Questions for God.

The Bible is a Story That Gives Wisdom and Leads to Jesus. The Bible is God’s Word for us.

Have you ever had questions for God that made you question God Himself?

If so, you’re not Alone.

All of us (yes, all of us) have wrestled with doubts at one point or another on our faith journeys.

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In this message, discover how to process your doubts and explore answers to some of the biggest questions for God.

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Questions for God.

Have you ever had questions for God that made you question God?

Questions you didn’t have answers to. And Questions that created doubts.

Doubts that you didn’t know what to do with.

Questions that have taken you to a place where you don’t know what you believe anymore or even if you believe anymore.

The Questions about science, the Bible, evil, suffering, judgmental Christians, different religions, and even more.

These are real questions,

and they can be hard questions, but over the course of this message, we’ll see that there are good answers to the big questions for God.

But first, let’s talk about doubt. Because doubt can be really scary.

Doubt doesn’t make you a bad Christian. Doubt makes you human.

Don’t just take my word for it! Check out these words from great Christian thinkers, authors, and theologians:

“Who among us has not experienced insecurity, loss and even doubts on their journey of faith? … We’ve all experienced this. Me too.” —Pope Francis

“I think the trouble with me is lack of faith … often when I pray, I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address.” —C.S. Lewis

“Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” —Frederick Buechner

“Other people have a concept of God so fundamentally false that it would be better for them to doubt than to remain devout.

The more devout they are, the uglier their faith will become, since it is based on a lie.

Doubt in such a case is not only highly understandable, it is even a mark of spiritual and intellectual sensitivity to error, for their picture is not of God but an idol.” —Os Guinness

Doubt is not the absence of faith. It’s an invitation to develop a deeper faith.

Questions for God.

One of my favorite examples of doubting in the Bible comes right before Jesus sends out His disciples to go and change the world at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.

It’s a passage called the Great Commission.

The Great Commission is the marching order we have as Christians,

to share the Good News of Jesus with the world so that they can experience the same love and grace that many of us have.

Right before Jesus said these words, which just so happen to be the last recorded words He spoke before leaving Earth,

we are told in verse 17 that some of the disciples worshiped, and some of them doubted.

Some worshiped and some doubted.

Their doubts did not disqualify them.

Your doubts do not disqualify you. Some of them worshiped, and some of them doubted, but they all followed Jesus.

So, what are you going to do with your questions and your doubts?

I hope, like so many people before you,

you will bring your questions to God,

and you will process your doubts with people you trust, and you will choose to follow Jesus anyway.

Matthew 28:16-20 KJV

[16] Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

[17] And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.

[18] And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

[19] Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

[20] teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

https://bible.com/bible/1/mat.28.16-20.KJV

Questions for God.

Hasn’t science disproven the Bible?

God is not afraid of science.

God created it!

The Christian faith is based on a God who created the universe with laws, order, and stability.

It is that foundational belief that makes science possible!

Did you know that the vast majority of the fathers of modern science were Christians?

Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, Newton, and Bacon (who invented the scientific method).

They weren’t just casual Christians either, they were committed Christians.

If you read some of the things they wrote, you’ll see the strength of their faith and how their belief in God was one of the biggest drivers of their scientific curiosity.

Not only that, but 65% of all Nobel Prize winners have been Christians.

God is not afraid of science.!

You can be an open-minded, critically thinking, scientifically curious, committed Christian.

When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was,

He responded by saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

What Jesus is telling us is that we don’t have to turn our brains off to believe in God. Instead, our minds need to be fully engaged!

The perceived conflict between science and the Bible comes from misunderstanding science or misinterpreting the Bible.

Questions for God.

So, let’s talk about the Bible. What is it?

The Bible is not a textbook with the answers to all of our questions.

The Bible is a story that gives wisdom and leads to Jesus.

Here’s why this is important: because if you don’t know what something is, you won’t know what it’s trying to do.

The Bible is God’s Word for us, but it wasn’t originally written to us.

The Bible is a collection of biographies, histories, letters, prophecies, poems, parables,

and more that were originally written to a people living in a different time, place, and culture, and speaking a different language than we do.

Because of that, in order to properly understand the Bible, we have to start by asking the question: What did this mean then?

Then we can start to understand what it means now.

What about science, though?

Science is a tool that helps us discover the truth about the natural world.

Francis Collins, a renowned scientist, described this relationship beautifully when he said:

“Science investigates the natural world.

If God has any meaning at all, God is outside of the natural world.

It is a complete misuse of the tools of science to apply them to this discussion.”

God is not afraid of science. And you don’t have to be either.

You can be an open-minded, critically thinking, scientifically curious, committed Christian.

Questions for God.

If God is real, then why do evil and suffering exist?

When we look at all the evil out there, it can be really hard to believe in the existence of an all-good, all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God.

While the problem of evil and suffering does disprove most gods, it doesn’t disprove the Christian God.

Why?

Because of Jesus.

Jesus is God in human form.

So, Jesus entered into the evil and suffering of our world, faced it head on, and chose death on the cross so that we could have life with God.

Yes! Jesus is the best picture we have of God. Jesus suffered. And Jesus died.

Jesus is the God revealed through suffering.

Through His death on the cross, Jesus took the ultimate symbol of death and destruction,

and He used it to bring life and salvation to the world.

The fact that we see evil and suffering as a problem is, surprisingly, evidence for God.

Why?

Because without God there would not be good and evil.

And because if there is no God there is no objective morality.

Without God, the universe is just atoms bumping up against atoms.

Which means there is no good and bad, there are only things we personally like or don’t like.

But deep down, when we see evil and suffering, we have this profound sense that it should not be that way.

Questions for God.

C.S. Lewis, a former atheist who became a Christian, said it this way:

“The shadows prove the sunshine.”

He’s telling us that the existence of evil (shadows) is evidence that there is such a thing as good (sunshine).

Without objective morality, good and evil don’t exist. Objective morality cannot exist without God.

In the Christian tradition, evil and suffering first entered the world in an event called the Fall.

God, because His nature is loving, created humanity with the freedom to choose.

Love cannot exist without choice.

That freedom means humans can choose good or evil.

The Fall was the moment when humanity took what God intended for good and used it for evil.

That was when sin entered the picture.

Sin is more than just a mistake. _.Sin is a disease that has infected humanity and corrupted creation.

The evil and suffering we see in the world today are the effects of that disease.

And since the beginning, God has been using evil and suffering for good.

Nowhere is this more evident than the cross,

where Jesus took the worst this world has to offer and used it to bring about God’s best: resurrection life.

What God did then was just the beginning.

Because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, there will come a day when every wrong is made right, when every hurt is healed, every broken thing is put back together, and evil and suffering are no more.

Christianity is the story of what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do about the problem of evil and suffering.

Questions for God.

Why should I believe in God when so many Christians are hypocrites?

If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated by the hypocrisy of some Christians, then you’re in good company.

Jesus had zero patience for hypocrisy.

And Jesus was the first person to use the word hypocrite to call out someone who said one thing and did something different.

Before that it was simply used to describe a play actor wearing a mask.

Christ did not hold back when it came to calling out hypocritical religious people.

Jesus was incredibly direct with these people, because He understood the damage that was caused by hypocrisy.

Few things make Christianity more unbelievable than people who say they believe in God, but don’t actually follow Jesus.

So why should you believe in God when so many Christians are hypocrites?

Because a bad Christian doesn’t disprove the truth of Christianity in the same way that a bad doctor doesn’t disprove the truth of medicine.

Even more than that, there are good reasons to believe that God is real and that Christianity is true.

Here are just a few:

the existence of the universe, and the fine-tuning of the universe to support life, human consciousness, morality, and historical evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Two more questions we have to answer before moving on:

What is the Church?

The Church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners.

Jesus made it clear in His teaching that He came to make sick sinners well.

And Jesus is the doctor, and we are His patients.

This matters because Jesus never asked us to be perfect, but He is inviting us to make progress.

When we understand this truth, we can take off the mask and stop pretending everything is okay.

Instead, we can reject hypocrisy and choose to live with integrity—

by being honest about where we are and doing our best to keep moving forward.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

Believing in God doesn’t make you a Christian. Following Jesus does.

There are a lot of different gods people believe in or claim to believe in.

When Jesus called His disciples, He didn’t tell them to just believe in God. He told them to come and follow Him.

Then Jesus issued a new command to His followers, to love one another the same way He has loved us.

Jesus made it crystal clear; the world will know who He is by the way we love.

Questions for God.

So why should you believe in God when so many Christians are hypocrites?

Because there are good reasons to believe in God, and because Jesus offers us something that the world can’t.

He offers life, hope, peace, grace, love, and purpose.

The good news is that Jesus didn’t come for the perfect people who had it all together, He came for broken and imperfect people like you and me.

What makes Christianity different from all the other religions?

One word: Jesus.

Yep. That’s it. Nothing else!

Jesus is the answer to that question. Let me explain.

Christianity is the only falsifiable religion.

What that means is that Christianity makes a claim that could be proved false,

and if that claim were proved to be false, then all of Christianity would be proven false.

Questions for God.

What is that claim?

The claim that Jesus Christ came back from the dead.

Contrary to what some people may believe, Christianity isn’t based on a book.

Christianity is based on an event. That event was the resurrection of Jesus.

The Apostle Paul himself states that if Jesus didn’t actually come back from the dead then all of his preaching would have been wasted.

That’s a strong statement.

Paul is telling everyone, without the resurrection of Jesus there would be no Christianity.

Thankfully for those of us who are Christians, the claim that Christianity makes is backed up by significant historical evidence.

Once again, don’t just take my word for it.

Take a look at just a handful of the facts that almost every single historian and scholar agree to be true:

Minimal Facts:

Jesus was a real person who died by crucifixion on a Roman cross.

Very soon afterwards, Jesus’s followers had experiences they believed were actual appearances of a resurrected Jesus.

Because of those experiences, these followers went from cowering in fear to being willing to die for their belief in Jesus’s resurrection.

The message of Jesus and the Christian church started right after Jesus was killed, right where Jesus was killed: The city of Jerusalem.

James, Jesus’s own brother, who was not a Christian at first, became a Christian after the death of Jesus because he believed his brother really did come back from the dead.

Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, went from killing Christians to starting churches because he had an experience he believed was with the risen Jesus.

When we look at these facts, that virtually every historian and scholar agree to be true, there is only one good explanation:

Jesus did what He said He was going to do. He came back from the dead.

What makes Christianity different?

Jesus.

And Jesus is God in human form. Jesus is the perfect picture of God.

The God revealed through suffering.

The God who came for broken sinners like you and like me. Jesus is the foundation of our faith.

If the resurrection did not happen, then Christianity would be false.

But if Jesus did come back from the dead, then Christianity is true. And if Christianity is true, well, that changes everything.

Questions for God.

Okay, but what about hell?

For a lot of people, their understanding of hell and God’s judgment makes God look like a cruel monster instead of a good father.

This is why it’s so important to read every passage on hell through the filter of who God is as revealed through Jesus.

When we look at Jesus, we see a God who is full of love, grace, compassion, and mercy.

And When we look at Jesus, we see a God who will stop at nothing to rescue humanity from our sin and reconcile us to Himself.

At the same time, Jesus shows us a God who won’t shy away from calling sin and evil what they are.

Not only that, but Jesus doesn’t hijack anyone’s free will.

He gives people the choice to follow and trust Him, or to reject Him.

We all have the choice to choose life with God, or life apart from God.

God will honor our choice. If someone chooses to reject God in their life, then God won’t override that choice when they die.

This is why hell exists. Hell is the result of God honoring people’s freedom to choose life with Him or apart from Him.

Questions for God.

What is hell? Hell is separation from God.

One of the biggest problems people run into is that their idea of hell is often so much more detailed and specific than what is actually found in the Bible.

When talking about hell, Jesus describes it in several different ways.

Sometimes, hell is a burning fire, and sometimes it’s a furnace, also, sometimes it’s a trash dump, and other times it’s pure darkness.

The details may be different, but the point is the same: Hell, eternity apart from God, is so much worse than eternal union with God.

This is why the language about hell is so extreme and intense.

Because Jesus wanted people to understand that they could choose eternal life with God!

Or they could reject God and choose hell.

“There are only two kinds of people in the end:

those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’

and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in hell, choose it.

Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.” – C.S. Lewis.

At this point, you may still find yourself unsettled by the idea of hell.

Good.

That means you’re human. This should unsettle you.

The Apostle Paul, in Romans 9:2-3, said this,

“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race.”

Paul is saying he would choose hell for himself if it meant the rest of the Jewish people would choose life with God.