begin with a description of “Solus Christ” or the “Primacy of Christ.”

By virtue of who Jesus is (fully God and fully human) and what Jesus did (life, death, and resurrection), Jesus is the only all-sufficient (Anselm: Cur Deus Homo) atonement for sin (theosis/healing, christus victor/freedom, substitution/forgiveness).  Therefore, salvation (the entire work of God’s grace: prevenient, convicting, justifying, sanctifying, and glorifying) is available only through Jesus Christ.

That’s a lot to chew on but that definition answers five questions:

  1. Who is Jesus?
  2. What did Jesus do?
  3. How does Jesus fix the problem?
  4. What are the results of Jesus’ solution?
  5. How do we receive this solution?

Let’s look at each of these five questions and their answers in turn.

  1. Who is Jesus?

Christians believe that Jesus is eternally fully God and fully human.  Over time there was disagreement about this belief in Jesus.  The Gnostics taught Docetism, that Jesus only seemed to be human (Jesus was NOT eternally fully God and fully HUMAN).  Theodotius taught a belief that became known as adoptionism: Jesus was a mere man adopted as God’s Son (Jesus was NOT eternally fully GOD and fully human).  Apollinaris taught that Jesus had a human body and divine mind (Jesus was NOT eternally FULLY God and FULLY human).  Arius taught that Jesus was a created being (Jesus was NOT ETERNALLY fully God and fully human).  And Nestorius taught that Jesus has one “new” nature (Jesus was NOT eternally fully God AND fully human).  Jesus is essential and primary because he was eternally fully God and fully human.

  1. What did Jesus do?

There was a problem that Jesus fixed.  The problem was sin, or straying from the path.  We are all guilty of straying from the path (we do it unintentionally and intentionally).  We are also broken from straying from the path (we were made to live on the path, not in the rough).  Lastly, we are in bondage off the path (Off the path we’re in enemy occupied territory and held hostage).  Jesus atoned for these problems.  Atonement means being made “at-one-ment” or in harmony with God.  Because of sin, we were out of harmony with God but Jesus fixed that.  He fixed it with his life (his teaching, his exemplary model of perfectly living that teaching, and the community he called together to learn and live his teaching).  Jesus fixed it by his death.  Jesus was innocent of any crime and yet he willingly gave himself up for execution for each one of us.  Jesus fixed the problem of sin with his resurrection.  He was raised by the power of God and defeated and destroyed death.  His resurrection proves that he was eternally fully God and fully human.  Jesus’ resurrection is the first-fruit pointing to each of our resurrections when we are in Christ.

  1. How does Jesus fix the problem?

Why was Jesus essential or primary to fix the problem?  Or why Christ alone? Why not another human?  Why not an angel?  Why not nothing (i.e. God just saves without atonement)?  Anselm of Canterbury wrestled with this question in the 11th century and came up with this answer: Only God could fix the problem and only humanity needed it to be fixed, so a God-human was necessary and fitting or appropriate to fix the problem.  Only God could deliver us from sin and only humanity needed to be delivered from sin.  Only God could forgive sin and only humanity had to be forgiven of sin.  Only God could absorb the disease of sin and only humanity had the disease of sin.  Thus, a God-human was the solution.  Jesus alone was the essential and primary solution to fixing the problem.

  1. What are the results of Jesus’ solution?

The results of Jesus’ solution is our salvation.  Salvation is the entire work of God’s grace in our lives.  God’s grace works “preveniently” before we even recognize it.  God first loved us and we then respond to that love.  God’s grace works to convict us of our disease, bondage, and guilt.   God’s grace works to justify us or make us right with God.  God’s grace works to sanctify us or mature us, complete us, and make us whole.  God’s grace purifies us and perfects us in love.  God’s grace glorifies us in the perfection and glory of heaven.  Jesus alone is essential to unlocking God’s saving grace in our lives.

  1. How do we receive this atonement?

So how do we receive this solution, this atonement for our sin?  We receive it through Christ’s work alone.  There are three basic ways Christians have described who receives the benefits of God’s grace through Christ.  One idea is called “exclusivism” (sometimes “particularism”).  Exclusivists believe that only through conscious assent of the need for Christ and the reception of Christ as Lord and Savior is one saved.  Exclusivists are very pessimistic about non-Christians receiving salvation.

On the other end of the spectrum is pluralism or universalism.  Pluralists believe that all are saved.  There are many paths up the mountain.  Jesus is not the only way to salvation.  He is not even necessarily the primary or essential way.  He is just one way.  Pluralists are extremely optimistic about the salvation of everyone.

Then there is the middle way called “Inclusivism.”  I am an inclusivist.  I believe that through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection God is at work in every person bringing every knee to bow and tongue to confess that Jesus Christ alone is Lord whether they are cognizant of it or not.  Inclusivists are optimistic about God’s grace at work in non-Christians.  Inclusivists believe that Jesus is the way that all will eventually come to know God, some just don’t realize yet that it’s Jesus.  Jesus is essential.

So What?
Why do all these beliefs matter?  As I said at the beginning, what you believe has much to do with how you live.  Do you believe that Jesus is essential?  Have you received the gift of Jesus alone?   When you understand that your situation is broken, that you are stuck in your sin, and that God left the comforts of heaven, that Jesus emptied himself of his right to heaven, and took on the weaknesses of flesh so that the weaknesses of flesh could take on the strength of his divinity, then you live differently.  You ask for forgiveness for the ways you are complicit in your own sin.  The only fitting response to God’s love becoming human in Jesus Christ is to love God back through Jesus Christ and to worship God through Jesus Christ.  When you realize how much Jesus gave up so that you might be saved, you give your life back to Jesus as a “living sacrifice” to follow Jesus and spread the good news of Jesus to the entire world.  You don’t live under the impression that God is an angry God out to get you, or a disinterested God not concerned with the problems of your life, but you live in God’s love joining the mission of God to the entire world.  Jesus isn’t just one of many things important to your life.  Jesus is primary.  Jesus is essential.  Jesus alone.

Prayer
God, forgive me for the ways I have sinned. Forgive me for the ways I have strayed from the path.  Forgive me for the unintentional and intentional ways I have broken my relationship with you and those around me.  Through Jesus Christ, forgive me, heal me, free me.  Perfect your love in me.  And let me share your mercy, your grace, and your love with all those around me.  Make Jesus and his mission essential to my life.  In Jesus’ name alone, amen!

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I Believe In God but I Don’t Know God *

March 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment

The Christian Atheist – I believe in God but I don’t know him.*
Sycamore Creek Church
Easter: March 24-28, 2016
Tom Arthur

Christ is Risen! Thank you God!

Have you ever said one thing but believed another thing? One day when I was driving Sam, my two-year-old home we had the following conversation:

Sam: I WANT MY BINKY!
Me: You don’t need your binky.
Sam: I NEED MY BINKY!
Me: I’m sorry.
Sam: You’re not sorry, daddy.

Boom! Sam called me out. He was totally right. I was saying I was sorry, but I wasn’t really sorry. #sorrynotsorry.

The same basic thing happens with God. Seven in 10 people say they believe in God. Six in 10 believe Jesus rose from the dead. And yet when we look at how people live today, they’re not living a life that reflects the teachings of Jesus. They’re not living or acting like God exists. They are a “Christian Atheist.”   A Christian Atheist is someone who believes in God, maybe even believes in the resurrection of Jesus, but lives as if God doesn’t exist. This is NOT a shot at atheists. Atheists say they don’t believe in God. They’re entirely consistent when they live as though God didn’t exist. This is a challenge to those who think or call themselves Christian but their life doesn’t line up with their beliefs. It’s like what Paul, the first missionary of the church, said in a letter he wrote to one of his friends, Titus:

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions.
~Paul (Titus 1:16 NRSV)

Here’s where we’re going with this series:

Week 1: Those who believe in God but do not know God.
Week 2: Those who believe in God but do not fear God.
Week 3: Those who believe in God but do not want to go overboard.
Week 4: Those who believe in God but do not trust God fully.

There was a time when I believed in Sarah but did not know her. I first met Sarah, my now wife of nineteen years, after she came back from Kenya where she had spent the semester studying. Toward the end of the semester she had extensions braided into her hair. I didn’t know enough about female hair products to know they were extensions. I just saw this wild looking twenty-one-year-old and was caught. Here’s a confession. This is the thought that went through my head in that moment. I’m not proud of it, but here it is. I thought to myself: “I bet she’s a good girl to date, but probably not marry.” YIKES! There’s so much wrong with that. But I was obviously wrong. This May I’ll be nineteen years wrong. I didn’t really know her then. But after nineteen years I can order off a menu for her. I can pick books out she’ll want to read, which is saying a lot given that my wife is the author of eleven books. I can, get this…it’s a super power I have…I can buy clothes she’ll like better than she can buy clothes she’ll like. She actually prefers clothing shopping with me than by herself! I know her quirks too. Like the fact that she can’t stand mud. Muddy boys. Muddy shoes. Muddy clothes. YUK! I’m pretty sure I’m on mud duty for the rest of our parenting lives with our two boys. And yet, after nineteen years of marriage I’m still getting to know Sarah better.

Who is the person that you know best? What do you know about him/her?

Here’s the amazing news for today: God, the creator of the universe, the one who raised Jesus from the dead, wants us to know him. God created us relationally. God wants you to know God. So what I want to do today is look at three different levels of knowing God.

Level One: Believe in God, but don’t know God.
Do you know that even the demons believe in God? When you read through the Bible you find over and over again that they recognize exactly who Jesus is and they say it out loud. Obviously, it’s not a personal loving relationship with God that the demons have. But you can believe in God without really knowing God.

You might call this kind of Christian a Cultural Christian. The Cultural Christian says, “My dad was a catholic, and my mom was a Baptist so we go to church on Christmas and Easter. I’m not a Muslim…or a Hindu…or a Buddhist…so I’d say I’m a Christian. I kinda believe in God…sorta…mostly.”

John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, wrote this:

Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments.  Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; “I believe” but no fruit, transformation, remorse over sin…
~1 John 2:3-4 NRSV

Our good works don’t win God’s love. Our good works are a response from knowing God. I do loving things for Sarah and my family because I know them and love them. We can know a lot about the Bible, but miss heaven by 18 inches. Jesus is really direct about this. It’s not a fear tactic. It’s just a truth-telling:

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
~Jesus (Matthew 7:21 NRSV)

Didn’t we go to church?
I took that class when I was 12. I think it was called a constipation class.I gave some money to the local food bank.
I said some prayers.

But Jesus wonders whether you really knew him if you did all these religious things alone. Sure they’re good and helpful. They’re maybe even essential. But sometimes we can substitute them for a real relationship and not really end up knowing God. The first level of knowing God is believing in God but not knowing God.

Level Two: I believe in God and know God, but don’t know God well.
Do you I remember who Leigh Nash is? She’s the lead singer of Six Pence None the Richer. They are a one-, maybe two-hit wonder. Their big songs were “Kiss Me” and a cover of The La’s “There She Goes.” I actually know Leigh Nash. I met her when her band came to Wheaton College where I attended. This was before I met Sarah. Even though she wasn’t yet well known, I was star struck. I was studying photography at the time and I was there at her concert taking pictures. After the concert she asked if she could have copies of the pictures I took. This started up a conversation and I mentioned that I was taking guitar lessons. She handed me a guitar and showed me the cords to “Kiss Me” and she sang it to me right there as I chunked my way through the song. My hands were so sweaty I could barely hold the guitar. But Leigh Nash sang “Kiss Me” to ME! TO ME! I know Leigh Nash!

Well, actually none of that happened. Except in my mind. What really happened was that I was there taking pictures, but I was too nervous to talk to her, but her bass player gave me some cash to send him some pictures I had taken. So you might be able to say, I know Leigh Nash, but I don’t know her well.

Many of us know God, but not well. You had an experience that one time with God. You called on God. You were maybe even adopted into God’s family but…you haven’t grown with God since then. You have been informed about Jesus but not yet transformed by Jesus. Faith is like a dimmer switch. It’s not black and white like it’s on or off. Faith and knowledge of God can be dim or bright. Too many of us have the dimmer switch of our faith on the lowest setting and we’re content to leave it there. We’re missing out on the bright light of knowing God well. You may very well be in the family of God, and your sins are forgiven, but you don’t know God well.

Paul said it this way when he wrote a letter to the church at Galatia:

Before you Gentiles [non-Jews] knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?
~Paul (Galatians 4:8-9 NLT)

What Paul sees happening at the church in Galatia is that followers of Jesus are following old paths. They have been tempted to turn back to lifestyles that are incompatible with following Jesus. Many of us made a commitment to follow Jesus at some point, but we’ve reverted back to following old paths from our days before following Jesus. It’s almost like we dated, got engaged and married, but never went out on a date again. You’re married but you’re acting like you acted when you were single. You know God, but you don’t know God well.

Level Three: I believe in God and know God intimately and serve God wholeheartedly.
Those of you who are at this third level of knowing God may not say you’re there, but you know it. You are led by the Spirit of God. You walk by faith, not by sight. You are gently convicted of sin and turn from it. You see God’s hand all through the day. You are directed by God to care for those around you. You sense God interrupting you to say something to someone. You know God’s comfort. When you are weak, God makes you strong. God’s Word is hidden in your heart. Worship is a natural overflow from your daily life. You do what you do because it’s who you are. At the end of the day, you measure the day by how you served and glorified God. You are not perfect or better, you’ve just been walking with God for a long time and you know God well. David, the ancient king of Israel who was known in part for his poems about God, wrote this psalm as a man who loves, longs for and needs God. Listen to the intimate language of a man who knows God well:

O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
~Psalm 63:1-4 NLT

David didn’t necessarily have it all together. In fact, if you read about his life in the Bible you’ll see that he was pretty messed up at times. And when you’re pretty messed up as the king, you can mess up a lot of other people’s lives too. But amidst the mess, David knew God intimately and longed to serve him wholeheartedly. This is so much different than, “Yeah, I guess I believe in God and all that resurrection stuff.”

How well do you know God?
If you’re wondering how well you know God, what you call God gives you a clue to how well you know God. David says it this way:

Those who know your name trust in you.
~Psalm 9:10 NLT

What you call me shows how well you know me. If I pick up the phone and someone on the other line says, “Hello, Church Sycamore…”, I know this is someone who not only doesn’t know me, but doesn’t even know our church. If you call me “Reverend Arthur” you know I’m “clergy” but you really don’t know much about what kind of clergy I am. (Jeremy, our worship leader likes to get under my skin and call me “Reverend Arthur” from time to time, and I say back to him, “Layman Kratky.”) If you call me “Pastor Tom” you know a little more about me. You probably know I’m the pastor of Sycamore Creek. You likely know that I’m married to Sarah and that I have two kids. You’ve probably heard me tell stories about myself when I teach messages each week. If you call me “Tom” you know me better. If you call me “Tam” then you’ve probably been friends with me for 26 years or longer and we’ve probably sat in the back of a police car together or been in a car chase after egging an ex-girlfriend’s house. (FYI…Don’t try to call me Tam now…). If you call me “Daddy” you know me on a very different level. You know what it’s like to snuggle and tickle and get ready for bed times and pray together each night. There are only two people who call me “Daddy.” And there is only one person allowed to call me “Snug,” and she knows me better than anyone else knows me (and occasionally a private email addressed to “snug” gets “reply all’d” to too many people). What name you know me by tells a lot about how well you know me. The same is true for God’s name.

What name do you call God? Do you call God “The Big Guy Up in the Sky”? Or maybe “The Man Upstairs.” Or perhaps you call Jesus “6lb 8oz Baby Jesus.” These names you call God say something about how well you know God. Or do you call God Father, Savior, Friend, the one who is there for you as no one else is? Or do you call God Healer, Provider, or Comforter? Maybe you call God Lord or King. The more you get to know God, the more you get to know all the deeper characteristics of God. This is what I’d call “finding your hallelujah.” When you “find your hallelujah”, as Andy Grammar sings, you realize that “hallelujah” isn’t just a word you say when you’re happy. You realize that “hallelu” is Hebrew for “praise” and “jah” is short for God’s most holy name, “Yahweh.” Hallelujah literally means: “Praise Yahweh.” You’ve found your praise of God because you know God’s name. Jesus knew God so well that he called God “Abba” or “Daddy.”

Are you a Christian Atheist? Do you believe in God but don’t know God? When you get to know God better, your heart begins to break for the things that break the heart of God.   You begin to care for things you didn’t care about. You care for the poor. You pray for people you didn’t notice before. When you sin, you don’t beat yourself up. You confess it to God and make it right in as much as you are able. You hear God’s voice. Church isn’t some place you go (a building), it’s who you are (a faith community). You don’t have a job, you have a ministry (whatever your “career” is). You know God intimately and you serve God wholeheartedly.

God wants to reveal himself to you. God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah saying:

If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.
~Jeremiah 29:13 NLT

You are one prayer away from getting to know God better! God delights to show you more of God’s vey own self. God’s greatest desire is that you would know God and love God and know that God loves you. Paul puts this into a prayer:

I remember you in my prayers and ask the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you the Spirit, who will make you wise and reveal God to you, so that you will know him.
~Paul (Ephesians 1:17 GNT)

Maybe today you’re realizing you believe, but you don’t know God. Or you don’t know God well. Or you haven’t yet come to the place of knowing God intimately and serving God wholeheartedly. Maybe you’re realizing for the first time and being really honest with yourself for the first time saying, “I’m a Christian Atheist. I believe in God but I don’t know God.” Then you’re in the right place. God wants to know you better and better and wants you to know God better and better. You’re one prayer away from that:

God, the father of Jesus, give me your Spirit. Make me wise. I confess to you my brokenness, my woundedness, and my sin. I don’t just want information about Jesus. I want transformation by Jesus. Let me know you better and better. In Jesus’ name.

*This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel

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Do You Believe I Can Do This?

April 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Counselor

The Counselor – Do You Believe I Can Do This? *
Sycamore Creek Church
April 19/20, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

If you’ve read much of the Bible you’ve come across a curious fact about Jesus.  He likes to ask lots of questions.  Jesus asks hundreds of questions and in our current series, The Counselor, we’re exploring four of those questions:

  1. Why do you doubt?
  2. Why are you so afraid?
  3. Do you want to be well?
  4. Do you believe I can do this?

Today we’re looking at the last of those questions.  Jesus asks two blind guys: Do you believe I can do this?

Before we dive into this question fully I’d like to take a moment and reflect on a mission we’ve been a part of that seems just about impossible to accomplish: Imagine No Malaria.  Imagine No Malaria is a campaign to eradicate Malaria from Africa.  Yes, eradicate it!  Unlike many other diseases that are awaiting a cure, malaria was eliminated in the U.S. in the 1950s. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, malaria continues to kill a person every 60 seconds. In our generation we can beat malaria once and for all.  90% of Malaria victims are pregnant women and children under 5.  Since 2007 United Methodists have helped cut Malaria deaths nearly in half!  We participated in this mission in our Christmas Eve offering.  We gave $3000 of our Christmas Eve offering to help Imagine No Malaria.  That feels a bit like a drop in a bucket doesn’t it.  Do you believe that Jesus can take our $3000 and eradicate malaria?  Well, our $3000 has been added to all the offerings of the United Methodist Church in Michigan in the last two years to total $1,542,269!  Friends, that’s pretty amazing.  But wait, there’s more!  In 2006 the United Methodist Church across the world set a goal to raise $75,000,000.  Yes, 75 MILLION DOLLARS!  Since 2006 together we’ve raised over $60,000,000.  Yes, 60 MILLION DOLLARS!  We have effectively cut malaria deaths in half.  Our $3000 went to help accomplish a goal that seemed at one time almost impossible.  And today, Jesus asks us again: Do you believe I can do this?

What are you having a hard time believing that Jesus can do right now?  I’d like to explore this question today by diving into a story of Jesus healing a couple of blind guys.  The context of this story comes right after Jesus has raised a dead girl back to life.  Whoa!  That’s pretty impressive!  So right after this he gets lots of attention.  Here’s where we pick up the story as Matthew, one of Jesus’ closest followers tells it:

After Jesus left the girl’s home, two blind men followed along behind him, shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on us!”
~Matthew 9:27 NLT

When these guys shout “Son of David” they’re making a faith statement.  They believe he is the messiah, the anointed one who has come to save them.  This title makes the religious leaders of the day furious, but the blind guys shout it anyway.   Speaking of “shouting”, the word here for “shout” means “to cry with an animalistic cry.”  It shows up elsewhere in the Bible describing a woman screaming out in labor during childbirth (Revelation 22).  I’ve heard this kind of shout twice, and I’ve taken measures to make sure I never hear it again short of immaculate conception!  So these guys are crying, shouting, howling out because they figure that if Jesus raised a dead girl back to life, then it’s likely that he could do something much easier: give them sight.

I don’t really know what it’s like to be blind but I almost blundered into temporarily blinding myself once.  When I first began backpacking I read up about protecting yourself from bears, and I bought a big can of bear spray.  A can of bear spray is like an air-freshener size can of mace.  Yes, it’s big.  I bought it at the local backpacking store and before I went out on my first solo hike, I read the instructions about how to use it.  The instructions suggested that you carry it on your belt (it’s no good to have it buried in your backpack when a bear is charging at you!).  They also suggested that there’s plenty of spray in the can to give it a test spray so you were familiar with how far it would spray and what it would look like.  Now, bear spray works a little different than the kind of personal mace you carry around for self-protection.  Self-defense mace sprays in a direct stream.  Bear spray sprays out in a big cloud so you don’t have to be a very good shot when you’re crapping in your pants as a grizzly charges at you.  So I put the bear spray on my belt, and practiced popping the hood and pointing it forward.  Remember, I was going on my first solo trip and was all by myself at the trail head.  I tried this several times then figured I was ready to actually press the trigger.  So I pulled it out of the holster and pointed it forward all in one fluid motion and pulled the trigger.  The mace came out in a big cloud and in that moment I realized a strategic error I had just made.  I was facing into the wind.  The cloud quickly came right back at me!  I began to cough and felt my eyes beginning to sting as I did my best to take evasive maneuvers with a forty-pound backpack on my back.  Well, I didn’t lose my sight that day, but it’s not an experience I ever want to repeat.  So back to the real blind guys…

They went right into the house where he was staying, and Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can make you see?”
~Matthew 9:28a NLT

They follow Jesus right into the house, and Jesus turns on his inner counselor and asks them a question: Do you believe I can make you see?  A good counselor always asks good questions, and Jesus’ question is spot on at this moment and for us today.  Do you believe I can do this?
“Yes, Lord,” they told him, “we do.”
~Matthew 9:28b NLT

They respond with faith: Yes, Lord.  We believe you have the power to make us well.

Then he touched their eyes and said, “Because of your faith, it will happen.” 30 Then their eyes were opened, and they could see!
~Matthew 9:29-30a NLT

Jesus responds to their request because of their faith.  Not according to their income, their church attendance, or the brand of clothing they’re wearing, but their faith.  God responds to faith.  The anonymous author of the book of Hebrews in the Bible says that “it is impossible to please God without faith.” (Hebrews is usually attributed to Paul but nowhere in the book does it claim to have been written by Paul.  The most interesting theory I’ve heard about the authorship is that it was written anonymously by a woman because no one in that day and age would have read a book written by a woman.)  If we have faith we can move the heart of God.

Now before we go too far into this we need to clear up some baggage that churchy people have given to this kind of thinking.  Churchy people have taken what should be encouraging and turned it into something discouraging.  It can be discouraging because people say: You weren’t healed because you didn’t have enough faith.  Or maybe because you didn’t pray right.  You didn’t pray long enough or hard enough.  You didn’t sign off with the right formula: “In the name of Jesus” or “in the name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit” or “in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit.”  Or you didn’t shout loud enough or bind up the devil or put your finger in your ear and pat your head and turn around three times.  Whatever!?

All this confusion comes from a logical fallacy.  Just because God responds to faith, doesn’t mean that if God doesn’t respond, that you did something wrong or don’t have faith.  I respond when my kids say “please” but do I always respond when they say “please”?  No.  Of course not.  I take into account all kind of things that they’re not even thinking about.  No you can’t “please baptize your brother in the bathtub.”   Yes, God does honor faith, but if you don’t get what you ask for, don’t fall into a false sense of guilt that you necessarily did something wrong.  What I want to share with you are three types of faith that God honors.

1.      God honors the faith that believes when it doesn’t see.
We read again in Hebrews:

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
~Hebrews 11:1 NLT

Let’s be honest about this.  Faith has to do with things we can’t always see.  Is the world that you can access with your senses all that exists?  Or are there some things that can’t be accessed by your five senses?  Faith is a confidence and assurance that while you can’t see God, God is at work in your life.  Back to the two blind guys:

They went right into the house where he was staying, and Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can make you see?”
“Yes, Lord,” they told him, “we do.”
~Matthew 9:28 NLT

Before they saw the results, they believed.  Jesus hadn’t even healed them yet, but they believed.  Whatever your challenge today—whether physical, financial, or spiritual—do you believe God is able?  All things are possible with God.  And of course, the churchy answer is, “Yeah, I believe God can do it.”  But our actions and our words betray us.  We don’t act as if we have faith and often we don’t talk as if we have faith.  We say things like, “All we can do now is pray.” In other words, “I guess we’ve tried all the sensible things and the last thing is a hail Mary prayer to God.”  No, the first thing you do is pray.

Over the last seven days what were you praying about?  For most of us, it’s not much.  If you don’t pray for much, that shows that you don’t believe much.  The size of your request reveals the strength of your faith.  If you’re praying for safe travel, well, you’re probably going to get there safe anyway.  If you’re praying for the food to nourish your bodies…well…actually given what some of you eat, that may take real faith!  Instead, are you praying for your marriage to be healed?  Are you praying to be healed of an addiction?  Are you praying to overcome cancer?  Lately, I’ve been praying two things for our church:

  1. Lord, double our church in one day.
  2. Lord, double our church in one year.

Those are big prayers, aren’t they?  We came really close at Easter.  We average about 225 each weekend across our three services and two locations.  I was praying that we would reach 450 people at Easter.  This Easter we were one church, celebrating Easter on three days in three locations with five services.  1 – 3 – 5.  We had a record attendance this Easter of 413 people!  So close to doubling in one day.  I think it’s going to take 1 – 3 – 6 next year!  Then compared to last year at this time we’re up 25% year to date in attendance.  But I’m praying for us to reach so many new people that in one year we’re up 100%.  Double in one day and double in one year.  That’s my big prayer lately.  I can’t quite see how we’ll double in one year, but I’m praying and I believe that God can make it happen even though I can’t see it yet.  God honors a faith that believes when it doesn’t see.

2.      A faith that persists when nothing changes.
Let’s get back to the two blind guys:

After Jesus left the girl’s home, two blind men followed along behind him…
~Matthew 9:27 NLT

So these guys start following Jesus even though he hasn’t yet promised anything.  They just follow.  They persist even though nothing has changed.  Have you ever persisted in following someone?  I had an unusual experience one year following my congressman.  I got the idea one year to try to meet everyone who held an office that I had to vote for.  I figured it would be pretty easy to meet with my local mayor of Petoskey and ward representative, but didn’t imagine I’d get much further than my state representative.  But then my congressman from the House of Representatives came to town for a town hall meeting.  I figured that was the best I was going to get so I went.  During the Q&A time I asked him a question and after it was over, he came right up to me and talked to me.  In that conversation he invited me to spend the day with him the next time he was in town.  So a year later his office called and I spent the day with him following him around Petoskey.  That day he invited me to come spend a day with him in Washington D.C.  I happened to be going to Washington D.C. in a couple of weeks so I ended up following him around D.C. for a day.  Have you ever wondered what your congressman actually does?  I learned in those two days.  When he was in Petoskey he met with people who asked him for money for various projects.  When he was in Washington D.C. he met with committees and asked them for money for various projects!  I don’t know how much changed in our world in those two days, but I learned a lot persistently following him around.

Paul tells the Colossians to be persistent when they ask God for things:

Be persistent in prayer, and keep alert as you pray, giving thanks to God.
~Colossians 4:2 GNT

Jesus tells the parable of a widow and an unjust judge.  The widow is so persistent in seeking justice that while the judge didn’t care about justice, he gave her justice just to get her off his back.  Jesus summarizes saying that if an unrighteous judge responds to persistence, how much more a loving God?

For many of us who have been around Sycamore Creek Church for a long time, we’ve had to be persistent.  Fourteen year of setting up and tearing down in a school is a long time to persist.  I’ve only been around for five of these years, but in my second year I had a problem of persistence.  I am the second pastor of SCC.  I followed Barb Flory, the founding pastor.  Second pastors have their own unique set of challenges including a not unusual or unexpected drop of 30-50% in attendance after the founding pastor leaves.  We didn’t experience anything quite like that, but in my second year we lost about 20% of our attendance.  It wasn’t very much fun.  Toward the end of my second year I began to wonder, should I throw in the towel?  Five years into it now, I’m glad I persisted although at the time I wasn’t sure anything was really changing.  I’m glad we persisted.  God honors faith that persists even when it appears that nothing is changing.

3.      A faith that works when it doesn’t make sense

There is a difference between hope and faith. Hope is a desire.  Faith is a demonstration.  Let’s explore that further through the story of Abraham and Isaac.  God asks Abraham to sacrifice his child, Isaac.  Isaac was a miracle baby, born when Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children.  Sometimes you’ve got to wonder what God is doing asking Abraham to sacrifice his child, but you read the story and you find out that just as Abraham is about to do it, God sends an angel to him to stop.  There are at least two main points to this story.  The first point is to teach that in contrast to other ancient religions, God does not require child sacrifice.  But the second is to show trust and faith in God.

In the New Testament we see James, Jesus’ brother, reflecting on Abraham’s faith:

“You see that [Abraham’s] faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”
~James 2:22 NLTAbraham shows a lot of faith in this moment.  But there’s also someone else who shows a lot of faith, maybe even more than Abraham: Isaac.  In fact, the Jewish Rabbis don’t call this story “The Sacrifice of Isaac” they call it The Akedah or “Binding of Isaac.”  You see, we often think of Isaac as a little boy in this story.  But if you read the story carefully you’ll see that he’s probably a pretty strong young man, and Abraham is probably not the strongest old man.  So Isaac has faith to allow himself to be bound.  Both Abraham and Isaac show amazing faith in the face of something that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

The blind guys in the story we’ve been reading have a similar faith.  They are like any of us.  We have a problem, and we tend to magnify the problem.  In the midst of it all we lose sight of God.  In their culture if you were blind, people thought it was because you or your parents sinned.  But these guys ignore all that.  Nothing makes sense.  But they realize that there are some actions they can still take.  I can’t see, but I can hear.  I can’t see, but I can talk, and I can yell.  I can’t see, but I can walk, and I can follow Jesus.

Sometimes there are things you can’t do, but there are still some things you can do.  You can’t heal yourself from cancer, but you can seek God and change your diet and go to the best doctor.  You can’t erase temptation online, but you can pray for deliverance, and install a filter, and delete apps on your phone.  You can’t change your spouse, but you can continue to love your spouse as Christ loved the church.  You can’t rescue every sex slave or help every inner-city child get an education, but you can do some things…

You see, our faith is not in our faith, our faith is in the faithfulness of God.  It may not make sense, but we trust that God is in control.

Some of you may say, “You go ahead with your blind faith.”  But I say that I would rather be blind and have faith that God can heal, than have sight and have no faith at all.  So God help me have:

  1. Faith that believes even though it doesn’t see.
  2. Faith that persists even when nothing changes.
  3. Faith that works even when it doesn’t make sense.

 

*This sermon is based on a sermon that was first preached by Craig Groeschel.

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Why Do You Doubt?*

April 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Counselor

Why Do You Doubt?*
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
Easter 2015

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Or did he?  Maybe we’re just deluding ourselves.  Some people don’t wrestle with doubts.  They say: “The Bible says it.  I believe it.  That settles it.”  But some of us, myself included, are more naturally skeptical.  We think, “What if this isn’t true?  What if we’re being brainwashed?  What if we’re making ourselves feel better?  What if we’re being told a lie?”

The church is not always a friendly place for people who have doubt.  Church people can be mean to other church people.  If you have doubts, you may not be one of us.  If you have doubts, you may not be saved.  If you have doubts, you may not have faith.

But what I want you to know today is that if you don’t lean into some honest doubts, you may never have faith.  Is doubt the end of real faith?  I don’t think so.  Doubt can be the beginning of real faith!

Today I want to look at the story of Doubting Thomas.  Poor guy.  That’s how we know him.  “Doubting Thomas.”  Not “Faithful Thomas” or “Believing Thomas” but “Doubting Thomas.”  But what I want to show you today is that who Thomas becomes is evidence that even the biggest doubters can become the biggest followers of Jesus.  Let’s begin the story a little after Jesus raises from the dead.  He meets some of his followers on the road but surprisingly they don’t recognize him.  Eventually they “break bread” with Jesus and recognize him.  Then he disappears.  They get together with the other disciples and here’s what happens:

And just as they were telling about it, Jesus himself was suddenly standing there among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. But the whole group was startled and frightened, thinking they were seeing a ghost!
~Luke 24:36-37 NLT

They all saw him dead.  But now he’s alive!  I’d be freaked out too.  I’ve buried a lot of people, and if one of them showed back up, I’d pee in my pants!

“Why are you frightened?” he asked. “Why are your hearts filled with doubt?
~Luke 24:38 NLT

Jesus is probably thinking, “Didn’t I tell you this was going to happen?  Did you forget?”  And guess who wasn’t there…Doubting Thomas.

One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin/Didymus), was not with the others when Jesus came.
~John 20:24 NLT

Thomas missed church.  You miss a lot when you miss church.  He missed the presence of Jesus, the power of Jesus, the proof of Jesus, the “Peace be still” of Jesus.  If you haven’t been here since Christmas, you missed a lot.  A lot.

But [Thomas] replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”
~John 20:25 NLT

Thomas sometimes gets a bad rap here.  He’s chastised for not having faith.  But I see something much more positive at work here.  I think Thomas is saying, “I don’t want second-hand faith…I want first-hand faith.”  So many people just kind of believe because their parents/grandparents/other people believe.  One day, something happens, and it shakes us, “Do I really believe?”  If the claims of his resurrection are true, it demands a response.  Thomas says, “If it’s true, it changes everything.”  For many, the doubt is the beginning of faith.  Thomas and many of us are saying, “I need a little more…”  Jesus doesn’t blush.

Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked;
~John 20:26 NLT

That’s pretty cocky, isn’t it?  Jesus walks into a locked room. David Copperfield move there.  I don’t really get it, but it’s no crazier than being raised from the dead in the first place!

Suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”
~John 20:26-27 NLT

Jesus cares about the one who wants to believe, and talks only to Thomas.  Nobody else.  He says, “Stop doubting and believe.” Jesus didn’t put Thomas in a time out: “You sit in the corner.  You can’t be my follower.”  Jesus gives Thomas what he needs.  Today Jesus is going to give some of you what you need to believe too.

I resonate deeply with Thomas and not just because we share the same name.  I grew up in the church.  I grew up believing what my church and my parents told me.  I was very active in our church’s youth group.  I chose to go to a Christian liberal arts college.  When I got there, I began to have some pretty significant doubts.  I began to ask some pretty hard questions.  I was looking for complete certainty but I wasn’t finding any.  During that time the Smashing Pumpkins covered a Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks song called Landslide.  They lyrics of that song felt like they expressed where I was at with doubt and faith:

“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you.”

The landslide of my doubts left me without any faith.  I left Christianity for a period of time and life became very dark.  What I noticed when I went to the side of unbelief was that I didn’t gain any certainty.  I was still as uncertain as before.  The big difference was that when I believed, I had some sense of meaning and purpose and hope in life.  But when I didn’t believe, I had no hope, no ultimate meaning, no ultimate purpose.  And so in the midst of that dark place, I made an intellectual decision to believe in spite of uncertainty.  What I learned was that faith is not the absence of doubt or uncertainty but faith is the decision to believe in spite of doubt or uncertainty.  And I found that my life did begin again to have purpose, meaning, and hope.  Jesus was faithful to provide all three.  I had ended up back where Thomas ended at the end of the day:

“My Lord, and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.
~John 20:28 NLT

MY.  We’re talking about a first degree faith here.  A first hand faith.  Believing Jesus, not just belief in Jesus.  This is what is going to happen to some of you today.  You’re going to receive from Jesus whatever it is that you need to have that kind of faith in spite of uncertainties and doubt.  It happened to all of Jesus’ first followers:

Peter’s Story
Peter was one of Jesus’ closest followers.  He was in the inner circle.  But when Jesus was arrested Peter denied Jesus three times.  But after the resurrection, Peter becomes “the rock.”  He preaches to thousands and thousands put their faith in Jesus.  He is ultimately persecuted for his faith and tradition tells us that he was crucified.  But he refused to share the same crucifixion that Jesus had, so he was crucified upside down.  From runaway doubter to crucifixion upside down.  Jesus gave Peter what he needed to believe.

James’ Story
James was Jesus’ brother.  What would your brother have to do to convince you he was the son of God?!  James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem.  Tradition tells us that ultimately he was pushed off the temple, but miraculously he doesn’t die.  While lying on the ground he prays that his persecutors be forgiven.  Then James is clubbed to death.  From Jesus’ brother to martyred church leader.  Jesus gave James what he needed to believe.

Paul’s Story
Paul hated Christians.  He was one of the religious leaders of his day and he was given legal permit to hunt down and kill Christians.  They blasphemed against God claiming that Jesus was God’s son.  But on his way to Damascus one day to catch and kill some Christians he meets the resurrected Jesus who blinds him.  Eventually he regains his sight and becomes the first missionary of the church of the entire Mediterranean region.  He would eventually say, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”  The persecutor became the persecuted and he was beaten and imprisoned.  Tradition tells us that he was beheaded.  From Christian bounty hunter to Christian missionary, Jesus gave Paul what he needed to believe.

Thomas’ Story
Then there’s “Doubting Thomas.”  Thomas got what he needed.  He saw Jesus.  He traveled to India to tell those who lived there about Jesus.  His message was met with resistance and he was met in a cave and speared him through.  “Doubting Thomas” believed enough to die for Jesus.  Do you believe enough to live for him?

Sometimes my faith is talking so loud, I can’t hear what my doubt is saying.  When I bring my doubts to God, God gives me faith to believe in spite of my doubts.

Recently I’ve had the chance to hear about how Jesus has given someone else what she needed to have faith and believe.  Noelle currently works in our nursery.  She started attending SCC about a year ago.  About a month ago she emailed me to tell me that she had just had an amazing experience with God and had chosen to believe.  I asked her if she’d be willing to meet to tell me more about her life and story.  Here’s what I heard.

Noelle grew up being abused in every way possible for about seven years of her childhood.  At the time she was attending church regularly with her grandma.  While there she would pray for God to make it stop but nothing changed.  The abuse continued.  She felt like God had abandoned her so she abandoned God.  The abuse made her very skeptical of men, but she still didn’t want to be alone. Over her teen years she made many unwise choices that led to lifestyle habits that she isn’t proud of.  About a year ago she met Thomas online and began dating.  Thomas had grown up at SCC but was no longer regularly attending.

One thing led to another and within a couple of weeks they were pregnant.  The pregnancy was somewhat miraculous.  They were using three different forms of birth control!  One of those forms of birth control should have caused the child to be miscarried.

A month into dating Thomas, it was time to meet his parents for the second time and tell them they were going to be grandparents.  Noelle knew that Dotty was very active at SCC.  She expected judgment, cruelty, and shaming.  What she received instead took her by surprise.  She was shown kindness, gentleness, compassion, and love.

Dotty began to invite her to church and she came somewhat reluctantly expecting more judgment, cruelty, and shaming.  But at SCC Noelle was again surprised to find kindness, gentleness, compassion, and acceptance.  She liked a church where you could ask questions and the pastor shared his own doubts and uncertainties.  She felt safe.

Noelle began to open up to Dotty about her past abuse and decided to marry Thomas while being very pregnant.  Dotty invited her to watch several “corny” Christian movies (“same actors with basically the same plot”), but one, Courageous, really touched her.  It was about four dads who made a commitment to protect their children and raise them in faith in God.  After that movie she did something she had never done: listened to God.  While listening she heard God saying: “I am here.  You are not alone.”  Noelle began to see how God had protected her and was with her through her past.

The pain has not gone totally away, but Noelle has begun to make some changes. She finds herself being more open in her relationships.  She has begun to feel that God is calling her to help others who have suffered from abuse.  As a nursery worker, she attended an abuse prevention training program for the United Methodist Church and is actively looking to help make our children’s ministry an even safer place for children.  Noelle still has questions, uncertainties, doubts, struggles, and some pain.  But she’s also experiencing some health and healing.  She knows God is with her, and she has a renewed sense of purpose in her life, in spite of the doubts and uncertainties.

Friends, doubt is not the end of real faith, it is the beginning.  Maybe right now you’re feeling that tug of God’s presence, God’s love saying, “Come home child.  Believe.  I have never let you go.  I am here.  You are mine.  I am yours.  Rest in my arms.  Trust.  Surrender.”  If that’s where you’re at, here’s a prayer:

Prayer
God, I have honest doubts.  Thank you for meeting me in the midst of those doubts.  In spite of my doubts and uncertainties, help me to believe in and follow your Son, Jesus.  I trust you.  I give myself to you.  Help me see how you never leave me alone.  Amen.

If you prayed that prayer for the first time today, or if you prayed it anew, would you let someone know?  Drop me an email (tomarthur@sycamorecreekchurch.org) or tell a trusted friend who is also a follower of Jesus.  Then would you consider taking the series challenge.  You’re here today, but when you miss church you miss a lot.  Take the challenge to come each week of this series: The Counselor.  You’ve met Jesus when he asked “Why do you doubt?”  How will you meet Jesus when he asks you more questions?  Come and see.
*This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel

 

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Curious

September 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Church on the Move

Church on the MOVE – Curious
Sycamore Creek Church
September 9, 2012
Tom Arthur
Mark 9:17-27 

Peace, Friends!

In March, 2009 NASA held a contest to name the rover that was going to Mars.  On May 27, 2009 the winning name was announced: Curiosity.  This name was originally submitted by Clara Ma, a sixth-grader fromKansas.  In her essay suggesting the name she said, “Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder.”

On November 26, 2011 the Mars Science Laboratory launched fromCape Canaveralon an Atlas V rocket.  Eight months later on August 5, 2012 Curiosity Rover landed on Mars.  Here is what curiosity looks like:

 

 

Today we begin a new series called Church on the MOVE. Sycamore Creek Church isn’t a static church.  We’re on the move.  We’re going to Mars and back!  And this series will explore the culture of that move in three words: curious, creative, and compassionate.  These three words are the jet propulsion that moves us forward, reaching out to new people and growing.  Today we begin with the first word: curious. 

  1. Curious: Eager to know or learn something

When you look up the word “curious” in a dictionary you will find variations on two meanings.  The first meaning for “curious” is “eager to know or learn something.”  The NASA scientists were eager to know or learn something about Mars.  The initial proposals for Curiosity came in April 2004, eight years before Curiosity landed on Mars.  That’s a pretty intense eagerness to learn that sustained them over that time period.  And while there were certainly some answers over time, the journey of Curiosity was marked more by questions than answers.

When we think about faith, many of us tend to fall into a kind of rut: we think we must have it all figured out before we make a decision to launch on the journey of following Jesus.  But that’s rarely if ever how it works.  Rather the journey is launched because of curiosity about God.

When I was in college I went through a faith crisis, I wanted certainty about my faith, but what I found was uncertainty.  I let my faith go, and what I found was that when I no longer believed, I was no more certain.  What I had when I believed was uncertainty with hope and meaning.  What I had when I didn’t believe was uncertainty with hopelessness and meaninglessness.  So I made a conscious decision to believe even though I wasn’t certain.

Lately I’ve been talking to someone about coming to church.  This person thinks they have to get their life together and have everything figured out before they start the journey.  But if we wait for our curiosity to be satisfied, we’ll never go anywhere.  It’s the curiosity that propels us forward.  We’ll never get every question answered.  As one friend of mine recently posted on her Facebook status: “I had lots of questions I just couldn’t answer today so I found the answers in a cup of Death by Chocolate smothered in chocolate sauce!”

Here’s the good news: we don’t have to have it all figured out to follow Jesus.  One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament tells about a man who found himself in a similar situation.

Mark 9:17-27 NRSV
Someone from the crowd answered [Jesus], “Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak;  and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.”  He answered them, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”  And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.  Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.  It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.”  Jesus said to him, “If you are able!– All things can be done for the one who believes.”  Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”  When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!”  After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.

Here’s the main point of this sermon: Following Jesus is a mixture of belief and unbelief.

Or as the father said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).  And here’s the greatest part of this story to me: Jesus doesn’t cast him out.  He receives this man’s honesty and curiosity and he heals his son!  Thank you, God!

We get stuck thinking that to belong we must first become the right kind of person and to become that kind of person we must first believe the right things.  But today I want to tell  you that you belong first because you are curious about Jesus, and in that belonging  you become the kind of person that Jesus calls us to become, and perhaps at the end of the day after belonging and becoming you begin to believe that Jesus is really who he says he is.

SycamoreCreekChurchis a mix of all kinds of curious people.  Do you know that on any given Sunday morning we’ve got people here who are atheists, agnostics, spiritual (but not religious), religious, and on and on and on.  I lead a small group that meets every first and third Thursday at a local pub called an Agnostic Pub Group.  We read books and ask questions and explore God together.  Usually I’m the only Christian in the group.

We are often afraid of this kind of uncertainty, asking questions, and even doubting.  But recent research done by the Fuller Youth Institute suggests that:

Suppression of doubt can sabotage a young person’s faith. Contrary to what many of us might believe, students who feel the most free to express doubt and discuss their personal problems actually exhibit more internal and external faith indicators in high school and college. Doubt in and of itself isn’t toxic. It’s unexpressed doubt that becomes toxic.

Following Jesus means trusting, but not necessarily being in total agreement of belief.  When Jesus called his disciples to follow him, they didn’t have it all figured out.  The Bible tells all kinds of stories about the disciples really getting it all wrong.  They were curious enough to follow Jesus, whether they got all their questions answered or not.

Psalm 25:4 says “Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths.”  Curiosity leads us to being eager to learn and know Jesus’ ways, and the faith and trust to follow is sometimes scary.  When I was learning to ski, I had to trust the instructor that the best way to get safely down the hill with these supper slippery boards strapped to the ends of my feet was to actually lean down the mountain rather than lean back up the mountain.  Lean down the mountain?  Isn’t that just going to make me go faster?  Well, no.  Leaning down the mountain when you ski lets the edges of your skis bite into the snow and slow down.  Leaning backwards keeps them up above the snow and speeds you up.  To learn the best path down the mountain, I had to trust the instructor over my fear of leaning down the mountain.  It makes total sense to me now, but in the beginning it was a mystery.

Maybe that’s why we call communion and baptism a sacrament.  “Sacrament” is Latin for “mystery.”  The sacraments of communion and baptism aren’t dependent upon us fully understanding what’s going on.  If participation was dependent upon us fully understanding it all, then none of us could partake.  We’d all have to simply sit in our seats, me included.  The conditions we put on participating in communion are a curiosity and desire to live at peace with God and with others.  Children are welcome to the communion table because they are often the most curious!  A couple of months ago I took Micah with me to a Saturday night worship service at another church.  They were serving communion so the two of us went up and received communion.  I told Micah that this was the body and blood of Jesus as we ate the bread dipped in the cup.  After we got back to our seats, Micah looked up at me and signed “more.”  Did he get what he was asking for?  Probably not, but perhaps deep in his spirit, in his curiosity was a desire to have more of Jesus.  A sacrament is a mystery, and Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

What questions do you have about God and following Jesus?  When you are curious about God and follow Jesus you become a little (and then a lot!) curious…  What do I mean by that?

  1. Curious: Strange; unusual

“Curious” has a second meaning: strange or unusual.  When you’re curious about God and you begin following Jesus you become a little (and sometimes a lot!) strange and unusual.  Unfortunately the church inAmericahas become too normal, dull, ordinary, and conventional.  According to George Barna, a researcher on trends in the American religious landscape, “Casual Christians represent 66% of the adult population of theU.S.”  Casual Christians are marked by “moderation in all things” vs. “extreme devotion to…God regardless of the worldly consequences.”  Let me give you an example: when it comes to divorce, those who identify as “born again” have “divorce [figures] statistically identical to that of non-born again adults: 32% versus 33%, respectively.”  Christians should be different, but in many ways we’re not.  Our curiosity or eagerness to learn and know should lead us to being curious or strange and unusual.

Here’s a surprise second main point of this message: Following Jesus is a countercultural movement that makes us odd. St.Peter says, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9 KJV).  I like that old King James language: “a peculiar people.”  When we follow Jesus we should be peculiar, countercultural, curious.  We should look and live differently than the rest of our neighbors, co-workers, family, and friends.

Who are the people you most admire?  They are most likely unique, peculiar, curious…They live their lives against the grain of culture.  They are countercultural.  Let me tell you about some of the people I want to be like when I grow up.

Jo Snedden is a woman of prayer.  Her life of prayer led her to finishing her basement so that her aging mother could live with her family.  After her mother died, her grandchildren were having a rough time so she and her husband took them in and raised them.  She would tell me that while being a grandparent she didn’t have the energy of her parenting years, she had a kind of wisdom that she didn’t have as a younger mom, especially when it came to nurturing faith in her grandchildren.  When I grow up I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like Jo Snedden.

Hank Kuehl was a seventy-year-old retired shop teacher who volunteered with the youth of a church I worked at.  He would run full tilt playing capture the flag with the teenagers.  My wife was always afraid that he was going to stroke out or have a heart attack on a retreat!  Hank also was a Habitat for Humanity volunteer extraordinaire.  Some people have construction skills and some people have teaching skills, but Hank had both.  When one student, Walker, was going through confirmation, and was told he would be assigned a mentor, he asked if he could pick his mentor.  Guess who he wanted to have mentor him.  Hank!  When I am seventy I want to be the kind of peculiar, countercultural and curious kind of old geezer that fourteen-year-old boys ask for me to  be their mentor even when they weren’t told they could ask!

Dennis Myers is my mortgage broker in Petoskey who helped us buy our house (and refinance it several times) and his wife is Cindy.  Dennis has made a good living selling mortgages inNorthern Michigan.  He lives on Walloon Lake in one of the biggest and nicest houses I’ve ever been in.  There are a lot of rooms in the Myers house.  Dennis and Cindy both felt that God had given them a lot and they wanted to give back to others.  So over the course of several years they filled that house with adopted children.  They had one of their own and adopted 3 kids, one with special needs.  When I grow up I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like Dennis and Cindy Myers.

Then there’s Charlie Robinson.  Charlie had a couple of kids of his own but felt compelled to be a foster parent for teenage boys.  Charlie had a rough background himself, getting into trouble as a teenager.  As he began to open his home to foster kids, he felt led to invite more.  Soon he was running out of room, so he built a “wing” on to his house.  He got a license to turn his home into an “institution” and every Sunday morning you could find him sitting in a pew with his wife, two kids, and about five teenage boys.  When I grow up I want to be the kind of person who brings hurting teenage boys to church with me so that we take up a whole row.  I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like Charlie Robinson.

Let me tell you about Rachel and Juliet Serra.  Rachel and Juliet were teenagers in my youth group. When Rachel graduated from college, she wanted to spend a year with Mission Year, a missions organization that hosts college graduates to live in urban areas to minister to the needs of those in the neighborhood.  The only problem was that Rachel couldn’t afford to make it all happen.  So her younger sister, Juliet, decided to move in with her and work to help pay the bills.  When I “grow up” I want to be the kind of person who uses my time and money to support the missions work of my “family” members.  I want to be peculiar, curious, and countercultural like Rachel and Juliet Serra.

Lastly, when I grow up I want to be like David and Rebecca Arthur.  Even though we share a last name, we aren’t part of the same biological family.  Sarah and I met David and Rebecca because we were attending a historically black church while in seminary and David and Rebecca were the only other white people in the church.  They invited the church to their house one day, and we learned that they owned a very large house in the ghetto where they were building a Christian community that offered hospitality to women and children in transition.  David stayed home, raised the kids, and ran the house.  Rebecca worked ¾ time as a physical therapist.  They did this all on a ¾ time income!  They were able to be so generous because they lived simply.  When I grow up I want to live simply enough that I’m able to share what I have with others.  I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like David and Rebecca.

Friend, this kind of strange, odd, countercultural, peculiar and curious living is already happening here atSycamoreCreekChurch.  We’re hospitable and we welcome anyone.  Come as you are.  We seek to live lives of spiritual discipline by seeking God daily in prayer & Bible reading.  We live a curious lifestyle by seeking to live pure and holy lives.  We’re peculiar with our money.  We live simply and give generously.  We’re curiously authentic.  We give a true account of ourselves.  We seek to be countercultural with our time.  We take time to rest and enjoy by practicing Sabbath and not just being concerned with producing, producing, producing.  And most of all we are a peculiar, countercultural, and curious community of love.  We love God with everything we’ve got, and we love our neighbors as ourselves.  Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

SycamoreCreekChurchis a curious people:

  1. We’re curious to learn more about God;
  2. We’re countercultural when we follow Jesus.

So do you want to move with us?  Do you want to get into the current of the creek and go deep in God’s curious grace?  Here’s how you begin:  Connect with God and others in worship.  Grow in the character of Christ in a small group.  Serve the church, community and world with your time, talent, treasure, and testimony. Sycamore Creek Church is curious.  Will you be curious with us?

Questions for Small Groups

Each week we provide discussion questions for small groups that meet regularly to discuss the message for the week.  Want to find a small group to join?  Email Mark Aupperlee – m_aupperlee@hotmail.com.

  1. What is one (or two) question(s) you have about God?
  2. Read Mark 9:17-29.  When was a time you were filled with both belief and unbelief?
  3. How can we pray for your trust to follow Jesus?
  4. Who do you need to invite to join our small group that needs a place to be curious?

 

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Is the Brain Hardwired for God?

June 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Brain

I found this video intriguing.  I think he misses one option though: could there be “ruts” in evolution that inevitably lead biological beings to a brain that is hardwired for spirituality and God?  Perhaps that is part of God’s plan in creation.

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Questions 2.0 – Why Believe in God?

June 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Questions 2.0

Questions 2.0 – Why Believe in God?
Sycamore Creek Church
June 12, 2011
Tom Arthur
Psalm 19

 

Peace, Friends!

Blake asks a great question: Why believe in God?  It’s a question most of us find ourselves asking at some point or another.  I myself have asked this question and fallen on both sides of the answer fence at different times in my life, although for the vast majority of my life, I have claimed to believe in God.  I’m taking this question as a basic first question to Christianity about the existence of God.  Does God exist?  How do we know?  Another set of questions that would take another sermon (or several!) would be why believe in the Christian God or in Jesus as God’s Son.  I will not try to answer these questions today.  I will focus more directly on the question of God’s existence.

I’d like to explore this question from the perspective of Psalm 19.  So let’s take a look at this intriguing psalm.

Psalm 19 NRSV

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hid from its heat.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the LORD are sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

This is God’s teaching for us today.  Thank you, God!

 

The Moral Law

This psalm has two themes.  The first half has to do with creation and the second half has to do with morality.  I’d like to look at the second half first.  We read in verse seven:

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul…
Psalm 19:7 NRSV

The psalm goes on to say quite a bit about this law of the Lord.  I think it points us to a kind of law that is present in all of us: a moral law.  I believe this moral law is one that we all live under and to at least some extent we all intuitively know or understand.

C.S. Lewis, one of the great Christian writers of the 20th century, wrote a little book titled Mere Christianity in which he attempted to defend the basic Christian beliefs that are common among Christians of all stripes.  He begins this book with a discussion of the moral law:

Every one has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: ‘How’d you like it if anyone did the same thing to you?’—’That’s my seat, I was there first’—’Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm’—’Why should you shove in first?’ —’Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine’— ‘Come on, you promised.’ People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.

Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies ‘To hell with your standard.’ Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.

Lewis does a great job of making difficult concepts easy to understand.  He takes this idea of the moral law and gives us some footholds and handholds so we can easily grasp hold.  The question he is driving at is this: if there is a moral law, where did it come from?  The answer he suggests is that if there is a moral law, there must be a moral law giver.

The Moral Law & Absolute Truth

I think that sometimes we get tripped up at this point about the moral law because we quickly run into the question of absolute truth.  Truth seems so tricky.  How can we nail down truth so that it is the same thing all the time in all places for all people?  Usually we describe absolute truth as rules that govern what we should do and not do, but I don’t think that’s what Lewis is driving at here.

Consider the rule: Do not tell a lie.  This seems a pretty basic moral rule or truth.  It seems like it should hold up no matter who we’re talking about, where they live, or when they live.  Don’t tell a lie.  But immediately we are confronted with difficult situations where telling a lie seems the right thing to do.  Take Corrie Ten Boom for an example.

Corrie was a Dutch Christian living during WWII in the Netherlands.  When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands, Corrie and her family hid as many Jews as they could to save their lives.  They often had to lie to the Nazis to save Jews.  It is a lie that I hope each of us would make if we were in similar circumstances.

Here’s the rub: lying is wrong.  Yes, but in a broken and sinful world, sometimes we are confronted with a situation in which there are no right answers.  All our options (and always keep in mind that there are more than just two options in every situation) are less than perfect and we must choose the one that is the least bad.  I think this complication points to something that is behind each rule: a principle.

What is the principle behind the rule to not lie?  It is the principle of loving your neighbor by treating them the way that you would want to be treated.  In the circumstances that Corrie found herself in, this principle of love was at odds with the rule of truth telling.  Corrie’s Christianity demanded that she take the principle seriously while ignoring the letter of the law in the rule.

Jesus himself points to a kind of hierarchy in God’s law.  When arguing with the Pharisees he says:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
Matthew 23:23-24 NRSV

Notice the underlined portion.  There are some moral laws that are weightier than others.  Here the Pharisees were following the letter of the law of tithing even when it came to their herbs and spices, but ignoring the more important aspects of the law of treating people mercifully, justly, and faithfully.

Discerning what is weightier in any given situation is not always easy and is best done in a broad and diverse community, and let me be clear that I am certainly not advocating a kind of situational relativism where anything goes.  I think that there will be a day when our character and our actions will all be judged.  The point I’m trying to make is that there is a moral law that points to a moral law giver, and even though sometimes that moral law is a little tricky to discern, it is still there pointing to the moral law giver, or God.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul…
Psalm 19:7 NRSV

Creation

Now we move on to the first half of Psalm 19 which speaks of creation.  We read:

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Psalm 19:1 NRSV

Immediately when we begin talking about creation the question comes up about how to navigate through the relationship between science and faith.  Are they opposed to one another or is there a way that they work in harmony with one another?

Whenever one begins talking about science and faith, it’s not very long before the name Galileo comes up.  Galileo argued that the sun was at the center of our system and not the earth.  Famously the church stood against him.  He was put on house arrest and forced to recant.  He did so (with his fingers crossed behind his back!).

Interestingly enough, one of the key verses in this debate came from this psalm.  We read:

Its [the sun’s] rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
Psalm 19:6 NRSV

When you look up in the sky, you see the sun move from one side of the earth to the other.  It seems pretty obvious that the sun moves and the earth doesn’t. But what is obvious always has to do with where one stands, as Galileo so clearly saw through his new instrument, the telescope.

Can we ever get past Galileo?  I hope so.  Galileo, we were wrong.  Please accept our apology.  Forgive us for our arrogance.

I think when most of us read Psalm 19 today, we see it as a kind of poetic language.  Our faith in God isn’t shaken by the idea that what verse six literally says isn’t true.  Interestingly enough, the Catholic church has come around to this perspective too.  Pope John Paul II said, “Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions.”  Amen.

I read a book several years ago titled, Galileo’s Daughter.  Her name was Maria Celeste and she was a nun.  I learned while reading this book that Galileo was a Christian!  He wasn’t always the most faithful Christian, but he remained a Christian even amidst this controversy with the church.  Apparently Galileo didn’t have a hard time integrating this new scientific knowledge with his faith.  He said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”  I suspect most of us today could relate to that claim.

Evolution

The question of evolution also often comes up in these kinds of conversations about science and faith.  Is evolution incompatible with a belief in God?  While the church may not have been on the progressive edge back in Galileo’s day, the Catholic church has responded to this question of evolution in a much more proactive way.  Again, Pope John Paul II said of evolution, “New findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis.”  If the pope doesn’t see an essential conflict between faith and evolution, perhaps we shouldn’t either.

It’s not just religious leaders who see a harmony between science and faith.  Many scientists do too.  One of those is Francis Collins.  Collins is a first rate scientist.  He was the director of the Human Genome project which sequenced the 25,000-30,000 genes in human DNA and is the current National Institute of Health director by way of a unanimous vote in Congress.  Collins is also a Christian.  He has recently written a book titled The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.  In this book he makes a well thought out plea for Christians to see science and faith as compatible.  He says, “It is time to call a truce in the escalating war between science and spirit. The war was never really necessary….Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced. God is most certainly not threatened by science.”  Amen.

I have personally never had a hard time connecting science with my faith.  I wonder if this wasn’t because growing up even though I went to public schools, I had several science teachers in Jr. High and High School who also believed in God.  I saw science and faith integrated together on a regular basis.  I continue to see it today even in our church.  We have several scientists who are members or regularly attend our church.  One of the most well known is Mark Aupperlee who preaches often.  Mark is a breast cancer researcher at MSU.  Mark is married to Jana who is also a scientist.  She is a professor of psychology at MSU.  Then there’s Kathie Brooks who is in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics department at MSU.  I read some about her research on her faculty page the other day, and I didn’t understand any of it!  We’ve also got two high school science teachers: Chrissy Hager (Leslie High School) and Ben Shoemaker (Mason High School).  Several people in our church are involved with the science of medicine.  Amanda Shoemaker is a doctor, and Bob and Martha Trout, Teresa Miller, Deb Hager, and Deb Ray are all involved in nursing or tech work in hospitals.  You don’t have to look to the big guns of Francis Collins to see scientists who are also people of faith.  Just look right here in our own church.

Let me take a tangent for a moment.  Students, don’t think that to be a good Christian you have to become a pastor or missionary or work in a church.  We need faithful Christians who are also scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and the like.  Don’t be afraid to go into these fields of study because you think your faith will have to be put on the back burner.  Talk to any of the people I just mentioned and you will most likely find a story about how science has strengthened their faith and vice versa.

God and Suffering

One of the big obstacles to belief in God is always the question of suffering.  We read about this in Psalm 19:

Keep me from deliberate sins!
Don’t let them control me.
Then I will be free of guilt
and innocent of great sin.
Psalm 19:13 NLT

When we deliberately sin, we usually hurt others.  Sometimes that hurt is more subtle than at other times.  There is, of course, also suffering caused by creation itself.  Sometimes this earth is a very harsh place to live.  What are we to make of suffering and a belief in God?  Shouldn’t a good and all powerful God have been able to make a world in which suffering didn’t exist?  We’re going to deal with this question more fully in the next series, Why?  But let me touch on it briefly for a moment here.

The primary response to the question of suffering is free will.  Because God has given us free will, or the freedom to choose to follow God or to not follow God, to follow the moral law or not, all of us have at one time or another done harm to others.  But couldn’t God have created a world where free will exists but suffering doesn’t?  C.S. Lewis is again instructive:

If you choose to say “God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,” you have not succeeded in saying anything about God; meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words “God can.”  Nonsense remains nonsense, even when we talk about God.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Lewis points to a logical incompatibility toward the belief that free will can also be required to always do the right thing.  If it was required to do the right thing, then it would no longer be free will.

Suffering happens to everyone.  Jesus himself says, “For [God] gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust, too” (Matthew 5:45 NLT).  For me the difficulty with suffering comes down to one thing: hope.  If you take God out of the equation, there is no hope amidst suffering.

Hope

Psalm 19 speaks to this kind of hope in the very last verse.  We read:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Psalm 19:14 NRSV

There are three kinds of hope that a belief in God provides: hope for a better life, hope for a better world, and hope for something better than death.

Hope for a Better Life

When we believe in God, we are given hope that we can become better people.  We can grow in character, virtue, and love.  No, belief doesn’t lead to instantaneous perfection.  It’s not like you become a perfect person when you believe in God.  But belief in God leads to particular attitudes and actions that nurture growth in all who believe.  Yes, we still fall down.  Yes, we still sin. Yes, we still mess up on the moral law, but as John Wesley says, “Sin remains but it does not reign.”  Belief in God provides hope that I can be better person.

Hope for a Better World

Of course, if there is hope that each of us can be a better person, then because the world is made up of individuals there is also hope that this world can be a better world.  I look at groups like Habitat for Humanity whose mission is a world without shacks.  To that end they have built over 400,000 homes worldwide.  Or look at UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief).  UMCOR raised over $40,000,000 for Haiti in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.  There’s also our own mission work with Dr. Mir in Nicaragua where two teams a year go to run medical clinics.  Each of these is motivated by a belief in God that leads us to hope and act for a better world.

Hope for Something Better than Death

Last of all is death.  Death seems so, well, final.  In some ways it is.  It is good for all of us to occasionally be reminded of our mortality.  What is the number one cause of death?  Birth.  We will all die.

Within each of us lies a longing that hopes for something better than death.  It is a longing that death would not be the end of life.  Belief in God provides hope that there is some good and meaningful existence after death.  Once again we turn back to C.S. Lewis who said,

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.  A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food.  A duckling want to swim: well, there is such a thing as water.  Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex.  If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I think we can see this longing in another psalm, Psalm 84:

I long, yes, I faint with longing,
to enter the courts of the LORD.
With my whole being, body and soul,
I will shout joyfully to the living God.
Psalm 84:2 NLT

Our longing for God is there, Lewis says, because the object of our longing, God, exists to fulfill that longing.

Faith & Uncertainty

At the end of this message, I’m not sure I’d say that I’ve presented evidence for belief in God.  I think I’d say that I’ve tried to present reasons why I believe in God, but even amidst these reasons it has been my own experience that I can never come to a place where I am totally certain about belief in God.  Belief requires faith. Paul says, “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7 NRSV).

Let me go back to Blake’s question: Why believe in God?  The tricky part of this equation for me has always been that unbelief also requires faith!  I have found no more certainty on the other side of the fence.  Whether you believe that God exists or you believe that God does not exist (or even if you’re not sure), all of these positions require faith.  Uncertainty never goes away.

So perhaps at the end of this message, Blake, you were hoping that I would have presented enough hard core evidence to wipe away all your uncertainties.  I doubt (no pun intended) that I have done that or that I ever could do that.  What I hope to have done is given you some of the reasons why I believe:

I look at the moral law and I think there must be a moral law giver.

I look at our world and even the scientific language and knowledge we use to describe it, and I see the fingerprints of a creator.

I look at suffering, and I see that belief in God offers three hopes:

Hope that I can become a better person,

Hope that this world can become a better world;

Hope that there is something better than death.

The decision is before you.  You can choose to believe or not to believe.  Both require faith.  Which one will you choose?

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Why Believe in God

June 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Questions 2.0What questions do you have about God? In this series well be exploring several questions that many people ask: Is God a Warrior (Memorial Day)?  Why Believe in God?  Is God a Man (Father’s Day)?  What is Baptism (Baptism Sunday)?  And we’ll end with a Q&A with Pastor Tom.   Join us for worship and bring your questions with you!

Here’s the question for this coming Sunday.  Thanks Blake!

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February Newsletter – I Believe

February 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

What do you believe?  While driving in my car, I occasionally hear a show on the radio called This I Believe.  Individuals—some famous, some average Joes like you and me— present short essays about what they believe.  The topics range from politics to economics to religion and spirituality.  I often found these presentations very provocative.  I don’t always agree, but it is well worth the time to listen to what someone else believes.  It informs, challenges, sharpens, and at times even corrects my own beliefs.

A similar conversation has been going on for over 2000 years among Christians.  Christians have been talking with one another about what they believe about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, community, salvation and more.  Sometimes the conversation has been quite heated.  Other times most everyone agreed.  The conversation continues today.

In the same way that it was helpful for me to listen to the thoughts of people on This I Believe, so has it been helpful for me to listen to the thoughts of a wide variety of Christians, both present and in the past, discuss what they believe.  Listening to that conversation has informed, challenged, sharpened, and at times even corrected my own beliefs about God.  I’m a better Christian because of taking time to listen to other Christians.

Coming up in March, we’ll be exploring just such a conversation.  It’s a conversation with the first Apostles, Jesus’ closest followers, and what has become known as The Apostles’ Creed.  Picking up The Apostles’ Creed is kind of like picking up someone’s diary.  You’re reading about how they see the world.  The difference is that The Apostles’ Creed isn’t any one person’s diary; it’s the church’s diary.

When we join in reading, studying, and having a conversation with The Apostles’ Creed, you’re joining in a conversation with Christians over 2000 years.  In the end, you may not agree with every one of them, but you will likely be informed, challenged, sharpened, and even at times corrected in your beliefs about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, community, salvation, and more.  You will be a better Christian having taken the time to enter into the conversation.

So take a moment now and join the conversation by reflecting below on The Apostles’ Creed.  Then come worship with us in March!

Peace,
Tom

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Amen.

* “catholic” means “universal” and refers to the universal Christian church all across the world including Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants.

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