Why Church? Asking Hard Questions About God

The point of this is for us to come and to bring our questions and our doubts before the Lord, not to answer every question definitively, but to recognize that we can bring our questions and doubts before the Lord. And this will take place a little different than it normally does, as you're probably used to me reading the scripture and then explaining that scripture in sermon form. Instead, start with the questions and we'll get to the scripture in a minute. And so, when we think why church? [00:28:46] (32 seconds)  #BringDoubtsToGod

One hope that I have is that we will get better at discussing these questions rather than running from them. Some people like to run from them, shut the door, don't ask questions because they hate to have to say, I don't know. Remember when I promised you an answer? I didn't promise that the answer wouldn't be, I don't know. [00:31:54] (20 seconds)  #AskDontRun

But either God is infinite or something else is. Because when we ask that question, who created God? If if God created us, who created God? Then we're assuming something had to come first. And my science teacher told me in seventh grade something that I think all kids can understand, and so this was the the direction we would go in with that child that asked that question. But he said, so here's the deal. Had to come first, and whatever came first had to always have been here. Not everything can be created. There's one thing that was never created, and that's the thing that's always been here, whatever that might be. [00:33:17] (39 seconds)  #OneUncreatedFirst

And I'll give you the short answer of that. The most true book in antiquity is the bible. We have 14,000 manuscripts from the New Testament showing us what it said then. It's the same thing that it says now that that nothing has been changed over all those years. We have fourteen fourteen thousand with the most original manuscript being within a hundred years of when the events took place. Would you like to know what the second most true book in history is? [00:40:16] (30 seconds)  #BibleManuscriptEvidence

Now that's good news for me because I like having God involved in my life because I have determined that I can't do anything on my own, but that can be very bad news if you didn't want anything. Right? If you wanted to be able to do whatever you determined was right and not have to deal with what God says is right. And so it's a scary thing for some people. And so they will ask you, why bother? Why does it matter? Why do these things come into play at all? [00:45:47] (32 seconds)  #ToughLoveOfGod

And as we get connected to God, we recognize that he has a plan for us and for this world and that he is moving us closer and closer to that plan. And so when we come together on Sundays, we don't always understand all of the gospel. We don't understand all of scripture. We don't even understand all of the things that I might have read today. For all the activities we do, here's what we understand. God's good. God loves me. God sees me. God knows me. That's good enough for me. [00:49:15] (35 seconds)  #GodIsGoodAndKnown

``So why are they having fun there? Because they recognize that they're in the presence of people who love them, who care about them, who created them, and stuck with them, and is leading and guiding them on a path, and they assume they'll understand some more later on, but they're not too worried about it. They're not worried about figuring it out. They're just, you know, simple little child. How did Jesus say we're supposed to come to you again? Oh, as little children. [00:50:24] (29 seconds)  #ChildlikeTrust

If you leave out of here today, not feeling anything different, not feeling like anything has occurred while you were here. Don't think for a minute that that invalidates what god's doing in your life. He didn't tell you to come here so that you would feel different about it and so that you would feel great about it and so when we come and we leave out here on cloud nine encouraged and just on fire and ready to go, that's just a bonus. That's not the point. [00:52:34] (29 seconds)  #FaithBeyondFeeling