Answering Atheism

We are so glad you can join us today. I know that at times we can enter into this room, maybe feeling burdened with our hearts heavy. We can feel disconnected or distracted, but I want you to just take this opportunity to, you can just close your eyes right now in this moment. Father God, we surrender our lives. We fix our eyes on you. You're the creator of all things. You created us to worship you. And so today we stand in awe of your greatness, and we worship you in spite of our circumstances. We worship you because you deserve our praise. And so we open our mouths this morning. We can raise our hands freely, Lord, and surrender, declaring that you are worthy. Receive our praise, Lord. Receive our worship. Thank you, Jesus. And I see the stars. And I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Come on, raise your voices. Sing it out. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great is he. How great thou art. How great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. Oh, how great thou art.

How great thou art. Come on, put your hands up, church. There is joy in this room. Holy Spirit, move in this place. Overflowing lives. We sing it out this morning. The joy of the Lord is my strength. How great thou art. How great thou art. How great thou art. Come on, sing it out. This is the day you've made. So I will rejoice and be glad. Rejoice and be glad in you. That you are more than enough. More than enough for me. You are faithful to your promise. You are faithful to your promise. You are strong when I am weak. When I'm standing in your presence, I have everything I need. Come on, sing it out. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Say oh my soul. Oh my soul. Bless his name. All that is within me say.

The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Jesus, come what may. You are worthy of all. Worthy of all my praise. You are faithful. You are faithful to your promise. You are strong when I am weak. When I'm standing in your presence, I have everything I need. ♪ The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ So hold my soul, hold my soul, let it be free ♪ ♪ All that is within me sing the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength ♪ ♪ So let it rise up like a river, like a river ♪ ♪ It's overflowing, Holy Spirit let it pour out, let it pour out ♪ ♪ Let it pour out with no limit, it's overflowing, Holy Spirit ♪ ♪ So let it rise up like a river, like a river ♪ ♪ It's overflowing, Holy Spirit let it pour out, let it pour out ♪ ♪ Let it pour out with no limit, it's overflowing, Holy Spirit ♪ ♪ Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh ♪ ♪ Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh-oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh ♪ ♪ Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. ♪ ♪ I say the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. ♪ The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. ♪ Say oh my soul, oh my soul, bless His name. ♪ All that is within me say, oh my soul, bless His name. ♪ All that is within me say, oh my soul, oh my soul, bless His name. ♪ All that is within me say, the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

♪ It is my strength. ♪ Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh, Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh. ♪ It is my strength. Come on, give Him praise, church. He's worthy. Amen. Good morning. Hey, you may be seated for just a quick minute. And welcome to the local church. It's the perfect place for imperfect people to experience the presence of God. I'm so grateful He meets us here. Grateful you are here as well. And hey, my name is Carson Pedraza. It is my privilege and honor to welcome you here today, especially if you're a guest in our house. We're so grateful that you're spending your Sunday morning with us. In fact, we have a free gift just for you. It's our little way of saying thank you for joining us. So if you haven't already done so, do us a favor, fill out that Connect card in the seat back in front of you. We want to put a free gift in your hands. But so much more than that, we want to get to know your name and your story. Make sure you get a proper welcome here today. And listen, church, really, I'm excited. Next weekend is my favorite weekend of the month. It's baptism weekend. And we make a big deal out of baptism around here because it's a big deal in Scripture. And so if you're here today and you've said yes to Jesus, but you have not taken that step of obedience to be baptized, I'd encourage you to sign up for that. It's on our website. It's on our app. But we choose to be baptized because so many times in Scripture, when people show up and they say yes to Jesus,

the very next thing they're doing is like, where's that body of water? It's time to take that step of obedience. So be sure to sign up for that. It's going to be so great to celebrate you and to be a part of that and cheer you on and pray for you and all those great things. And listen, much like baptism is a step of obedience, so is giving. Every Sunday we take time out of our service to respond to God's goodness and generosity, to respond with giving. But we don't just do that to make sure that the lights stay on. We do that because God has called us to bring our first fruits to Him, believing that everything that we have, that it comes from the Lord. And in response to Him, in obedience to Him, He just says, give me your first. And so we just say, we just show up and say, yeah, God, I trust you. I trust that you can do more with this. then I can do it. I trust that you can do more with my 90% than I can do with my 90%. So if you're here today and giving is part of your worship, there are several ways you could do so. They're on the screens behind me. We have some offering boxes on your way out at Giving Kiosk in the lobby. You can always give safely. It's a queue line, but right now we're going to pass some buckets. And so if you're on the left-hand side of your row, if you can reach down and pass that to the right, it would be greatly appreciated. And while those buckets are being passed, I'm just going to pray a quick prayer of blessing over the generosity of the church this morning. Would you join me? God, we're so grateful for everything that you've given us. We believe that it comes from you. We trust you with whatever we give today. Whether it's our little or a lot, Lord, we believe that you can do more with it, that for your kingdom, for your glory, for your honor, God, we pray that people would come to know your name because of the generosity of the people in this room. We love and praise you. It's great that we pray. Amen and amen. Well, church, we're so glad that you're here. We're so excited to continue to worship together. Let's stand to our feet and do just that.

Father, we're so grateful for your presence, for your faithfulness. Lord, we can surrender all of our worries to you and simply trust that you have good plans for us, Lord. Let me sing this out. Blessed assurance Jesus is mine He's been my fourth man in the fire Time after time Born of His Spirit Washed in His blood And what He did for me on Calvary It's more than enough I trust in God, my Savior Come on, sing it out. Who will ever fail? Who will ever fail? I trust in God, my Savior Who will ever fail? Who will ever fail? Perfect submission Voluntarist I know the author of tomorrow As Lord of my days So this is my story This is my song Praising my risen King and Savior All the day long I trust in God, my Savior Who will ever fail? Who will ever fail? I trust in God, my Savior

Who will ever fail? Who will ever fail? Thank you, God Because you never fail us You're a faithful friend What an amazing God you are I'll sing this out I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered That's why I trust Him I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered That's why I trust Him I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. That's why I trust Him. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust Him. God, my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail. That's why I trust Him. God, my Savior, the one who will never fail. He will never fail. I saw the Lord, I saw the Lord. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust Him. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered.

I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. I saw the Lord, and He heard, and He answered. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust Him. God. Yeah. We surrender everything to the Lord. Everything to the Lord. That's why I trust Him. That's why I trust Him. God. Thank you, Jesus. Jesus, it's our confidence today that You love us, that You've done everything possible so we can be forever Yours, that our sins can be forgiven, that our hope can be steady and secured in eternity. This is why we trust You, Lord. You've done everything. While we were imperfect, while it's impossible for us to reach You, You came down to be with us. So, Lord, You open up the windows of heaven. You give us complete access to the Father. Today, we lay down all of our burdens, all of our pains, all of our fears, all of our anxieties. We lay down everything before Your feet. We lift up every prayer to You because You hear us, because You're near to us, because You will answer. Jesus, whatever's on our mind, whatever's on our hearts, help us to surrender it all,

that Your name would be glorified through it, that Your will would be done on earth and in our lives as it is in heaven. We can't do without You. So, Holy Spirit, we ask that You would strengthen us, that You would open up our ears, that You would get us ready for all that You have for us, to be all that You've called us to be. Thank You, Jesus. This time is Yours. Be glorified. It's in Your name we thank You and pray. Come on, church. He's worthy of our praise. If you are grateful to be in the house of the Lord today with the people of God, turn to someone next to you and tell them, I'm excited to be here right next to you. Now, don't lie. Say it to them again. I heard some of you. You're like, I'm excited to be here. Not really next. No, I'm kidding. I want to welcome you to the perfect place for imperfect people to experience the presence of God. I'm Eric. Before we begin today, two quick things I want to share with you. Number one is, last week I said I'm sitting down because in this series we're going to be doing

a little bit more teaching than preaching and there's a lot of information. So, to make sure that we get through it in a timely fashion, I said I'm going to sit down so that I don't take longer than I need to. Well, today I'm sitting down because I'm a little bit under the weather. My son has had a fever for the past few days My health is good besides that. My ticker is doing well. I just want to let you know that. There's no concern. Why is he sitting down? I'm a little bit under the weather today. Second thing is this. I have a confession to make. Up until about a few years ago, I used to be afraid of atheists. I used to be intimidated by atheists. Not because I didn't believe in Jesus. But because when someone would come up and have some sort of intellectual confidence when they say something like, I don't believe in God because I get this panic in my chest like I'd just been handed a test that I hadn't prepared for. They'd say something like science has disproven religion or the universe can be fully explained without a creator and I would nod my head and then put my head down and be quiet and then go home and recite the conversation in my mind for the next three days wondering, why wasn't I better prepared?

I should have said that. I'm in the shower brushing my teeth. I'm like, man, I should have said that. Has that ever happened to you? You're going through like, why wasn't I more prepared? Why didn't I know more? A lot of us were familiar with that feeling or maybe even some of us, we've been the skeptic in the room. We're trying to figure out whether all of this is real or not. Here's what I want you to know. God is not intimidated by our tough questions. In fact, the deeper that we dig, the stronger the foundation that we have actually gets. I know that some of us, maybe we grew up in environments where asking questions was frowned upon or struggling with doubt all of a sudden made you a bad Christian. You'd ask somebody in your church a question and they would simply say, you just have to have faith. You got to believe. What's wrong with you, brother? I want you to know today that honest questions are not the enemy of faith. You know what it is? Dishonesty. Thomas doubted. And did Jesus throw him away? No, Jesus called him closer. Jesus met him in his doubt and said, look again, come close. So maybe today you've been wrestling privately

or maybe your faith took a hit somewhere in your past because of disappointment or church hurt or unanswered prayers or a pain that you still can't explain. I want you to know today that doesn't make you a bad person. That makes you human. That's normal. And I want our church to be the type of church familia that people can come and ask difficult questions but still be loved deeply. Here's why. Because if our faith is true, and it is. If our faith is true, it should be able to stand up against the scrutiny and the pressure, right? I want to talk about that today. Now, let me say this before we begin teaching. The goal of Apologetics, the goal of this series Faith Forward when we're talking about Apologetics is not to win arguments against people. It's to point people to the hope in Jesus. Because here's what I found about a lot of atheists. They're not necessarily rejecting God as much as they're rejecting a distorted picture of Him. Something that they misunderstood or that someone mis-exampled to them along the way. And so before we begin to criticize people for not having the same faith as we do, we have to remember that there were moments where we struggled as well, right? I don't want us to approach today's teaching with arrogance.

I want us to approach it with humility and with honesty. And like we talked about a few weeks ago, with confidence. Confidence that the truth that we believe can withstand scrutiny. Because I'm telling you, the case for God is much stronger than the case against Him. Three things I want us to understand today. Write this first one down. Atheism isn't just about evidence for God. It's about surrender to God. Today, as we talk about answering atheism, I want you to know that atheism isn't just about evidence for God. It's often about surrender to God. If you don't know what an atheist is, it simply means that there is no belief in any, or any existence in gods or deities. And it comes from the Greek word atheos, which means without God. And culturally, usually atheism is presented as the intelligent position to hold. We see it in television shows and in news and in articles that atheism, it's the intelligent position to hold while believing in Jesus and faith is for people who haven't caught up with science yet. If you've ever heard that or felt that, turn to your neighbor right now, tell them, don't believe that lie. Somebody will say something intelligent or confidently

on social media or in a college classroom, and then suddenly what happens? Christians feel like we have to apologize for our faith in Jesus. Church, I want you to know that confidence is not the same thing as truth. You can say something with the utmost confidence and still be incorrect. I don't know if you remember that scene from the office where Michael Scott wants to declare bankruptcy and how does he do it? He stands in front of the office and says, I declare bankruptcy. He said it so loud, he said it so confidently, but it wasn't legally. It's true, wasn't it? That's not the way you do it. Just because someone says it confidently doesn't make it true. This matters because a lot of us as followers of Jesus, we live like our faith is fragile and frail. Like one podcast or one TikTok video can dismantle 2000 years of God's truth. No, that's not what happens. The church has withstood persecution and corruption and war and skepticism and opposition for centuries. And we're still here. Not because we're perfect, right? Not because the church is perfect. The bride still has her problems,

but the reason why is because Jesus meant it when he said the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against the church that he is building. Once you turn your Bibles to Psalm chapter 14. Psalm chapter 14, verse one, here's what it says. It says, the fool, say fool. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They're corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There's none who does good. David says, the fool says there's no God. Now I want you to understand, David isn't simply saying that atheists are stupid. No, in the Hebrew culture, a fool wasn't somebody who had a low IQ or intelligence. A fool was someone who ignored wisdom, who lived their life like accountability didn't exist for them. I met a lot of people who were very intelligent, but also very spiritually lost. That's what a fool is. David is saying that the issue is deeper than someone's IQ. It's a heart issue. Listen, there are people who reject God because they believe that there's no evidence. Just like there's people who reject God because they don't want accountability. Because if God is real, then that means I'm not the main character. If God is real,

that means that I don't get to define truth however I feel. And honestly, this isn't just only an atheist issue. There are people who intellectually deny God, and there are Christians who practically ignore him. We say we trust God, but what leads and rules our life? It's our anxiety and our fears. We say Jesus is Lord, but we still want complete control over everything in our lives. Culture has deceived us and discipled us over time to believe that freedom means living however you want with no authority over your life. That's not what real freedom is. Real freedom isn't the absence of authority. Real freedom is living under the right authority, living under God's authority. Do you think a fish is living free if it's laying on the beach, listening to Bob Marley, sipping on a Mai Tai? That sounds like a pretty good life. No, the fish is dead, right? A fish is free in the water that it was created for. And the same is true for us. None of us will fully function in freedom outside the God that we are created for. Listen to what Ecclesiastes 3.11 says. It says that God has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart. What that means is there is an ache in the human soul that temporary things will never be able to satisfy.

A few weeks ago, I recommended the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Here's one of his quotes from that. He says, if I find in myself a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most likely explanation is that I was made for another world. I wasn't made for this world. This is why people can finally get the money, the position, the power that they've craved and still feel empty inside. This is why you can find success and still feel restless inside of you because the deepest hunger that every human being has is not physical, it's spiritual. But instead of turning to God who can satisfy our deepest desires, what happens is so many of us, we try to turn ourselves into our own gods. And when humanity tries to be its own god, things don't get better. What happens? Things get darker. We're living in that today. We have more technology than ever before, but yet more anxiety than ever before. More ways to entertain us than ever before, but yet more depression than ever before. More connection than ever on the face of this planet. But yet people are experiencing

the highest level of loneliness ever. Why? Because nothing created can fully satisfy what was created for God. That ache in the human soul, that longing inside of us for meaning, for purpose, for beauty, for truth, it points to something else. It points to something deeper. It lets us know that we were made for Him. And if this longing for the human soul points toward a creator, second thing I want you to know is that creation itself does also. So write this down. Creation points to a creator. Creation, this beautiful sound of rain and how it waters the earth and how the earth grows because of it, all this points to a creator. One of the biggest misconceptions about Christianity is that faith and science are enemies. Like you have to choose between following God and using your brain. Or maybe you've heard this, you follow God until you're educated enough and that naturally progresses to you not following Him anymore, you becoming an atheist. If you look at modern humanity,

if you look at the history of humans, many people who built modern science believed that they were studying a universe established by the God of the Bible. Just a few of them, Johannes Kepler, he discovered planetary motion. He believed that he was thinking God's thoughts for him. Isaac Newton believed that the universe pointed toward divine order. Francis Collins who led the Human Genome Project, he was a faithful follower of Jesus. Faith and science, they're not enemies. God, He created us with a mind, right? And He wants us to use what He's given to us. He's given us a mind on purpose. And the more that I've studied, the more convinced that I am that creation points toward God instead of away from Him. So let me give you a statement on science from the local church. Science is a wonderful tool. My little one, my youngest son, he says, I wanna grow up and I wanna become a scientist. He watches a lot of science. Science is a wonderful tool, but science was never meant to be God. Science can explain why the heart pumps, but it can't explain why love makes you cry sometimes. Science can measure brain activity, but it can't fully explain consciousness

and morality, beauty, or purpose. Write this down. Science can explain mechanisms, but it can't fully explain meaning. Do you understand that? It can tell you how something functions, but it can't ultimately tell you why anything exists at all. And here's the thing. No one actually lives like that. No one actually lives like science is the only thing that actually matters. I've heard people say, the only thing that I will believe is something that can be scientifically proven. Really? Like, honestly, that's not how we live our lives. You can't measure love in a laboratory. You can't measure love with science, but yet you know when someone genuinely loves you, right? You can't put justice inside of a test tube, yet every single one of us knows that evil is real. You can't weigh human dignity on a scale, yet all of us instinctively know that human life has intrinsic value. There are realities that transcend scientific measurement, and this is how we actually live our lives, right? And so once we understand and admit that not every important truth can be reduced down to chemistry or physics, it makes us wrestle with a bigger question.

The question is, why is there something instead of nothing? Because if there is no God, then we're to believe that all of this, what, came out of nothing? Do you realize that nothing can't create something? We have never witnessed in humanity something coming out of nothing. And if there was truly ever nothing, then there will still be nothing. What's amazing to me is that modern science actually strengthens our biblical worldview instead of weakening it. In 1929, Edwin Hubble, he discovered that the universe is expanding, which means if you rewind everything back, the universe had a beginning. Time had a beginning. Space and matter had a beginning because creation isn't eternal. Creation had a starting point. And if creation had a beginning, then something outside of creation. had to cause it. Whatever caused universe can't be made of matter because it created matter. It can't exist in time because it created time. Whatever created everything has to be incredibly powerful and has to choose intentionally to create. I don't know about you, but that sounds a whole lot like God, right?

Now, obviously, the Bible isn't trying to be a scientific textbook. We shouldn't read the Bible like it's a scientific textbook but I find it fascinating and amusing that the very first words in the Bible are what? In the beginning. God's word has always communicated that God created everything. He existed before anything did. See, atheism, it doesn't eliminate the need for faith. What it does is it simply relocates it. Some people like us today, coming to the 830, we believe and we put our faith in God. But some people, they put their faith in human reasoning. Some people, they put their faith in the belief that one day, eventually, science will be able to explain everything. But everyone trusts something. And at some point, every one of us, we have to put our faith somewhere. Frank Turek, he wrote a book called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. I love this book. And it explains the incredible amount of faith that it would take to believe that all of this happened by accident. That life came from non-life. That order just came out of chaos. That information, very specifically, came out of randomness

and morality just came out of molecules. I'm telling you, it takes so, it takes way more faith to believe that than there was a creator. Especially when the deeper we study creation, the more it looks like it was intentionally designed. Scientists say that we live in a Goldilocks region. It's just right. Because if we were closer to the sun, what would happen? We would burn. If we are further away from the sun, we would freeze. If gravity changed just a little bit, life as we know it would cease to exist on our planet. And if the laws that held atoms together were shifted even slightly, stars could not form. The universe would fall apart. If there are no stars, there's no planets. If there are no planets, there's no life. In other words, life requires extraordinary precision. Scientists, they call this fine-tuning. And fine-tuning is a problem for them. How was everything so fine-tuned? And that precision, it doesn't just stop with space. It's also inside of our body as well. And every single one of our cells in our body is highly ordered, incredibly specific information that's more sophisticated than any computer code humanity has ever created.

Your body heals itself. How awesome is that? Your lungs, they continue breathing while you're sleeping without you thinking about it. Your heart beats thousands of times a day without you putting any attention on. How amazing is that? Turn to your neighbor, tell them, you're awesome. Turn to your neighbor again if they have a ring on their finger from you and say, your body is awesome. It is. But yet somehow we're supposed to believe that all of this happened by accident. It was just random that we are who we are today. To quote the great theologian, Randy Jackson, that's gonna be a no from me, dog. Like, there's no way. When we see a painting, we assume there was a painter. And we assume correctly. When we see a building, we know that there was a builder. When we hear a song, we understand that there was a writer, a singer, but somehow we look at creation and think, just happened, nobody made it. No, creation is constantly preaching that there is a creator. Romans 1 20 says this, for God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation

of the world and the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. You don't need a seminary degree to recognize that something bigger than us has been speaking through creation. You don't need to know Greek or Hebrew to stand in awe. of the sunset, the evidence is everywhere. Holding a newborn baby. Walking and hiking the hills and mountains in Wyoming. Scuba diving in a coral reef and seeing a beautiful world. Creation is constantly pointing and letting us know that there is a creator. And if creation points to a creator, then the next question is, what is this creator like? What is this creator actually like? And this is why the Bible is so important. Because creation tells us that there is a creator who exists, but scripture tells us his name. Creation shows us that God is powerful, but scripture reveals his heart. That leads to our last big idea, write this down. We don't just need answers, we need Jesus. We don't just need answers, we need Jesus. I said this earlier, and I mean it with all of who I am. Apologetics is ultimately not about winning arguments. You can gather enough information and win every argument and debate and still lose the person who's standing in front of you. And if that is your goal, you've missed the heart of God.

Our goal is not to win arguments. Our goal is not to sound smarter than people. Unfortunately, I know too many young people who feel joy in their hearts when they decimate and destroy someone in the comment section and call it ministry. It's not what God's called us to do. Our goal is to connect people to Jesus. Because I'm telling you, there's heavy questions that every person will eventually have to wrestle with. And again, atheism may explain chemistry, but it can't explain humanity. If the universe is ultimately random and purely material, then morality, meaning, purpose, love, beauty, all of it is just chemical reactions and survival instincts. But again, nobody actually lives that way, right? No one sees genocide occurring and saying, oh, that's just molecules interacting with one another. No, no one sees abuse and says, evil's a construct, morality is relative. No one hears about evil and says, there's not really right or wrong anyway. No, why? Because deep down inside, all of us, we objectively know that some things are good and some things are evil. People will say that morality is relative right until the point that they are sinned against. And then what happens? Now they want justice.

Now they want truth. Now they want accountability. But let's go deeper than that for a moment. Why does love feel like it matters so much? I'm not talking about chemistry. I'm not talking about simple attraction. I'm talking about sacrificial love. I'm talking about a love that transcends just basic survival instincts of animals. The kind of love that would throw themselves in front of someone that they love to protect them. The kind of love that sees someone that we love suffering. I would rather take on the suffering so that they wouldn't have to experience that. The kind of love that lays down their life for their friends. Every time we experience real love, it reflects the image of the God who is love. But the deepest question humanity wrestles with is this. What happens after this? What happens after life? Because no matter how successful you become, death will interrupt it. Death always affects us all. I've done so many funerals, and every funeral reminds me that something is broken. Every graveside service reminds us that this isn't the way that it's supposed to be. And our faith, it doesn't avoid that. It doesn't ignore the problem of death.

It confronts it head on. Christianity doesn't just offer simple advice for good living, no. It offers victory and freedom over sin and death. And this is what separates our faith from every belief system across the world. Every other religion essentially says, work harder, climb higher, earn your way in, become better. But the good news of Jesus, the gospel, it says that we couldn't climb high enough to reach God, and so God came down to us. The gospel isn't humanity reaching God, it's God reaching humanity. Can I tell you, no one would write that story. That's a dumb story to write. No one would make up a religion where the king leaves heaven to come down and take on imperfect flesh, and suffers alongside humanity, and then dies for the very people who rejected him. No one would write that story. You look at every religion, it's all about how awesome you can become, how great you can achieve. John 1 14 says, and the word became flesh. Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. Jesus, he came as one of us.

He experienced betrayal, pain, exhaustion, grief, rejection. He experienced suffering, he experienced temptation, which means that we don't serve a distant God. We serve a God who stepped into our pain. We have a savior who knows everything we go through. And then Jesus did something that no philosophy, no worldview, no religious system could ever accomplish. Jesus dealt with sin. He defeated the power of sin. I'm telling you, the greatest problem for humans is not the lack of education. It's not the lack of sustenance. It's not the arrival of technology or the abundance of money. The greatest problem for humanity is the problem of sin, death, and hell. It's the greatest problem we'll ever face. It's the greatest problem we'll ever face. Sin is what fractured our relationship with the God who created us and loves us. Sin is why guilt follows us. Sin is why shame weighs us down. Sin is why humanity keeps on fighting against one another, keeps on destroying itself. And no amount of self-improvement can ever heal what sin caused. And that's why Jesus went to the cross. That's why he died on the cross. The cross wasn't a mistake.

It wasn't an accident. It wasn't his weakness. It was intentional. The cross was a sign of his love. Romans 5a, it says, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, not when we reached enlightenment, not when we got it all together. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were still in our sin, still imperfect in every way, Jesus took the penalty of sin, death, and he died in our place. And that's why Christianity is not about information. It's about transformation. Jesus didn't come to make bad people behave better. Jesus came so that spiritually dead people can be alive again. Next week, we're gonna talk specifically about the resurrection and why I believe that the evidence for resurrection, the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus specifically is incredibly compelling historically. But today, here's what I pray that we understand. The good news, the gospel of Jesus. It doesn't simply answer the question, does God exist? It answers a more important question, the deeper question. Does God want me? The answer on the cross is yes.

Yes, we can have freedom. We can have forgiveness. Yes, our past does not define who we are, but we can have a hope and a future in him. Yes, we can be healed of our shame, washed of our sin. Yes, there's hope for broken, imperfect people. This is why atheism doesn't satisfy the longing of our soul, it struggles with it. Because we don't simply need more information. We need salvation. We need rescue, we need a relationship with God. I hope you understand there is a creator, but we need more than a creator, we need a savior. And some of you today, you don't need another intellectual conversation. Learn, grow, be like the Berens in the book of Acts. Research for yourself, the evidence is out there, I'm telling you. But more than information, we need salvation. We need a savior. We need an encounter with Jesus. Because eventually, faith needs to stop being theoretical in our mind, and needs to become personal. I hope I've, at least in some part, gave some foundational truths to the question, does God exist? But the real question is, will we trust Him with our life?

Everybody trusts something. Everybody builds their life on a foundation, whether it's money, success, identity, feelings, relationships. We all build our life on a foundation, but every foundation except for Jesus eventually will begin to shake and crumble. Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven, He said that a foolish person, a fool will build their house on shifting, changing sands. A foundation that's constantly changing. That's what a fool builds his life upon. A foundation that's built on human opinion. It keeps on evolving, right? A foundation that's built on atheism says, there's no ultimate truth, there's no meaning, there's no purpose. Even a foundation that's built purely on science alone, which is always learning, which is always adjusting, which is always changing based on discovery. It's foolish to build your foundation on that. But he continues, he says, a wise person. That's who we aim to be, someone who is wise. They would build their house on the solid rock of Jesus. And then he says, when the storms and wind come, not if, they will come. When they come, your house will not be shaken because you are secure on the solid rock of Jesus. That's the strongest foundation

that we can build our life upon. In just a few moments, we're gonna sing one final song of worship. Can I just lovingly bring a little correction? This is a time where a lot of you say, it's time to go, let me beat the traffic, let me get my kids, let me get out of here. No, service isn't done, our worship to God isn't done. I wanna encourage you to stay and pray. In just a few moments, we're gonna sing this final song of worship, talking about building my life. And my prayer is that it would be more than a song, it would be our prayer. Jesus, I'm building my life on you and you alone. Before we get to that, I wanna give us a chance to respond. See, believing in God is not what saves us. I believe in God. Like Jessica said last week, so do the demons. And they tremble at that thought. They have more fear of God than we do. Takes more than believing in God, it takes surrendering to him. Salvation comes when we stop merely debating about Jesus and start living our life, trusting him as Lord. And so if you're here today, wherever you are, whatever your journey may have been, if you're here today and say, Eric, I need Jesus, I need salvation, I need a relationship with God, today can be your day.

Not because you figured it out, not because you have all the answers, but because he's a God that welcomes everyone who asks honest questions. Would you stand to your feet right now? I wanna encourage you just to begin to talk to God. Tell him where you're at. Tell him what you need. Tell him what you struggle with. Tell him the pain, the hurt that you experienced from his people that hardened your heart. He can handle all of it. And I wanna encourage you to say, God can handle all of it. You can yell at God. You can even be angry at God. It doesn't threaten him. Now tell him, I trust you still. I believe that you have great plans for my life. I believe that you've been faithful in every season, even though I don't sense it. Right now, you're with me. If you need to surrender your life to him, it's as simple as saying, Jesus, I've sinned against you. I've broken your commands. But today I repent. I ask for your forgiveness. And I pray that you would save me. And just from those simple words, that mustard seed, small amount of faith, his spirit is rushing into you right now.

His name is being written on your hearts. He's saving you. And nothing on heaven or earth or beneath the earth, no power of hell, no scheme of man, will ever take you from his loving hands. You're his now and forever. Lord, we build our life upon you. Not upon arguments. Not upon information. But upon the love and grace of you, Father God. Help us, Jesus, from this day forward, to not be ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of salvation for all who believe. Let it be real in us. And let it be so real in us that it spills out of us. Through love and grace for people around us, for people who don't look like us, for people who don't believe like us. Jesus, I pray that we would be your hands and feet as you transform us from the inside out. Thank you, God, for giving us great purpose, for loving us greater than we can imagine, for using us. Our life is yours. You are our foundation. We build everything upon you. In Jesus' name we pray. And all God's people said, let's declare it. Let's worship him.

Let's sing this final song of praise and worship, telling him, my life is yours. Your will be done. ♪ Worthy of every song we could ever sing ♪ ♪ Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring ♪ ♪ Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe ♪ ♪ We live for you ♪ ♪ Jesus, the name above every other name ♪ ♪ Jesus, the only one who could ever save ♪ ♪ Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe ♪ ♪ We live for you ♪ ♪ Oh, we live for you ♪ ♪ And hold me, there is no one like you ♪ ♪ There is none beside you ♪ ♪ Open up my eyes in adoration ♪ ♪ Show me who you are and fill me with your heart ♪ ♪ And lead me, lead the love to those around me ♪ ♪ Worthy of every song we could ever sing ♪ ♪ Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring ♪ ♪ Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe ♪ ♪ We live for you ♪ ♪ Everything for you, Jesus ♪ ♪ Jesus, the name above every other name ♪ ♪ Jesus, the only one who could ever save me ♪ ♪ Worthy of every prayer we could ever bring ♪ ♪ We live for you ♪ ♪ Oh, we live for you ♪ ♪ And hold me, there is no one like you ♪ ♪ There is nothing to stop me, open up my eyes to you Lord ♪ ♪ Show me who you are, fill me with your heart and feed me ♪

♪ Give me love to love so that I can be yours ♪ ♪ I will build my life on you, you are a firm foundation ♪ ♪ And I will build my life upon your love, it is a firm foundation ♪ ♪ I will put my trust in you alone, and I will not be shaken ♪ ♪ I will build my life upon your love, it is a firm foundation ♪ ♪ I will put my trust in you alone, and I will not be shaken ♪ ♪ Show me there is no one like you, there is nothing to stop me, open up my eyes to you Lord ♪ ♪ Show me who you are, fill me with your heart and feed me, give me love to love so that I can be yours ♪ ♪ I will build my life upon your love, it is a firm foundation ♪