Not Enough Faith to be An Atheist Wk 3

Week 3

When I was young… I thought man, I’m going to convince so many people Jesus is God.

I thought one of the marks of a mature believer was being able to talk about God the most.

I’ve always enjoyed talking theology, so I looked forward to doing that with teens who were eager to grow in their faith.

One teen in particular loved Jesus in middle school and high school, but then as an adult he walked away form his faith.

I have sat down with him many times in my life trying to go down the path arguing for the Christian faith.

Sadly, this guy now is in his late 20s and still uninterested in God.

What I learned about my faith through that situation was this:

We need to know what we believe and why. Period.

99% of the time, you’re never going to argue with someone enough to convince them to believe in Jesus.

So why do we study worldview if that second sentence is true?

Because of the first sentence.

We need to know what we believe and why.

Proverbs 3:5–6 “5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

This life is not about depending on yourself more.

It’s about trusting Him always.

Leaning into Christ.

Is your life about independence or dependence?

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NOT ENOUGH FAITH TO BE AN THEIST

Last week we concluded by discussing the question:

Aren’t all religions the essentially the same thing?

-We concluded no…

Pantheistic religions believe anything can be god.

Theistic religions believe there is only one God.

But even among Jews, Muslims, and Christians (Theistic world religions).

Muslims reject that Jesus died on the cross.

Christians believe Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the OT.

Jesus is the Messiah.

Judaism or Jews reject Jesus as the fulfillment of those prophecies and are still looking for the Messiah.

Consequently, Jews also reject Jesus’ death on the cross as sufficient payment for sins.

John 14:6 “6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

All religions are not the same…

Even among Theistic religions there are key differences that have significant consequences.

So here’s 2 questions tonight:

Why should I believe anything at all?

What’s the point?

Something is worth believing and trusting if it points to the truth.

Being apathetic towards truth is dangerous.

Can you believe nothing?

Can you just be apathetic towards everything… forever?

Is that possible?

No…

You cannot remain apathetic in thought for your whole life.

Something will take your thoughts captive.

2 Corinthians 10:5 “5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Something is always fighting for your attention.

Are you giving your thoughts to Christ?

Great Arguments for God:

Cosmological Argument: If the universe had a beginning then the universe had a cause.

Teleological Argument - There is a designer.

Moral Argument - How do we determine right and wrong?

Cosmological Argument:

Everything that had a beginning had a cause… This is the law of Causality and something all scientists agree on.

Things don’t happen without a cause.

How any of you have been driving down the street and out of no where a spaceship materializes right in front of you and you run into it with your car and cause a huge traffic accident?

If someone told you, “I don’t believe in the law of causality” You could ask

Oh really? What “Caused” you to come to that conclusion?

It’s the same thing with the universe.

As part of this argument that the universe had a beginning… we can know this because people much smarter than you and I have said that the universe is running out of energy.

Think about a flashlight.

If you left a flashlight on all night in this building, what would happen when you came back the next day?

It would be dead! Why?

Because it ran out of energy.

At one time, it was full of energy

This is also called the Second law of Thermodynamics.

What that means is basically everything in the cosmos is getting worse not better.

Why your tires run out on your car

Why you have to fill up your gas in your car.

Why we are all closer to our deathbed today than we were yesterday.

Another way to look at this is think about this…

Nature will take a building and turn it into a pile of bricks

But Nature will never take a pile of bricks and turn it into a building.

When scientists look at the Universe, they are always trying to determine, did this have a cause?

well… the first law of science is really the law of causality.

This just means every cause has an effect. and every effect has a cause.

Nothing didn’t cause something.

Something caused something.

Nothing created everything out of nothing.

Something created everything out of nothing.

The first assumes there was no cause. This is what evolution believes, but even that rejects the first rule of Science.

If God is the something, wouldn’t something have to cause God?

Well if God was part of space, time, and matter, then yes… but because Scripture says “In the beginning, God...” We know that God existed before time.

2 Timothy 1:9 “9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,”

Before time existed, God existed…

And in that place, even then, God had a plan for us.

Something created out of nothing and His name is God.

Are we trusting Him...

Are we depended on Him?

Or are we living for self?

Let’s go into small groups and consider this further. d