How are you doing, man? It's good to be with you guys.
To those of you who are a part of our Crossing inside family
and to, those of you who served to make the crossing inside a
reality. God bless you.
I absolutely love getting to see all of those baptisms and lives
changed because a lot of people would give up on them, but not
our God and not as people. And I want you to know, we are
in your corner on Easter weekend.
This year, we started a brand new sermons.
Series called, if we all have questions and here at the
Crossing, we believe that we all deserve answers this sermon
series. If we're being straightforward,
is designed to help those who have a faith.
Strengthened it to those, who have lost their faith, to help
them to find it and to those who want to Faith an opportunity to
start it. I don't want to welcome all of
you joining from all of our different locations.
Those of your part of our online family, as well, as those of you
who are part of the Crossing inside each week, we are doing
our best to navigate some questions regarding the
foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ.
And our goal is that as our faith is strengthened that our
love and Devotion to God would be deepened.
Now, while we're going through the sermon series, there might
be some of you with this new found knowledge.
Trying to go around thumping people with it.
Right? But listen what it says in First
Corinthians Paul says this knowledge puffs up.
While love builds up our Newfound knowledge and
understanding is not a license for you to go around.
Pummeling people with arguments and debate.
That's not how we're supposed to operate.
It should inform our ability and our approach to loving the
people around us but I don't want you going around clubbing
people. Well have you thought of this?
Okay that's not because listen as Christians those of you call
the crossing home, okay? Here's the deal.
Our goal is not to win arguments although we might win some
arguments but we're not trying to get into an argument.
Absolutely just Pummel somebody for the sake of an argument.
Okay, we're trying to do something better than that.
This is what we're trying to do. Our goal is to win people to
Jesus. Okay, let me put it this way.
Let me explain it. Have you ever won an argument?
Raise your hand, ladies. Married ladies.
Okay, we get it. All right.
Did it help? I'll give you, we're going to
try and get some stuff. Handled in.
Your marriage is winning the argument the best pathway or
maybe posing some questions and helping them navigate answers.
If you're wanting to get a better marriage, I would tell
you winning. Every argument.
Probably isn't the way, but how you navigate the arguments makes
all the difference in the world. Today, I want to talk to you
guys about some common sense, Arguments for the existence of
God. Now to those of you who are
Skeptics or Or atheists and you're joining us at one of our
locations. I am so glad that you are here
and on the outset, I want to apologize for calling them
common-sense arguments. I'm just not smart enough to
come up with a better term for it so it is not to say that you
like you're an idiot or you're weird for not seeing things the
way that that I see him or that other people seem, it's just
more about philosophical approach or philosophical
Arguments for the existence of God.
So today we're going to be taking a deep look at
Philosophical questions, concerning the existence of God
and I'm going to do so for the most part without talking about
the Bible or using the Bible and I'm going to do it for the most
part without talking about Jesus or referencing.
Jesus. Now before any of you guys start
trying to email me, I am not saying that I don't believe in
God or Jesus or the Bible, but if you are engaging in
conversations with people on the at the philosophical level, to
use the Bible and to you Use Jesus would be by their
definition circular reasoning. Okay?
And so I just want to kind of take you through these
philosophical arguments through a philosophical lens.
Here's why I'm doing this. Every year in the summer, a
group of my high school friends, get together for a two or
three-day camping trip. And every year around the
campfire, we end up talking about God.
And let me give you a little Context, one of my friends is a
believer in Jesus. But there is absolutely nothing
about his life that even remotely resembles him being a
Christian. In fact, he would be like the
worst example, okay? Like you almost want to be like
stop, stop talking about Jesus because that that you're not
helping the situation. He's the one who every part of
his life is always absolutely falling apart and he is always
making the wrong decision, like pick up $100.
Or run a nail through your hand. He will pick the nail through
your hand, every time. It's just, that's just how he
is, hardwired I love him but that's just him.
Another one of my friends has his life completely together, he
believes in Jesus, but Jesus to him is more of a Republican
president than Jesus on the cross.
And so his life from the outside looks very much like a Christian
but there's really nothing in his heart.
That is Jesus centered. And then I have a third friend
who is a full-blown atheist and about 11:30 at night on on a
Friday, they'll start going. So Clayton, tell us about God.
And you know, I don't which I'm thrilled because, you know,
sometimes it's like, hey, Clayton we can't drive anymore.
Can you take us to a strip club and I'm like, nope, we're not
doing that so they're like, all right, fine talk to us about
God. Like all right, God's better
than glitter so we and every year, when I'm getting ready to
go on this trip, I prep for it, I get all geared up.
I want to make sure that I'm ready to handle some of the
questions that they're going to ask me and that's important.
I mean, second Timothy chapter 4 says this preach the word.
Be prepared in season and out of season.
And when I'm getting ready to go on that trip, I know that it's
going to be in season the problem for us as Christians.
Is you're going to have a lot of out-of-season moments.
Like I get a prep for this, it's already on my calendar, I know
what's coming but some of you you're going to show up at the
office tomorrow and tragedies going to hit somebody in your
office, somebody that you care about some of you, you're going
to get a phone call this week. And because of things that are
happening in their life, they're going to ask you questions and
you're going to find yourself in an oak.
Go back, one second. In an out of season moment.
And as Christians, we need to be prepared in season and out of
season 1st, Peter says that this way.
But in your hearts, Revere Christ is lord, always be
prepared to give an answer to everyone.
Who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have you.
And I need to have a reason to answer for every person we come
into contact with for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ,
but there's a way that we're supposed to do it here.
Keeps going, but do this with gentleness and respect, keeping
a clear conscience which means that it's not just about being
prepared to talk to people about Jesus.
But the way we talk to people about Jesus matters is that as
our contacts, I want to walk you through some philosophical
Arguments for a belief in the existence of God.
Now these things that I'm going to walk you through our
questions that everybody has to answer.
These are not exclusively Christian questions.
They're not a theistic questions or skeptical questions.
These are questions that all of humanity has to answer.
And how you answer these questions will shape how you
live your life. It will shape your world view.
Here's the first question. How do we account for the
beginning of the universe? How did the universe come into
existence? This is an argument of origin.
It shows up in three parts. I'll walk you through them.
Okay. Whatever begins to exist has a
Cause Everything that came into existence how to cause something
caused it. You came into existence.
There was a Cause. It might have been Valentine's
Day. It might have been some dead
flowers in a vase and might have been some country music or dimly
lit place but whatever begins to exist has a cause second thing
the universe began to exist. Science will tell you this, the
universe had a beginning. So the third part is the
universe has a cause what could cause a universe something, or
someone has to, cause the universe to come into existence.
That means that something outside of time, outside of
space, outside of matter, had to be the cause and for many
people, The Logical reasonable conclusion.
Is that there is only one thing outside of time, outside of
space and out. Out of matter.
The name we give him is God in order for there to be a
beginning you have to have time space and matter all come into
existence at the exact same time.
Let me explain that a little bit more if you have time and matter
but no space. Where would you put it?
If you have matter and space but no time, when would you put it?
If you have time and space but no matter what began to exist,
the Bible answers. This question in the first 10
words of the Bible. Count with me.
Ready in the beginning, God created the heavens and the
Earth watch closely. In the beginning.
That's time. God, created the heavens that
space Earth. That's matter.
It gets a little bit more fun than that.
You have a trinity of Trinity's that show up, time is past
present and future space is length, width.
And depth matter is, solid liquid gas, you have a trinity
of Trinity's created by the Trinity, kind of weird thing
that happens there Now the second question we have to ask
ourselves is how do we account for so much design in our
universe? This is also kind of broken into
three categories. The first one is called
specified complexity, so if I were to take all of the parts
for an airplane, and put them in a big box, like Legos, we would
have complexity. We see complexity everywhere.
Specified complexity is the difference between all the
components for an airplane in a box and if we could put them all
together and we could find a pilot, we could go somewhere
nice and instead of living where we live, right?
We just need a pilot there. We have one in Macomb so we'll
make one big enough for all of us now.
What are the chances that a tornado could go through a
junkyard and assemble all of the pieces to make an airplane?
I would say slim to none. So, how do you account for so
much specified complexity? We are marveling right now at
some of the advancements, in Prosthetics that what hands are
being able to do that have been manufactured by mankind, or how
legs that are the prosthetics for legs and how much they're
able to accomplish. But it's taking all of our human
capacity and years of learning and deep research for us to
design a leg. That works, like, the leg we
already have. How do you account for the fact
that what we have by accident? Is so much better than what we
have by our human design. The second thing that we have to
navigate is irreducible complexity.
This is the difference between motorcycles and mouse traps.
So you guys are all getting ready for motorcycle season.
I've been hearing you guys crank them up in your garage and I'm
super happy for you. I'm glad you guys have those
work hours and while you guys are liking those things up.
Now the motorcycle as a means of transportation, you can take an
awful lot off of your motorcycle and it's still be a mode of
transportation. You can take those cool.
Saddle bags off and it would still work.
You could take the blinkers off, it would still work.
You could take the brakes off, it would still work.
You could take your foot pegs off, it would still work.
You can keep taking stuff off of your motorcycle and it's still
be a mode of transportation. You can even take some of the
bolts off, and I've seen a couple of you driving around,
and I'm pretty sure that motorcycle is missing a few
bolts, right? But it's still a mode of
transportation. However, a mousetrap cannot be.
Deuced whatsoever. It is irreducibly complex.
Now, what I'm talking about Mass traps, I'm not talking about
these Millennial mouse traps that are designed to protect the
mice's feelings or anything like that.
I'm talking Wham. I'm talking Mouse ending family
tree. Shattering mouse traps right?
You know, I'm talking about those real ones.
And if you take a regular mouse trap, every real mousetrap,
Christian mousetrap has five components that has the platform
that everything sits on. It has the spring.
It has the lock. It has the trigger and it has
the arm. Okay.
If you remove any of these things, it stops being a
mousetrap. if you remove the arm, it's just a really weird
Mouse feeder, Right? If you remove the lock, it's
just a custom device gets this thing right now.
Where does this show up in our lives?
Well, on easy one. To point two would be RI RI is
irreducibly, complex. It could not have evolved.
It shows up in order for it to exist.
It is irreducibly complex. For instance, the I cannot work
without the presence of the optic nerve to regulate, the
pressure of the fluid around the eye, the eye without eyelids
will not work for long because our eyes require continuous
washing and moisture. If you go further unless there's
an eye, there's no point in the duct.
That's around our eye, that produces the tears, or the duck
that passes through solid bone, that whisks that water away
where it dissipates in. Our nasal cavity as we breathe
all of those things have to be come into existence at the exact
same time for the eye to work. And then the third piece of the
design argument is fine-tuning as our understanding of science
continues to grow. We are becoming more and more
aware of how fine-tuned the Earth is for the sustaining of
life. And scientists have discovered
that there are about 150 constants that have to operate
in absolute perfection and balance in order for you and I
to be able to exist. One of the one of the
astrophysicists from Caltech Hugh, Ross is talking about the
ratio between the nuclear force and the expansion rate of the
universe which is one of the constants and he says it has to
be fine-tuned To 1 in 10 to the thirty seventh power.
Now that word are that number means nothing to you.
And it means nothing to me, I get it, we're not that kind of
smart people but let me explain to you visually what that would
look like 1 in 10 to the 37th power.
Here is explains it this way. You'd have to take a dime and
cover all of North America in one layer of Dimes.
Then you need to add a second layer and you would keep adding
layers until you reach the moon 238,000 miles away.
Then you need to do that on 1 billion additional countenance
and then take one dime and spray paint.
It red and put it somewhere in that mix Mix somewhere on the 1
billion. Continent stacked with dimes one
layer at a Time, 238,000 Miles High.
That is the level of precision for just one of the 150
constants necessary for you and I are constants necessary for
you and I to be in this moment right now.
Imagine when we land on Mars with humans and we discover a
pocket watch. Our natural inclination would be
somebody has been here. Because how do we account for
the design of a pocket watch? Unless there was some kind of
watch maker, maybe watches are too complex.
Let's get as simple as we possibly can take a look at
Stonehenge. Now you can go home.
You can check this. Wikipedia says that this way,
archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was built.
Anywhere from 3,000 to 2,000 BC. So let me get this straight, we
look at a bunch of rocks that have been stacked.
And we immediately think some guy did that.
But we look at all the complexities of the universe in
our hands and our cardiovascular system works and everything
that's happening inside of our brain.
And we think somehow that that evolved without the hand of God.
Now let me, let me show you what I mean by this.
You and I we look at things everybody, we look at things and
we instinctively know the difference between random
results and deliberate design. If you want to play a joke on
your neighbors this week on the middle of the night, go out let
off a couple fireworks about 2:00 2:30 in the morning.
And then in your driveway right next to your mailbox.
Stack o, put a rock up out there and then tomorrow night, that
off another firework about 3:30 in the morning.
And then put another rock on top of it.
And your neighbors are walking their bougie, dogs up and down
your street. Like what's going on out here?
Why are you stacking all these rocks?
Yeah we're not stacking rocks. We've been letting off
fireworks. If you've been hearing those
bangs last night? Well yeah, let him off in the
front yard and these rocks just start stacking themselves in the
front yard You know what they would say to you, are you okay?
Is this a cry for help? They look at you little weird.
We look at stacked rocks and we assume someone stacked them.
But we look at a universe and our natural.
Inclination for so many people is, it's just an accident.
It's just random. The final philosophical
argument, there's a lot more, but the final one that I'm going
to do for you today is an argument from morality.
It's the moral argument and the moral argument exists in three
parts, here's the first. If God does not exist, then
objective morals and duties, do not exist.
I'm going to unpack this way more in two weeks, so I'm just
giving you like the simplified version today, because in two
weeks, I'm going to talk to you guys about God and culture and
how we as Christians are supposed to live in that
tension, but if God does not exist, then objective morals and
duties, do not exist. Then, the second part is this
objective morality does exist. There are things that we all
agree. Are objectively true
objectively? Right.
Objectively wrong. And then, the third part would
be therefore God exists. Let me unpack that when we hear
kids fighting in our house or when you go on your vacation to
the beach and you see you, you pick your beach chair.
And then somebody comes along and takes all of your belongings
off of the beach chair. And then they take your chair,
we get into an argument with them about what is fair about,
what is right? How would you like it?
If somebody else treated you that way, we immediately begin
to appeal to a higher moral law and every time we discuss these
things we are talking about something that exists Beyond
ourselves. This basis for right and wrong
exists Beyond us. We believe that the person were
talking to knows that this is right and wrong as well that
they sense it. Because when you engage in the
argument, they don't argue about whether or not that is real or
not about whether or not they have violated this moral law,
what they do whether or not the moral law exists, they spend all
of their time trying to show you how they didn't violate that.
At higher moral law. How can you fight about what is
right and wrong? Unless there is some level of
universal acceptance as to what is, right and what is wrong, and
anytime you start talking about, right and wrong, we are making
moral claims Imagine a country or a civilization where the
opposite of the virtues that we hold to be deer, were praised,
imagine a country were lying, was praised over truth-telling.
We're stealing was valued above hard work.
What about running from Battle? Instead of staying in the fight,
that on Veterans Day. We didn't praise all of those
who served. But we praised all of those who
were dishonorably discharged because they ran from the
battlefield. Imagine that the father of the
year, award didn't go to the man who stayed and struggled, and
provided and and suffered along for his family.
Instead, the father of the year award went to the man who had
abandoned the most kids. Imagine that kind of society.
She there are certain qualities that have Universal acceptance
as standards to be upheld and anyone who objects to these
standards will only object to them, until they are on the
receiving end of their absence. Somebody who steals from you
could make the moral claim stealing isn't wrong, but then
the moment they agree to that and someone steals from them,
they will not be going. That's totally fine.
They'd be gone. How could you do this?
Somebody says you don't have to, you can hit anybody, you want be
fine until they get punched in the mouth and then like, I don't
like that moral claim anymore. We all have to live under the
and we all know what these are these moral laws exist within
us. But they come from Beyond us.
There is something or someone pushing us towards a behavior
that at times is not in our best interest.
So it couldn't be Evolutionary. Here's what I mean.
God forbid on your way home today.
You see a car that has driven into are you, you watch a car
drive into a pond and you know that there are people in there
that are on the verge of drowning and instinctively, you
will find yourself caught between two worlds, knowing that
if you were to go into those Waters, you could get Dragged
In, you could get yourself caught up in the seat belts and
you could get drug down into the depth of the pond as well. and
at the same time, You feel this sense of?
I must engage to try to save. Where does that conflict come
from? Because all of us would
experience it some and greater degrees than others.
But in that moment, it is not about self-preservation that
were being called to were being called to something else.
Something deeper, there is something or someone pushing us
towards a behavior that at times is not in our own self-interest.
If this did not exist. If this moral law did not exist,
we would have no basis for the frustration.
We feel when people do us wrong or the guilt, we experience when
we know we do wrong. And where could this have come
from? It couldn't have come from our
laws because our laws are simply a reflection of what we already
know to be true. We don't need a law that says
stealing is wrong for us to know that stealing is wrong.
The law just simply recognizes what we all already know to be
true. And if even if there wasn't a
law, when somebody stole from us, it wouldn't Rob us or we
would, we would we would no longer not be under the pain and
the feeling of having someone steal from us.
So how do you and I move forward.
How do you and I navigate this tension?
Because if it's not coming from ourselves, then there must be a
moral law Giver who could judge between what is right and wrong
between us. Because if it was subjective If
it was just my moral claims versus your moral claims who
could judge between us, how do you choose, who is right?
And who is wrong, if all truth claims are all moral claims are
simply subjective, what right? Would we have to protest
slavery? What?
Right? Would you?
And I have to object to sex trafficking.
What right? Did we have to fight against
Nazi Germany? In World War 2?
If there wasn't some moral law, that was governing us saying,
this is wrong and we must do something about it.
All of these arguments, the arguments of origin, the
arguments from designed, the moral argument are designed to
point us to a cause to a base Asus and logically.
In my opinion, the most simplistic and the most
sophisticated answer as that, there is a God who did the
creating the designing and forms.
The basis of our moral understanding that God is
writing these codes on our hearts.
Why does this matter? I'll tell you my opinion, this
means there is a God. And if there is a God, that
means that I was created by him. And so, were you that you were I
mean by him that there are standards that he will hold you
and I to if God exists then I must know him and so must you I
must follow him and so should you it demands?
My full acceptance and my complete adherence, I'm trying
to say this. If God exists, I believe that he
would preserve his word that he would make sure that you and I
have access to the truth and his word states.
That there is a life after This life.
And those that this life is not all that there is, and that
those who do not have a relationship with him at the end
of this life. Hell, awaits.
And to those who are in this life, who have an intimate
personal relationship with Jesus Christ on the other side of it
Heaven. Awaits, which means that as
Christians, this becomes our mission to make sure that
everybody everywhere comes to a knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Look what it says in mark. I mean, he said to them, this is
Jesus. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to all creation. What's the gospel that God sent
his one, and only son to die on the cross for the Forgiveness of
our sins. Why do we tell this gospel?
I'll tell you why, because whoever believes and is
baptized, will be every say this word saved.
This is our mission. This is why we do what we do,
but whoever does not believe Will be condemned.
There is good news here. If you can see that God is real,
if you can believe that Jesus is Alive.
If you can believe that he died on the cross for your sins,
three days later Rose from the grave, what that means is you
can come into an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. You don't have to do life alone,
you have purpose and meaning, and significance, and dignity.
You are more than just the sum of your parts.
You are an image bearer of God and if you're a Christian, these
become our marching orders, this becomes the thing that focuses
all the other things in our life and I hope you'll do that.
We're moving to a time of decision.
So a while back. Jennifer and I when we moved to
Quincy, we moved in this neighborhood and our
neighborhood is kind of serious about their yards, a little too
serious. If I'm if I'm being honest with
you about 6:00 in the morning, you'll see people out there just
that one leaf was really out of whack, the raking all the time,
they're mulching all the time. There, striping their yards.
And then there's us. And we're just kind of like,
should we mow it this month? Okay.
And we started out and I was, I was pushed mowing it, but I
always worried that like, if I became skinny, people would see
me as even more vain than I already am.
And so, I just made the discipline decision to just keep
this body. So that way people would lust
more and focus on Jesus more. So I bought a riding lawnmower
man down. Yeah.
Actually I financed it and put it in my wife's name so my wife
has a lawnmower and and I started mowing my yard more
frequently but it still didn't look as good as everybody else
in the neighborhood and in part that's because we have jobs.
And they have a lot of free time. but I was like, how do I
how do I dominate my neighbors? I was like, who has the
best-looking grass on my baseball parks, professional MLB
Parks. They have great looking yard.
So I hopped on YouTube and I was like, how do they do it?
How do they stripe? And they were talking about, you
know, people edging. So I went and borrowed Denny's
edger and I edged. My yard looks fantastic.
And then I'm watching this YouTube video about how you edge
your yard and the guy who does one of the baseball field says
if you want to have really straight lines.
So that way you can you know crosshatch it and checkerboard
it and put cool stripes in it. You got to pick something off in
the distance. And you got a focus on it and
you drive your mower to it. He goes, if you look at the
wheel, your lines are going to get all out of place.
If you look just a couple of feet in front of you, your lines
are going to get all over the place.
You got to, you got to pick something in the distance and
you got to focus on it and drive to it.
Here's what I think. The moral argument, the argument
from design, the argument of origin is God going.
Look at me. I'm real.
Look at me come to me and I will make your path straight.
God is saying hey if you're out there and you're looking for
meaning, look at me, you're looking for purpose.
Look at me, you're looking for some Direction.
Look at me, you want some hope. Look at me.
You want some hope or help? Look at me.
If you're looking for salvation, for rescue for forgiveness, for
grace, for Mercy. Look at me, if you're looking
for love, look at me. You and I were looking at her
life. Lives and they're not straight
but maybe it's because we've been looking at the wrong thing
and God is crying out to you philosophically.
Look at me and some of you, some of us.
We kind of get done with our lives and we've been Mowing and
our lines are all jacked up. And then we get mad at God at
the results of Our Lives. But we were never looking at him
to direct our life. And then we blame God for the
sum of a math question that we didn't invite him in two.
If you're here today, I've got great news for you.
If you've never started a relationship with Jesus Christ,
He is a master at Lon Rejuvenation, he can make the
Crooked lines straight. He can take years of damage and
he can restore it. In fact, I've seen our God
restored things in such a beautiful way.
That people will say. I mean, I never would want to go
through that again, but I got to be honest because I went through
what I went through. I'm in a place.
I never thought I'd be. That is how good our God
redeems. So if you've been spending your
whole life, not looking at God, you can start looking today.
If you're going, I want the hope of Heaven in my life, you can
believe and you can be baptized, and you can start an intimate
personal relationship with him. And so just a few moments,
there's gonna be some people over there by the baptistry that
would love an opportunity to talk with you about that.
Now to the rest of you in the room, you already have your
relationship with Jesus Christ. Kind of level with you.
I mean, I love being your password, but can I level with
you sometimes? We're like fat people giving
diet advice, We're chunky people giving Fitness advice.
We're trying to tell our neighbors how to mow their yard.
We've never even paid to have our dandelion sprayed, like,
we're trash and we know it, but we're just not admitting it.
Like, well, you know what you should do as Christians.
How can we be telling everybody else to look at Jesus in the
problems in their life? And not look at Jesus and the
problems of Our Own This is what Paul says, Paul says, to a group
of people follow me as I follow Christ.
Tough question here. if you were to talk to somebody who didn't
know Jesus and you were to tell them to follow Jesus, like you
with their life, be any better, Will they be making any
different decisions? Or do they just have a different
calendar appointment on a Sunday morning?
It's got to be more significant than that.
And so here's what I'm asking you to do.
If you're a Christian, I'm asking you to pray that God
would help you to start truly following him, truly trusting
him, the God would use you as a city on a hill, a lamp on a
stand to point people to draw people to the love of Our
Savior. Jesus Christ.