Why I Believe In God

Reason #10 Worship

 

Last week I began with these three quotes:

 

"You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." - Augustine

"There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, and only God can fill it."  - Pascal

 "There's a God-shaped hole in all of us.  And the restless soul is searching.  There's a God-shaped hole in all of us.  And it's a void only he can fill."  - Plumb

 

The point of last week's sermon was to show there is a God-shaped hole in each of our souls.  We looked at our obsessions, the lie-detector, our need to make a difference, and our smiles as evidence that there is a God-shaped hole!  Augustine, Pascal and Plumb are right we have a void which desperately screams to be filled.  This morning I want to explore the other end of these three quotes.  If in fact there is a God-shaped hole, can only He fill it?  Is God the answer to filling the void?  Can we only find rest in Thee? 

 

Let me add another quote to our three, kind of as a warning.

 

"The only thing more difficult than having a relationship with an invisible God is having no such relationship."  - Yancey

 

This isn't going to be an easy sermon.  We all struggle with a close relationship to an invisible God.  But I want to build a chain of thoughts that shows it is the only option to filling the God-shaped hole.  I want to advocate this morning that having a relationship with the living, but invisible God, is the only thing which can fill the vacuum in our restless souls.

 

Let's begin my chain of thoughts.

 

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Joe A. Scientist, where the A. stands for atheist, would have us believe we are just a bunch of pieces parts put together over a very long time by a random/chance generator.  Joe A. Scientist teaches we are merely reacting to the world around us to survive and procreate.  As long as we stay alive and pass on our genes to the next generation we are doing what the random/chance generator has programmed us to do.

 

Joe A. Scientist might even attempt to convince you there really is no such thing as "you".  "Your awareness is really just an illusion.  Your free-fill; your ability to make choices is just a figment of your imagination.  You are what you are and you do what you are programmed to do."  "I am a machine that survives and procreates." (in a mechanical voice)  Joe A. Scientist would explain you as merely a biological machine running its program.

 

Dinesh D'Souza in What's So Great About Christianity, uses this illustration.

An electrical engineer could give a complete and accurate description of an advertising neon sign in terms of electric circuit theory, explaining exactly why and how each light is flashing.  Yet the claim that the advertising display is therefore nothing but electrical pulses in a complex circuit is absurd.  The sign has a message and a purpose.  The point here is that a human being is a collection of atoms in the same way that Shakespeare’s plays are collections of words or Beethoven’s symphonies are collections of notes.  It hardly follows from this, however, that Romeo and Juliet is nothing more than words or that the Fifth Symphony is no more than an assembly of notes.  There is a holistic unity to Romeo and Juliet and the Fifth Symphony that seems ignored in describing them in this way.  So too are human beings made up of atoms and molecules, but that does not even begin to describe the unity we experience in our everyday lives.

 

We are more than just a complex biological machine being driven by its subroutines.  We are more than the sum of our pieces parts.  We are self-aware.  We are real humans.  We are people who make intentional choices.  You are you.  I am me.  We are real humans.

 

Let's move from being who we are to the next link.

 

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We experience emotions.  As real humans, we are not simply machines.  We connect to what happens around us.  We relate to each other with an amazing array of emotions.  We love.  We fear.  We are disappointed.  We rejoice in victory.  We weep uncontrollably in defeat.  We laugh hysterically at silly jokes.  We experience a raft full of emotions. 

 

So, I have to ask Joe A. Scientist, where the A. stands for atheist, WHY?  I can get, that, fear might keep me from getting eaten, or lust might cause me to procreate, but why do we feel so many other emotions?  If we are simply programmed to survive and procreate why did the random/chance generator make us such emotional beings?  You know it gets worse the older you get.  What's the deal with that?

 

Think about the word… alone.  Is there a sadder sentence in the English language than, "The old man died all alone."  We are thinking, "Wow, I hope I don't die alone."  We feel empathy.  We can place ourselves in someone else's shoes.  We can connect sympathetically to each other.  Not only can we feel, but, we can feel for others.  We experience emotions.  We are wired not only to be real humans, we are emotional beings!  Am I right?

 

Following my chain a bit further, remembering we are working towards, only God can fill the void in our souls; let's look at the next link. 

 

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What happens when we listen to music?  As real humans, who are emotional, what happens when we listen to music?  Listen to these snatches of music:

- Smoke on the water rift - What does it make you want to do?  Play air-guitar?

-Ode to Joy - What do you feel?  Joy?

-Amazing Grace - What does it make you want to do?  Could the answer be… worship?

 

All right Joe A. Scientist, why are we wired for worship?  Why does music connect to us so deeply?  Why do we respond so viscerally when we hear well written music?  I am not even talking about the words.  I am talking about simply the pure sound of music.  Is the God-shaped hole being filled with worship?

 

It is not just us, American Christians, it is universal.  Look all over at the next link in our chain.

 

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God is still amazingly popular.  In spite of what Joe A. Scientist and his ilk have told us, world-wide the notion of a god is still amazingly popular.

 

Listen to these statistics from the book "God Attachment".

"People the world over are obsessed with God.  However they define him.

- Muslims now makes up more than 1.2 billion of the world’s population.  

- Hinduism today stands at 828 million adherents worldwide.

- 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide.

- If you count the additional 1 billion people who adhere to one of the other “Christian” denominations or groups, you have over 2 billion people worldwide who follow the teachings of the Bible and the story of Jesus Christ.

Take a guess at what percentage of the world’s population believes there is no God: 20 percent?  15?  10?  In fact, a mere 2 percent of the world’s population considers itself atheist—those who do not believe in God.  Regardless of how one tries to define him, and whether one loves him, hates him, denies him, or defies him, it’s hard to deny the fascination with God the world over.  God, however you define him, is "in”.

 

Why do the vast majority of humans on the planet recognize the God-shaped hole and are driven to fill it with "God"?  Because we know that we are more than biological machines.  We are emotional, worshipping beings! 

 

I get it.  Statistics don't mean much.  Statistics are just numbers.  We live with real emotions which are drawn upward toward God.  Let's move to the next link of worship.

 

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Worship is a foretaste of eternity.  Built into the human heart is a knowing that this life can't be all there is.  There has to be more.  We intuitively know, what we do here and now, will connect us to the next and forever.  In our worship we are sampling the eternal. 

 

Revelation 21:1-4 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

 

Don't we know this to be true?  Don't we worship God because we know that one day God will dwell with us?  Don't we worship because our hearts are connected to the one who will wipe away every tear? 

 

Our souls have this void which calls us to worship the God who made us in his image! 

 

Joe A. Scientist would simply pooh-pooh such esoteric thoughts.  So, let's look at the last link as we move to the logical.

 

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Here is what I am saying in a logical argument.  It is called the Argument from Desire.

   1. Every basic desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.

   2. There exists in us a desire which nothing in time or creation can satisfy.

   3. Therefore there must exist something not it time, or creation, which can satisfy this desire.

   4. This something is eternal life with God.

 

Let's dig down into this admittedly complex argument.

 

Number 1 implies there are two kinds of desires.  There are basic desires which are innate.  They are fundamental to who we are.  We naturally desire things like food, drink, sleep, knowledge, friendship and beauty; and we naturally avoid things like starvation, loneliness, ignorance and ugliness.  These are basic desires.  Each basic desire has a real thing that satisfies them. 

 

On the other hand there are artificial or superficial desires.  I desire to fly like Superman.  I desire the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl.  I desire to win the lottery. 

 

The natural desires come from within, from our nature, while the artificial ones come from without, from our culture, advertising or fiction.  These natural desires are found in all of us, but the artificial ones vary from person to person.  You may not want the Cowboys to win.

 

The existence of the artificial desires does not necessarily mean that the desired objects exist.  Some do; some don't.  I can't fly like Superman.  But the Cowboys could win the Super Bowl.  It is unlikely that I will win the lottery, but some do.  However, the existence of natural desires, in every discoverable case, has an object that fits the desire.  No one has ever found one case of a natural desire for a nonexistent object.

 

Number 2 requires that we be honest as we look inside our hearts.  Is this desire for God and eternity with him natural or artificial?  Is it like being Superman or is it a like a hunger for food?  Does our being real humans, with a raft full of emotions; does our connection to music; does our desire for eternity come from the basics of who we are or is it just fiction?  That is the significant question.

 

Number 3 & 4 require that if the desire for eternity with God is fundamental to who we are, then there must be a God who has created us too long for him!

 

C. S. Lewis, who uses this argument in a number of places, summarizes it succinctly in "Mere Christianity".

 

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists.  A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food.  A dolphin wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water.  Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex.  If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

 

Does my chain lead us to the conclusion that only God can fill the void?

 

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We all are real humans with a raft full of emotions.  These emotions draw us upward to want to connect with God.  We see this in our emotional response to music.  We see this in the vast majority of humans across this planet.  We innately know this for our hearts long for eternity with a God.  If these desires are basic to our being, then they must be real.  They require something real; an eternal God who made us in his image. 

 

Process this chain of emotions as we sing "I Exalt Thee".

 

Los Alamos Church of Christ

November 7, 2010