Seeing, Telling

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, this past Sunday. I hope you find it helpful.]

John 1:29-42
You all know of my former atheism, which lasted from my mid-teens into my twenties, a period of about ten years. In those days, honestly, I thought that people who believed in God were superstitious, fanatical, and dim-witted. When I heard Christians talk about their faith, I thought that, as someone sufficiently smart and resourceful, I didn’t need the “crutch” of a Savior God. 

But in those ten or so years, there was one Person from Whom I tried to keep my distance. Someone I never wanted to see. That Person was Jesus. 

Occasionally, at a bookstore or a library, I would run across an article about Jesus; I would read with a mixture of interest and revulsion. 

Or a friend would talk to me about Jesus and I would, as a friend, listen dutifully, but disinterestedly. “Well,” I would think, “he or she is a weaker, dimmer person than I realized. They actually believe in Jesus.”

And yet. When I was away from the bookstores, libraries, and friends, when I lay in my bed at night in the darkness, the witness about Jesus I had heard or read or seen from people, movies, books, articles, and the Bible would come to mind. 

I felt two things in those moments. One was terror! A perfect, risen Savior terrified me. The other thing I felt was an attraction to Jesus. 

But I would shake off my thoughts of Jesus and avoid seeing Him as best I could.

Eventually, you know, Ann and I were married and I reluctantly began attending worship with her, then listening to the witness of members of the congregation, and studying the Scriptures with them and on my own. 

For the first time in my life, I began to see Jesus for Who He is. The Holy Spirit started both tearing down my walls of resistance and building faith in Jesus within me. 

The work of the Spirit continues in me. I still sometimes try to avoid seeing Jesus or, more significantly, avoid being seen by Him. 

But as the Word of God and the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are unleashed into my life, I understand the truth of what Peter once told Jesus after Jesus had suggested that the disciples might want to follow some other person or some other way rather than follow Him: “Lord, to whom shall we go? [Peter asked] You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) [emphasis mine]

It was tempting when I first came to see and imperfectly follow Jesus to not say anything about it to people. I wanted to keep Jesus to myself for fear that people would view me in the way I’d once viewed Christians, as weak, dimwitted, fanatical, superstitious, in need of a crutch. 


But I’ve come to learn something. It’s pointless being a witness of what Jesus is--to see Jesus for Who He is and can be for all people--if we won’t testify about what we’ve seen to others who are in as much need of Jesus as we are. 

If you learned the cure for cancer, heart disease, depression, or AIDs but didn’t share the cure with others, you would be an inhumane monster. Just so, if you have seen Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world and with it, the death and purposelessness that afflicts the human race without Jesus, it would be inhumane and monstrous. 


In another part of the Bible, the apostle John writes: “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” (1 John 1:3-4) 

When you see Jesus--really see Him--your joy in knowing Him is only made complete when you share Him with others. 

To a great extent then, being a disciple of Jesus is all about seeing and telling.

We see this in today’s Gospel lesson, John 1:29-42. Here, four people see Jesus and at least two of them tell others about Him immediately. They don't wait to take a class or memorize the Old Testament Scripture that points to Jesus or go to seminary. They see Jesus, then tell others about Jesus.

The first person to see Jesus in our lesson is John the Baptist. Verse 29: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!' This is the one I meant when I said, “A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. Then John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.’”

In these few verses, John tells us Who he sees Jesus to be: 

• the Lamb of God Who gives His perfect life in sacrifice for our sin so that all who believe in Him will have eternal life with God; 
• God the Son, Who lived before anything was created; 
• the Lord affirmed by the Holy Spirit; 
• the One Who will give that same Spirit, the very breath and life of the ever-living God to all who follow Jesus. 

Oddly, though John was Jesus’ kinsman, he hadn’t really seen much of the truth about Jesus until that moment on the Jordan when Jesus was baptized. I’ve known many Christians who have been as blind to Jesus--to His lordship and His power over sin and death--as John apparently had apparently been. Pain, adversity, change, temptation, happiness, success, and life generally come to some Christians and they crumble because they’ve never really seen or followed Jesus. They can't handle life. Their so-called faith has been or has become a habit, nothing but happy banter with people they find convivial. I’ve also known Christians who run away from seeing or being seen by Jesus better than any overt atheist. They’re afraid that if they really see Jesus, they might have to come to terms with their own sin and admit that they’re nothing without the grace God gives in Jesus. But John the Baptist saw Jesus and told the world Who and what he saw.

John’s telling engendered the interest of two of his disciples and they went to observe and listen to Jesus. “Where are you staying?” they ask Jesus. He tells them, “Come and you will see.” (John 1:37-38) One of those two disciples--students, followers--of John the Baptist, Andrew, went to his brother. “We have found the Messiah (that is the Christ, [God’s anointed Savior King]),” he tells Peter. Andrew saw Jesus and told his brother what he saw. (John 1:41-42)

During a meeting this past week, a public school teacher spoke to a group of us with passion and tears about the teachers and students she encounters each day who don’t know Jesus. They’ve never seen that He is God, that He can free them from the power of sin and death, from slavery to the condemnations and harsh of a dog-eat-dog world, from despair and hopelessness. This teacher prays and she shares Jesus when she can. But still, she cries for those who don’t yet see or know the real Jesus.

Do you understand her tears? 

If you don’t, maybe you need to begin looking at Jesus again. Read and study and pray over His Word in Scripture and ask Him, “Jesus, help me to see you clearly as Savior, God, and Friend not only of me but of my neighbors, all of my neighbors the world over whatever their backgrounds, skin colors, nationalities, or present religion.” 

I guarantee that the more you see of Jesus, the more you will, like that teacher, seek to share Him with others. Jesus will fill you with the same passion for those who don’t know Him as He had for you when He went to the cross to take “away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)

Friends: Don’t avoid Jesus. Don’t forget about Him when you leave here this morning. 

See Him. Every day. 

Know Him. Every day. Let His life fill you. 

Then make your joy complete: Share Him. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

[Above is a drawing of John the Baptist pointing to Jesus as "the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world." The artist is Cerezo Barredo, priest, painter, artist. He created drawings like these while living in Panama. Like the painters of the Renaissance, he contextualized Jesus to the time and place in which he was living, in this case among the poor of Latin America.]

From Lutheran Satire: Donnall and Connall Meet Richard Dawkins

Like all good satire, you laugh because it rings so true.



"Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, 'He catches the wise in their craftiness,' and again, 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.' So let no one boast in men..." (1 Corinthians 3:18-21a)

Not enough faith to be an atheist

A colleague of mine shared the quote cited below from Lee Strobel over on Facebook.

As a former atheist whose struggle against Christian faith led me to believe in Christ, I can identify with Strobel's thought processes as he engaged in a similar struggle.

In the end, as was true for Strobel, after considering the evidence, from the Scriptures, from reason, and from the sciences, I simply didn't have enough faith to be an atheist.

Strobel's quote:

To continue in atheism, I would need to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness produces fine-tuning, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and non-reason produces reason. I simply didn't have that much faith. 

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Are you willing to believe in the Resurrection? (AUDIO)

Here.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message for yesterday's Easter worship services.]

Are you willing to believe in the Resurrection?

Matthew 28:1-10
When I was an atheist, as some of you know, one of the hardest things for me to understand about Christian faith was the resurrection.

I had known people who died. None came back from the grave.

I thought that the Easter proclamation that Jesus had risen and the Christian message that all who repent and believe in Jesus have eternal life seemed fanciful. I was a resurrection skeptic.

So, it turns out, were the first disciples of Jesus.

They’d heard Jesus say more than once that He was going to be crucified, then rise again. But when they heard Jesus speak this way, they seemed to ignore His resurrection talk, because they were horrified at the thought of His crucifixion.

So, on the Sunday after His death, Jesus’ disciples weren’t even thinking about resurrection. Jesus was dead and they were grieving.

This is what lay in the background of our gospel lesson for this Easter Sunday morning, Matthew 28:1-10. If you’re skeptical about Jesus’ resurrection or if you’re skeptical that a risen Jesus can give you forgiveness for your sin or life beyond the grave, nothing I say will make you believe.

But if you’re willing to listen to the experiences of those first skeptical disciples and note the way in which Matthew tells us about the first Easter, the Holy Spirit may pry open your heart, mind, and will to believing that the resurrection of Jesus and the new life that only He can give you are true.

Our lesson begins: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.”

Unlike the other gospel writers, Matthew doesn’t mention the women going to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. That doesn’t mean that Matthew and the others disagree; Matthew just doesn’t think it’s important to how he wants to tell us about the first Easter.

In fact, the way Matthew opens his account of the first Easter, almost makes you think that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary didn’t know what they were going to do. This jibes with Mark’s account of the resurrection. On the way to tomb, Mark says, the women asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” (Mark 16:3)

Under normal circumstances, you’d want to say, “Well, they should have thought of that in the first place.”

But, as I’ve learned first-hand again this past week, when you grieve, you aren’t in normal circumstances. It’s hard to concentrate. You can’t decide what you should do next. So, you just do stuff, including, sometimes going to the loved one's burial place.

That’s what Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom Jesus had cast seven demons, and another of Jesus’ disciples, identified only as “the other Mary,” seem to be doing on the Sunday after Jesus’ death. The last thing they imagine is that they’ll see the risen Jesus.

Verses 2-4: “There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.”

“That seems pretty far-fetched,” we might say. You can bet that the people in the first century who first heard Matthew’s gospel would have had the same reaction. It would have seemed just as crazy as it does to us. An angel descended from heaven, rolled away a burial stone, and struck dumb armed soldiers who were overwhelmed by the appearance of the angel.

If Matthew had been most concerned with convincing skeptics, he may have been well-advised to leave out all the details--earthquakes, angels, heavenly luminescence.

But Matthew isn’t interested in making an impressive argument. He’s only interested in telling you the truth. 

It’s up to you to decide whether you’re willing to believe it or not. 

And, if you are willing to believe, God’s Holy Spirit can help you to believe despite your skepticism.

This is exactly what happened to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. They come to the tomb convinced that Jesus is dead. Soon though, open to the angel’s message about Jesus rising melts their skepticism into faith. This happens even though they have yet to set eyes on the resurrected Jesus! Watch out: That can happen to us when we attend to God’s Word with an open mind! 

When I started going to worship just to get my wife off my back for sleeping in on Sundays, Jesus grabbed me by the lapels and said, “Listen, you! You have no idea what you’re talking about when you say I don’t exist, when you say that the resurrection is hooey. Listen to the witnesses to My resurrection. Listen to the people who risked their earthly lives, honor, and income to proclaim the truth they knew and experienced!”

As Romans 10:17 teaches us: “...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.”

That’s what happened to me: I let the truth in God's Word do its life-giving, faith-creating work in me, the truth about a God Who loved me so much that He sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not be killed off by death, but will rise just as Jesus rose to live with God for eternity.

Folks, good news like that will change not only your eternity, it will have a direct impact on how you live right now. Verse 5: “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: “He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.” Now I have told you.’”

In the Bible, the first thing an angel almost always says to the people they encounter is, “Don’t be afraid.” That’s because angels reflect the perfect righteousness and glory of God Himself. The angel says that the women shouldn’t be afraid and then says that, just as He’d foretold, Jesus was risen.

And then, the angel commissions the two women to teach the Church that Jesus was risen from the dead. “Go,” the angel says, “tell the others that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Then, they need to race to Galilee to catch up with Him!”

I’ve wondered why Jesus chose to meet the apostles sixty miles from His burial spot. Maybe this is the reason: After Jesus’ resurrection, some people said that Jesus hadn’t really died on the cross, only fainted or “swooned.” Muslims still say this. But try imagining a man who has fainted after being severely beaten and wounded, waking in a cave. He would still be weak, near death. Can you imagine such a sick, wounded person then tearing up to Galilee on His own?

Wounded men don’t run.

Dead men don’t run.

But Jesus, once dead, apparently now can do more the run. Jesus was living out the promise of the prophet Isaiah: “...those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

“I’m running to Galilee,” Jesus is saying through the angel messenger, “tell the eleven to follow Me there and catch me if they can!"

I love verse 8: “So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”

The women didn’t have all of their questions answered. They hadn’t seen Jesus face to face.

But they had heard the Word about Jesus and they were running to tell the skeptics what they now knew by faith in Jesus.

Listen: Faith isn’t knowing every answer. Faith is knowing the One Who is the answer.

And here’s what I have learned: When I act with faith in the risen Jesus Who I cannot see, He shows Himself to me in ways I could not have imagined.

The women have no thought of actually seeing the risen Jesus; they simply believe in Him and are intent on proclaiming Him.

But look at what happens next! Verse 9: “Suddenly Jesus met them. ‘Greetings,’ he said.They [the women] came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’”

When Jesus says, “Do not be afraid” here, they are the same words spoken by the angel to them a few moments before. But I agree with Dr. Jim Nestingen that when Jesus says these words to the women at this moment, He means something different than the angel meant.

From what Matthew tells us, the appearance of the angel would have been terrifying. But from what Matthew says here, the appearance of Jesus seems to have been as understated and matter of fact as His greeting, just as it had always been throughout His earthly life.

That makes sense: When God the Son took on human flesh, He laid aside His glory. He entered the world as a baby. Jesus came into this world not to overwhelm us but to save us, true God AND true man.

I think Jesus is telling the women this: "Do not be afraid...of death; I have conquered. I have killed off its power over you. I’m alive and when you turn from sin and trust in Me by faith, you are alive! I give you a full share in My victory. Death can’t separate you from the resurrection life I have for you. Neither can sadness, adversity, family feuds, career setbacks, poverty, disease, instability, politics, economics. None of these things can separate us from God. This world may do its worst to you. But when you believe in Jesus as the risen King of your life, God will always have His best in store for you!"

So, are you willing to believe in the resurrection?

Then, militate against your doubt and your skepticism.

• Act on your belief, however faint it may be. 
• Run (or walk, or hobble, or crawl, or drive) from this place and, today, this week, find someone to tell or some way to act that shows the truth that Jesus is risen. 
• Read one of the gospels and let their witness help you to know the risen Jesus intimately and well. If you will do this, I feel certain that you will do exactly what I did when I first started taking the gospels seriously and what I keep doing as I dig into them each day, you will fall in love with Jesus. To know Jesus is to love Him...because you know that He has loved you first.

I promise that if you’ll do any of these things in response to the Easter Word, you’ll meet the risen Jesus.

Don’t be afraid! Run with Jesus...you will never run alone. Happy Easter! Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message for today's Easter services.]

Heisenberg, God, Atheism, and Openness to Faith

My son shared this today over on Facebook.

Heisenberg's experience was exactly my experience, though I certainly never delved into science as deeply as he did, obviously.

I became an atheist in my early teens, when I first began to really learn about science. But after I learned more and recognized that knowing about the universe didn't mean a person understood the universe, I became more open to faith in God.

Science answers useful questions like what, when, and how.

But it is God who must reveal the answers to the most important questions about our universe: who and why? This He does in Christ and in His Word, the Bible.

Faith isn't contrary to reason. But you cannot reason your way to God from the data in the observable universe. You can't say, "There's a tree. I know how it works. Therefore, there is no God."

Nonetheless, the awe that looking at the universe and its elegant mechanics revealed by science's questions left me open and willing to believe in the God revealed in Christ.

God creates faith in Christ in the lives of those who are willing to believe, but belief in the God we cannot see is a miracle of grace. Faith is God's gift to the willing.

It's a miracle that, with what I know about life and death and the world, I nonetheless believe in God and trust God in the flesh, Jesus, to be my Savior and that the life He gives to forgiven sinners like me beyond the grave, gives me confidence to live today.

1 Corinthians 12:3 says: "...no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus be cursed,' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." God's Holy Spirit takes our willingness to believe each day and turns it into faith.

And Hebrews 11:3 says: "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." When you know the God made plain in Jesus, your awe of the mechanics of the universe uncovered by scientific discovery only increases, as does your appreciation of God's grace.

Ancient King David understood how the more one observes the universe, the more opened up to God we become. David wrote: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1). Amen

Eternity with Christ...

...will be better than the best that we experience or can imagine in this life.

That's a comforting, empowering thought.

But when I was an atheist, I thought that the Christians' hope of resurrection life with God beyond the grave meant that they were anesthetized while living in this life--disengaged, heedless of the injustices faced by others, fatalistic.

That's exactly what Karl Marx, another atheist and writer of The Communist Manifesto, thought. He famously wrote, "Religion [by which he meant the Christian faith into which he had been baptized and which prevailed in the Europe of his day] is the opiate of the people."

He got it precisely wrong. There undoubtedly are Christians so focused on heaven that the idea of loving God and loving neighbor, the very things the crucified and risen Jesus set us free to do, is far from their minds and agendas. For Christians like these, Jesus is a private fix, a ticket to eternity.

But for those who seek to take Jesus and His preeminence over their whole lives, the certainty of eternity in God's perfect kingdom for all who believe in Christ, is the freedom to live, to love the unlovable, to speak up for the powerless, to pursue the promise of our lives on earth, to share the gifts of God granted to us with others.

God, forgive for failing to live more mindfully of eternity because in doing so, I fail to live fully here. In Jesus' Name. Amen

"If God Can Do Anything..."

You've probably heard what was called "the parable of the stone" the first time I heard it in a Philosophy class at Ohio State.

It goes like this: "If God can do anything, He can create a stone too heavu for Him to lift. If there's a stone too heavy for God to lift, He can't do everything. Therefore, there is no God."

Any logician will tell you that this formal argument is airtight. Its form makes it "valid" and irrefutable.

Of course, one problem with the argument from a believer's perspective is that it presumes the conditions by which God can "prove" His existence to us. If you are trying to prove or disprove the existence of the creator and Lord of the universe, it's presumptuous to define the parameters by which you'll allow Him to prove Himself to you.

God's preferred method of "proving" Himself and His love to us is through self-disclosure, the persuasions of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of faith. Each of these methods, resulting in faith, are initiated by God. Hard as it is on human egos, theists believe no one can every be argued into or out of faith by valid arguments.

But, for the moment, let's accept that both assertions of the "parable" are true:

1. God can do anything.
2. God can create a stone too heavy for God to lift. 

Are the two parts mutually exclusive? If you say, "Yes" to #1 and "Yes" to #2 or "No" to either proposition, are you conceding that God doesn't exist?

Actually, I don't think so.

As a Christian, I accept that God can do anything. But I also accept that this God Who can do anything can create a stone too heavy for Him to lift. And yet, I conclude that God exists.

This is exactly what happened when God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus, submitting to the limitations of being human (even while totally resisting sin) and presumably, during His time on earth, encountering stones that would have been too heavy for Him to lift had He tried. (He could have caused them to cry out, by the way. But that's another story.)

Of course, all supposedly airtight arguments against God's existence have, for the person willing to receive the witness of Scripture and of Christ's Church and so, being willing to believe in Christ, been trumped by Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

In Jesus Christ, we meet the eternal and infinite God, able to do anything, including incorporate the experience of human weakness into the experience of Almighty God.

In Jesus Christ, we meet the compassionate God Who voluntarily lived with human weakness and limitation to win us back through the submission of His weak body to death.

Those who let Jesus into their lives don't need a counter-argument to the parable of the stone. The crucified and risen Jesus is evidence of the God Who can do anything, including carrying the weight of our sins on a cross and rising from the dead from a tomb once sealed by a stone too big for one person to budge.

God is mighty. God is vulnerable. Therefore God exists. And, therefore, He and He alone can give life to all who believe in Jesus Christ!

Want Faith? Let Yourself Catch Grace

The Bible teaches that we come to a saving faith in the God revealed through Jesus Christ only by the power of the Holy Spirit. "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit," Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3.

Faith in anyone but ourselves or in what we can control is foreign to human nature. And belief in the witness given by the apostles and other first Christians that, despite their own doubts, they could vouch with their lives that Jesus Christ, sinless God-in-the-flesh, not only died an undeserved death on a cross, but also rose from the dead, is also foreign to our natures.

Unless we're open to the ministry of the Holy Spirit--Who uses the witnesses of ordinary human beings to convict us of sin and convince us of the grace available to all sinners who turn from sin and believe in Christ as their only God and hope--the Spirit cannot create faith within us.

The refusal to even be willing in our imperfect human ways to believe in the Holy Spirit's proclamation of the God Who made us, Who hates sin, and Who, because He loves sinners, gives us a way to escape the consequences of sin--death and eternal separation from God--is epidemic in the Church and in society.

Bishop John Bradosky of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) recently wrote insightfully:

In the Atlantic Monthly, columnist Jonathan Rauch writes that America has made “a major civilization advance” in recent years. Rauch, an atheist, is thrilled about a phenomenon he calls apatheism (“apathetic theism”). “It’s not that people don’t believe in God anymore,” Rauch writes, “the majority will still say they believe. ... The faithful in America haven’t been putting much thought or effort into their faith. They’re looking for comfort and reassurance, not for a God who asks anything of them. Apathetic theists don’t care about their own religion and care even less about the faith of others.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks noticed a trend a few years ago and coined the term flexidoxy (“flexible beliefs”).

“Flexidoxy describes the form of religion practiced by many educated young Americans, as opposed to orthodoxy. Basically, it means that people have become flexible in their belief system and look at religion as a giant smorgasbord from which they can pick and choose the beliefs that most suit them. They become the center of their own faith and adapt it to what they see as important.”

Both apathetic theism and flexidoxy may well be the consequence and by-product of the church when it avoids the Holy Spirit, on one hand, or abuses it on the other. Apathetic theism and flexidoxy are grounded in the power of popularity and political correctness but not the power of the Holy Spirit.

Into this world, the Church must bring to bear what it alone possesses and is called to proclaim, the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the power and work of the Holy Spirit.

Nobody can "prove" the truth of the Christian proclamation: 

• the truth that human beings are born in a condition of separation from God called sin; 
• the truth that, imprisoned by this condition, we inevitably commit sins and just as inevitably, even what seems like altruistic acts on our parts are tinged with selfishness and self-will; 
• the truth that God is unwilling to let us to go to hell, the fate we deserve, without a fight; 
• the truth that because of God's love for us, He sent Jesus into the world; 
• the truth that Jesus died, taking our punishment for sin, and rose from the dead to offer new life that begins here and now even as we remain imperfect and extends into eternity where we will live in perfect fellowship with God and others saved by the grace given to all who believe in Christ.

No argument for these truths will convince anyone. But when we leave ourselves open to the witness the Bible offers about God and what God has done in Jesus Christ, something happens to us that subordinates (but does not eliminate) our intellects, our wills, and our emotions.

Put simply, we come to believe in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:1, in the New Testament, says: "...Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen

I once was an atheist. I thought the Bible was a book written by human beings with their ideas about God, not, as I've come to believe that the Bible was inspired by God presented to human beings to save us. I thought that faith in Christ was for the pathetic. I thought that the message about Jesus, the gospel, was implausible.

But when I allowed myself to be open to Christ and to the ministry of the Holy Spirit operating in the Bible, in the fellowship of the Church, in the sermons of pastors, in the writings of Christians over the past twenty centuries, and in Holy Communion, even though I couldn't understand how Jesus' body and blood could be present in the bread and the wine or how a sinner like me could be forgiven by Christ, something happened to me. I came to believe in Jesus.

In the intervening thirty-seven years, my faith has been strong some times, weak at others. But the Holy Spirit has used means like those I mentioned above to shore up my faith, convict me of sins and so, convict me of my need for Christ, to convince me that Christ's death and resurrection were done for all sinners, including me, and that through Jesus, I really am forgiven and saved to live with and to live for God for eternity. 

Whether you're an atheist who stands outside the Church, as I once did, or a non-believing churchgoer like so many are today, if you want to have a faith that can change and shape your life and if you want the capacity to leave behind the delusion that you as a created being don't need your creator, I can assure you that you can have faith that changes this life and the one to come!

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you:

• In the Bible
• In the fellowship of Christians who honestly admit their own imperfections and relish the perfection and grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ
• In the prayers you offer to God in Jesus' Name, prayers in which you should honestly share your doubts, but also your desire to believe
• In listening to the preached Word
• In joining convicted and convinced Christians in serving others in Jesus' Name
• In being connected with a Church whose pastor (or pastors) and members evidence true belief in the God of the Bible, who reverence the Bible as God's perfect, inspired Word for the human race
• In the Sacrament of Holy Communion, during the receiving of which you earnestly pray, "I don't know how Your body and blood and Your forgiveness can be in bread and wine, Lord, but I ask you to help me to trust that that is so"

None of the items in that list are good religious works. They will not earn salvation for you. And if you approach them as though they will, you will miss their point and miss out on faith. They are what the Reformation theologians called "means of grace," holes through which eternity bursts through to us, openings through which the arms of God can enfold you.

I've used the analogy before, but they're like a batted ball to which an outfielder goes to make a catch. The fielder has no control over the speed of the pitch made by the person on the mound. The fielder can't control what kind of charge the hitter puts into the ball once he's swung. All the fielder can do is position herself or himself to make the catch. 

God is using these means to "bat" faith our way. The question is are we willing to be where we need to be to "catch" the faith the Holy Spirit wants to hit our way?

The faith you catch won't make sense to you at first. There's so much about the Christian Gospel that doesn't make sense. That may, in your mind, make a case against surrendering faith in Christ at first. But, as C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, isn't also characteristic of the biggest facts in life to be not what you'd have anticipated at all? 

I met an elderly woman at a church where I was preaching one Sunday. She was matronly, having spent years as an elementary teacher and being something of a second mother to her students. This doughty little woman, I learned, had one something like $50-million dollars in the Ohio Lottery just the day before. I couldn't believe it. But it was true. The truest truths are often like that, beyond your capacity to imagine. That's the way it is with the message of the Bible about Jesus.

No matter how hard it is to believe in Jesus, it is absolutely true and it becomes more plausible as you allow yourself each day to more and more walk in Christ's orbit. And before you know it, if you're not careful, the Holy Spirit will have you saying and meaning things like this:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
  
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.  He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He descended into hell.  On the third day He rose again.  He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 
 
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  Amen.

Are you willing to have faith like that expressed in the Apostles' Creed? 

If so, position yourself for it. Go to the places where the Holy Spirit can be counted on to be present. Then just tell God, "I'm willing to believe in Christ, Lord. I'm willing to doubt by doubts and worship You as my only God. Work the miracle of faith in me."

Guess what? I've seen that miracle take hold in the lives of hundreds of people during my twenty-nine years as a pastor and during thirty seven years as a Christian, including in my own life.

What have you got to lose? Shall I name what you've go to lose? You can lose sin and death and the hounding of the devil. Those are great things to lose!

Turn to Christ. Let the Spirit have access to your will and your life.

Then let the Spirit give you a faith in Christ that is more than Sunday morning propriety, but week-in and week-out trust in Christ that's so big you don't care who thinks you're crazy.

You'll want the whole world to know that the crucified and risen Jesus is alive and ready to change anyone's life. By your words and your life of (however imperfect) commitment to Christ, you'll unleash the Spirit that's changing you to change others. 

Changing may scare you. You may feel quite comfortable in your favorite sins or in your letting God do His thing while you do yours. But Jesus says, "Everyone...who acknowledges Me before others, I also will acknowledge before My Father in heaven; but whoever denies Me before others, I also will deny before My Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:32).

The Holy Spirit stands ready to help you get to know the truth about Jesus Christ and to learn how to publically acknowledge Jesus every day. 

Are you ready to let Him? Even if your answer is only, "Maybe," charge ahead! Position yourself to receive God's grace and the Lord Jesus at the center of your life!

It's Harder to Believe Than Not To (Reflections of a Former Atheist)

I've been an atheist. Since 1976, I've been a Christian.

I can tell you that living a life of faith in a God of total love and absolute power while continuing to live in a fallen world in which bad, senseless things happen to faithful people is far more difficult than going through this life as an atheist.

As an atheist, I had no expectations of God’s deliverance, ascribed no meaning to existence, and was not offended, except insofar as they created nuisances for me, when bad things came my way. In an uncreated world in which there is no good Creator or need for redemption, there is no reason to get riled up over what seems unfair or wrong. There are fewer things to explain and fewer unanswered questions when you're an atheist. It's a far simpler, even simplistic, way of life.

As musician, filmmaker, and satirist Steve Taylor once observed, "It's harder to believe than not to."

But whatever difficulties belief in the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ may present, I would rather live and die with Christ than live or die without Him.

Like the apostle Peter, after Jesus had asked him and his fellow disciples if, like others, they would like to abandon him, I have to say, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God" (John 6:68).

My life has been interesting lately.

I had a heart attack that destroyed 40% of my heart in June, 2010. A stent was implanted shortly thereafter.

Just before I received a pacemaker and defibrillator on October 13, less than a month ago, a small mole was removed from my leg which turned out to contain melanoma cancer cells. The dermatologist is confident that he removed all of the cancer, but I'll undergo an outpatient procedure to remove tissue from the surrounding area in December.

These experiences are mere bumps in the road compared to what many people experience in life. I have no complaints.

But I can tell you that I have been sustained by Jesus Christ and by the prayers of other believers in the past year or so.

I have become even more convinced of the love and power--and the ultimate lordship over all things in heaven and on earth--of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Christ is with me and I am promised that when I die, as a repentant believer in Jesus, I will be with Christ for all eternity.

How could I be anything but hopeful when I know those things to be true, even when life gets tough?

I pray that every day, God will help me to make the prayer of Saint Paul, who suffered so much not in spite of, but precisely because, he followed Jesus, my very own:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

It is harder to believe than not to.

But those who believe in Jesus are blessed with a certainty about their futures that gives us the freedom to love our neighbors, to choose the path of joyful service, to shake off unkindness from others, to work for justice, and to walk humbly with our God. You really can't deter or bring ultimate discouragement to people who know they're going to live forever.

I have found that, in spite of everything, while it may be better, it's still better to believe than not to.