Where Can I Go To Find The Answers?

Many people say the demise of Christianity in America is upon us. You can read many different opinions as to how things began to go south, about when things became terminal, on any number of websites and even in books that have been published. Albert Mohler is the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Fifteen years ago he wrote an article that stirred up a lot of conversation. In his article, he wrote,  

The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture ...Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society...The worldview of most Americans is now thoroughly secularized, revolving around the self and its concerns, and based on relativism as an axiom. We Americans have become our own best friend, our own therapist, our own priest, and our own lawgiver. The old order is shattered, the new order is upon us.  (Mohler, Albert. https://tinyurl.com/p3xs4fj)

Dr. Mohler saw the shift that was happening in our society, but instead of waving the white flag, he saw a great opportunity for the followers of Jesus to engage the people of our culture and share with them the truths of God’s Word. Our day is really not that unlike the days of the Apostle Paul. In Acts 17 we read a story about the time Paul entered Athens, Greece and saw the modern-day thinkers of his day at the Areopagus. The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers had nothing in common with Paul when it came to their thoughts about God, Jesus, and the Bible and yet their questions about life, the meaning and purpose of life, making sense of heartache and suffering, and questions concerning eternity were questions that people from all walks of life were asking. Read along with me beginning in verse 17.

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. (Acts 17:17-23 NIVO)

The people Paul spoke to were like those we live around, work with, and call friends. Their ideas and lifestyles were different from the ideas and lifestyle of Paul, but Paul met them where they were, at the Areopagus and not at church, to share with them the truths of God. Many mocked Paul and snickered at his ideas, but Paul listened to them, he knew what they believed. Paul quoted their poets. He knew their train of thought and so should we be interested enough in those around us that we take the time to listen and learn so that we might share with them the Good News of Jesus. Let me share with you some of the major reasons why those who have pronounced Christianity a thing of the past with no relevance for our modern-age believe this to be true. One of the most prominent reasons is, in their words, our antiquated views of human sexuality. The old Church taught about what it means to be a man or woman, staying sexually pure until one is married, railed against fornication and adultery, and urged those who were married to be faithful to their spouse.Modern-day people are dealing with a much more complex understanding of human sexuality. Facebook offers an almost endless list of gender identities available for its users. You can choose from male, female, agender, bigender, cismale or cisfemale, genderfluid, and so on. Modern-day people’s understanding of sexuality just keeps getting more and more complex. It wasn’t that many years ago that LGBT was an acronym we were just becoming familiar with, but today those four letters standing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered are morphing most each and every day. Just a couple of years ago the acronym was LGBTQIAPK. New identities have been added and the acronym reduced to LGBTQIA+. I don’t think the list has been finalized. Modern-day thinkers who have dismissed the Christian faith, the Bible, and the local church as irrelevant say that the old, out-dated thinking of the ancients no longer satisfies or enhances modern civilization. Sam Harris in his “Letter to a Christian Nation,” wrote,

That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past does not preclude the possibility that it is now the greatest impediment to our building a global civilization. (Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation.)

Those who are carving the tombstone of Christianity cite the rise of science as another major reason for Christianity’s certain demise. Science says that it has explanations for phenomena that were once attributed to the gods or God. Natural explanations have replaced what once only had a supernatural explanation for many people. Lightning and thunder are not signs that the gods are angry at us. There are scientific explanations about the atmospheric conditions that cause thunder and lightning. The Bible tells us that God knits babies together in their mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), but science has explained that the union of an egg and a sperm cell ignites the process of the creation of a human life. I do need to say that when David wrote the verse about God “knitting” him together in his mother’s womb, he was using poetic, metaphorical language to describe God’s loving care in creating him and not giving us a literal, detailed explanation of how he was made. So science has explained the “how” of the creation of a human life, but it can’t explain the “who” and “why” of the creation of a human life. It is a modern phenomenon, this antagonistic battle between religion and science. Throughout history, the greatest scientist’s belief in God was strengthened with every discovery they made. Let me give you an example. Lord William Kelvin began attending university classes when he was 10 years old, in 1834. He became a physicist and mathematician who devised the Kelvin temperature scale, formulated the second law of thermodynamics, and was responsible for solving the problem of laying telegraph cable under the Atlantic Ocean. Lord Kelvin said,

I believe that the more thoroughly science is studied, the further does it take us from anything comparable to atheism. If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God. (Lord William Kelvin) 

I can remember many years ago when a young medical student named Rebekah came to Britton Christian Church and asked to speak to me. She was taking classes at the OU Health Science Center in preparing to be a doctor and the more she learned the more she began to ask questions. Her questions weren’t concerned with “How?,” but with “Who?” While she was explaining her thoughts to me she said, “Evolution can’t explain what I’m learning.” I told Rebekah that God’s Word says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).  We continued to read God’s Word together and Rebekah continued to come to BCC for Bible study and worship. One day Rebekah gave her life to Jesus Christ, was baptized as a sign of her new life in Christ, and today she is an OBGYN in California. There’s no doubt in my mind that Rebekah’s study of science led her to Jesus. Dr. Henry Schaefer, according to U.S. News and World Report, is a five time Nobel Prize nominee and the director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia. He said,

The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, ‘So that’s how God did it.’ My goal is to understand a little corner of God’s plan. (Henry “Fritz” Schaefer)

Many modern-day scientist have replaced, “So that’s how God did it!” with “See, I told you there’s no such thing as God!” Nothing could be further from the truth. Remember, science can tell us “how,” but it can never answer the questions of “who” or “why?” I remember asking a question in a Bible study I was leading one time. The question was, “When has God shown you the grace of a second chance?” One of the people in the class told us that she had grown up in church, but when she went to college she got too smart for God and began living her own life. It’s a sad reality that in many of our universities today this is the norm and not the exception. More and more professors have embraced the idea that knowledge will deliver us from the shackles of religion and belief in God when in actuality learning should lead us to a deeper understanding of God and His marvelous ways. Louis Pasteur, the founder of microbiology and immunology knew this truth long before I did. He wrote,

The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God. Little science takes you away from God but more of it takes you to Him. (Louis Pasteur)

For those who say the Bible’s views on human sexuality are outdated or that science has freed us from our need for a God who can explain things to us, I have to ask, “Where will you go to find the answers to the most important questions of life?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fViYK_Xb3WgScience can’t tell you who you are, it can’t help you come to an understanding of why you are here or help you determine your purpose in life--so where are we to go to find answers to these questions? There are a number of answers to that question. We can turn to Google for answers, but the number of responses you will get will be overwhelming. I Googled, “Is there any purpose to life?” In less than a second I got 5,910,000,000 responses! Now, how am I going to find the time to read through all of the different opinions about the purpose of life? The other problem with Googling life’s big questions is that I’m going to get every answer under the sun! There’s no purpose to life, be happy in life, find your purpose in life. The top three responses I got from Google were Darwinism: Survival With No Purpose, The Meaning of Life: An exploration of the purpose of human existence, and the third response was from a website called Creation.com which told me, “Because God created us, He had a purpose in doing so. Many parts of the Bible speak of this—our main purpose is simply to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”  Those are only the first three responses. I wonder what the other answers might recommend for me? I’m going to rule Google out. So, what’s left? Well, we could just sit down and put our best thinking cap on and figure these things out for ourselves couldn’t we? Others have done that in the past. There’s an interesting example of this found in the book of Judges. Four times in the book of Judges we are told “In those days Israel had no king…” You can read it for yourself in Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25. What’s really interesting about this is that in the first reference and in the final reference the phrase is followed by another phrase, “everyone did as he saw fit.” Israel had rejected God’s guidance and turned to their own best thinking. Everyone did what they thought was best in figuring out how to live their own lives. It didn’t work out so well. And it still doesn’t in our day either. I have a friend who attends our church who shared his story with me. He said, “I grew up in church, but turned away from God and did what I wanted to do. That led me to becoming an alcoholic. God opened my eyes and helped me see that I needed His help to get sober.” I said, “What you are saying is you took the reins of your life out of God’s hands and drove yourself right into the ditch.” My friend said, “Pretty much.” All of us who take the reins of our life don’t end up an alcoholic or drug addict, but we sure know how to drive our lives to a place that is far, far from God. Some have an overwhelming desire to be successful and make lots of money thinking that success and wealth will make us happy and give us a sense of purpose in life. Jim Carrey has made millions of dollars because of movies like Dumb and Dumber, Batman Forever  and Bruce Almighty. He said, 

I wish everyone could get rich and famous and have everything they’ve ever dreamed of so they would know that’s not the answer. (Jim Carrey)

Jim Carrey knows what he’s talking about. He’s made more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes yet he knows from personal experience that wealth and fame haven’t made him happy. Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of the British rock group Queen for almost twenty years. Queen has sold somewhere between 200-300 million records, no doubt due in large part to Freddie’s incredible voice. Freddie Mercury died on November 24, 1991 at his home in London due to complications caused by AIDS. He had been adored and idolized around the world and yet Freddie said, 

You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. And that’s the most bitter type of loneliness. Success has brought me world idolization and millions of pounds, but it has prevented me from having the one thing we all need--a loving, ongoing relationship. (Freddie Mercury)

Such a sad story of a man who was loved by so many and yet felt all alone. Yet, it was Freddie who charted the course for his life. The life he envisioned, that he worked to create, was not the life he had hoped for in the end. I wonder how many people have made the same mistake? Everything we set out to accomplish, everything we work so hard to achieve, once we realize our dreams they are not what we had hoped they would be...and we are left dealing with reality. Most often the reality we must deal with is far short of the hopes we had for our lives when we were young. I hear the dreams of young people all the time. I ask, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” I hear, “I’m going to the NBA.” “I want to be a doctor.” “I want to do ‘this’ or ‘that.’” I meet with so many people who had big plans, they dreamed the dream when they were young, and yet life has turned out so different than they ever imagined. I have other friends whose reality is far more than they ever dreamed when they were young and yet when they grabbed the golden rung on the top of the ladder they thought to themselves, “Is that all there is?” Reality can be very discouraging, disheartening, even cause us despair. Russell Brand is a comedian, actor, and podcaster who had an impossibly difficult childhood and rose to fame. His fame brought him lots of money, he became a heroin addict, married, and then 14 months later divorced Katy Perry, and said,

Drugs and alcohol are not my problem. Reality is my problem. Drugs and alcohol are my solution to fill up a hole inside me. (Russell Brand)

Are you beginning to get the picture? We don’t fare any better at coming up with the answers to life’s biggest questions than the people in the book of Judges who did what was right in their own eyes. So, if science can’t help us, if Google will only confuse and overwhelm us, and if we are incapable of arriving at the real answers to life’s biggest questions, where can we turn? I’m so glad you asked. I want to invite you to join me for Alpha beginning on September 10 here at Britton Christian Church. I hope you noticed the banners in the Gathering area this morning. In the next month you will read and see more and more information about Alpha. I know many of you probably don’t know anything about Alpha, you’ve never attended an Alpha meeting, so I want to help you understand why Alpha is such a great opportunity for us as a church and for you and your friends. Alpha is a safe place for people who have questions about life and the Christian faith. Let’s watch a short video of Maggie’s experience then we’ll come back and talk afterwards.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEI-wgPcK0&t=1sWe offered Alpha in English, Spanish, and for the first time, in Chinese, last September. There were some people who regularly attend BCC. There were others who had never been to BCC before they came here for Alpha. The one thing all of the people had in common is this: They have questions about life and the Christian faith. Alpha is like a hothouse for tiny seedlings that need to be nourished so they can flourish. People who come to Alpha know they won’t be judged, ridiculed, or condemned because of the questions they have or what they believe. Beginning in September there will be groups of people meeting for Alpha in over 160 countries around the world and they will share a plate of food and conversation in over 112 languages in prisons, on college campuses, in churches, bars, cafes, and homes. You may wonder how Alpha works? That’s a great question. Beginning Sunday, September 10, at 5 pm we will have a dinner for all of those who have signed-up for Alpha. Following dinner we will break up into three groups, according to each of three languages being offered, where we will watch the video for the night. The videos are about 23 minutes long. Following the video the Table Hosts will go to different rooms in our Education Building with their small group and talk about life and the topic for the night. Who should come to Alpha? That’s another great question! Alpha is for people who have questions about life and the Christian faith. You may be like my friend who was raised in church, but knows nothing about the Bible and would like to learn more about Christianity. You might be like my friend who isn’t sure he even believes in God, but he’s open to listen. You might be like my friend who was raised in a Buddhist home, but is open to learning about Jesus. You might be like my friend who has been fully in charge of her life and years later is empty and thinking, “There’s got to be more to life than this?” You might be like my friend who has called herself a Christian for years, but truth is she really doesn’t know what she believes. All of these friends of mine are great candidates for Alpha. Maybe you are a great candidate for Alpha as well?Throughout all of the 33 years I’ve been here at BCC we’ve studied the Bible and learned how Jesus was so open to those in His day who had questions. He sought out those who were making a mess of their life. He loved those who had gotten it all wrong. He reached out to those who had been beaten down by life and others. Somehow, some way, maybe through someone...Jesus reached out to you and if you are like me, He’s changed your life like He’s changed mine. And He has called us to share who He is and what He’s done with others so they might come to know Him as well. Maybe you are here this morning and what we’ve been talking about has struck a chord with you. You’ve searched for answers in other places, you’ve listened to people and people have let you down, and you’ve still got questions about life and Jesus. I want to invite you to come rest in the Savior’s arms. Confess to Him that you don’t have the answers, that you don’t even know all of the questions, but you want to trust Him. He’ll never lead you astray.Mike HaysBritton Christian Church922 NW 91stOKC, OK. 73114 Christianity, if false is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. (C.S. Lewis)