Exploring the Question

Speaker 1 0:30

We are in week two of a conversation called Explore God , where we are wondering and exploring together about big questions that many of us think about in life , and so we're going to hop into week number two . You can check out this video . We asked some people around the Bay Area some questions specifically about this series . Make way . This way , I'd like to think that God is real .

Speaker 2 0:57

I don't believe in God , because the idea that an omniscient , loving being would judge me , who is mortal and ignorant , based on a few years experience , I find to be rather a cruel thought . All the power that God has , he , she , it , has given to me , so we're definitely one .

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I hope there's something else out there . It'd be fun to experience either that or worlds devolved apes .

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I was raised atheist . I don't believe in a higher power , but I also don't claim to know everything about the world . I don't know . I don't know if there is one , I just pretend . I guess and hope that there's something else out there .

Speaker 1 1:50

So here we go . We're going to continue to hop right in . I'm going to tell you , first of all , it has been such a blast already hanging out for this series for many of you , and we got to meet so many new of you that have come because of friends , invitation or marketing and because here's the deal we really believe that if you're a Christian , or maybe you're not a Christian or maybe even have another religion , or you're joining us online today and watching this , I think that's awesome . We are so glad that you're here . I am personally so thankful that you are here to be a part of Northgate as we go on this journey and you journey with us , because we really want to believe the best ideas . I think it's really important what are the best ideas in the marketplace of ideas ?

Speaker 1 2:38

And last week we started off with this does life have a purpose ? Like , what's the ? What is my purpose here in this world ? In this life and this week , the big question is is there a God or is God real ? Many of you may not know this . This is a Gallup survey . More than 200 times a second around the clock , someone in the world is asking an online search engine about God , and oftentimes it's this simple inquiry , which is is God real ? If you type that question into Google , you get 3.7 billion results in two thirds of a second . It's like a digital tidal wave that generates more confusion than enlightenment . I don't know how often you guys ask your phone , suri or Google to give you information , but if you have ever asked Suri , there's only disappointment . If you've asked Suri is God real , she simply replies with a seemingly shruggish answer , which is it's all a mystery to me . A lot of you guys are going to do that later .

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Ricky Gervais , in an article in the Walnut Street the Walnut , that's interesting . A Wall Street Journal writes a column why am I an atheist ? He says this believing in something doesn't make it true . Hoping that something is true doesn't make it true . The existence of God is not subjective . He either exists or he doesn't . It is not a matter of opinion . You can have your own opinions , but you cannot have your own facts .

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The question is God is real ? If God is real is the most consequential issue of all , because so much hangs on the answer to that question . So what exactly is at stake ? Well , an evolutionary biologist , william Provine , said in a debate . He said if there is no creator , then these are the inescapable implications for humankind that there is no evidence then for God . There is no life after death , there is no absolute foundation for right or wrong , there is no absolute meaning of life and people don't really have free will . Many of you guys may not know this , or maybe you've been around a lot of people and kind of picked up on this , but the percentage of Americans who believe in God has actually been declining Only 64% . Just a survey recently , this last year , said that 64% of adults say that , without adult , without a doubt , they believe that God is real . What that means is that more than one in four of people are unsure whether or not God is real or don't believe .

Speaker 1 5:44

And the concept for today , I believe this concept of is there a God versus really , this other idea of there is not a God , not a God , forces us as we process today for our own worldview , our own lives , our own thinking , for that matter . How does this idea versus that idea actually play out ? Which one is better in the marketplace of ideas ? And , if we're honest , this all boils down to a faith versus reason conversation . This really boils down to today , a faith versus reason conversation . Now I'm going to ask you to hang on with me right now because I'm going to say all the things that you've been thinking or your friends been thinking or you've thought about , and we're going to think about it together . So hang on with me as we're going to jump right into the deep end of this faith versus reason conversation .

Speaker 1 6:46

I remember the first time that I heard of faith or Christianity or God , I thought it was for dumb people . Why , you've seen this stuff on news . There's this one really smart , awesome professor with a PhD from Oxford and he's representing atheism or agnosticism or naturalism or some sort of science or whatever right , and he's going to do a debate with a second guest representing faith , representing Christianity , and his name is Joe . Joe spends his weekend yelling at people outside of Starbucks about hell is coming and then thinks Tesla is the anti-Christ , and so then suddenly you're sitting there going well , like yeah , I think I'm going to pick the professor , because it's this false dichotomy that they kind of collide with each other . It's really a false dichotomy to think that it's faith versus reason . Now , what we have to understand is is , as people have delved into Christianity , actual reason is the reason that they've come to faith in God and Jesus .

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Listen to Romans one . This is a New Testament book written by a guy named Paul , and he says these words in chapter one , verse 19, . He says for what can be known about God is plain to them meaning people because God has shown it to them , to us . God's invisible attributes , namely his eternal power , his divine nature , have been clearly seen , being understood from what has been made . So now that people are without excuse . So here's what we have to understand from this is that God builds his own evidence into creation and then goes and asks us to mine it out .

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Science has never been against faith . It has actually grown out of the matrix of faith , specifically of Christianity . So many people I know this believe in the Bay Area , especially in the Bay Area have really now become , and it just seems like it just continues to kind of pile on top of each other . We've become evidential thinkers . So you only believe something if you have evidence to believe it . You know like , pick proof and prove it , and I'm going to Google it and we take that as like law , right , and we're going to talk about this in just a few weeks .

Speaker 1 9:21

But for many people they're like seriously , why should I believe the Bible , this archaic book written , you know , thousands of years ago ? And you'll see , as I have personally discovered because I too actually care about reason that it's actually rational , it's historical , it's philosophical , it's psychological , and I've done the work because I believe . I believe that you actually have to run the ramp of reason before taking the leap of faith , and maybe for some of you , that's true of you as well . That's what this series is all about and what Christianity actually represents that we look at the evidence built into creation and then deduce things about God , not just sit around airy-fairy , looking around and going , you know , like I think I'm going to believe this stuff now , and about God , because I just want to believe . Did you know that the university was a 12th century Christian invention ? Harvard , brown , princeton , all of these universities were built out of the matrix of Christianity .

Speaker 1 10:29

Our modern scientific realities , our scientific method , our scientific deductions and conclusions grow out of a Christian matrix , a theistic view of the world , meaning that if you were to put something through a scientific method , it's observable , it's creation , it's unified , it's repeatable , it has a design in order that you can repeat , to come up with different hypotheses or observations , verifications , whereas other worldviews weren't allowing people to go down that route . So in animism , for instance , where the spirits and the gods were actually in the water and in trees and you can't do experiments on them because you're going to hurt the gods . Or , you know , like why was there that storm in the sea the other week ? Well , for many , why ? Because it was because Poseidon was angry . That's what different worldviews then talk about this karma effect or other gods . Yet Christianity comes along and goes no , no , no , no , no , hold on , there's actually like temperatures in like climate . And so then we're doing what Paul and Romans 1 talked about , that you're actually delving into creation itself in order to deduce the things . That's issue number one .

Speaker 1 11:45

Christians believe in reason . They believe in reason . We want to run down the ramp of reason in order to establish what we're going to believe about faith , because in reality , many of you know this , everyone has a faith position . Every single person in this room has some kind of faith position . The only question is what are you going to fill that faith position with ? What is the content of your faith ? Because everyone has one .

Speaker 1 12:16

In fact , even just out of Northgate , here , our faith community , there was a nurse friend of mine who goes to our church . She was telling me that they were in the hospital and had to make a decision about an end of life on a patient one day , and they were looking at this patient saying I don't think they're going to make it or they're suffering a lot right now . And what was really important in the system , in this medical system and in this conversation , is there was no religious worldview allowed to inform the decisions at the hospital . And they were sitting around and they had to and having all these discussions , and they decided to pull the plug , if you will . And as they were sitting around later , one of the doctors says well , at least they're not suffering anymore .

Speaker 1 12:58

And then she realized right there , in that moment see , that's exactly a faith position . How do you know that they're not suffering more ? How do you know what's after this ? She thought to herself , what happens in the afterlife ? You don't have any proof of what might go on . How do you know that person's not experiencing something different ? And every time you say something like that , you're showing a faith position . So every person has a faith position .

Speaker 1 13:24

The question , though , is friends , what is it ? What lines up ? What faith position that you have lines up most with the evidence that you have and what the Bible is saying , which , again , as we read , is saying I want you to delve in to the evidence of creation , of history , of philosophy , in order to have an informed faith that actually lines up with the questions of origin and meaning and morality and destiny , and if you can grab ahold of those and realize that the best answers are in the person and in the work of Jesus , then you have a worldview that doesn't contradict itself and need to be abandoned , like so many worldviews . Certainly atheistic worldviews or agnostic worldviews do . So . To be clear , it's biblical to actually look into reason and rationale . It's not a dichotomy , it's not faith itself , it's faith grows out of reason .

Speaker 1 14:35

Number two we realize that the more that science has actually delved into their disciplines , whether it's astronomy or biology or history , that there is more rational reasons to believe in God now than there have ever been , the deeper we delve into the mysteries of physics and cosmology and the universe . It appears to be more and more intricate and incredibly complex . To explain quantum mechanical behavior and even the tiniest particle requires pages and pages of extremely difficult advanced mathematics . Why are even the tiniest particles of matter , so unbelievably complicated it appears . When you start looking into this , there's like this vast wisdom or structure , or this naughty blueprint for like even the most simple looking element of nature . And then the situation becomes even more daunting as we expand our view of the entire cosmos . The more that we look into the data , the more that we realize there are justifiable reasons to believe in God . I'll

The Intersection of Science and Faith

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give you an example .

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If you look at men like John Polkinghorner , john Lennox or Francis Collins , these are professors at Oxford , writers , scientists . Years ago , a man named Quinton Smith wrote an article . He's an agnostic philosopher and he said in the field of philosophy it's being desecurized across universities in America . He said one quarter to one third of philosophy departments now consist of theists , generally Christians , and he was saying I don't like this idea and I am not a fan of it . He said that it became almost overnight academically respectful to argue for theism and he cited the work of one particular guy named Alvin Plantiga , who has said to be one of the greatest living philosophers alive today . And he's a Christian . He said he believes it is only rational philosophically to believe most of what we believe , if you pause it . A God in the midst of it . So here's what's happened .

Speaker 1 17:04

That the deeper , that science has delved beyond observational science . Just as a reminder , observational science is like the stuff of Darwin where you would look at it , or wings and bones and stuff , and you could look on the outside and you can open it up and look at the inside through a microscope . Now it's crazy . Now we're looking at like corks and cells and DNA strands and dark matter and these things are all showing us the universe is far more complex than we thought . I mean , dna strands have a language embedded in them that calls out for a mind . Science has moved fast and it points more towards belief than not .

Speaker 1 17:50

I'll illustrate it this way in the 1900s 1960s to be exact sounds so weird when we say that there's this little TV show I don't know if you remember called Star Trek . Star Trek was a show that was informed by secularization . It was the idea that in the future , when we're like jumping around the stars and we're visiting them and like the different green people or whatever , that there will be no spirituality . So in that show , in the original Captain Kirk Star Trek , there's no religion because it's like , of course we're gonna move on from that . The deeper that we delve into science , the more we're gonna move on from that . The more we understand , the more we're gonna say that's airy fairy stuff .

Speaker 1 18:35

And in the 1990s , the early 90s version of the next generation with Picard , what do you find ? People on the ship are spiritual . Half the people they're going to visit are religious . Why ? Because in that 30 year period what we realized was actually that , deeper the science delves in , religion isn't going anywhere . In fact , religion is actually flourishing Orthodox religious is flourishing all over the world . Because the deeper that we actually delve into science and history and philosophy , the more reason it starts to show itself to actually believe in God .

Speaker 1 19:19

But the reality is that there are actually people maybe you know this or maybe you even found yourself in this place that actually push back against us , saying no , no , no , no , no . We can't believe in God . And what we gotta realize is the reason that they do this isn't necessarily because of the evidence . It's because they had had this full philosophical decision to make around what they want to believe . They've already made this philosophical decision that I will not follow the evidence . They look at the data and this is the scary part . They've already decided certain things . And so they push away data and they say I'd rather believe this .

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For instance , harvard biologist Richard Luton says in a New York Times years ago he says I was doing a study and he wrote we have an a priori commitment to materialism . It's not that the methods and the institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material or atheistic explanation of the phenomenal world , but , on the contrary , that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes that we cannot allow a divine foot in the door . So literally notice what he's saying here . He's saying I'm not gonna let a divine foot in the door , not based on facts , but based on philosophy . I have decided already that we're not gonna do anything materialistic of this version of science . Ergo , I'm not gonna let any kind of conclusion in like that . These are scientific recognitions of faith , commitments that they've already , have already pre-decided . If you go back to Copernicus in the 1500s he was pushing up against the scientific conclusions . So science had already established that the sun revolves around the earth and Copernicus says no , that's actually not the case . Actually , the earth revolves around the sun . And he challenged what science had already concluded . And they pushed back against this and they said we don't wanna hear about Copernicus's revolution .

Speaker 1 21:32

And when the big bang started to explode , with different philosophers , different scientists , it was the religious community that was like great , this is perfect . All of creation came into existence In one single moment . Because here's the philosophy of the big bang all light , all matter , all time , all energy came into existence in a single moment , 15 billion years ago . And we know , because we look and we see , like all the planets , and they're retracting and they're moving out . And if you retracted that back in backwards , you would realize that this all happened about 15 billion years ago . And everything that begins to exist , we know , has a cause . The universe began to exist . Ergo , the universe has to have a cause . Everything began to exist and you know . We know in the beginning God created the heavens and earth like boom , beautiful , I'm gonna get around there , like it wasn't there . And here it comes .

Speaker 1 22:37

And people pushed back against that because they said the big bang reeked of religion . And we know from a rational standpoint that there has to be something . It can't be nothing , which is what people have argued . I know , two weeks ago in our house , in the middle of the night , it was like 2.30 in the morning , we heard a big bang in my house in the middle of the night and I woke up . And so then I woke up my wife's so , because I wanted to go investigate and deal with the robbers or whoever was , you know , making all these noises . So we get up to investigate why ? Because we know if , like , there's a big bang or there's a crash , it could be something falling off of something , it could be the house is creaking or whatever , but we know it's not nothing . So saying a big bang , a massive crash , bang , is irrational . That is nothing , is irrational and dumb . And we wanna follow the evidence , we wanna be honest with the evidence . And if all time and space management comes into existence in a single moment , we know then that something had to pre-exist it . We know that saying it's nothing is like saying nobody times nothing equals everything . That's not rational and that's not a rationale I wanna live my life by and a question would be is that one that you want to live yours on ?

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Sarah Salvander , an astrophysicist raised by atheists , believed that Christianity was a philosophical . It was philosophically trivial . She was doing her studying on deuterium abundances in the relation to the big bang , and she became completely and utterly odd . She talked about , by underline , the underlying order of the universe and the fact that it could be explored scientifically , and then she became a Christian herself . She said I was awakened . She said to Psalm 19 , one that tells us so clearly the heavens declare the glory of God , the skies proclaim the work of His hands . This is why people have begun to realize , friends , that in the last hundred years , science has actually started to crack open the concept of God .

God and Science's Role in Existence

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We look at DNA strands . When Darwin was looking into these things , there was no such thing as DNA to his knowledge . We cracked then the double helix and we realized oh my goodness , look at this . There's actually a language that's written into every sail . Amoeba is like an encyclopedia of language .

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In it it's rational and all of it means , friends , that there is actually a mind behind it . It's what the evidence points to . It points to that there is actually a whole theory . It starts pointing that people have created a theory that this is potentially possible without God . I want to tell you about that theory because it's a little nonsensical if you think about it , and we'll go full circle . It's called Pansmeria . It actually talks about the idea , and if you've ever watched this movie , prometheus , it's that opening scene in a movie that confused everyone and if you saw these aliens messing around water and putting stuff in the water . That's what this theory is is that you could possibly have DNA that has a language and rationale to it without God . And what this theory is is that aliens put DNA into the earth to evolve over time . That's how we have language , because a mind then had to create it . But of course , then it forces the question well then , who created the aliens ? And then we're back into the cycle . This is why reason and rationale are actually things that point towards God , not away from him . Here's the third thing You've got to realize that there's a difference between operational science and origin science .

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Operational science is the kind of thing where you can present regularities and you can test them and you can put them through the scientific method , but origin science is different . It's the kind of science where you have to go back to say this singular event that we can't repeat , that we couldn't put into a test tube , so that we can say that , what do we want to do with this ? So we say there's an event a long time ago and creation and we're trying to figure out now how it all works . And right now there are better ideas around the theistic explanation than around the non-theistic explanation when it comes to origin science , because most modern science is just saying I don't know what the origin of this thing could possibly be . You look at present regularities in operational science , where you can put things through this test tube and observe it , repeat , do the same thing over and over again . Remember many of you guys have done this in school , where you took a cup of water and you put some food coloring in it , and you put a piece of celery in it and you watched what happened . That's observational science . It's this repeatable science . But origin science is different . It's more like forensic science .

Speaker 1 28:24

If you were where you've got to arrive on the scene or this murder scene and work backwards to actually figure out what happened . And sometimes what happens is we have to understand that this kind of science is actually pointing scientists back over and over and over again to like , hey , look like something might have actually created this universe . It actually seems like someone put DNA inside of people . It seems like someone designed creation to function this way and for science then to say , no , we will reject all supernatural explanations , even if the evidence points there . It's like arriving at a murder scene saying we're not going to look at the evidence and saying let's take , we're going to look at maybe all the evidence . Let's take the husband off of the table . Well then you would say , but like the time he was around and his DNA is all over everything . No , no , no , you know what . Let's actually try to solve this case without the obvious explanation to an A priority . Friends , if I decide that there is no supernatural or spiritual explanation for the universe , the way that it is is actually to eliminate evidence , and this is why Christianity and theism has always said I want to follow reason , like Paul says in Romans . I actually want to follow the reason and mine this out and deduce these things for myself .

Speaker 1 30:13

One scientist , stephen J Gold , said he was an evolutionary biologist . He said science is limited to physics . Science deals with the world of observational science , the observational things like soil and trees and the things that we can touch and taste and smell and see . He said asking and answering the question of God is outside of our realm . He called it the Noma principle , the non-overlapping magisteria , and what he said is , we are in the realm of physics and the question of God is the question of metaphysics , the question that we can't answer . That's outside of our pay grade . And he says I'm telling you for the umpteenth time that science itself cannot adjudicate the question of the existence of God . There's different categories . You can't tell about the spiritual realm by simply looking at physical evidence and deducing that God doesn't exist . It's impossible . You can say that there are things that point to his existence but cannot say there are things that point to his non-existence . Try and so . What we've got to begin to realize is , over and over and over again , is that , whether it's biology or cosmology , it's pointing to the existence of God again and again and again . To the point where one of the things that we can't answer is the point where one scientist , alex Sandage , said he's one of the known to be one of the greatest observational cosmologists of all time . Out of Pasadena , california . Right now , he said it is my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than could be explained by science .

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Alistair McGrath said the idea that science and religion are in perpetual conflict hear this really clearly is no longer taken seriously by any other major historian of science . One of the last bastions of atheism survives only at a popular level , namely the myth that an atheist , fact-based science is permanently at war with a faith-based religion . And it's not the case , as we realize . When we study things like evolution , we realize that even this entire worldview is based on the assumption that things transitioned . But then we look at the fossil record and we see no transitional fossils . And so as people , you and me together , we have to ask this question will I actually trust the idea that God exists , will I trust in the person , in the work of Jesus ? Because the science points there , history it points there , philosophy it points there .

Speaker 1 33:25

And the idea that you know the difference between wrong and right , the idea that you know racism is wrong , the idea that you know murder is wrong . How did you ever , how did we ever get to that conclusion ? The only way is that it was built into us by a moral law giver . You have a moral law . The very fact that you have a moral law cries out , then , for a moral law giver . How many of you , by a show of hands , have ever had anyone cut you in line and it made you upset or cut you off . A bunch of you are lying right now . I know you was angry . It's based on what premise that you were upset about , right ? The cutting in line is it's wrong , right ? I'm giving a really simple one . I mean , you can think of the complexities yourself of your moral law , right ? Where did you ever get the deduction between right and wrong ?

Speaker 1 34:27

The very fact that you were putting that person on trial says , okay , there is a moral law , which means there is a moral law giver . And if there's no moral law , then there's no moral law giver . Ergo , god wouldn't exist . There'd be a completely different argument . But the fact that things actually bother you , the fact that you believe in evil , the fact that you look at the destruction of the environment or the hurting of other people and people groups , the fact that you feel this stuff at a soul level , that you feel all of these things at a soul level , so your soul is actually then saying you have a morality that transcends nature . Because if we were all and if you were all just a product of nature , this stuff wouldn't bug you , because it would have just been hundreds of thousands of years of evolution , development and nature and you would just say well , this is nature . Like people have to die , it doesn't matter , as long as it doesn't have to me or my tribe . And you don't believe that . I know you don't believe that you would actually go in after that stranger , and some of you would even go in after that stranger and risk your own life for that stranger . Why ? Because of your morality , your morality .

Speaker 1 35:53

So , if we're honest with one another , and if you're watching this , or if you're not a Christian and you're comparing ideas , one versus the other , reason or faith , is there a God ? I would say . I've been arguing , I would plead that it's a faith informed by beautiful reason , history , philosophy , science , over and over and over . And you don't have to abandon that in order to believe in this Jesus , who actually is one of the greatest reasons to believe at all , because all the historians outside of the Bible say Jesus Christ existed . This is fact . We'll talk more about this in just a few weeks .

Speaker 1 36:44

Many historians , secularists , say they trust the Bible is legitimate and they say that this book is incredible . The way that it presents Jesus and how then it unfolds the death and the resurrection of Jesus is the way that it happened , based just not on the Bible , but based on evidence and history and eyewitness . So the question is do you want to follow the evidence or do you want to just keep denying it , just shucking it off ? And if you're going to do that , at least be honest with yourself and ask the question what's the reason behind the reason ? Is it because you're actually following the evidence or is it because you want to hold on to your own autonomy , your own authority ? Maybe you're scared of what your coworkers , your family , your friends might say if you actually go down this road and start to believe based on the evidence and then give your life to Jesus . My friends , don't fear . Don't let fear or your feelings or hodgepodge worldview that you put together just by sitting out under the stars one long night Be the thing .

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I understand for many of you . You've got to inform everything you do by facts , not already predetermined philosophy or how you feel in a particular moment . You , you face facts and you come face to face with a historical person at work in the work of Jesus who says what are you gonna do ? What are you gonna do with what I have done , my death , my resurrection , on your behalf ? Which historians go ? This actually makes sense , that this happened ? What are you gonna do with the confrontation the person of Jesus brings into your life , that God is real and God is for you ? Let me say it again this is not a series where you know I'm trying to , or we're really trying to , convince you . We're simply just inviting you in to join us , as together we all explore and wonder these important questions about life and faith . But I wanna push you just a little bit because I believe that this is actually one of the most important . This is , I think , the most important journey or exploration that you will ever undertake .

Speaker 1 39:43

I wanna introduce you , like I did last week to many of you , to Pasquels Wager . In the 17th century there's a mathematician , blaise Pasquels . He was one of the greatest mathematician intellects of the American Western civilization and he had a passion to actually help others find their way I love it like a compass find their way back to God . And he would tell his fellow intellects I wanna challenge you actually to put a wager on God that , if he is real or not , and he would dare them to step into a belief about God and see if it didn't actually change their lives . Then he explained his wager this way . He said make a bet that there is a God who loves you , and if you are right you have everything to gain , and if you are wrong you have nothing to lose . Make a bet that God is real . So I wanna invite you today , whether it be online , here in the room , in person , to do something individually and in community . Individually , I wanna invite you to pray a simple

Seeking God in Community

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prayer .

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For some of you , you might feel like this is awkward . You don't have to do it right now , this moment , throughout this week , maybe even this week . Maybe it's in your spirit , in your mind , maybe it's out loud when you're driving or showering time . God , if you are real , reveal yourself to me . That's it . God , if you are real , would you reveal yourself to me ? That was his wager .

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And then in community , I think we all just need a reminder that the journey of life is not meant to be taken individually .

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So take the journey with us , a community of people who are in a similar exploration , simply seeking to find our way back to God .

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Friends , you don't have to believe to belong to this place as you explore this stuff , as you tease it out , as you wrestle with these difficult questions of life . And I wanna ask you would you please join us every week for the next five weeks and consider joining a small group or bringing someone else into the conversation , where you can go deeper , ask questions and be then encouraged by other fellow explorers . And for sure this don't miss next week as we explore the question why does God allow pain and suffering ? Would you pray with me , god , creator of the cosmos ? Thank you for your evidence and allowing us to mine it out . Thank you for your patience , your grace , your mercy , the way you have unleashed compassion to us in the form , in the person of Jesus . God , if you are real , reveal yourself to my friends . Give them eyes to see , ears to hear , reason to believe , a boldness and faith and courage . And God , thank you for your gentleness . As you do it , I love you . May your peace abound in this place . In this very moment You're gonna be praying , amen .