Untitled Sermon

This term at Ignition Youth, we are doing the new Youth Alpha series. We kicked things off on Friday.

If you’re unfamiliar with what Alpha is, it is best summed up by these question marks you see around the place.

Alpha is an evangelistic course that seeks to introduce the basics of the Christian faith through a series of talks and discussions. It is an opportunity to explore the meaning of life. So naturally it is a space where we discuss big questions.

And if there is one thing we human beings are good at, it is asking big questions!

Question 1

What are some of the big questions of life? You might have heard others ask them or asked them yourself.

- What is the meaning of life?

- Why am I here.?

- Who am I?

- Who is God? Why is there so much suffering in the world

- What is wrong with the world?

- How do I live life well?

- How do I find happiness?

- What is happiness?

These are all really big questions that human beings have been wrestling over for thousands of years.

You see, we human beings are wonderfully curious creatures.

Of all God’s creation, nothing matches our sense of wonder and curiosity about the world. We strive for knowledge and understanding, we want to know why things are the way they are, how things work, who we are, and how we got here.

We yearn to make the unknown known. [Afterall we are made in the image of a God who reveals himself and his wisdom]. We hate being stumped by things. Parents, who hasn’t been pestered by the relentless repetition of the words “but why” from the mouth of their tiny human who is just discovering how big the world really is…

A couple of weeks ago I caught up with a friend and her gorgeous 1 year old son. And over dinner, I was watching how young Pip would take in world around him – with such wonder and awe and curiosity.

Currently his favourite words consist of: mum, dad, this, that and wow.

These words sum up how he processes the world at the moment. Mum and Dad are obviously the centre of his whole universe, but it’s the “this, that and wow” which I found really interesting. He would point at something and say: “this” or “that.” It’s his way of asking, “what is it, mum?”

And his mum would patiently try to explain what “this” or “that” was in a way that his 1 year old brain could understand.

And if he was really impressed, it got a “wow!.”

This sense of curiosity and wonder is something that never leaves us, in fact I think it gets stronger as we get older. We just develop more sophisticated ways of asking those questions, and finding the answers.

In fact, we are currently living in an unprecedented age of information.

Question 2:

When you have a question, what do you do?

- Ask Chat-bot/AI, google.

- Ask an older/wiser person?

- Find a book? Does anyone do that anymore?

A lot of you have never known a world that didn’t grant you instant access to answers at the tap of a screen or a button.

With the advent of AI, and online search engines, databases and catalogues that live conveniently in our back pockets, we now have immediate 24/7 access to answers. Answers to almost any question you can think of. But there is a catch.

Our search for knowledge has become dangerously convenient. You can find an answer to almost any question, but those answers are only as good as the people putting information out there on the internet.

Those of you in school right now have probably been cautioned about using Wikipedia as a source of information for your assignments. What is the danger of Wikipedia?

Well, anybody can create a Wikipedia page about something. And anyone can go onto a Wikipedia page and add information. It doesn’t matter if they are an authority on the subject or just someone with an opinion. And its up to us to be discerning about how accurate or reliable that information is.

The same goes for AI. You can feed almost any question into an AI and get an answer in a matter of minutes or seconds – but that answer will depend on the quality of the information floating around on the internet, it will depend on how you word your question, and  - this is the scary bit - the answer it feeds you is informed by what it knows about you, what it thinksyou need to know!

So with the rise of easy access to information, we also have horrifyingly easy access to mis-information. Filtered facts. Fake news.

In a world saturated by information, where we find the right answers? Where do we find true wisdom?

The passage Jess read for us tonight is part of a longer passage which is arguably one of the most beautifully crafted poems in the Bible. We find it in the midst of the incredibly challenging and thought provoking book of Job – which we delved into last year at Ignition Youth. The book of Job is among a genre of writing in the Bible called Wisdom Literature. As the name suggests, this genre is all about making sense of life in all seasons – the good, the bad and the ugly. At its heart is the question of what is the meaning and purpose of life, and how do we live life well in light of that meaning and purpose. Job wrestles with this question in the midst of great suffering. And it is in the midst of this suffering, and while locked in a debate with his so-called friends about the reason for his suffering, that this wonderfully insightful poem appears. Its not entirely clear whether this poem is Job himself speaking out of some sort of inspiration, or the narrator stepping in to offer a little reflective interlude. But what is clear, is the light that it sheds on the difference between human wisdom – or cleverness as I’m preferring to call it – and real wisdom. The kind of wisdom that can only come from the one who created all things and holds all things in the palm of His hand.

Now I didn’t get Jess to read this whole poem out, because at 28 verses that would have been a challenge in itself. In the lead up to the section Jess read out we have a reflection on the marvel of our own human cleverness, by which we are able to probe the depths of the earth, seeking valuable metals and minerals, and precious stones and gems.

“People know where to mine silver and how to refine gold. 2 They know where to dig iron from the earth and how to smelt copper from rock. 3 They know how to shine light in the darkness and explore the farthest regions of the earth as they search in the dark for ore. 4 They sink a mine shaft into the earth far from where anyone lives. They descend on ropes, swinging back and forth. 5 Food is grown on the earth above, but down below, the earth is melted as by fire. 6 Here the rocks contain precious lapis lazuli, and the dust contains gold. 7 These are treasures no bird of prey can see, no falcon’s eye observe. 8 No wild animal has walked upon these treasures; no lion has ever set his paw there. 9 People know how to tear apart flinty rocks and overturn the roots of mountains. 10 They cut tunnels in the rocks and uncover precious stones. 11 They dam up the trickling streams and bring to light the hidden treasures.

Thousands of years following the composition of this poem, we humans have continued to excel in our cleverness. We map the deepest depths of the ocean floor. Using telescopes and satellites, we peer into the universe, gradually mapping the heavens, and counting the stars as we go. Looking inward, we are constantly advancing in leaps and bounds in the disciplines of biology, psychology and medicine – understanding more and more about our makeup on the cellular level. Is there any limit to what we can achieve by our human knowledge and understanding – our cleverness?

And yet, we are restless for deeper insights, the hidden meanings of life.

The passage read by Jess states quite clearly that there is a wisdom underlying the cosmos that is beyond our reach or our comprehension. A Wisdom that only God is able to find and obtain.

The Bible tells us, true wisdom begins with God – knowing Him recognising that He is behind all the wonders and the mysteries of the universe.

[In fact, it is through creation that God points us to himself – just look at Psalm 19 and 104.]

So how do we know that this wisdom is true wisdom? I mentioned earlier how we are trained at school to consider the authority of our sources. How do we know they are legit – that they know what they are talking about. The wisdom books of the Bible, particularly Job, Psalms, Proverbs, all refer to creation – the natural world – to provide illustrations for wisdom. Why? Well, if God is the source and steward of true wisdom, creation provide his credentials.

Even the most scientifically minded person can agree that the cosmos is incredible. And the fact that life can even exist on this planet, intelligent life no less, is like a billion to one odds. Our world is a delicate, the potential for abundant life takes a multitude of factors each balancing on a knifes edge. If we were any closer or further away from the sun, if our planet tilted on a different angle, rotated any father or slower, the situation would be drastically different. The abundant and diverse life we see throughout our planet couldn’t exist.

We cannot grasp or wield Wisdom. But does allow us insights, understanding our human brains can process.

We know that at least two of the wisdom books in our bibles was written by Solomon, the third King of Israel, and the son of King David. Solomon is remembered for his wisdom in ruling, politics, diplomacy, dispute resolution, but also about the natural world. How did he become so wise? well the book of 1 Kings tells us that the Lord one day appeared to Solomon in a dream and said to him, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon could have asked for wealth, for fame. But Solomon asked for God to give him “a discerning heart to govern [God’s] people and to distinguish between right and wrong…” (tov and ra).

This last bit is very interesting and reminds us of another interaction between humanity and God in the first few chapters of the Bible – to the Garden of Eden where God planted a tree of knowledge of tov and ra – good and evil/ right and wrong. Humanity’s rebellion and rejection of God involved the first humans Adam and Eve choosing to take fruit from that tree. Choosing to decide for themselves what is right or wrong. Now the Bible does not tell us that this knowledge was off limits – that they weren’t allowed to obtain such wisdom, it’s the manner of possessing that wisdom that was forbidden. God created us with curious minds. And he created us to partner with him in ruling over creation, caring for it  and stewarding it. Giving it order through naming and categorising. Reflecting on a miniature scale the character of God in creating everything by giving all things purpose and meaning. The first humans were the first scientists.

The creation of the discipline of science in the Middle Ages was for the purpose of knowing God better – to see his fingerprints in all of creation, its orderliness, its minute, intricate and perfect details.

We ask big questions, because God gave us a brain, and he expects us to use it (as Goldsworthy states). We search for wisdom like treasure but fail to grasp it. Because we look to the wrong places. Trying to make the answers tangible, quantifiable. Squeeze it into a box and neatly label it.  We reach out, even though we might not know exactly what or who it is we are reaching for. And that answer comes to us in the Bible. God’s revealed Word to us. All through the bible God reaches out to humanity, for relationship. To draw us back to himself.

But that wisdom, the answers, is not found under a microscope, or in a test tube, or through a space telescope. We cannot find the meaning and purpose of life in creation alone, rather creation points us to the one who has all the answers. [Job passage] What we see under the microscope, the test tube and at the end of that telescope points us to the One in whom true wisdom dwells. Wisdom is not found in our cleverness, but in recognising the one who created everything, the one who went to unimaginable lengths to save us from ourselves. Wisdom is when you look towards Him in utter awe and wonder. Reverence – that’s what fear mans in the Bible. Understanding is when we take in what Jesus did for us on the cross, and respond by choosing to let Him transform our lives totally and completely.