The Christian Atheist, part 2

Here is this past Sunday's message.

The Christian Atheist, part 2

When you believe in God, but don’t think He’s fair

Sunday, September 22^nd, 2013-MRWC

 

Show Video Clip- the storms of life

 

            We are in week two of our new sermon series called The Christian Atheist.

            Just to bring you up to speed; we said last week that a Christian Atheist is someone who believes in God, but lives as if He doesn’t exist.

            Author and Pastor Craig Groeschel said that: “The core problem for the Christian Atheist isn’t belief, its intimacy. The Christian Atheist doesn’t know God well.” (CA study guide. 17)

            The Christian Atheist may know about God, but they don’t know Him in their heart.

            God doesn’t want us just to have head knowledge about Him; He wants us to know Christ passionately and personally.

            David wrote in Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.” (63:1, NLT2)

            David knew God completely and to avoid believing in God but living as if He doesn’t exist, we must make Him our own.

            This is a very brief recap of last week, and I hope that some of you are seeking to move from simply knowing about God to knowing Him personally and intimately, as David knew Him.

            It’s just as the video said: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10, NIV)

            For the next 5 weeks, we are going to examine 5 issues that Christian Atheists struggle with—there are more than 5, but we are only looking at 5—and we’ll begin today by launching into today’s topic: When you believe in God, but don’t think He’s fair.  

PRAY

            Have you ever wrestled with this question: “Why does a good God allow bad things to happen?”

            Or perhaps you’ve tried to get your mind around this question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Anyone ever thought about this at least once in your life?

            At their core, these questions have to do with fairness--> more specifically: Is life fair?

ILLUSTRATION- At Life Group last Sunday night, David Moore told our group that he recently attended the funeral of his 2^nd cousin. Her finance found her dead on the floor.

            Life came to a screeching halt for this woman, who was 32 years old.

Is life fair?

ILLUSTRATION- How is it fair that Aaron Alexis could walk into the Navy Yard in Washington DC and shoot and kill 13 people?

Is life fair?

ILLUSTRATION- Is it fair that my father was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumour and 5 months later was dead?

        He will never see my children graduate from High school, or go off to college or even get married.

Is life fair?

ILLUSTRATION- Is it fair that thousands of Syrians died in a chemical attack, while the ruling government still argues about who was responsible for the attack?

            How is it fair that all of these things can occur?

            Just in case you think that life is hard today, let’s dig into the Word of God and look at several examples of people’s lives that were filled with pain and torment, and we’ll begin our look at the life of Job.

            Job was a man who lived in the Land of Uz- which was “probably east of the Jordan River in the Syrian or Arabian desert” (NNIBD, 1290)

            Job was also an upright man, who loved God and was the owner of large flocks and herds of sheep, camels, oxen and donkeys cared for by a large number of servants. (this illustrated that he was very wealthy)

            Job had a heart for God and when his children had wild parties—sometimes for days at a time—Job: “…would get up early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them. For Job said to himself, “Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts.” (Job 1:5, NLT2)

            Job’s main concern was God and making sure that he—and his family—lived for God.

            One day, an exchange took place between God and satan, as satan was patrolling the earth looking at everything that was going on.

            Then, God offers up Job has a person of outstanding character; someone who feared God and resisted evil.

            Very quickly, satan retorted: “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God.

         10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is!

11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!” (Job 1:10-11, NLT2)

In other words: ‘Of course he fears you God, you’ve protected Him; but remove Your hand of protection and see what happens to Him.’

So…God allows it, and satan wreaks job.

All Job’s farm animals are destroyed, his servants are killed, and his children die; everything he owned was gone in an instant.

To make matters even worse, satan comes back to God a second time and gets permission to wreak havoc on Job’s life, and for a second time, Job is brought to his knees.

All of these things happened to a righteous person- How are we supposed to deal with that? Is that fair?

How about some more examples, this time from the NT?

John the Baptist was a forerunner to Jesus. He went preaching that the Son of God was near, and that people should repent and be baptized.

Why, John the Baptist even baptized Jesus Himself, and what did John get out of the deal?

His head on a Christmas platter.  How’s that for fair?

How about the example of Jesus? The only Sinless Person to have ever stepped foot on our planet, was standing before Pilate in Matthew 27, and was accused of, among other things, being the King of the Jews.

Pilate could have released Him, because he couldn’t find grounds to condemn Him, but instead gave into public pressure and released a notorious murderer named Barabbas, and sentenced Jesus to death.

“The guilty man was set free. The innocent man was condemned to die” (Groeschel, 2010, 96)

How’s that fair?

Bear with me as I share one more example.

We’re told in John chapter 9 that as Jesus and His disciples were walking along: “…he saw a man who had been blind from birth.” (John 9:1, NLT2)

His disciples asked Him: “Rabbi…“why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” (John 9:2, NLT2)

It was a popular train of thought in Jesus’ day that said if you were sick it was because of a particular sin—or sins—in your life, or the lives of your parents; so the disciples wanted to know who had been sinful—the man himself, or his parents.

Jesus responded by saying: “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins….This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” (John 9:3, NLT2)

What happened to this young man wasn’t because of any particular sin; but he was born blind so God’s Glory might shine through.

I share these stories with you to bring home today’s key thought: Life isn’t fair; but God is faithful.

God demonstrated His power in this man who was born blind by giving him his sight back.

Life wasn’t fair; God was faithful to this young man.

God demonstrated His power over sin and death with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Life wasn’t fair to Jesus, but God was faithful.

God allowed Job to go through Hell to demonstrate His power and at the end of Job’s story; we read that God blessed Job with twice as much has he had before his ordeal began.

 Life wasn’t fair to Job, but God was faithful.

God will be faithful in your life as well. No matter what you are going through, no matter how difficult the pain, no matter how much heartache you may endure, God is with you.

Life isn't fair, but God is faithful.

Seeing as we’re all thinking it, let me go out on a limb and say that God is not fair. (Before you pick up that stone, hear me out)

Paul wrote in Romans 3 that: “No one is righteous—not even one. ¹¹ No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.

¹² All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 8:10-13, NLT2)

Not a single person on the face of the universe is good; the truth is: we are awful!

Jeremiah reminded us that: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9, NIV)

No person, anywhere, can be called good, because we’ve all sinned against God.

We’ve all done something that God has told us not to do, and because of that, we are sinners who deserve nothing but the pit of hell.

Paul said in Romans 6:23 that: “…the wages of sin is death…” (NIV)

Because we’ve sinned against God we deserve death and complete separation from Him, forever.

But because God’s not fair; He gives us what we don’t deserve.

The rest of Romans 6:23 says: “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NIV)

How is this possible? We deserve nothing but death, destruction and annihilation—but God gives us eternal life through Jesus Christ?!

Phillip Yancey, in his book “What’s so amazing about grace” writes: “If I care to listen, I get a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved.”

“I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor’s prison and got instead a clean credit history.

I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance; I got a banquet…spread for me.” (CA study guide. Page 28)

The truth is God is not fair. But He is faithful. He gives us what we don’t deserve.

David wrote in Psalm 103: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10-12, NIV)

God has chosen in His infinite wisdom, not to treat us as we deserve, but to bless in ways that we simply don’t deserve.

I think we need to understand that God is not fair—He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, but even more than that, life’s not fair.

We live in a sinful world, and life will stink from time to time, so no matter what you are dealing with today, I want you to know that Life isn’t fair; but God is faithful.   

One verse that I haven’t been able to get away from all week as I was praying over and preparing for today’s message is 1 Corinthians 10:13 which says:

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (NIV)

The words in the middle of this verse ring out to me like church bells: “And God is faithful…” (1 Cor. 10:13, NIV) These 4 words should be imprinted on our brains.

We Christian Atheists would do well to remember that life isn't fair, but God is faithful.

And if you are dealing with something that doesn’t seem to make any sense to you whatsoever, remember that God sees the entire picture—we only see a fraction of a fraction; but God sees the entire thing, and He will be faithful to you and your situation.

ILLUSTRATION- To this day, I have no idea why my dad went through what he went through. I still shed tears when I think about my dad’s absence.

        I miss him, but I have come to the conclusion that God is faithful and He can be trusted.

            I pray the same for you. I pray that you will be able to move past your hurt—even for a moment—and begin to see God as the faithful God who stands beside you in the midst of your storms and trials and He is holding you up.

            God, in Isaiah 41:10 says to us: “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” (NLT2)

            So here’s how we’re going to end today. Beth is going to come and play and I’m going to pray, and if there is something going on in your life that you just can’t seem to understand, I want you to talk to God about it, and then I want you to come up and grab a card off the alter as a reminder that Life isn’t fair, but God is faithful.