Does Your Faith Make Sense
Does Your Faith Make Sense?
Start with a story today: Three friends, Fred, Charity & Kirk, go out for dinner. After dinner they return to Fred’s apartment and discover that the window is smashed and his television is gone. Fred’s first reaction is “I’ve been robbed. Call the police.”
Charity stops him, however. She tends to see the best in people and thinks there is usually a good reason for peoples’ behaviors. She says, “Wait..don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Clearly what happened here is that some kids were playing baseball and accidentally broke your window. Then, noticing the broken window, your neighbor climbed in here and removed the TV to keep it safe until you returned home.
Kirk takes a look at the situation, though, and says, “You guys have got it all wrong. Aliens often visit earth and are interested in studying human technology. Every now and then you’ll find things missing because they’ve beamed it up to their ship to study it. The tractor beam they use, however, can generate a lot of heat, cause the air pressure in the room to increase and blow out your windows. That’s all that happened here. You should feel honored!”
What do you make of a situation like this? Three people with very different perspective look at the same situation and come up with three different explanations. There is a mystery to be solved right? They need to gather some more evidence.
So they check with Fred’s neighbor. He denies having the television. Fred says, “So much for that theory, “ but Charity responds, “Wait a minute. I’m sure your neighbor expected someone to show up pretending to be you. Obviously he thought you were an imposter and didn’t want to let you know the truth.”
Also, a quick check with the air traffic controllers verifies that there were no UFO sightings that day. Kirk says, “Duh! Don’t you know that aliens have cloaking devices to prevent detection?”
So what is going on here? Well, you have three people with three different sets of beliefs about the world-three different worldviews. Fred believes there are people in the world who do bad things. Charity believes that people are good and we need to see the best in them. Kirk honestly believes aliens frequently visit the planet. The movie “Men in Black”? That was based on a real government program.
We all have different worldviews. Although we will have some common beliefs, there are some things we will disagree on.
Let me give you an example of my basic worldview:
I am Scott Christian Wildenberg. I was born in Ft. Eustis Virginia, am 38 years old and live in Cannon Falls, MN. I have been married for 16 years to the most wonderful, intelligent and beautiful woman in the world. I am the pastor of True North church which is now 2 years old and is the best place in Cannon Falls to come and seek God with other people. And I believe there is one God-all powerful, all-present, all loving, creator of the universe who exists in three persons-Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Son of God, Jesus, lived among the Jews some 2000 years ago and was crucified so that we all can be forgiven of our sins when we turn to Him and enjoy a restored relationship with God.
Now, there is a lot in there. You may agree with some of those things…some seem pretty self-evident. Unless we are all deceived-you know, we are not all part of some brain-control experiement- this is Cannon Falls and I do live here. There are other things we may disagree upon, though.
Some people would say it’s fine that we don’t all agree-that’s just life, and it really doesn’t matter. Each person is free to believe what they want. It’s not hurting anyone.
Others would go on to say that truth is really just in the eye of the beholder. Everyone will make up their own truth from what they see.
The problem with this is that sometimes there really is only one truth. There is only one truth to what happened in Fred’s apartment. Hopefully with some more digging around they will be able to discover that truth. Each person is going to stick to their beliefs until it can be rejected, but at some point you’d think there will be enough evidence to at least say “This is the most likely truth.” It will just make sense.
You might be able to make up any theory you want, but there is only one truth.
Also, it does matter what that truth is. It matters to Fred what actually happened to his TV and window. It matters to his neighbors, too. They’ll want to know whether they need to watch out for kids being reckless with a baseball, or whether they need to be concerned about thieves-and maybe organize a neighborhood crime watch. Or should they possibly expect an encounter with alien life forms.
It matters to all three of these friends, too. There is something in us that wants to know the truth. We don’t want to be deceived.
If we do go on believing false beliefs, we will also eventually get hurt. If Charity always believes the best in every situation, she will get taken advantage of at some point.
It’s also like trying to maintain a lie. If you’ve ever told a lie you know that sometimes people discover holes in the lie…and you need to tell another lie to cover it…you keep having to build lie upon lie to maintain the original lie…eventually the whole thing comes crashing down and the truth has to come out.
If you go on believing something false…you have to explain everything you experience according to that false belief…building more false beliefs on it…Eventually you won’t be able to maintain it anymore and all these beliefs will come crashing down on you. The larger the structure…the harder the fall. It can devastate a person to have a huge system of beliefs come crashing down on them. It’s best to seek out the truth as quickly as possible.
So why does this matter to us? Why am I telling you all this anyway? Well…let me share another story.
Four guys are standing on a beach looking out at the ocean. They are listening to the waves crashing…the water is washing over their feet….off in the distance they see a school of dolphins playing as the sun sets on the horizon.
The first guy thinks to himself, “Wow, what a beautiful sight. It’s it amazing how God designed this world. He is so creative…and what an expression of His love to give us this world to live in.”
The second guy thinks, “Wow, what a beautiful sight. If I just continue to meditate on a higher plane of existence and channel my energies I can become one with the spirit of this world.”
The third guy thinks, “Wow, what a beautiful sight. If I just dedicate myself to the principles of my religion…and life a good life..I can be rewarded someday with a world of my own in which I can continually enjoy all its pleasures.”
And the fourth guy thinks, “Wow, what a beautiful sight. To think that nature can take some basic compounds and over billions of years of random change produce this! I wonder where we will end up next.”
Four people sharing the exact same experience have four different views because of their basic beliefs.
Again, some people will say it really doesn’t matter. In fact, all religions are basically the same. People are turning to some other “Higher Existence” and learning to be less selfish and think about others more. That’s really what it’s all about, so it doesn’t matter what god they choose to follow.
Now, is that really true? For some beliefs is certainly does not really matter. What is the best flavor of ice cream?.....<interact on this>
So some beliefs are OK to disagree on. There are lots of beliefs like this-colors, foods, clothing styles, music styles, etc. When it comes to what all you men believe about your wives...I hope we all disagree!
But ideas about God are not like that. There is only one truth about who He is. Is He all-powerful or not? Is He eternal or not? Is He all-loving or not? Is Jesus God made flesh or not? Did He rise from the grave or not? These are concrete concepts and there can only be one right answer.
As Christians we also know that Jesus said, “I am THE way, THE truth and THE light. Noone comes to the Father except through me.” He says I am the true way to God…unless you acknowledge that, there will be consequences-like an eternity spent suffering apart from God.
So while it might make life easy to deal with be saying it’s OK to believe what you want, in reality it matters what the real truth is!
So how do we discover that truth? Well, like Fred and friends, we need to look for clues. We need to gather evidence from the world around us and use logic and reason to ask what it tells us about God. We have to ask who God really is…what do we really know about Jesus? Can we really trust the Bible? Have you ever had doubts or questions like these? We need to face them and seek the answers.
At this point some people will object and say we are supposed to simply have faith in Jesus. You are not supposed to question God.
To an extent I would agree. I’d point out that all our beliefs really are based on a certain amount of faith because when it comes to God we never gather enough evidence to completely say that God exists or who He is…It’s not like math where you can show conclusively that 2+2=4. it still takes faith to believe…
I have spent some time looking for answers to those questions about God because there have been times when I really wasn’t sure.. In the end,though, I didn’t have a solid, undeniable, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I had a huge pile of evidence telling me to believe the Bible, and another, bigger pile of evidence telling me that no other religion or worldview made sense….and I had to choose on faith to dive in and completely believe and trust in Jesus.
You have to trust God to show you truth and you have to get to a point where you can see the evidence is pointing a certain direction…but you still take a leap of faith.
I think this is exactly how God wants things to do. Having a relationship with someone-loving them-which is what this is all really about-is based upon making a choice in faith. If we knew absolutely without a doubt that Jesus was who the Bible says He is, there would be no choice to make…and no love involved.
Also, I don’t believe that Jesus told us to have blind faith.
Have you ever as a kid put on a haunted house at Halloween where you put peeled grapes in a bowl…and cold spaghetti in another? Then you bring in your friends blindfolded and had them feel these things. You tell them the grapes are eyeballs and the spaghetti is worms or intestines or something…Believing that because you told them so would be blind faith.
God doesn’t want us to have that kind of faith. Look at what the Bible says:
One of my favorite passages is the Bible is 1 Thess. 5:21-Test everything. Hold on to the good. Refers to prophecy about God…test it to see if it is good., then hold onto it.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Heb 11:1 NIV)
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, (1Pe 3:15 NIV)
Be prepared to give an answer for why you believe. Have good reasons. This is important because there will come a time in your life…or in the life of your children…when your beliefs will be challenged. Today, most college kids are told in many ways that belief in God is ridiculous…that Christians especially are misguided, ignorant and close-minded. You will need to have good reasons to stand up to these challenges.
It also gets back to that relationship again….you can’t have a relationship through an intermediate person. Just a couple of weeks ago Wendy and I had a chance to celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary without our kids. Wendy’s parents have been wanting to spend a weekend with them and we decided, OK…we think they are ready for that. They all had a great time, and one of the best things that came out of that is that our boys had an opportunity to develop their own relationship with Grandma and Grandpa. It wasn’t Wendy and I bringing them together and giving them things to talk about.
When you take time to explore your faith…look for evidence in the world of who God really is and how we can know Him, you will experience Him for yourself and develop that one-on-one relationship. Your faith will not be based on what I tell you…or what your parents or grandparents or friends tell you. You will no longer be involved in the church because “That’s what we’re supposed to do.” You will do it because you know and love God and want to know Him more! That is where true life-changing faith comes from.
So it is very important that we dedicate ourselves to finding the truth about God and examining our faith. We want to know Him more and believe true things about Him.
Over the next four weeks you will be hearing some evidence from historical, archeological, scientific and spiritual points of view. I encourage you to come with hearts AND MINDS fully open to knowing more of the truth about God.
Invite your friends to come, too…whatever worldview they might have now, they will surely benefit from exploring the truth about God.
In John 8:29, it is written that Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”
He is saying-when you see the evidence of the things I’ve been telling you, then you will know it is true!
He goes on in verse 32 to say, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Let’s close today asking God to set us free with the TRUTH about Him as we seek to know Him more over the next several weeks.