Sunday Sermons
The Search
The Search
When Paul was in Athens he gave a sermon in which he delivered the famous line, “That they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27). Years earlier Jesus had said, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find” (Matthew 7:7). There have been many famous books since the Bible that present life as a search, a journey, a personal odyssey and a quest. Yet, the ultimate search is the search for God, and the Bible says that such a quest is within the successful range of every person on the planet.
What is a Seeker?
The word “seeker” has become very trendy in religious circles, and frequently the word is being misused. “Often it’s only a synonym for the spiritually unattached…Such seekers are rarely looking for anything in particular. Often they are drifters…Cool, noncommittal, ever-open, concerned only to cover all bases, they are essentially ready to be converted and reconverted ad nauseam…True seekers are quite different. On meeting them you feel their seriousness, their driven restlessness…They must find answers outside their present answers” (Long Journey Home, Os Guinness p. 26). Both Jesus and Paul clearly presented a true seeker as someone who, rather than endlessly drifting, actually finds and enjoys their relationship with God.
I Must Travel This Road
I cannot seek through others, or be merely a spectator who watches others seek at a “safe distance”. “It must be undertaken, beginning with the effort of actually setting out—not reading travel brochures or daydreaming about destinations, but the real travel of living with all the discomforts and dangers” (Guinness p. 18).
Hindrances on This Road
- The Cynic
There have always been and will always be those who seek to discourage us in our search for God and His truth (2 Peter 3:3; Psalm 1:1). They will tell us that it doesn’t really matter, that life is meaningless, that others have tried and failed or that it is all too confusing. Yet Guinness reminds us to never listen to what a skeptic says, but instead note what they do. They are often living it with a lot of energy and self-promoting goals.
- Beware of Unbelief
Beware of rejecting the existence of the spiritual realm, the supernatural, and "all things other than this material universe", because the spiritual realm can be so easily forgotten when one is caught up in the things of this life (Luke 8:14). Unbelief can create blindness (Acts 26:18) and hardness in our hearts (Ephesians 4:17-19). Jesus Himself spoke of people who keep on hearing, but do not understand, who keep on seeing, but do not perceive, because their heart has become dull or hardened (Matthew 13:14-15). The writer of Hebrews made this link between unbelief and hardness of heart when he said, “Take care, brethren, let there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).
A more recent example of this is what happened in the life of Charles Darwin. Poetry, drama, music, and art all used to delight Darwin, but the more he moved into this philosophy that only the material universe existed, the more he found himself no longer enjoying such things. He wrote to a friend, “I also almost lost my taste for pictures or music….My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts”. Guinness speaks of a friend who traveled to Russia and although he had a city map, he was convinced he was lost because what he saw did not fit what was on or not the map. He saw several large churches, but none were on the map, yet he was certain he knew which street he was on. When he asked a local guide, the guide said, “We don’t show churches on our maps”. So do not allow the world to give you a map that clearly does not match what you are presently seeing (Psalm 19:1).
- The Problem of Suffering?
I understand why people question the existence of God when they encounter great suffering. Many have asked, “If God is good and all-powerful then why doesn’t He prevent or stop the suffering?” Yet with a little thought, one realizes that God would have to remove all freewill from every human being to truly prevent suffering. In addition, suffering does not inherently cause a person to stumble, for many people have actually moved toward God when they encounter suffering. This is one of many reasons why I can see why God allows bad things to happen to good people. When we encounter suffering or evil, such can create a big hole in whatever human philosophy we have embraced. Thus for many people, encountering evil has proven to be a gateway that leads to faith. For example, in the face of suffering and evil it is very hard to hold onto the idea that this world is an illusion. The people that Stalin murdered, really did die! It is likewise hard to remain neutral or eradicate all our desires, and develop an apathy for the world around us, for “instinctively and intuitively, we cry out for the unconditional to condemn evil unconditionally” (Guinness p. 57). It is also hard to remain an agnostic, or someone who does not believe in absolute truth when we see absolute evil. Absolute evil calls for absolute judgment—and we know it. The atheist who is angered at the evil that he sees must ask himself why he is so upset. “Why does this brother me so much? Why does this make my blood boil? Where do these feelings originate that justice must be done?” When we hear about something horrible, what a person did to a child, and we think, no human punishment is enough, or hanging is too good for them—we are right, and we have just discovered one reason why hell exists. At this moment we have just discovered one aspect of the spiritual realm and we are invoking justice from someone far beyond us. “In short, there are deeds that demand not only condemnation, but damnation” (Guinness p. 58).
In addition, the presence of evil also reveals the wonder of “good”. I see this in the conversion of the Philippian Jailor. What seemed to shock him back to reality, was not only the strange earthquake, but the fact that men he had beaten, actually still cared about what happened to him (Acts 16:27-30).
- Are There Too Many Options?
“Some people say the weighing of answers is unnecessary because all beliefs, at their core, are the same; others say the search for answers is impossible simply because there are too many beliefs to investigate, let alone appraise with care” (Guinness p. 69).
Guinness then rightly observes that our options concerning what is true are basically limited to three families of faith: The Eastern family includes Hinduism, Buddhism, and New Age thought. The second family is the Western Secular family that includes atheism, naturalism, and secular humanism. The third is the family that all believe in a personal infinite God, including Judaism and Christianity and Islam. One way to test any faith is to ask if it has a realistic view of evil. Can its believers look evil in the eye and call it evil? Does it allow its followers to respond to evil with a genuine hope of overcoming it?
- The Eastern Family
This set of beliefs deal with suffering and evil by denying that this world is real, and by blowing out all the fires of our desires. This is both impractical and unrealistic. For example, Jesus said for us to seek first God’s kingdom and our physical needs would be taken care of (Matthew 6:33). Buddha said to seek first the kingdom and we won’t need food, clothing, and shelter.
- The Western Secular Family
Is equally unfeasible, for when one rejects absolute truth, one must simultaneously accept that there is no such thing as absolute evil or good. Thus many people in this faith find themselves unable to condemn anything. In fact, we live in a world where many people would rather be found guilty of doing something that is viewed as wrong, than be accused of the only remaining cardinal sin, which in their book is judging someone else who is doing wrong. Judging wrong has become worse than doing wrong.
- Christianity
Evil, pain and suffering do exist, yet they are viewed as abnormal, and an intrusion into this world (Genesis 3). The problem lies not in who we are, for we are created good, but in what we’ve done (Genesis 4:10). The Bible allows us to see the world as it really is, it gives us bifocal vision. One the one hand we see the beauty and wonderful of creation (Psalm 19), and all the good that is here. On the other hand, we see the effects of the Fall and the evil that is here as well. Therefore, we are both allowed to openly affirm the world, get involved and make it a better place (Matthew 5:13-16), and at the same time reject the worldliness in the world, and label evil as what it is: evil (Ephesians 5:11; 1 John 2:15). During our stay on earth, we are also exhorted to be passionate, to care (Ecclesiastes 9:10), and to get upset with the evil around us (Acts 17:16; John 11:33). The Bible gives us the hope that we can live in this world and overcome the evil in it (James 1:27), and that in the end, good will triumph (Revelation 21:4).
What Can Help Me
- Humbling Experiences
- The Stages of Life: Marriage, Parenthood, Empty-Nest, Retirement, Old Age
- Good Memories: Deut. 8:2
- Beautiful Moments that Creation and Life Provide
- Tears in the Fabric of Life
Mark Dunagan | mdunagan@frontier.net
Beaverton Church of Christ | 503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net
