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Ignite 12/14/11 "Creation and God"

Tonight we have created a lot of pretty wild things haven’t we? The ability to create is an attribute that God gave to humans. We have many of His attributes. To name some of them: Creativeness, Communication, Eternal nature, Justice, Mercy, Love, an understanding of morality.

According to scripture God has many characteristics that we do not have. We were created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), but we do not have all of the specific abilities of God. We have an origin and we were given the ability to create, but that only came about because of God.

            Tonight we are going to look into the question of creation. What was there before God? Was there anything?

Let’s look at this in completely human terms first. In our human reality for something to be created it has to be created by something doesn’t it? Nothing comes about on its own. A party is not thrown without a host, a cake is not baked without a baker, likewise, the dishes would not be washed after the party without a dish washer. Things don’t just happen on their own.

What about the big bang theory? There was a molecule that randomly hit another molecule and a huge explosion happened creating all that we see. Ok, that is interesting, but where did the molecules come from? Did they just pop into existence?

Let me blow your mind for a second. Was God created? If God was created, who created the thing that created God? If that thing was there, then who created the thing that created the thing that created God? This argument goes on infinitely and eventually falls apart.

Stephen Hawking said it this way: “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject."

Stephen Hawking is basically saying that if anything could have just “been” why did it have to be God? Why couldn’t the world have “been” without need for a God to have created it?

            As humans, our minds cannot wrap around the infinite and eternal nature of God. It is not within our grasp. So what do we do to explain it? We have to look at it in our limited human terms and make a decision based off of that. Which will, 99.9% of the time, leave a pretty huge gaping hole in our theory.

            For us to understand God’s uncreated nature we need to understand time.

Genesis 1:4-5 “And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.^”

             Time was created when God created day and night. There was no such thing as time

before this point. Many other places in scripture attest to God’s eternal nature.

1 Chronicles 16:36 “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!”

             Before God created the universe time literally did not exist. God lives outside our understanding of time. As beings that live within the constraints of time we have to see a beginning and an end to something. Something that simply “was” and “is” blows our minds.

            You can think of it this way. God was, is, and always will be. Time for God would almost look like a circle. There is no beginning, middle, and end. He just is. For us time is very linier, having a definite beginning and end.

We can already see that God was not “acted upon” or created by anything else. Since He always was, there would be no need for something to step in and create Him. But, God did create everything that we see.

God talks about His creative nature when God spoke with Moses. Before sending him off to the Egyptians, He called Himself the “I Am”. The full understanding of that name in the Hebrew means “I cause to be what is”. God was literally saying that without Him, nothing that “is” would “be”. If you think that is a little confusing let’s look at the book of John.

John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

            When God talks about creation, He doesn’t say that “the being that created me taught me how to create everything.” He says that nothing was created unless it was made by His hands.

Do you know that some religions actually think that God is one of thousands? Mormon’s, for example, believe that if they follow all of their religious rules correctly, they will not only be allowed into the highest level of heaven, but they will be given a planet to rule.

They actually believe that God is just another person that followed the rules and has been rewarded with his own planet.

If you didn’t read scripture you could fall into some kind of an idea like that couldn’t you? Is there scripture that talks about this? Let’s take a look:

Isaiah 48:12-13 “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. ¹³ My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.”

Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen,that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.”

These are just a few examples of God claiming to be the only God that exists. Nothing existed outside of Himself until He decided to create things. What does that do to the issue of who created God? It takes it away completely. If no one created God, then there is no infinite line of beings that created other beings. There is just God.

            God set into motion the rules that govern our thought processes and the very cycle of life. Because of God, we now truly see that nothing happens unless something has acted upon it. What would it mean for us if we simply “were” like Stephen Hawking suggests? There would be no consequences for actions beyond what people could do to us here on earth. The idea of order would be destroyed because there is no reason to live up to someone else’s expectations.

The fact that we were created by God for a purpose makes life worth living! That purpose is to worship Him and follow what He wants for our lives. Doesn’t that give you hope? It gives me hope and peace to know that I am not just wasting my time here on earth before I die. I am part of a plan that God has set into motion. That plan will be accomplished because God is guiding my steps.

What about you? Are you trying to follow God’s plan for your life? Or are you just creating your own rules? God doesn’t just want us to follow Him because He is God and He said so. He wants us to follow Him because He has that plan and future already laid out for you.

           God did give us a creative nature and He wants you to use it in serving Him, not putting together elaborate plans of escaping His purpose for your life.

Ignite 11-30-11 "Impact" Session 3

Introduction

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about this idea of being impacted by God. Like we studied in the first week, it is putting ourselves in positions where change can happen. It’s putting ourselves in the right place where we can be impacted in order to get the right kind of change we desire and need in our lives—the kind of change that leads us to become the sort of people God wants us to be.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “status quo”? It is a Latin phrase we use to simply mean “the way things are.” If you say someone is living the status quo, they are living the norm, doing things as they have always been done.

The status quo for a lot of teenagers is having their own cell phone, getting their own car when they get their license, graduating from high school at 18 and for most, heading to college in the fall. This is the status quo. This is seen as “normal”.

Tension

This may not be a new thought for a lot of you, but have you ever thought about the idea that there is a status quo when it comes to being a Christian as well? There are things you do when you call yourself a Christian that are just “normal.” You go to church for example—Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday nights. You go on a mission trip at least one time in high school. You have memorized John 3:16. And like this verse suggests, we believe the right things. We believe Jesus was God’s Son. We believe Jesus died for our sins. We believe He was raised from the dead. We believe we will go to heaven when we die. End of story.

But you know what I have noticed? People who are living the status quo aren’t typically the happiest people. I think this is true for adults and for students. The people who are doing things just like they “should” or as is expected aren’t necessarily content, excited or passionate about where life has found them. Can any of you give me an example of this?

In other words, the status quo of Christianity isn’t necessarily the most satisfying, faith-building place to be. And it could be because the status quo has nothing to do with being impacted or impacting others.

A lot of the things that make up the status quo of Christianity are good. Like our core beliefs and going to church, but what if there is more to Christianity, more to our faith than just what is normal, what is expected, and what is typical? What if colliding in our faith means much more than doing these right things, believing these right things, and staying away from bad stuff? What if it has a lot more to do with the God who is calling us to experience Him?

Truth

One of the things we have to be careful about when we read Scripture is to not read the Bible like a textbook as list of do’s and don’ts. A lot of us have the tendency to simply read the Bible at face value. We figure out what it tells us to do and what not to do and stop there—maybe even make it a checklist of sorts, simplify it so that it is easier to figure out what exactly is expected of us. This is a tempting trap to fall into, and one that will lead us exactly to where we are—living the status quo. And doing that isn’t exactly a new idea. It is an old one.

In fact, in Jesus’ day, this was the temptation as well. The people who were most likely to be seen doing this were the Pharisees—the religious elite. It can be crazy to hear because we typically view the Pharisees in a negative way, but they were very religious, sometimes in a good way. They were very concerned about doing the right things, the things that were expected of them. They had the Ten Commandments—the obvious list of dos and don’ts—and then some. Lots more rules, lots more guidelines, lots more stuff to follow. You could say that they set the precedent for the status quo. If you wanted to be in God’s good graces, there were certain expectations to meet, and it seemed to the people of the day that the Pharisees were a good example of what God was after. In the world of the religious, they were the goal.

Funny, but the Bible doesn’t really present them that way, does it? I mean, when I hear the word Pharisee my mind usually jumps ahead to, “Don’t be like them!” Why? To put it simply, Jesus doesn’t speak too kindly about this super-religious group. Okay, I may be holding back a little. There is one time in Scripture where Jesus says this to them:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. . . . You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:27-28, 33 NIV).

Right, so this is a little awkward, because this isn’t exactly how one would talk to people who have it right and who are setting an example worth following. I mean, yes, culture was different in the Middle East two thousand years ago, but not that different. Calling someone a snake then meant the same thing it does now. It’s not exactly a term of endearment.

So where is the disconnect? Why was Jesus so frustrated with this group when it seemed like they did everything right and believed everything that is right? They had it together, so why was Jesus’ harshest rebuke saved for them? Maybe we can have a better idea of what Jesus would have for us if we look at the people who did do it right, the people who Jesus said made some good and right decisions.

Let’s look in Matthew, where Jesus calls the first disciples. Look at what happens:

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him (Matthew 4:18-22 NIV).

So what is the big deal about this passage? What happens here that makes the disciples different from the Pharisees? These verses say one thing about these four disciples—Scripture tells us that when Jesus asked these men to join Him, they immediately left what they were doing. They dropped everything, abandoned their jobs, left their families and did exactly what they needed to do to join ranks with the Son of God.

And this is where the Pharisees got it wrong. The Pharisees talked a good talk and followed all sorts of rules, but when it came down to it, they weren’t really being impacted by God. They weren’t doing anything that required radical action from their tightly held beliefs.

The disciples, on the other hand, were doing exactly that. They left it all in order to be with Jesus. They abandoned it all for the sake of faith.

The Pharisees were living the life of the status quo—a life that was expected, tame and just pretty average—even if it appeared right and “by the book.” But the disciples weren’t satisfied with that. They wanted something more than just a life spent doing the same old thing. They wanted a life walking with Jesus, and doing that is anything but normal, anything but routine, anything but predictable. It is a life spent really experiencing God.

Application

The Pharisees trusted a system. The disciples trusted God.

The Pharisees trusted their ability. The disciples trusted in the Savior they knew they needed.

To live a life where you are constantly impacted by God, with others and with the world means trusting in a big God when He calls you to drop your nets, when He calls you to lead a larger, and maybe even a little more dangerous life than the status quo offers.

You can do all of the right things, believe all of the right things and still spend your whole life insulated—not anywhere near experiencing a real God.

You can spend your whole life believing in God, but not believing God for who He says He is. You can spend your whole life believing in God but not following Him.

Here is the thing: Being a follower of Jesus means doing things that others might consider crazy. It means drawing some attention to yourself. It means maybe being whispered about behind your back. It means maybe being told you are taking this Christianity thing too seriously. It means others thinking you may have lost your mind. It means living so certainly and with so much passion and conviction, so much belief and love for God, that everything else pales in comparison. It means valuing nothing, literally nothing, more than Jesus.

Living life without being impacted is easy. It is safe. It is predictable. It is popular. It is the status quo. But this isn’t exactly what Jesus had in mind when He invited the disciples to drop their nets and follow Him. He wanted these men to be impacted by God—to abandon what was expected of them, what was normal and what was secure. He wanted them to invite Him into their lives in a way that maybe felt risky and potentially even crazy, but it allowed them to get a picture of just how big God was—a picture you can’t get without being impacted in a major way.

Living a life where we experience God means putting more hope and confidence in Him than in anything or anyone else—including ourselves. It means opening yourself up to possibilities you may have never dreamed of that only God can make happen.