Reasons to Believe - Part 2
Disciples, Thinkers and Reasons That Helped Me Believe
Pastor Rollan Fisher
These are thoughts not my own that helped develop a testimony that I am able to live out today.
I Peter 3:15 ESV
“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”
Focus: We all need reasons to believe and God abounds with both Biblical and extra-Biblical reasons to embrace his hope offered to the world in Jesus.
I navigated through:
Philosophies
Pundits
Problems with Suffering and supposed
Promises from God.
I was a pre-med major coming into school, not following God, but open to truth based on where the breadcrumbs lead.
Thank God that though growing up, I had seen a lot of institutional hypocrisy, I met followers of Jesus as a student who lived like they actually had an authentic faith and relationship with Jesus.
I determined at university not to have predetermined notions of the world, but allow the facts to lead where they may.
The facts that I discovered are summarized, not exhaustively, in these categories:
In essence:
(There’s a) Reason
(For) Suffering (and)
The Bible (tells us)
Our Deepest Need (is)
Christ
With the short time that we have, I’d like to share with you some of these thoughts.
Reason
There was too much evidence in the arena of physical science for me to think there was not an intelligent catalyst to the material world.
“We don’t have a single example in the history of science in which information has ever come from anything other than intelligence. There is no property of physics or chemistry that can account for the information we see in DNA.”
-Cambridge Philosopher of Science, Stephen C. Meyer
I also found that there are philosophical pitfalls of unbelief.
“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
Logic led me to think that my arguments against absolute truth were faulty.
“Imagine a person who comes in here tonight and argues 'no air exists' but continues to breathe air while he argues. Now intellectually, atheists continue to breathe - they continue to use reason and draw scientific conclusions [which assumes an orderly universe], to make moral judgments [which assumes absolute values] - but the atheistic view of things would in theory make such 'breathing' impossible. They are breathing God's air all the time they are arguing against him.”
It went further into the idea of epistemology - how do we even know what we know.
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
Suffering
I acknowledged that much of my and other’s thoughts towards suffering were understandably emotional and not logical.
“While Western atheists turn from belief in God because a tsunami in another part of the world caused great suffering, many brokenhearted survivors of that same tsunami found faith in God. This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don’t suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.”
–Randy Alcorn
Pain used to be a puzzle, but the more I heard the good new of Jesus, the more I saw it as providing a new pathway to peace.
“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
The fact that I found in the Bible a God who suffered for me undercut my oppositions and paved the way to my acceptance.
The Bible
My thoughts towards the trustworthiness of the Bible also began to change.
First about its authority:
“When someone tells me ‘We can’t trust the Bible because it was written by men,’ I like to gently point out that their conclusion doesn’t follow their premise. Just because something was written by men doesn’t mean it’s not trustworthy. If that were the case, we would have to throw out encyclopedias, dictionaries, automobile manuals, et cetera—all written by men. Men are capable of communicating truthfully, especially when they have God’s help, as the Biblical authors did.”
–Charlie Campbell
Secondly about its contents:
“Despite the horrors the Canaanites were committing, the new atheists complain that God was immoral for stopping them. Yet on nearly every college campus I visit, an atheist declares, “If there is a good God, He would intervene to stop evil in the world.” Well, here is a case where God does intervene, and the atheists are complaining about it!”
–Frank Turek
Finally, there was the unparalleled testimony of Jesus:
“The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Computations using the science of probability on just 8 of these prophecies show the chance that someone could have fulfilled all 8 prophecies is 10 (to the 17th power), or 1 in 100 quadrillion.”
–Fritz Ridenour
But even it were true,
Don’t people dislike others trying to impress their views upon them?
I found that people sharing Jesus with me who was beginning to revolutionize my life, mind and soul was the most loving thing that anyone could do.
Certain atheists have agreed:
“I’ve always said that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward—and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself—how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
“I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that.”
- Penn Jillette, self-proclaimed atheist
I was encouraged that even great scientists such as Einstein were impacted by Christ’s life:
In a 2007 Time magazine article, it was reported that in a long ago interview Einstein was asked:
To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?
“As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.”
You accept the historical existence of Jesus?
“Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”
On top of all of the historic facts of Christ’s sinless life as recorded in the gospels, sacrificial death at the cross and verified resurrection from the dead, the good news of Jesus became supremely personal to me.
Our Deepest Need
“The deepest reality is personal; the deepest need is spiritual.”
~ Ravi Zacharias
I knew because of the way that I was living that if there was a heaven, I would have no personal basis for entry and if there were a hell, I deserved to be there.
The difficulty of trying to come to God on my own became pronounced to me once I considered it, but this only further validated the veracity of the gospel’s truths.
“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”
–C. S. Lewis
But because of Jesus, there was hope.
And through his gospel, I was changed.
I Was Changed
John 3:1-7 ESV
“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'”
John 8:31-37 ESV
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.”
John 14:6 ESV
“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus is the only way because of his identity as the incarnate Son of God - meaning he is God in the flesh - and because of the irreplaceable deed that he accomplished for us on the cross.
“All religions and philosophies say, ‘This is the way.’ Only Jesus says, ‘I am the Way.’”
–Tim Keller
Christ
There is a uniqueness and liberating reality in Jesus.
“There are only two kinds of religion in the world…They all say, “Do, do, do.” Only Christianity says, “Done.” Christ has done it all.”
–J. Vernon McGee
When I found that I couldn’t force it or be the man that I knew I ought to be on my own, that I fell short of God’s standards and glory, the truth of the Scripture came alive to me.
Galatians 3:24 ESV
“So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”
God was offering me forgiveness, acceptance and adoption by faith in not my goodness, but Christ’s.
I was all in but had to deal with the apathy that still permeated my campus, our culture and world.
People say:
*Religion is for some people, not for others, just like some have an interest in swimming or golfing and others do not.
The truth is because there is one creator and judge, he makes demands on all of our lives, calling the whole world into a reconciled relationship with himself through Jesus Christ.
Acts 17:30-31 ESV
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."”
When I accepted this reality, the world and my understanding of it came alive in a new way - and I felt like I was finally able to experience what was truly life.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
No matter where you find yourself this morning, you can respond to Jesus Christ.
If you have questions, we are here on Sundays to help you, resource you and help you navigate the questions that have life transforming impact of eternal consequence.
Book Giveaway
Lee Strobel references
Second City Church