what I think I thought…

So we have just spent the last six weeks wading through some of the biggest questions of life…

Why am I here…Why Believe in God…Why is the world so messed up…Why trust the Bible…Why the conflict between science and the Bible…Why Jesus?

We started with a life on the treadmill…ended with a cardboard cutout of Oprah and Muhammad…with a taste of honey in between.

I have heard antidotal evidence of the impact this series has had on our congregation…but I would love to hear it directly from you. 

What has God taught you through the last 6 weeks?

Has your faith been strengthened?

How has your Life Group been impacted by delving into these topics together?

Come share your stories.  Leave a comment below and let’s celebrate what God is doing among us…

Today’s 40 day reading has a great quote from a guy named Stephen Hawking…

“We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburbs of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies.  So it is difficult to believe in a God that would care about us or even notice our existence”

When you put it that way…

But most of us have no idea exactly how insignificant we are in the universe.  I didn’t until I watched a DVD by a teacher named Louie Giglio.  He did a couple of tours over the past few years talking about this.  He latest was called the “How Great is Our God Tour”  You can find it in sections on YouTube…but to save you the time of searching…I will post the links below.

If you have half an hour what he describes will blow you mind…this is again one of the things I would have loved to have worked into my sermon…but wasn’t able to.

Check it out…and my hope is you end up understanding your own insignificance…not like the guy quoted above…but like David in Psalm 8…

1 O LORD, our Lord,
       how majestic is your name in all the earth!
       You have set your glory
       above the heavens.

 2 From the lips of children and infants
       you have ordained praise ^[b]
       because of your enemies,
       to silence the foe and the avenger.

 3 When I consider your heavens,
       the work of your fingers,
       the moon and the stars,
       which you have set in place,

 4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
       the son of man that you care for him?

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_82lZ2PpYQE

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwrFILPaFWQ

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjL4SZyc5Ko

Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btyacVmGszA

Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXgiTUfFhLI

Most every week there are some things that don’t make it into the sermon.  A cool story, a great passage, or some insight we just don’t have time to use.  But this week…to say we had to leave a few things out would be an understatement.

On the topic of Creation and Evolution, there was so much material…we couldn’t get it all into 6 sermons much less 1.  This is a monumentally important subject…I shared this quote with the 1^st service…but let me share it again…

An atheist, G. Richard Bozarth, understood this well when he said, “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god [sic]. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who dies for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing. Christianity, if it is to survive, must have Adam and the original sin and the fall from grace, or it cannot have Jesus the redeemer who restores to those who believe what Adam’s disobedience took away. What all this means is that Christianity cannot lose the Genesis account of creation like it could lose the doctrine of geocentricism and get along. The battle must be waged, for Christianity is fighting for its very life.”

 He nailed it.  If the first five words of the Bible aren’t true…then there is no need for the rest.

This week I spent an hour listening to Richard Dawkins speak…as I mentioned in the sermon, he is called Darwin’s Pit-bull…he is the poster-child for atheism and a staunch proponent of Evolution…I encourage you to check him out…you can view the lecture through the link below.  As I listened I couldn’t help but think of Romans 1:18:23…look it up…listen to his lecture and come to your own conclusion…I would love to hear what you think.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2989,Richard-Dawkins-Lecture-at-UC-Berkeley,Richard-Dawkins  

BTW…as you listen…see if you can figure out how all of this got started.  What is it that started the rest of it…something had to be first what was it?

It’s Monday morning…and regrettably it feels like it.

I am running a little slow this morning.

But as I finish reading my 40 day devotional, I can’t help but think…it is amazing god has chosen to speak to us, not as an aloof supernatural being, but as a Father who loves his children.  With words of encouragement, words of warning, words of wisdom, all cloaked in love. 

We talked about God showing us who he is through creation last week…and that is great…but for me, nothing speaking more to the existence of God then reading his love letter to his people…

I can’t get over the idea of a self-existent God invite us into his story…

“Lord today, give me eyes to see you at work, ears to hear your voice, a heart that wants to obey, and the will to follow after you…”  

As I read through the 40 day devotional book today…Day 10…it hit me again why it is so many people struggle with the idea God made all this.  For us to conceive a being who has always been there, even I must admit is hard to imagine.  Think about it…most creationists believe the world is between 6 and 10 thousand years old…what was this infinite being doing the infinity before this?

I struggle with this answer.

The idea that God is self-sufficient…everything else we know has to have something else to survive.  Bacteria, camels, fires, ants, goats, viruses, tides, hair, fungus, fish, mushrooms, storms, stars…they all are dependent on others things for their existence…nothing we know of can exist on it’s own.  So I understand why people shake their heads at the thought of a God who was uncaused.

I get the hesitation.

The truth is, I believe, these questions are outside of our realm of understand.  The only experience we have at life tells us, everything runs out, everything is descending toward destruction(…you remember the second law of thermodynamics don’t you?) and everything had a beginning and will have an end, and all of it needs the rest of it to survive.

So I get it when people say this can’t be it. 

I get it…until you factor Jesus into the equation.  Jesus changes everything…for the second time (the first being Eden…) on this planet, man came face to face, with someone who wasn’t bound by the laws of this world…he could calm storms, walk on water, and multiply fish…because he was the cause not the effect.  He could heal the sick and raise the dead…because somehow the second-law of thermodynamics didn’t apply to him.  And when he died…he didn’t need help from anyone to be brought back to life…because there is nothing outside of being who he his…God…that he needs for life.  He is self existing.

Jesus said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the father…”  I think I am just now beginning to comprehend what he means by that…

I am a monotheist…at least most of the time.

When self and stuff and all the other little “g” gods  are kept in check.  I am pretty confident there is only one God.  But that isn’t to say…that even as a minister…I haven’t wondered if it were all true.

A few years ago I was going though one such time in my life…maybe it is a little exaggeration to say I didn’t believe…I think I always did on some level.  But I did struggle with what it meant to be in a relationship with him.

Philip Yancey wrote a book a few years back called, “Reaching for the Invisible God”…great read by the way…and in it he has this quote…from Theresa of Avila…

”Oh God, I don’t love you, I don’t even want to love you.  But I want to want to love you.”

Do you ever feel like that?

This has been my cry often in my relationship with God…I always want to want to know him, love him believe in him,  obey him…that is my hearts cry…and I hope it becomes your as well…

“Lord my prayer today is simply, instill in me a heart that wants to want you.  Instill in me a desire that wants to want to serve you.  May that be my consuming passion today,”

The question raised today is, “God, are you out there?”

At some point all of us have asked this question.  Maybe it was in the time of a tragedy, an illness, or just a quiet night under the stars.  For some the answer came quick, for others it still hasn’t sufficiently been answered.

But let me share a great line Jesus once spoke…when asked what is the most important thing God wants from us…this was his reply, ”Love the Lord your God with  all your heart with all your soul and…( do you remember what’s next?)…with all your mind.”

This is not a “check your brain at the door” kind of faith. It is reasonable.  It stands up to scrutiny.  It makes sense.  If we are open to seeking answers we will find them.

For you intellectuals out there…

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

This is a very heady list of arguments for the existence of God.  Obviously there so much more here than I could ever get into a sermon…but for those who are searching…here is a place to start…it will take some will power to get through…but a question this big is worth the effort.

Today is a busy day.

Its one of those days where you (…by you I mean I) can be lulled into a sense of importance.  I am planning out worship services for the next 3 weeks, working on sermons, speaking to our Young @ Heart class, and getting prepped for the launch of the life group that is meeting at our home tonight.  I have a full plate today.

But I know…at the end of the day…like the woman at the well…these things that eat up my time won’t satisfy by innermost desire.  I know this…I have know it for years.  Yet so many times this is the well I keep coming back too.

As I write this at 9:31am…I have yet to spend any time in prayer today.

I know Jesus is waiting with a well of living water for me…yet so often that is what gets pushed down on my to do list.

So how about you?  Have you been refreshed today?  Have you drank from the only well that will bring you life…

How about this…I will stop typing…you stop reading and lets both drink deep…

“Lord Jesus…Thank you for taking us as we are.  With all of our warts and wrinkles.  In this moment of silence refresh our hearts.  Give us a physical sense of what the psalmist meant when he said, ‘deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls, all of your waves and breakers have swept over me.  By day the love directs his love, at night his song is with me–a prayer to the God of my life.’”

Today I began reading the 40> Day why campaign devotional.  I am really looking forward to God working though these next forty days to begin transforming me…my family…and my church…

As I read today’s devotional, one sentence jumped off the page at me…”what you seek reflects what you desire” 

So what do I seek?  As shocking as it sounds I fall into the same trap as so many…I seek fame, I seek admiration, I seek approval and acceptance…I guess you could sum it up this way…way too often I seek wanting to be a somebody.

But even as I write those words my heart sinks.  Phil 2:5-7 say this…

 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
 Who, being in very nature God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
 but made himself nothing,
      taking the very nature of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.

My attitude should be the same as Jesus’…which begs the question: if Jesus’ attitude was to make himself nothing, why am I so consumed with making myself something?

“Lord I pray today, you would help me to make myself nothing.  That I would serve those I need to serve without regard for who’s watching.  I pray at the end of the day today I can look back and say at least for today what I sought was you.”