Sermon Notes, September 7, 2012
Faith and Doubt—Why I Believe, Romans 10:9-14
As we wrap up this series about Faith and Doubt, I want to start with this question: Have you ever thought about how
many different ideas about faith, religion and God exist among the human race? Every one of them thinks he or she is
right. They all think they’re right, and a lot of people are going to find out when they die, that they’re wrong. For
thoughtful people, that raises the question: What are the odds that I’m right? So many people with so many different ideas
and opinions… Why do I think I’m right? This is a troublesome question.
Around a century ago a man named William James wrote a response to another man named William Clifford, a skeptic
who wrote an essay called “The Ethics of Belief.” Clifford advocated an approach such as, “Don’t decide. Don’t commit.
Just be an agnostic or a skeptic.” James responded and said, there are some situations where that skeptical, agnostic
approach is not wise. He said, “In particular, it involves a situation that has these three conditions: the choices that
you’re facing are live, momentous and forced.”
The first condition of all: Live. You have two options. Either option is plausible. You can’t prove either one, but each is a
possibility. Options can be “live” or “dead.” “Dead” options are options in which there is really no possibility of it
happening at all.
Sometimes you have two options and they’re both “live” and “momentous.” Momentous options are options where the
stakes are very high. It’s not like deciding between vanilla and chocolate.
And, James said, sometimes you are forced to make a choice between two situations where abstaining neutrality—
withholding a commitment is not really an option. To choose not to make a decision is to make a decision. You’re either
going to be alive or dead. You can choose one or the other, but there’s no third ground. You could be pregnant or not
pregnant. No neutrality.
We’ve been talking about faith and doubt, and sometimes people think about faith and doubt as if it’s an abstract issue, a
philosophical question, and they can remain neutral and make no choice.
Here’s the question: You have a life. You have a choice. You will die and then you’ll know. So you have to decide the
answers to these questions: Why am I here? And what will I build my life on?
These are “God” questions. This is not the kind of issue where I can just stand on the sidelines and say, “I think I’ll take
a pass on this discussion.” If you just drift you become a practical atheist, and that is its own decision.
I believe that the greatest opportunity ever offered to a human being is the opportunity to trust Jesus, to know Jesus, to
learn from Jesus, to follow Jesus, to love Jesus. I think that’s “IT.” And I believe that life and death and Heaven and Hell
hang in the balance—for you, for me, for our neighbors, for people who live here where we are—and for people all
around the world.
In this message, I want to tell you why I believe that—my own reasons for belief. Other people have other reasons, but I
want to tell you why faith in God and, in particular, faith in Jesus makes sense to me.
If you’ve never chosen, I want to invite you to choose. Some of you, I know, have chosen, yet you still wrestle with
doubts. I want to run through a few of the reasons why I think that faith in Jesus makes sense:
1. First, I believe that the way that people argue suggests that God exists.
This idea comes by way of a man named C. S. Lewis. Lewis writes about it in Mere Christianity. When we argue, he
says that we say things like, “That’s not right! That’s not good! You’re not being fair!” In other words, we appeal to a
standard that is independent and objective and higher than you and I. We appeal to the idea that there is such a thing as
right and wrong.
In theory, many people in our day hold the belief that right and wrong are subjective—just preference—just vanilla and
chocolate. You have yours, and I have mine. An author named Dinesh de Souza has written a book entitled: What’s So
Great About Christianity? He points out that in our society, we will often hear this statement: “Don’t impose your beliefs
on me.”
De Souza says he finds it interesting that we don’t say, “Don’t impose your Geometry on me. Don’t impose your
Chemistry on me.” Why not? Because we assume that science and mathematics are about objective reality. So we don’t
think they can be “imposed” on us. But we often believe that morals and values are simply subjective preferences. You
have yours. I have mine. It’s all just arbitrary. Every time you hear two people argue, it shows we know better. We believe
that moral reality is built into the way that life is.
Every human being knows two things: There is a way we ought to behave. There is a code, a standard.
We know there is a standard that we all ought to live up to, and we all know that we don’t live up to it. We all fall short.
We need forgiveness. We need grace. We need to get fixed. Every time people argue, they are implying that the universe
is not an accident, that there is a moral order, and that there is a law of right and wrong that is built into the way things
are, because it was put there by Somebody, and that Somebody was God. The Good News is that He is a gracious God.
That’s part of why I believe in God.
2. Second reason:
I believe the existence of human beings, of personal creatures, argues for the existence of God.
Human nature is such an extraordinary thing, unprecedented in the universe.
A writer named G. K. Chesterton said one of the reasons he became convinced about Christianity is because it captures
the fullness and the mystery and the contradiction and the paradox of life… especially of persons.
He says that when it comes to human nature, there are some approaches like Stoicism that are kind of pessimistic about
human nature… “Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t expect too much.”
Then there are some approaches, certain forms of humanism that teach “Man is the measure of all things,” and that have
an exalted, optimistic view of human nature.
When it comes to human nature, Christianity is not just pessimistic or optimistic or blandly “middle of the road.”
It is wildly pessimistic: The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things. (Jeremiah 17:9)
And it is wildly optimistic and hopeful: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been
made known. (1 John 3:2)
Naturalism says that human beings are just a collection of atoms. The Bible says we are a different kind of being, and
that we are made in the image of God… possessors of a soul. In our hearts, we know this to be true about ourselves.
Another reason: When you look at persons, they all have this drive to have a purpose, to have a meaning, to have
significance, and I believe that our drive for purpose is another evidence for the existence of God. Everybody you know—
no matter what they say or claim about the afterlife, God, spirituality—everybody wants a way of life that has meaning,
that has significance, and that has purpose. When it comes to making a choice, if you ask whether a choice is rational—
we’re looking at whether a choice to commit to God is rational—
Every choice has two components to it.
One part of the choice is I have to have certain beliefs,
But then another part of making a choice is I have to have a purpose, an intention, and a desire.
Now if you ask, “Is that a rational, reasonable choice?” then I will have to look at two questions:
Is my belief rational? Then the other question is: Is my purpose rational? Here’s the thing:
Atheism, materialism in general, would say that you can analyze the rationality of someone’s belief. It might be rational;
it might be irrational. But they would say that when it comes to purpose, there is nothing about rationality connected with
our purposes. Purposes are not rational or irrational. They’re just whatever anybody wants to do.
Whatever your purpose is—whether it’s greed, pleasure, status, or “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”—
whatever it is, it’s your deal. But in our hearts, we know better. In our hearts we know that to give our lives to unworthy
causes is not just unsatisfying, it is irrational. It is not fitting. We all know this. What that means is we all know at some
level we’re not accidents. We’re made for a purpose. That’s why we have a hunger for it.
I believe that to ask God to help you to know and fulfill your purpose is infinitely wiser, infinitely saner, infinitely more
rational than to bet your one and only existence on the notion that the Universe is a random accident that does not care
whether you are noble or evil, whether you live or die.
Another reason why I think betting your life on God is the sanest thing you can do:
I believe the existence of joy points toward God.
Sometimes people think that what we really want more than anything else is we want to be happy. If you ask people,
“What is the Number One desire of the human race?” the answer would probably be “Happiness.” We say we want to be
happy above everything else. I do not think that is true, and I’ll tell you why.
Happiness, and joy, although we love it, always points us beyond ourselves.
What we want is that to which joy points. I believe our chronic hunger for joy tells us we have been cut off from the
reality for which we were made, and that reality is God. That’s why there is this restless bondage to happiness and even
joy in our world.
Once there was a Man who had that joy. People saw Him. People knew Him. One time, Jesus said to His friends, “The
reason I tell you these things is so that my joy might be in you, and your joy might be complete” (John 15:11). Our quest
for joy, our search for joy, our broken, messed-up, obsessive, endless pursuit of joy tells us we were made for the JoyBringer.
Last reason to believe and the most personal: God changes lives, and our lives need changing.
Jesus is in the life-changing business. From the very beginning, there was a strange thing. People would come to Him—
sometimes satisfied people—sometimes messed-up people—sometimes lepers and injured people, forgotten people,
despised people, prostitutes, tax collectors, admired people, wealthy people, religious leaders. There was something about
this man, Jesus, which made their hearts cave in and then be born again.
I’ve never seen anyone receive the power to live the kind of life and become the kind of person they want to be by
hearing that there is no story behind the universe. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Now I have found a meaningful existence
from a meaningless reality.”
But Jesus has been doing that for 2000 years.
 Now what about you?
 Now you have a life.
 Now you have to choose.