Sermon Tone Analysis

Grab your bibles and turn to Romans 2:14

We are in the middle of a series called Who Needs God? looking at some of the different arguments of skeptics against the Christian faith.

We have discussed the fact that although there has been a rise in what are called the nones (those who do not affiliate with any religion) the church worldwide is actually growing immensely, and if you were to ask people on the street, 80-90% of them would say they believe that there is spiritual realm.

So far from a purely secular view of life, a closed universe with nothing other than the here and now and what we make of it, most believe there is more.

As Solomon wrote in the Biblical book of

God has put eternity in man’ heart!

we are created to long for him and be in relationship with him.....

and because of that living a life that leaves God out of the equation leads to lives of meaningless pursuits and a lack of purpose, identity, and hope.

often self-centred and harmful.

As we create our own versions of identity, sexuality, build our lives on pursuits of recognition and financial gain.

And the gospel, the good news of Jesus, the fact that at the cross, Jesus took the punishment for every sin you or I have and will commit, the weight of and pain of the sin reigning over our world and says to it, you do not have ultimate power.

His resurrection is a foretaste of the fact that all of Creation will be put right, and you and I are invited into that and welcomed to be an instrument of that redemption NOW!

So Who needs God?

We all do!

And if we are concerned that giving our lives over to God will mean we will be uncomfortable, and challenged...we should be, because man I need work!!

As Paul says in Romans

I do not need a God who tells me I’m good the way I am!!

That God is useless to me!!

But the God who says, come to me all who are weary....all who are broken and I will give you rest for your souls!!....I need that God.

He gets me!!

A god who will be real with me!

The Apostle Peter one the of the first to follow Jesus and preach Jesus resurrection wrote a few letters to early follows of Jesus, in an effort to encourage them to live out their belief.

That what they believed about God and about Jesus Christ living and performing miraculous signs, dying a cruel death on a cross, then living again and invited all of creation to new life, that out to have a real influence on how we live our lives.

Our text...

PRAYER

When I was about 10 years old, my mother worked at Purdy’s chocolates!

It was pretty sweet!

One of the boxes of chocolates they uses to sell was called the yard of chocolates; it was literally a yard long box with chocolates.

One Saturday morning , I stole a few chocolates from my sisters yard of Chocolates, and left for the day.

I was out with friends running around Fraserview Golf course for the day, getting into mischief.

All day I was thinking…does she know!

I was thinking…I should have been given chocolates too.

Why should she have gotten one and not me!!

When I came home around dinner, my family was sitting at the dinner table getting ready to eat.

And as I was taking off my shoes my sister said, “Hey Brad.....”

And without letting her get any further… I screamed, “Hey, I didn’t take any of your chocolates, so don’t even ask””

That was the day I learned that I would never be a poker player!!

Why the big response?

Why the battle all day?

Because every justification I looked for, every I should have got one too, was an arrow pointing to the fact that there was something written on my heart that says…I did something I shouldn’t have and I need to find a reason why I had an excuse to break this law written on my heart!

Our current state when it comes to a moral standing is all over the map.

It is loud but lacking in any real solidity and substance.

it is confusing and overwhelming!!

We live in a time of moral contradictions

We live in the time of the “Me Too” movement; where light is being shone on the mistreatment of woman by men in power; asking for sexual exchange in the work place and the Hollywood casting couch, men are rightly so being called on to answer for this kind of behaviour, at the same time the book 50 Shades of Grey a book that glorifies the sexual domination of a woman by a rich man who can do as he pleases is the fastest selling book among women of all time!

We live in a time, when A pastor in his early twenties is told to step down (rightly so) because he made a move on 17 year old girl, and fingers are pointed at the church for this kind of behaviour, at the same time in Hollywood, “ Call Me by My Name”, a movie telling of the relationship between an underaged boy and a man in his twenties is celebrated.

We have a rise in mega churches and the nones.

there is a rise in tech and a rise in the desire to rid ourselves of it

There is militant call to tolerance that costs professors and pastors jobs and at the same time scream that if you hold to a belief outside of the cultural norm you must conform!

In the midst of this there is a rise of the nones, those who will not affiliate with religion, yet there is a high desire for the spiritual.

There is a deep desire to have our feet standing on something firm that culture, and changing ideologies cannot touch.

How do we navigate morally in a world with so many loud voices; screaming voices!!

How do we make decisions.

How do we know what is right?

Or is is just down to how you feel?

Is morality more than an opinion?

Is a consistent morality even possible?

Do we need God to be moral or can we be good without God?

Or does a world without God, naturally mean chaos and anarchy?

Do we agree with Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky that ...

“Without God everything is permitted, one can do anything!”

I.

You CAN be good without recognizing God

Paul says hey listen, even if you are not among those who call themselves followers of God, who believe all the words he has given us in Scripture., you still no good from bad, right from wrong.

It is IN you.

The fact is there are may who are not Christians, who are not people of faith, who are good!

Better than many Christians!!

And Dostoyevsky is not actually saying that atheists will not be good, it only says they don’t have to be!!

There is no real obligation to be!

YET, there is something within that they are drawn to when it comes to morality..

So there can be moral “feelings” and convictions without God, we see them everywhere, there are many in your life who make no faith claim but are good people!!

Paul would say…YES, that is how we are made.

There is an imprint in our hearts whether we recognize its source or not that gives us a moral compass.

On the flipside there have been many who call themselves Christ- followers who have used morality as a weapon!

being harsh hand exclusive.

But here is the thing...

If we were to ask the question “WHY should I be moral?”

Without God we are at a loss of good reason.

II.

You CANNOT explain good without God

We live in a generation that no longer points to a shared, outside ethical source; no common tradition, or sacred writings to authorize our beliefs about write and wrong.

Paul says when you aim toward right living, or struggle with moral questions that points to a law giver.

We are a “self-authorizing” culture.

you show that the law is written on your hearts (15)

A world without ultimate truth or a moral law giver is on shifting uncertain ground when it comes to morality

We live in what Charles Taylor calls a time of “extraordinary inarticulacy “

Which he describes as a time when “moral positions are not in any way grounded in reason or the nature of things but are ultimately just adopted by each of us because we find ourselves drawn to them.”

Charles Taylor (The Malaise of Modernity)

“moral positions are not in any way grounded in reason or the nature of things but are ultimately just adopted by each of us because we find ourselves drawn to them.”

“moral positions are not in any way grounded in reason or the nature of things but are ultimately just adopted by each of us because we find ourselves drawn to them.”

So the only way to justify our morality these days seems to be that we yell louder than the other person.

We shout them down and therefore shut down conversation.

That is 90% of Facebook conversation!!

Elizabeth Anscombe, Oxford philosopher wrote that we should not use the word ought in our culture because it no longer has any meaning.

To say ought implies there is a moral order outside ourselves that ought to be lived out, but if we do not believe that there is any ultimate law or norm all we are saying is,

“I have a feeling that this is wrong and I want you to follow my feeling rather than yours”

If we take God out of the equation what else is there?

Opinion surely cannot be the arbiter of right and wrong.

But if we take God out of the equation what else is there?

A secular world view that says there is the here and now, there is only the immediate world to make sense out of our lives and to create a reason for living a certain way, has a real problem.