Why Some Don't Believe

SERMON: 2010-09-19--ac1051--why-some-don-t-believe SOURCE DURATION: 00:38:56.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with clear sermon exposition and concludes with a devotional/musical prayer segment, both of which are integral parts of the main sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:35:26.900-00:38:56.120 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Now, you would think, would you not, that when these religious leaders here in Acts chapter 4 are confronted by an obvious supernatural miracle done in the name of Jesus, they would fall flat on their faces and confess faith in Christ. Tragically, and sadly, that is not the case, because though the man is standing right there, and they all agree that this has been an extraordinary miracle known to the whole city, they are in no mood to believe in Jesus, not only, but they also have no interest in other people believing in Jesus. And so what do they do? They send the apostles out from their meeting, they confer together, and they decide they're going to warn them to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people. We must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in his name. And then verse 18 says, "They called them in again and commended them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus." And the irony is huge. Here is the miracle right in front of their eyes, and yet despite that miracle right in front of their eyes, they are forbidding the proclamation of the name of Jesus. What lesson can we draw from that? Well I think one of the lessons that we can draw from that is that unbelief is not always rational. You know, believers are often accused of being irrational, and there's always some truth to that because the biblical definition of faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, but don't ever think that unbelievers are by definition rational in the face of the realities of life. I was reminded of that just very recently as I watched a video clip interview between Anderson Cooper and Christopher Hitchens on CNN, I watched it on YouTube. Many of you will remember Christopher Hitchens. He is probably one of the most vocal, well-known atheists in the world today. His book, God Is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, has given new impetus to the atheistic movement around the world. He is originally from Great Britain, now lives in the United States. And I don't know if you know this, but in June of this year, just as his newest book, which is a memoir called Hitch 22, was hitting the bestseller list, he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. It's a very virulent form of cancer. It killed his father 15 years ago, and he is undergoing chemo treatment. And in his interview with Anderson Cooper, one of the questions that Cooper asked him towards the end of the interview that I watched was this question. In a moment of doubt, even when you are alone and no one else is watching, might there be a moment when you want to hedge your bet? In other words, confronted by the reality of what will most likely be your impending death, are you ready to make peace with God? Hitchens' answer is as intriguing as it is troubling. If that comes, it will be when I'm very ill, when I'm half-demented either by drugs or by pain, I won't have control over what I say. I mention this in case you ever hear a rumor later on, because these things happen and the faithful love to spread these rumors. On his deathbed he finally... I can't say that the entity that by then wouldn't be me wouldn't do such a pathetic thing, but I can tell you that not while I'm lucid, no, I could be quite sure of that. So if there is some story then on your deathbed... Don't believe it. Don't believe it. Don't credit it. No. Isn't that interesting? At death's door, still defiant to be resistant to the gospel. It's an interesting thing, Christians all over the world are praying for his conversion before he dies, and atheists all over the world are encouraging him to stand fast, and it will be interesting to see what or who wins out. Tomorrow September 20th on one website has been declared everyone pray for Christopher Hitchens day. It'll be interesting to see, but what his comments illustrate to me is the point that I just made that unbelief is not at all always rational, and in the time that remains this morning I want to quickly try to give you four reasons why I believe there are people who decide to cling to unbelief even in the presence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. First of all, people are resistant to faith, holding on to unbelief because it challenges their belief system. We all grow up with what's known as a world and life view, and a world and life view is a way of looking at life that answers the fundamental questions of life. We've talked about this before, questions like who am I, what am I here for, where am I going, and most of all the question how can I get to where I am going with as little pain as possible and as much happiness and joy as possible. That world and life view is of course shaped by many factors. It is strongly influenced by our family of origin. I find it interesting in listening to Christopher Hitchens, finally a clue as to why he is so virulent in his opposition to God, his mother at a young age committed suicide. Her marriage to his father had fallen apart, she was in a love affair with an other man, they had a suicide pact, she died in a hotel at Athens, and she tried numerous times to reach Christopher by phone before she killed herself and he was not able to get to it and there is a deep conviction in his heart that he could well have talked her out of it because that was the kind of relationship they had together. To the degree to which our world and life view then is shaped by our family of origin, by the educational systems that we go through, and the experiences of life that we have, to the degree to which it is not shaped by scripture, to that degree of course what happens is that we buy into what is known as a secular world and life view and we have talked about this many times before, I can be brief with it, a secular world and life view really looks like this, God is essentially outside of the picture and we live in a world where God is either not present or we don't think that he is real or we make him into our own image and likeness, self stands at the center and we live by our own passions, our own thoughts and our own feelings, we dig down very deep in order to overcome the obstacles of life and to try to be as successful as possible, Christopher Hitchens is a prime example of buying into that world and life view, he despises weakness and his biggest objection to going through his chemo treatment is that it is utterly boring, it stops him from doing what he likes to do, well Christopher I've got news for you, when you're dead you're really going to be bored because you won't do any of the kinds of things that you were accustomed to doing. Well the way of Jesus of course is directly at odds with the wisdom of the world because as you know in the kingdom of God, God exists, created everything, wants us to live through faith in Christ in our relationship with him and instead of satisfying our own passions, our own needs and our own longings, the greatest goal we are to have in life is to what, to hallow the father's name and to see to it that his will is done on earth even as it is in heaven and you can see right away that to the degree to which we buy into a worldly world and life view, to the degree to which I live for my own hopes, my dreams, my passions, my lusts and my desires, to that degree the good news of the kingdom, the wisdom of God is incredibly offensive because it means I not only don't get what I want but I've got to do what he wants, that's what it means, that Jesus is Lord. Now remember the truth of the gospel is that paradoxically when you give up your life you gain it, you don't hold on to your life by living for your passions because that ultimately is an endless and a bottomless pit, it is when you die to all of that through faith in Christ, you begin to live for God and make him the center of your life, that's when life begins to make sense. But you see that involves giving up your old world and life view and there are many who are not prepared to do that because as Paul points out in scripture the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Some people don't believe because they're not ready to give up their belief system that they are at the center of the universe and all of life revolves around them and as long as that is our fundamental orientation we will always come up against the authority of Jesus because it is Jesus who stands at the center, not you and not me. Well here's a second reason why these religious leaders have such a hard time buying into things, it threatens their position, think this through with me for just a moment. In the world how do you climb the ladder of success? Well it's always some combination of using your human gifts and your human talents, exploring them as best as you can, developing them with education and with training and drawing on your strength, wisdom, support, encouragement from everybody else around you and then hopefully have some lucky breaks and the cream will rise to the top. That's why all through the world people are constantly in competition with each other to try to make their life as happy and as comfortable as possible. It is so deeply rooted in our belief system that even in the church we often fall into that, but it's the opposite of the gospel because in the kingdom of God how do you rise to the top? Well it's by relationship with God through Christ. The teaching of scripture is God owns everything and He has designated it to His children and when His children walk in relationship with Him, He is the one who decides where we fit in the pecking order and as we obey Him and follow Him and walk it out before Him and seek His agenda instead of our own agenda, then what does He do? He gives us the wisdom, He gives us the insight, He gives us the blessing and before you know it, He gives us an inheritance both in time and in eternity that nobody can ever take away from us. That's the reality of the gospel and you can well see how this is mostly symbolized in the person of Jesus who is obedient to the Father even unto death, but who has thereby received from God the Father the name that is above every name. You can see it in the apostles too. How do they get chosen to be the pillars of this new movement that God is creating? By following Jesus and He takes unschooled ordinary men and He says this is my place for you in the kingdom. Well you can imagine how offensive that is to these religious leaders and how counterintuitive for people who have spent their whole professional life trying to climb the ladder to corporate success. Can you imagine what these religious leaders all had to go through in order to arrive and to be voted in as a member of that Sanhedrin to have the kind of public recognition that they had and the status that they enjoyed? And if they were going to follow Jesus, maybe, just maybe, like the fishermen, they would have to leave everything behind and follow Christ. Paul did it. He said, "Everything that I prided myself in, all the things that gave me status in the world," he says, "once I met Jesus, it was all like garbage." Actually the word he uses is much stronger. It's the word manure. It is nothing at all. And that of course is why historically, throughout history, the secrets of the kingdom are revealed. Not first and foremost to the powerful, to the righteous, and to the wise, but rather to those who in the words of Jesus are poor in spirit. James puts it this way. He says, "Listen my dear brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who loved him?" Now let's be very clear about something. Being poor doesn't automatically make you more spiritual than if you're rich. And being rich doesn't mean you cannot get into the kingdom, but understand that everybody starts at the foot of the cross. The more you have built up, the more you have come to lean on your own accomplishments, on your own status, on your own place in society, the harder it is to fall to the foot of the cross and know that you need Jesus. On the other hand, when you've got nothing left to lose, what is there, who is there to cling to but Jesus alone? And that is why historically wherever the gospel goes, it has the most success among those who are the least and the last and the lost in society. And that doesn't mean the rich and the powerful cannot be saved. We'll talk about that a little bit later on. Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, members of the council, but they were the exception in yielding to Christ. Well, some people can't come to faith because it interferes with their belief system. Some people can't come to faith because it interferes with their agenda for climbing the social ladder. And then some people can't believe thirdly because they are frozen in the fear of man. And I find it intriguing when I look at this particular chapter that the Sanhedrin doesn't know what to do with Peter and John. And the reason they cannot make up their mind is because they are afraid of the people. Listen again to verse 21. After further threats, they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them because all the people were praising God for what had happened. They were smart enough to know that they could not afford the alienation of the crowd. And so they let them go with a warning because they lived in the fear of man rather than in the fear of God. They had the same problem, you may remember, when they tried to put Jesus to death. They had wanted to kill him numerous times over, but they were always afraid because he had the support of the crowd and they knew they could not take on the crowd and hold on to their position. And so they had to arrest Jesus by stealth in the middle of the night. They had to give him a secret trial by night, which was totally against their rules. And then they couldn't get him crucified, short of and apart from their whispering campaign that turned the crowd against Jesus and gave them the edge to have him crucified. It is known as the fear of man and therein lies the tragedy of this story for these religious leaders. They were more afraid of the crowd than they were of God. They didn't mind standing against Jesus whom God had anointed as Lord of lords and King of kings, but they were afraid of what the people might do. Contrast that to Peter and John's stand in their presence. Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. And Jesus in John's Gospel chapter 5 verse 44 puts it this way, he says, "How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?" The fear of man says the book of Proverbs will be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the holy one is understanding. How many of us right here at one point or another haven't heard the call of God on our lives either to go deeper personally or to step out in a particular direction or to give our yes and amen to something that was happening in church or in the Christian life and we ran into opposition from our spouse or from our children or from our parents or Lord forbid from our friends and we got paralyzed because the fear of man is a snare. And God says if you want to come to faith and if you want to know the reality of Jesus, it is more important to fear God than to fear anybody else because God has the power of life and death. He talked, Jesus did, to his disciples about that you will remember. He said don't fear him who can kill your body in Matthew's gospel, but he says be afraid of him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. So some people have trouble believing because it interferes with their belief system. Some people have trouble believing because it interferes with their climb of the social ladder, some people have trouble believing because they can't afford to lose the love of a loved one and then fourthly some people have trouble believing in Jesus because true belief always involves life transformation. What was it that Jesus said to his disciples that we looked at last week? Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And the Bible says they dropped everything and they followed him. And following him as we saw last week doesn't just mean going to church periodically, doesn't just mean sitting in a certain Bible class or making a financial contribution valuable and important as all of these are, no, no, following Jesus ultimately means allowing him to be Lord of our lives and doing what he wants us to do in every area of life as he gives grace. That's why Jesus says in Luke chapter 6 verse 46, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say?" And of course in his Sermon on the Mount many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles and I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers." Talk about rejection. There will be no greater rejection. There will be no greater pain of rejection than to hear those words of Jesus on that final day. And to be a Christian then is to cling to Christ and to say, "Lord, change me from the inside out so that your will can be done in me and through me on earth as it is in heaven." That's never easy. We all know that because Scripture says the desires of the sinful nature are contrary to that of the Spirit and the Spirit, what is contrary to the sinful nature, they are in conflict with each other so you do not do what you want. And all of us here know that conflict. It's one thing to know where to love God above all and our neighbor as we love ourselves. It's quite another to put it into practice. And yet the teaching of Scripture is that as we follow Jesus, repent of our sins and He cleanses us, He lives in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, He draws us to Himself and He then changes us from glory to glory. Some people have a hard time believing because they're not prepared to have Jesus change their lives. And as long as we find ourselves in that place, we cannot become followers. And again, that's of course where the rubber hits the road because it's not hard for us to come to Jesus and say, "Well, Jesus, you know, I'm lonely, please be my companion." It's not hard to come to Jesus and say, "Jesus, I want you to take me to heaven someday." And it's not hard to come to Jesus and say, "Lord, my sins bother me and I need to have my conscience cleared, so thank you for forgiving my sins." That's all pretty easy once we've bent the knee. But to come to Jesus and to say, "Jesus, help me to obey you. Help me to love you above all. Help me to love my neighbor in this miserably difficult circumstance. Help me to love people that I think have violated and betrayed my very existence and my trust." I'll tell you, it takes more than a little pious talk to get to that place because we all need very much the grace of Jesus. And so we say to ourselves, "Who then can be saved? Who can actually be that transformed from the inside out?" And of course, that's precisely the question the disciples asked of the Lord Jesus when the rich young ruler walked away because he couldn't pay the price. And Jesus said this, you will recall, "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And do you remember what the disciples responded? They said in amazement as they looked at each other, "Who then can be saved?" And you remember the reply of Jesus, "I trust," because it's beautiful. Jesus says these words, "With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Even the transformation of your heart and my heart to the core of our being." Take stock this morning of the places where you struggled the most. Take stock of all the arguments that you can raise up to defy the authority of Jesus in the deep, deep places where you don't trust Him. And then say, "Jesus is bigger than I am, and He can wrestle me to the ground, and He has committed Himself to presenting me before the presence of His glory with rejoicing without spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing." Oh, the power of God unto salvation. Allow me to finish up this morning by telling you the story of the other Hitchens, because as some of you know, Christopher's got a brother, his name is Peter, three years younger. And Peter today is a devoted Christian, conservative Christian, member of the Church of England, and he has also just published a book, and it's called The Rage Against God, How Atheism Led Me to Faith. And if you think he's got his brother in mind there, you're absolutely right. There is a long-standing conflict between the two brothers going back to when they were very little. In fact, when Christopher's 12 and Peter was 9, they were in such hassles with each other, their gentle father made them sit down and actually sign a peace treaty. And for quite a period of time, Peter had that hanging on the wall until he said enough is enough and he tore it up, and at the age of 15, he denounced whatever faith that he had inherited from his parents growing up. And at the age of 15, he took his Bible out into a field in full view of his little friends and dramatically set the Bible on fire. And for the next 15 years, he threw himself into every sin imaginable. But as he writes in his book, at the age of 30, God once again began to apprehend him, and he began to be drawn back to the sanctity of old church buildings. And what ultimately led him to his conversion was a visit to a museum in France that sported this picture. It's Rogier's van der Weyden's Last Judgment. The significance of this is, this is a huge painting, by the way, 18 feet wide, 7 feet high, and it was originally commissioned for the chapel of a hospital in the Middle Ages. He lived in the 1400s, where people had not so much to get healed as it was to die. And so in the Middle Ages, the concept of judgment and life after death was a huge issue for people, as it should be today. But very quickly, here is Christ sitting on his judgment throne. He's got his feet over the globe representing the world sitting on the rainbow, a palm branch coming out of his mouth, and you'll be hard pressed to see it, but a sword here representing his judgment. Meet him as the archangel Michael. Can you see what Michael is doing? He is weighing the souls of the dead who are coming to life, and here are the angels blowing their trumpet at a resurrection day. Well, this dude over here is weighed down by sin, and he is slated for eternal damnation, which is what these series of panels represent. Over here, this dude is being saved through faith in Jesus. These are all coming to life, and these are moving this way into the celestial city where an angel is receiving them. Over here is the heavenly host that serve as witnesses. This is the Virgin Mary. This is John the Baptist. These are the apostles. Summers back in here is the painter's own face. There's a monk and all kinds of other things that are part of this picture. And here is how Peter described his experience with that painting. He says, "My own slow return to the faith began when I was 30. In 1981, I no longer avoided churches I recognized in the great English cathedrals and in many small parish churches the old, unsettling messages. One was the inevitability of my own death. The other, the undoubted fact that my despised forebears were neither crude nor ignorant, but men and women of great skill and engineering genius, a genius not contradicted or blocked by faith, but enhanced by it. No doubt I should be ashamed to confess that fear played a part in my return to religion, specifically a painting. Roger van der Weyden's 15th century last judgment, which I saw in Burgundy while on holidays. I had scoffed at its mention in the guidebook, but now I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open at the naked figures fleeing towards the pit of hell. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past. They were my own generation. Because they were naked, they were not imprisoned in their own age by time-bound fashions. On the contrary, their hair and the set of their faces were entirely in the style of my own time. They were me and people I knew. I had a sudden strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time. And my large catalog of misdeeds replayed themselves rapidly in my head. I had absolutely no doubt that I was among the damned, if there were any damned. And van der Weyden was still earning his fee nearly 500 years after his death. And he goes on from there to describe how eventually he came to true faith in Christ. And a couple of years ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he and Christopher had one of their public debates setting their respective positions over against each other. And it so reminds me of that picture when Jesus dies on the cross. There is one criminal over here who says, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom," and the other one continues to curse him until the day he dies. That story is more than just history. That story illustrates the great divide that is caused by the cross of Jesus. And even today, you and I are constantly confronted by that question, "Will I bow to him or will I not surrender to him?" And for some of us, it's our belief systems that keep us standing in the way. I'm often surprised, even in Christian circles, how many of us hold on to cherished ideas that the gospel will not be allowed to penetrate. We need more, I think, of the fear of God. And how many of us are fearful to commit ourselves fully to Jesus because we've got our own social agendas and we've got our own dreams that we need to pursue, though the Bible says one day they're going to turn to dust. And how many of us are afraid to move following the prompting of Scripture and the Holy Spirit because we're afraid of some powerful person's disapproval and we fear man more than we fear God. And how many of us, how many of us find ourselves in a situation where we are so anxious to hold on to our cherished sins, so anxious to hold on to our habits, so anxious to not let Jesus transform us from the inside out, that we constantly put up a stop sign and we say, "Lord, I don't want to go any further because I know what it is that you have in mind for me and I think it's going to hurt me." And so we hold on to what it is that we're holding on to. Let's be very clear about one thing, Jesus is Lord. And at the end of history, every knee will bow. And it's either going to bow willingly as Peter Hitchens did, or they're going to bow unwillingly as Christopher Hitchens is going to one day or another because everybody is going to meet their maker. [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:35:26.900; remove through 00:38:56.000] And wise is the man, wise is the woman who makes that choice now before it is [CUT] too late. All I once held dear, built my life upon, all this world reveres, and most you own, all I want is the gain I've counted, lost, spent, and worth less now, but what I do is, knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater aim. You're my hope, you're the best, you're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you, Lord. Now my heart's desire is to know you more, to be found than you, and Lord, as yours, to possess my faith, what I could honor, all surpassing gift of righteousness. Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my hope, you're the best, you're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you, Lord. Oh, to know the power of your risen life, and to know you in your sufferings, to become like you in your death, my Lord, so with you to live and never die. Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my hope, you're the best, you're my joy, my righteousness, and I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord. 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