Is God Real?
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CPT: The wonder of creation declares God’s glory.
Purpose: To describe the reality of God and encourage the church to live their lives committed towards the God of reality.
CPS: Everything we see and experience in creation points to the reality of God.
Introduction
Is God real? Today, we are exploring the reality of God. Over these next six weeks, we are going to look at different question about God. My hope is that this will equip you as people ask you these God questions. We will take a look at six different questions about God.
Is God real?
Is the Bible true?
Do all roads lead to heaven?
How can a good God allow suffering?
Which is right: evolution or creation?
What will heaven be like?
If you are a believer in Christ, this will encourage and strengthen you as we look at the reality and reliability of the Christian message. If you are someone seeking or still looking to understand who God is, I believe this will be an encouraging time to seek out answers to these questions.
But none of the other questions about God make sense without a God that exists in reality. Is God real?
We all wake up to quite an odd experience, don’t we. I mean, really the ultimate question we need to ask, which relates to our question today, is why is there something instead of nothing?
Think about everything that needed to happen for you to make it here today. Your heart had to beat, your body had to function. I mean everything within your body had to be designed to such precision that you would wake up, use your muscles, and move out of bed. Getting our of bed is often a big struggle for me.
But not only that, but everything around you had to work for you to make it to church. Gravity had to be fine-tuned enough so it would keep you flat on the ground, and not floating away. The air around you needed to be breathable. The sun needed to be just warm enough so your skin wouldn’t melt off, but you also wouldn’t freeze to death.
Even right now, we are on a piece of land on a globe that is circling around a huge ball of fire we call the sun. It’s crazy! And we just say, “Oh, it’s just a typical day.”
What are we to make for the fact that we exist surrounded by an amazing creation? What does the creation have to do with the existence of God?
We will look at that through Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4.
Scripture Reading
Psalm 19:1–4 (CSB)
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.
3 There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard.
4 Their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
Pray
Filler.
Transition
Everything we see in creation points to the reality of God.
Everything we see in creation points to the reality of God.
State the point; Anchor the point; Validate the point; Explain the point
Text: Psalm 19:1-2; Psalm 8:3-4; Romans 1:19-20
Filler.
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Heading
As David looks up into the heavens, he writes this Psalm. In verses 1 and 2, he writes about the beauty of the heavens. He says this in Psalm 19:1-2:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.
David looks up into this wondrous night sky. There are no lights from a city blocking the view. When you look up, its just an amazing array, a canvas of artwork painted across the sky. The expanse of all the beauty that he sees says specific things.
“Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they community knowledge.” David hears a message from creation that pours out knowledge to humans everywhere, if they are listening.
At the end of last year, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope into space. It reached its destination in space in January 2022. It is the most advanced telescope ever launched into space, and promised to give better images of the cosmos than we have ever seen.
The first images from the Webb Space Telescope were released to the public this past summer. This one image really caught my attention. It is this beautiful array of what they describe is the formation of a star.
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
What is amazing is that the more we look into the heavens, the more we explore and seek out answers, the more wonder and glory we see of a Creator who put the universe into being.
My wife and I, we both met in high school. We both went to a high school that specialized in the arts, and we were both art majors.
When you learn art, you learn to carefully observe things, to look carefully for long periods of time at something and attempt to draw or paint it on your canvas. The teach you things about color theory, how one color compliments another color, how you can use contrast to bring out certain colors. They teach you about dark areas and highlights, about shading, so you can be careful to bring out the best artwork that you can.
We studied the best works of art in the world, the best that man has put together on canvas. There is nothing that compares to the beauty and majesty of God’s work of art in creation. It’s why David asks this question in Psalm 8:3-4:
3 When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place,
4 what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?
I think this gets to the heart of the question, is God real? With such a grand creation around us, with the beauty of all that we see, what is a human being in the middle of all this? If there is a Creator, does he care about a human being?
When you talk with an atheist and push them towards the question about the existence of God, an atheist turns agnostic pretty quick. Really, at the heart of the matter is, if God exists, does it even matter?
This is the problem with true atheism, the belief that there is no God. We are small people. I am smaller than others. But take even your tallest person, your Shaq or your Yao Ming, they are tiny, small compared with the vastness of the universe. We are small people living in a small area on this small planet in the middle of a vast universe.
To come up with such a conclusive answer that there is no God, you would have to have all knowledge, all wisdom. You would have to know every nook and cranny of reality. In essence, you would have to be God!
Second, to say there is no God would be to ignore the evidence. This is what is interesting. The more you observe the creation of things, the more you learn about the Creator.
Where do things come from? A primary component of life on earth that we know of is carbon. We know that all carbon-based lifeforms come from something.
Have you ever walked down the road and a cow just appears out of nowhere? What I mean is just spontaneously, in mid-air, just “poof,” and it’s there? No, of course not. We know that cows come from other cows. Chickens come from other chickens, humans come from other humans, and so on.
Suppose you were to play that backwards. How does that work? If you are on a timeline, this person came from this person, this came from this person, and so on, going back and back and back.
The problem is, you can’t go back indefinitely. Having an infinite number of causation is not possible. At some point you hit a block. At some point, you need to have an uncaused cause. You need something, or someone, who causes things to start happening.
By definition, that thing that starts everything happening has to be uncaused. Why is that? That’s the problem with asking the question of who created God, because all you are doing is pushing the problem back one more step. Whoever created would be God. At some point, you need an uncaused Cause. You need God.
The more you try to deny that God created everything, you always end up putting in a God-substitute in his place. Creation cries out for an infinite, powerful Creator. Creation tells a story of God, the uncaused Cause. Norman Geisler said this:
This uncaused cause must be infinite, unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-perfect.
Norman Geisler
What is he saying? By the very nature of who God is as the one who is able to set all creation into being, he must be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-perfect. The apostle Paul says this about the witness of creation in Romans 1:19-20:
19 since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
There are things about God that can be known simply by looking around at the created world. I know that God is powerful, he is creative, he is magnificent, and he is glorious. In fact, the existence of God by looking at the created world is so painfully obvious, that man is without excuse about believing in God. William Barclay says this:
It is the Christian belief that we live in a God-created, God-controlled, God-sustained, God-filled world.
William Barclay
Everything we see and experience in creation points to the reality of God. But to get back to this question, which I think is at the heart of the question, is God real, is this: If God exists, does it matter?
Heading: Imagine there is a pencil on a desk. Now, this pencil is able to think for himself. This pencil lays around on this desk, and is unsure why he exists. He wakes up every day and see that he is there, but he is not sure why. He tries to imagine that perhaps he would like to dance, but gets frustrated because he can’t dance. He can’t move. He imagines he would like to sing, but he can’t. He doesn’t have a mouth or breath, and can’t sing. The pencil is frustrated.
Now though, imagine the creator of the pencil is there. The creator picks up the pencil, and starts to use the pencil. The pencil starts moving across this page, and the lead starts to create this amazing drawing. All of a sudden, the pencil is satisfied. Why? Because the pencil is in contact with his creator, and is being used for his intended purpose. I would say to you that the pencil will never be satisfied until it is used for its intended purpose by the creator.
That is the necessity of knowing your Creator. It is not enough to simply acknowledge that God exists. See, if God is real, then the next step to ask is, who is that God? Because knowing who created you is necessary to understand why you exist.
That is our second point,
Everything we experience in life points to our need to know God.
Everything we experience in life points to our need to know God.
State the point; Anchor the point; Validate the point; Explain the point
Text: Psalm 19:3-4; John 1:1-5; Ecc. 12:13
Filler.
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Heading
David, as he is describing creation, he speaks about a message coming from everything that we see. He says this in Psalm 19:3-4:
Psalm 19:3–4 (CSB)
3 There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard.
4 Their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
He looks out at creation, and there are no audible words coming from what he is looking at. You know, sometimes people will look up to the heavens asking for God to say something audibly to them. Or they will say something like what God has spoken to them.
Indeed, what David says is that the heavens do speak a message about the Creator, but not with audible words. Instead, they point to his nature, his power, and his glory.
God’s message goes out to the whole earth. In all of this, notice that what’s obvious is that God exists. We haven’t yet gotten into who that God is. All we’ve said is that there is a God. To know who God is, we need him to make himself known.
Here’s an interesting thing about the Bible. The Bible doesn’t really take the time to make arguments about the existence of God. The Bible assumes that God exists. Humans don’t need arguments about the existence of God. They need the reality of a God who reveals himself to them.
That is what the Bible does. It reveals God by pointing to someone who is bigger than the words. The apostle John spoke about how God has revealed himself to mankind in John 1:1-5:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
5 That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
In John’s description, he is describing the Word, which is a Greek word describing “speaking, a message, or words.” Later in chapter 1, John makes clear that the Word is Jesus, when he says in verse 14 that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
While creation points us to know that God exists, the Bible points us to Jesus, God revealing himself to mankind.
God, in his perfection, was perfect at the beginning, and has never changed. Everything was created through God by his Word. The Son of God, Jesus, has always existed, and everything was created through him.
Think of the formation of a star that the Webb telescope is photographing. The stars, all that we see around us, everything was created though the Word, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
David says that through creation, the message of the reality of God has gone out through all the earth. That message is made clear through Jesus Christ.
I love what it says in verses 4 and 5. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.
The darkness that we face is precisely why we need to know God. In a beautifully created world, we find ourselves in a world of problems, don’t we?
People want to know if God is real because people need hope. There is so much angst and agony in the world. In all of the beauty of creation, they ask, this can’t be it? This can’t be all it’s about?
There is a person in the Bible called Solomon, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes. He was a guy who had everything. I mean, smarts, success, power, women, this was a guy who achieved what the world told him he needed to achieve.
But at the end of it all, he found that it was all meaningless. I mean, if you chase after money, or power, or success, or whatever you are seeking to fulfill yourself with, it is nothing without knowing God.
After describing all of the meaningless of seeking pleasure in everything else, he finally comes to this conclusion in Ecclesiastes 12:13:
13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.
Here is the conclusion of everything: Trying to find meaning and purpose in every other thing outside of God is meaningless without knowing the God who created you. Everything we experience in life is pointing us to our need to know God.
Here is another interesting thing: If I am going to finally get to know God, I must first have one thing, faith. Without faith, it’s not going to work. I need to believe that God is real. I need to believe from my heart. And I need to believe in Jesus Christ, his Son.
Why is that? Because in Jesus is life. There is life and light in Jesus Christ. As John said, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.”
We operate on faith all of the time. When we woke up today, you weren’t worried if you were going to remember to breathe today. You had faith that you will be able to breathe. But the faith was based on reason. My lungs worked yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Therefore, I believe that my lungs will work today.
Or the seat that you are sitting on. You had faith that when you sat down, the seat would hold you. But that faith was reasonable. You’ve sat down on seats before, and they haven’t crumbled beneath you. You looked at the seat this morning, it seemed sturdy, and you sat down.
In the same way, faith in Jesus is necessary. You need to believe in Jesus. It says in Romans 10:17:
17 So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ.
Yet, it is completely reasonable to believe in the message about Christ. That is the beauty of the Christian message.
See, I believe that if you could look at the message of Christ without your personal bias, just plainly and put it up against every other explanation for God. Put Jesus up against every other explanation, whether you are talking about Mohammed, or Buddha, or Darwin, or Humanism, or whatever else, you have to say the message of Jesus far outweighs everything else.
In Jesus, you have someone who did miracles in public, in front of hundreds of people. You have someone who lived this perfect life. Even in his own life, where he had lots of people trying to find something to pin on him, all they could say is that he committed blasphemy by claiming to be God. Well, that is not blasphemy if you are indeed God.
But how do we make that leap? It’s not some blind act of faith. The evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus is one of the most attested to facts in all of history. Jesus died on the cross, and three days later there was an empty tomb. The disciples were changed from people running after the cross to people boldly preaching the message of Jesus because of the resurrection. RC Sproul said this,
The evidence that God gave to confirm the claim of Jesus to be the Son of God is the resurrection.
R. C. Sproul
Faith in Jesus is reasonable because of the evidence of the resurrection. Out of all people in history, Mohammed is dead, Buddha is dead, Darwin is dead, but the God of reality chose to do a supernatural work to make a dead man come back to life. Who was that man? Jesus Christ.
I like what A.W. Tozer says about the resurrection:
The resurrection of Christ and the fact of the empty tomb are not part of the world’s complex and continuing mythologies. This is not a Santa Claus tale—it is history and it is reality.
A. W. Tozer
So we get back to our original question: Is God real? The creation around us screams out that God is real. That there is a Creator that exists, that he is all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinite. The evidence of Jesus screams out that the God of reality cares for you.
But you need to start with faith in Jesus. It’s not enough to walk away, say that was an interesting preaching, and then walk away unchanged. The message of Christ is not meant to go in one ear and out the other, for you to leave unchanged. It is meant for you to embrace Jesus by faith. Believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and resurrected from the dead. Believe and know your Creator.
Conclusion
Everything we see in creation points to the reality of God.
Everything we experience in life points to our need to know God.
Conclude
Have you heard the message today and realized that you need Jesus? Are you ready to put your faith in Jesus? We want to pray with you, and celebrate your new life. Please see one of our pastors after the service.
Blanks:
Prayer
Last Song
Doxology
24 “May the Lord bless you and protect you;
25 may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.” ’
24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy,
25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.
You are dismissed. Have a great week in the Lord!
