WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT GOD MATTERS

Sermon Summary (3/8/20) “What We Believe About God Matters” (Psalm 8; Genesis 1:1)

“Let me believe.”  My only prayer for three years following the death of our son.  I came to believe in phases.  First, as a Deist, one who believed that God exists but has left life to us.  Many of our Founding Fathers were Deists.  What they believed mattered.  If God was not involved, the good world was up to them and they had high expectations. 

My son challenged me, “If Jesus came and stood before you, you’d believe in a personal God.”  In essence he did.  God exists, it made sense that God exists, it takes far more faith not to believe than to believe.  It made sense too that if God us Creator, that he would want to reconcile creation to himself and do so by becoming like us, and do so with the greatest act of love that one can do for another and this is to give his life for me.  And if He would do that, He is a very personal God.

The problem is that so many are rejecting or ignoring God.  They don’t give him the time of day.  And then there are those who are practical Atheists.  They believe in God but it has no impact on the way they live.

Where are you?  Where are you on the spectrum of belief?  We say in the Creed: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”  This sermon is the beginning of a six part sermon series on the Apostle’s Creed, “I Believe,” in Latin, “Credo.”  What we believe matters as does how casual our believe is.  I can say, “I believe the Cardinals are going to win the World Series.”  Fan Faith.  It has little to do with my behavior.  I can get a little political, “I believe in the Second Amendment.”  Or like the Founding Fathers: “We hold these truths to be self-evident….to which we pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”  I wish our Christian faith was so.

When we read the Psalms, we are reading the words of passionate believers, “When I look at the stars, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place.”  You can feel the passion.  So what’s gone wrong?

In the 18th century, science emerged.  Science became our god.  In the 19th century, the “Origin of the Species.”  Evolution became our god.  In the 20th Century, the Big Bang.  Some saw no need for god.  In the 21st century, ardent Atheist authors who see religion as the source of all evil. 

Yet the dozens of clues that God has left in the universe overwhelmingly convince me that there is a God.  Here’s just five: The Big Bang, proposed by a Catholic Priest tells us rather than being eternal, that the universe came from nothing.  I would declare that that nothing is God (I’m not alone).  Secondly, “Creation” itself declares the glory of God.  A baby wrapping its tiny fingers around my pinkie is a huge clue to the existence of God.  Thirdly, CS Lewis examines the “moral law “and finds a higher standard in almost every group.  God’s law.  Next, there is no philosophical reason for the “order of the universe,” that water boils at the same temperature each day, or that an apple falls at the same acceleration.  God exists.  Finally, the finetuning of the universe for life.  God exists.  The personal God of the Bible exists.  What we believe matters.