COME AND SEE

The Book of Nature can open your mind to the possibility that maybe God is real. The Book of Scripture, the Bible, goes further, like a friend who's been there. Surrounded by fake news, A.I. slop, misinformation, disinformation, and just plain old lies, it's hard to tell what's real anymore. Dr. Michael Ziegler tells how Jesus sets us free from darkness, doubt, and distrust, today on The Lutheran Hour. I'm Mark Eisher. Today, by God's grace, we begin our 94th broadcast season. The Lutheran Hour is made possible through the gifts and prayers of listeners like you. Together we are bringing Christ to the nations and the nations to the Church. Learn more at LutheranHour.org. Now, here is our speaker, Dr. Michael Ziegler. This has probably happened to you. You see an image on a screen and you think, ah, that's A.I., that's not real. Maybe you're not even sure what, but your gut tells you it's a fake. It's a fabrication of artificial intelligence. There are billions of A.I.-generated images floating around the internet and millions more being made every day, getting more and more lifelike. So, this problem isn't going away anytime soon. What's real? And what's a fake? It's an inescapable question. Recently, a co-worker showed me an image that we were going to be using in a project we were working on, and that was my first thought. That's so A.I. It can't be real. It's too perfect. It was a picture of a landscape, sun rays glistening over a picture-perfect snow-capped mountain in the background and in the foreground, perfectly still, glassy turquoise lake. It looked like a tropical lagoon cut and pasted under a ski resort. Some sort of improbable Bob Ross CGI mashup posing as a photograph. Alps in the Bahamas, with lots of happy trees. It was just the algorithm showing us what we wanted to see. But, the image had come from someone we trusted, someone who didn't have a track record of using fakes, so I was curious. I put a digital copy of the image through an online A.I.-powered A.I. detection tool. Sometimes you gotta use fire to fight fire. The first one said that there were no digital markings that would indicate that it was made by A.I. I put it into a second detection tool, and the result was the same. We are reasonably confident that no A.I. was used to make this image, the chatbot told me. Takes one to know one. Now I was even more curious, and it was starting to open my mind to the possibility that maybe I was wrong. I found the source of the image, and there was a photographer listed, but it sounded like it was a fake name. Although,

the photographer had a portfolio of other images and a lot of those looked real, but still, something in me couldn't believe what I was seeing, or wouldn't believe it. What pushed me over the threshold was when I happened to show the image to a friend and she took one look at it and said, I've been there. What? I said, you mean it's a real place? Yeah, she said, it's one of my favorite places. Then she showed me pictures, her own pictures that she had taken. on her phone of that place. Turns out it's her favorite lake in Germany, a real tropical looking glistening turquoise lake surrounded by happy trees nestled in the Bavarian Alps at the foot of the Zugspitze, Deutschland's tallest mountain. Not only had she been there, she had dipped her toes in those turquoise waters and had skied the snowy slopes behind in the background. Oh, you should see it, she told me. It's beautiful in all the seasons and so she converted me. Not only do I believe it's real, I want to go and see it. We are surrounded by so many fakes that we become prone to doubt even what's real. What if someone told you that you are not alone, that you're not here by accident, that you're not a mistake, but that there is a God who created you, who delights in you, who knit you together in your mother's womb and is glad that you exist, not because of what you might be able to do for him, but because of what he wants to do for you, to share his eternal life with you. What if someone tells you that and you hear it, but part of you says that can't be real? What if someone told you that the darkness and the emptiness and the frustration we all feel sometimes in this world and with this world, that these are not the most real things about the world, that they are the fallout, the side effect of a rebellion against the Creator, and that there are superhuman agents of spiritual darkness out there leading this rebellion, all led by an evil superhuman adversary called the devil who wants to trap you and me in this darkness with him forever, but also that God still loves this world that he made and he sent his one and only son Jesus to reclaim this world because he's the rightful king of the world and whoever believes, whoever trusts in him will not be lost forever in this darkness because the darkness was not able to hold Jesus

down in death, but he rose from the dead and he promises to raise you from the dead and make everything beautiful in its time. What if someone were to tell you that because it's true and you'd like to believe it, to stake your life on it, to make it the most important, most constant, most central truth of your life, but there's still a part of you that can't believe it or won't, and what if they told you that Jesus knew in advance that many people wouldn't believe and that all of us at some point would doubt him and question whether he was too good to be true, but still Jesus, because of his love, his beautiful love for God, his Father, and his love for people, his love for you, would you believe it? Jesus went forward and still goes forward with this mission to save us despite our doubts. What would it take to convert you or re-convert you or me or anyone to bring us over the threshold from doubt to faith and wonder and desire to dip our toes in God's life and jump in the waters of God and explore the mountains of God? It probably wouldn't just be one thing, but many things. To bring us from the doorstep over the threshold into the household, to have a conversion, takes many influences, small nudges, bits of evidence, but in another sense those many things are just one thing. Witness. We need a witness. We need witnesses like my friend from Germany, people who've been there, who've experienced the beauty in all the seasons and tell us, you gotta come and see it. God, our Creator, has not left us without evidence. He has given us witnesses. He's given us two books to read. The book of and the Book of Scripture, the Bible. The Book of Nature, the natural, physical world, the universe, on its own inspires wonder and awe, even worship. Whether on a grand scale, with our own Milky Way galaxy containing an estimated hundred billion stars, and the greater universe containing billions of such galaxies with their own mind-boggling numbers of stars, or on a small scale, with the hundred million light detector cells in every human eyeball, the Book of Nature can open your mind to the possibility that maybe God is real. The Book of Scripture, though, the Bible, goes further, like a friend who's been there.

The Bible is eyewitness testimony of what the Creator has done on our little planet Earth to show us who He is, to show us His heart and His Son, Jesus. Listen to how one of the great books of the Bible says it, in the opening of the Gospel according to John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning, with God, through Him, by Him, all things came to be, and nothing came to be without Him. What came to be in Him was life, and the life was the light of humankind. The light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There came a man sent from God, his name was John. He came as a witness to the light, so that all people would trust, would believe through Him. He himself was not the light. He only came as a witness to the light. The true light, who gives light to all people, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not know Him. He came to His own people, but His own people did not receive Him. But to those who did receive Him, to those who are trusting in His name, He gave them the authority to become children of God, children born not in a natural way, not of a human decision, not of a husband's will, but children born of God. And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son sent from the Father, full of grace and truth, full of steadfast love and faithfulness. John bears witness about Him. He cries out, the one who comes after me is greater than me, because He was before me. Later, this guy John, he sees Jesus walking toward him, and he says, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The sin of the world, what's that? The sin, the great sin, the sin at the source of all other sins is not to believe, not to

trust in Jesus, God's Word become human. So Jesus has come to take away this sin, and thereby to take away all sins. How? By becoming the Lamb of God, like the Passover Lamb, whose blood was spilled and painted on the doorframes of God's people to set them free from slavery to the darkness, because Jesus sets people free from darkness and doubt and distrust. How? By being worthy of trust, by being the real deal, by staying true to His love, His beautiful love for God and love for people in the way He lived and spoke and served, and most of all in His self-giving, sacrificial death on the cross and His doubt-destroying resurrection from the dead, Jesus gives us faith. He takes away our sin. He takes away our unbelief because He is worthy of our trust. But how do I know that He's trustworthy? The Gospel of John responds with an open invitation. Come and see. See for yourself. Read all four Gospel biographies of Jesus in the Bible. Listen to them. Talk about them in communion. with others go and see. It's like my friend who had been in the picture that I thought was fake. What got me interested in this picture in the first place was that it had been selected to be the cover image of a new book I had written. If you want to stick around after the message today I'll tell you more about the book but for now I'll tell you that because the book is about real life in community gathered around Jesus and the goal of the book is to help people over the threshold into real community with Jesus I really wanted the cover image to be real and not a fake. That's why I went looking for proof and ultimately found it in a friend who'd been there. It's more than that with Jesus though because Jesus does more than give proof.

He also invites participation not just to go and see but to stop for a visit to be with him and his people the church to go together to follow Jesus for life. As we begin a new season for the Lutheran Hour that's what I hope we can do for you in these broadcasts and podcasts videos and online courses and booklets and books that we offer I pray that the speakers and the writers and the behind-the-scenes workers in this ministry can be something like a friend for you who's been there and has seen because we have seen the power of Jesus and his word in the Bible to build a community. I remember seeing it at the visitation the night before Rodney's funeral. Rodney was a member of our church and church choir and Rodney had so many hymns that he loved songs about Jesus that he wanted us to sing for his funeral at his funeral that we didn't have time to sing them all at the funeral the next day so the choir director arranged a time after the visitation that night for anyone who wanted to stick around and visit and sing some of Rodney's favorite hymns and I remember standing there that night and seeing Rodney's widow Ruth tears glistening from behind her glasses surrounded by her church family grieving but happy trees an improbable mashup of nine-year-olds and ninety-year-olds at 9 p.m. on a school night all singing together in the hope of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come and I remember thinking that I had discovered the greatest place on earth and it almost looked too good to be true and it was the most beautiful thing I ever witnessed you got to come and see it in the name of Jesus amen you're listening to the Lutheran hour at Lutheran hour org you'll find free online resources a broadcast guide archived audio and more that's Lutheran hour org once again here's dr. Michael Ziegler thanks mark today I get to visit with our friend and co-worker Chris Mackey he serves as our content manager for US ministries thanks for being here Chris thanks for this message today on the basics of following Jesus it can get really complex sometimes people get lost in the weeds but sometimes we just need to be reminded of the basics of the

Christian faith of we're following a person I really appreciate how the Gospel of John especially emphasizes belief in the sense of trust its belief about Jesus and who he is and what he did but primarily it's come and see see that he's trustworthy and that you can follow him and you can let him take your life in his hands that's what it means to be a Christian you often have a guest talking about a book or a Bible commentary that they have written you know you've interviewed people after messages but you mentioned that you have this new book coming out was it something you've been working on for a while the book comes out of sermons broadcasts that have happened on this program over the course of several years reaching back to 2019 2020 some from 2024 listeners remember that sometimes we go through series of several messages on a book of the Bible and we went through most of the book of Genesis over the course of about three years so I took all those sermons and organized them into chapters revised them reworked them a little bit added some discussion questions so that could be a group study and made it into a book with 25 Chapters and each chapter is centered on an excerpt from the book of genesis. What is your interest in the book of genesis? I think I didn't really like it at first, you know, I I like Genesis 1 through 3 You know, that's the one we all know and and I hadn't spent a lot of time especially not time preaching through Genesis it just kind of seemed like old archaic stories And I remember there was a teacher at my son's school who taught a whole whole year on Genesis And for junior high students at a Christian school, and I thought wow, that's I should do that. I'm a pastor I should take that time going through Genesis and so Going through it and learning the stories and and trying to bring them to life for people and imagine them made me love Genesis, it's like the whole Bible Encapsulated into one really powerful long wandering narrative About this man Abraham and his family and all the things they get into in the way God is faithful to them the whole story of the Bible in a book It's all there that you got the promise of Jesus right there at the beginning. You've got faithful humans and Unfaithful humans and and often they're the same person

It could combine into one and the God who leads in through and and and let's and starts again And that's the title of the book as I mentioned begin again I think that's a good way to capture what Genesis is is Showing us that God is the God who makes all things new and he will begin again and again and again as many times as It takes and so that theme begin again Encapsulates the gospel story that we see over and over again in the Bible God loves to create he's always doing something new and He loves to involve us in his creation and we see this right at the beginning with Adam and Eve that they are Not just sitting there idle and inert in the garden, but they're called to work it and to keep it So he loves to create and he loves to have us involved in his work And even when we like little children Mess things up and gum things up and get things all tied up and knots He finds a way to to involve us even use the worst things that we offer to bring them around like Joseph says at the very end of the book of Genesis to his brothers what you Intended what you meant for evil God meant for good. And so that's that's just the way God is He loves to make new things and good things even out of out of bad things You mentioned also that he's a playwright yes, tell us what that encapsulates for you. What is that image? Give to you to give to us that comes from the second chapter in the book and it's one of many metaphors that I want the the readers to To think through with me and each chapter focuses on a different metaphor or a different way to understand our relationship with God So the playwright is another way to get at this God wanting to work alongside us to be co-workers So a playwright will set the script but then the players have to enact the stage directions to speak the lines and In many ways, that's what the scriptures are It is God's script that we have and in some sense It's an unfinished script that we that he's writing through us through his Holy Spirit. And so it brings together God's authorship God's Responsibility God's creativity and his desire for us to be involved and to participate Jesus of course is

the center of the story and your heart is for people to come and see The greatness and the goodness and the mercy and the grace of Jesus How do you hope this book will help people see Jesus more clearly? I hope that this book is a way for people to gather in community around Jesus that the gospel the good news of Jesus is so much more than just he Saves us from hell and he saves us from the consequences of our sin. That is true, but he saves us for Community he saves us to experience life in him and to experience it Together and that's part of the whole of the whole playwright and the co-worker image and the participation is that he wants us to participate Together it's not good for man to be alone. And so I hope that this book can be a tool for gathering in community around Jesus for building community around Jesus each of the chapters ends with Discussion questions that are open-ended and encouraged storytelling so I'm offering some stories in a chapter and I hope that they become a Catalyst a launching point for other people to share their stories because by sharing stories together we're helping each other write the script that is our lives in Christ and These stories also have the effect of bringing us together so that we understand each other where where have you come from and? where have I come from and who's this person I don't really know? And I get to hear some of their background and then it helps open up new opportunities or new ways of seeing the world around us. So that's what I hope is that this would be a tool for building community around Jesus. So tell us, where can people go to get a copy of this book, Mike? Shop LHM.org. Lutheran Heart Ministries has several resources that we put out. You're a part of producing these resources, booklets, Bible studies, pamphlets, lots of things. And we have this online store, shop LHM.org.

And if you search that, you can find it and just look for the picture that looks too good to be true of the landscape that I talked about with the mountains and the beautiful turquoise lake. Look for that picture and begin again. Just shop LHM.org. Thanks for sharing with us, Mike. This was a pleasure. Thanks for coming in and letting me talk about it. Next week, learn why, for Christians, forgiveness is non-negotiable. Christian forgiveness doesn't start with us, but with God. It's God's non-negotiable, not ours. Our forgiveness is simply God's forgiveness flowing through us. The algorithm is simple. As God has had mercy on us, so we have mercy on others. That's the Christian way. It's not so much that we're trying to imitate God, it's not so much that we're trying to imitate God. We are participating in God's life because God's life and God's forgiveness are just two ways of saying the same thing. Next week on The Lutheran Hour. Now Dr. Ziegler invites you to join him in praying the Lord's Prayer. Taught by Jesus and trusting in his promises, we're bold to pray. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with his favor and give you peace. Amen. The Lutheran Hour is made possible through the support of faithful listeners like you. To learn how your prayers and gifts can extend the worldwide outreach of The Lutheran Hour, go to LutheranHour.org. Our theme music is by Peter Prochnow, Emily Rogers, and Alicia Enstrom. I'm Mark Eicher. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪