NORTHSHORE CHURCH OF CHRIST

She opened her eyes to the sound of her phone alarm, stabbed a finger at the off button, and stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling. The faithful sun was filtering softly through her bedroom curtains. If only she could just enjoy the morning, she thought, but children would be needing breakfast soon, leftover dishes in the sink would not wash themselves, today was laundry day, and she had wanted to clean the garage. She also needed to prepare to teach a kid’s Bible class that evening.

He opened his eyes to the sound of his phone alarm, stabbed a finger at the off button, and stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling. The sun had faithfully risen again in the east, peeking through his window blinds. If only he could just enjoy the morning, he thought, but he had to be at work at 8:00 sharp, the boss was planning a working lunch today, and he had to return home in time to eat and take his family to Wednesday evening Bible classes at the church.

With a sigh he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, shoulders hunched for a couple of seconds, willing himself to start moving. His wife usually had coffee going. He’d drink a cup, and the day would progress, as it always did…every day similar to the last.

We sometimes think our plans are small and our days are insignificant. What did I do today that was worthwhile, lasting, enduring? What will I do tomorrow that will be a game-changer?

Take heart! God has not called us to be significant. He called us to be faithful. Over time, we discover that being faithful is significant.

What does God expect of us, and for what purpose has He designed us? One of the prophets, Micah, wrote this: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6.8) The wisest of the wise, Solomon, wrote: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12.13).

Jesus does not teach us how to become world leaders, though some will be (Daniel, David, Joseph, etc.). He does not teach us how to run massive businesses or become social icons or rub shoulders with movers and shakers. He just calls us to be faithful wherever we happen to be. God empowers us and “apportions to each one individually as He wills” (1 Corinthians 12.11). We have “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us” (Romans 12.6), and God calls us to use whatever gifts He has granted to serve Him and serve others.

The Christian who finds himself with social or political power still considers himself a servant, because a servant is the highest office in the kingdom. Jesus, the ultimate servant, taught His disciples in Mark 9.35, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” In Mark 10.42-45, He said:

“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

If Jesus wants me to serve—like that is my main objective here—that helps me understand what is truly important and relieves me of a lot of pressure! Some martial artists call a multiple attacker situation a “target rich environment.” Don’t dwell on the fact that your attackers have more weapons (hands, feet, etc.) than you; focus on all the targets you have. I’m not sure if that illustration will hit home with everyone, but the point is it’s a mindset issue. Flip the script, as they say. If we continue to focus on how inconsequential and insignificant our day-to-day business is, we can easily become depressed and feel we are losing whatever race we think we are in. But if we recognize the value Jesus places in a cup of cold water given to a little one (Matthew 10.42) or in receiving our meals with thanksgiving, then we will understand the great consequence and significance in all our everyday, little things.

When my wife hands me a cup of coffee, she does something wonderful. When she takes time to drive one of the kids to an activity that will help him grow and mature, she is working in the kingdom. When I bring some flowers home to my wife, I demonstrate love. When I wash the dishes, I bless my family. When I finish a hard day of super-normal work, but I put in honest effort and worked as if I were working for the Lord and not for men, I glorify God.

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10.31).

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3.17).

She opened her eyes to the sound of her phone alarm, stabbed a finger at the off button, and stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling. The faithful sun was filtering softly through her bedroom curtains. She knew she had a lot of things on her plate for the day, and she probably would discover two or three unplanned items, but this was a day the Lord had made. She would be glad and rejoice in it.

He opened his eyes to the sound of his phone alarm, stabbed a finger at the off button, and stared bleary-eyed at the ceiling. The sun had faithfully risen again in the east, peeking through his window blinds. The boss had plans for him today, and his family needed his attention, just like every day. “Dear God,” he prayed, “I thank you in advance for the blessings of this day. Please help me serve well.”

I have done it and didn’t even realize what was happening. I would speak out against some sin, and someone would push back: “You’re a Christian; you have to be tolerant,” or “You’re a Christian; you have show love,” or “You’re a Christian; you have to turn the other cheek while I smack you on the other side.” Shamefaced, I would shut my mouth and wonder at how quickly I had violated my own standards. Had I offended someone? Jesus would never do that.

Wait.

To the contrary, Jesus often offended His enemies. He made His own disciples uncomfortable at times…many times (see John 6 for a good example).

Why do we Christians so often fall victim to worldly people telling us when we ought to speak and when to shut up? Why are we so sensitive to the feelings of everyone around us?

Western society has pounded this into our heads: it’s good to tolerate everything. We Christians always want to be on the side of good, so when we don’t tolerate something, it hurts us to know that others think we are bad. The world has made us feel like sinners for speaking out against sin.

What a load of garbage we have bought! We have lost the vision of the early church, who, even in the face of heavy persecution, were accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17.6). They didn’t coddle their listeners, nor did they snip off the less digestible bits from the gospel so it would go down smoother. No, they straight up told people they were sinners in need of repentance, lost in need of a Savior, blind in need of supernatural healing.

Do we avoid hot-button issues like sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, infant murder in the womb, drunkenness, spousal abuse, child abuse, male and female roles, disciplining our children, wives submitting to husbands, husbands loving their wives, the proper use of the tongue, etc.?

I used to think we should “just preach the gospel” (by which I meant to just tell people they needed Jesus, I suppose). After all, people are not going to hell because they are homosexual; they are going to hell because they have not bowed the knee to Christ. Yes. However, they must understand the sin in their homosexuality. Their Creator roundly condemns their lifestyle, and they are guilty of rebellion against the one true and living God. They must understand and confess their depravity before they can come to the cross.

John the Baptizer preached repentance to the people and gave the people practical advice on what they needed to quit and what they needed to start (Luke 3).

When someone from the world tells us we should quit preaching Jesus because we are offending them, we should push back on their “should.”

We could say: “Do you understand you are using the language of morality when you say I should not offend you? You are saying I am wrong. Where are you getting your standard of morality, pray tell? I have a mandate from God on high to preach and teach the truth. Where is your authority?” Isn’t that what Jesus did after He overturned the tables in the temple and the chief priests and elders challenged Him (Matt. 21.12-17, 23-27)? There are only two authorities: from heaven or from men.

We should not let the world tell us what is right and wrong, and when we stop preaching the truth because they demand we not offend them, we do exactly that.

Of course, we may be guilty of a wrong heart while we preach against sin. Our brothers and sisters in Christ can help give us moral direction, but the world is not qualified to spiritually guide us.

So let us speak and write boldly, with moral clarity, and with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world does not dictate our standard—Jesus does!

“If science, like art, is to perform its mission truly and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning into the consciousness of people.” – Einstein

Launching from that quote by Einstein, author Ann Druyan (wife of Carl Sagan) began gushing about the value and place of science to our current culture. Notice her use of worship language:

“When I discovered Einstein’s rarely quoted words, I found the credo for 40 years of my life’s work. This always has been and always will be the dream of Cosmos… We didn’t know that particular Einstein quote when Carl Sagan and I began writing the original Cosmos with astronomer Steve Soter. We just felt a kind of evangelical urgency to share the awesome power of science, to convey the spiritual uplift of the universe it reveals, and to amplify the alarms that Carl, Steve, and other scientists were sounding about our impact on the planet… Nothing less than a global spiritual awakening can transform us. Science, like love, is a means to that transcendence, to that soaring experience of the oneness of being fully alive… this lack of a final destination, an absolute truth, is what makes science such a worthy methodology for sacred searching. It is a never-ending lesson in humility. The vastness of the universe—and love, the thing that makes the vastness bearable—is out of reach to the arrogant. What’s real must matter more to us than what we wish to believe… The misuse of science endangers our civilization, but science also has redemptive powers. It can cleanse a planetary atmosphere overburdened with carbon dioxide. It can set life free to neutralize the toxins that we have scattered so carelessly. Its unrivaled powers of prophecy are demonstrated by our current predicament.” (Ann Druyan in the March 2020 issue of National Geographic, p. 19).

Humans must worship something, and Druyan clearly renders obeisance to science. By her own admission, she gets her credo (her faith statement) from Einstein, and she speaks “with evangelical urgency” of science’s “awesome power.” Does science itself have awesome power? Science is the study or pursuit of knowledge. It is a human endeavor to know more about reality around us. Science is not a thing. When she speaks of the awesome power of science, Druyan is really talking about the amazing discoveries scientists have made over the years. Really, she’s reveling in the awesome universe around her and the brainpower and effort humans have made to discover it.

How does love enter the picture, exactly? Science does not create love, nor can it discover it, since it is not a tangible thing to be studied. Love is something apart from the physical universe, although every thinking human knows it to be real.

Amazement, delight, and appreciation of beauty also do not exist in physical forms. These metaphysical phenomena are the stuff philosophers argue about. Scientists have no business with metaphysics, unless they believe there is more to life than the physical universe.

On the one hand, Druyan says there is no “final destination” and no “absolute truth,” and that fact makes understanding the vastness of the universe (and love!) only attainable to the humble; it “is out of reach to the arrogant.” Her definition of humility, however, is not the same as that of Solomon or James in scripture. The humble, in her vision, are those who would ditch what they believe and just accept what is “real.” But wait. I am confused. I thought she said there was no absolute truth. How can she then insist that something is real?

By the logic put forth here, Ann Druyan should realize she does not have all the answers, and she certainly does not have enough to say there is no god but science. She has decided to worship science above all other things, which ends up being self-worship and the worship of other brilliant men and women who are all trying to figure this universe out. But they have decided, as a matter of fact, there is no spiritual realm—that’s completely off the table.

We just cannot help but worship something, can we? We are created with a need to worship, to give ourselves to something greater than ourselves. Ann Druyan sees the vastness of the universe as something worthy of adoration, just as the ancient Egyptians worshiped the Sun and the Nile River. Is there any difference? Those ancient worshipers thought actual supernatural beings sustained them and judged them. Druyan and other materialists believe they are their own judges, their own final standards of moral authority.

Though materialists do not accept it, Yahweh created all things in heaven and on earth, which makes Him more powerful and vast than the vast universe. We don’t have to wonder where love, truth, beauty, or joy come from. Yahweh loves, He is truth, He created that which is beautiful and good, and He created joy and delight in the human heart. We are created, in fact, to find fullness in Him.

“We bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14. 15–17)

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17.30–31)

Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1.15–17)

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1.3)

Glory be to God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) – the creator and sustainer of the universe.

We cannot help but worship!

Atheists mock the Christian’s “God of the Gaps,” as they term it. Whenever we find a gap in science that we cannot explain, they fault us for quickly attributing it to God.

Carl Sagan wrote in The Demon-Haunted World:

“Hippocrates of Cos is the father of medicine. He is still remembered 2,500 years later for the Hippocratic Oath (a modified form of which is still here and there taken by medical students upon their graduation). But he is chiefly celebrated because of his efforts to bring medicine out of the pall of superstition and into the light of science. In a typical passage Hippocrates wrote: ‘Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.’ Instead of acknowledging that in many areas we are ignorant, we have tended to say things like the Universe is permeated with the ineffable. A God of the Gaps is assigned responsibility for what we do not yet understand” (pp. 7-8).

Sagan makes the logical error of creating a false binary choice: either you can believe that God is responsible for things we don’t understand, or you can believe in science. Obviously, since many scientists also believe in God, these are not mutually exclusive positions. We believe in God who created science!

But the Atheist (who doesn’t believe in a god) must also pay homage to a higher power or principle than what can be directly observed in nature. As he laughs at the “backward” Christian who attributes all things to God’s power, he waves off troubling questions by appealing to his own god of the gaps.

How does the Atheist explain the universe, life, and morality?

Dan Barker once pastored churches and wrote religious music, fully participating in charismatic worship out west. However, in the 1980s he was “deconverted” (as he puts it) to atheism and became a champion evangelist for the anti-god cause. “I am a biological organism in a natural environment, and that is all there is,” he wrote in godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists, p. 42. (Yes, it’s godless with a lower-case g.)

In Barker’s chapter on “Refuting God,” he writes,

“Many or most cosmologists are now convinced that some kind of multiverse is likely. A multiverse is a collection of universes, and there are many scenarios.” (p. 107).

“We have not proved such a multiverse of universes yet. All we know is that they are plausible, and that there is at least one. The important point here is that if there is more than one, then the numerator of the fraction that determines probability rises, making the ‘fine tuning’ of the constants (if they vary) to allow for life by random chance more likely” (p. 108).

In other words, Barker and these theorists use the all-powerful if to increase the odds in their favor. Nothing has yet been proved, but if it were true, it would make the creationist’s “fine-tuning of the universe” argument less powerful. I’m not a certified scientist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how science works.

Barker answers the creationist’s argument that it’s highly improbable such complex life could have occurred through evolution:

“Using probability after the fact is like a lottery winner saying, ‘It was indeed highly unlikely that out of the millions of entrants I could have picked the right ticket, therefore someone must have caused me to win.’ It is indeed highly unlikely that any particular person can be predicted to be the winner—which is exactly what each contestant is trying to do when he or she obtains a ticket. But it is not at all unlikely that one person will win. In fact, we would consider it a true miracle if no one ever won a lottery.” (p. 110)

Now that is a good example of begging the question! It’s as if to say, “Well, since we are here by the process of evolution, I suppose that defeats your theory.”

The evolutionist must depend upon his god “enough time” in both the past and the future because it turns out he does not know anything. He speaks as if he is in lock-step agreement with all true scientists, and together they have proven these things. But when you dive in, you find suggestions and possibilities piled upon unproven theories. My translation of what the evolutionists are saying goes: “My dear scientifically illiterate Christian, if all the things we have dreamed up really did happen the way we hope they did, then we have explained away all of your points. Given enough time in the past, complex life as we know it today could have come about via evolution. Given enough time in the future, we will have the evidence to prove us right and you wrong. So trust us.”

Barker’s fictitious creationist continues to argue, “Everything has a cause, and every cause is the effect of a previous cause. Something must have started it all. God, who exists outside of time and space, is the eternal first cause, the unmoved mover, the creator and sustainer of the universe” (pp. 114-5).

Barker answers, “The major premise of this argument, ‘everything had a cause,’ is contradicted by the conclusion that ‘God did not have a cause.’ You can’t have it both ways…” (p. 115).

Yes, you can have it both ways if it is true. Just saying “you can’t have it both ways,” doesn’t automatically change reality. We have a book in which God has communicated to us and told us He created everything in heaven and on earth. This is not a theory for us. We did not dream this one up. We know it is true because God revealed it to us, which is the only way we could have known. This divine communication Barker has rejected completely, and now he must come up with all kinds of theories and if-statements and bad arguments blended smoothly so as to appear logical. Barker rejects the above argument as illogical because he has already rejected the premise that anything exists outside of the material universe (unless it’s more universes, of course).

Actually…perhaps I spoke too soon. A few chapters later Barker toys with the idea that something could exist outside the known universe—something that did Not Begin to Exist (NBE, as he termed it).

“But perhaps there could be something outside the natural universe that would be accommodated by NBE, besides God” (p. 133).

“If theists, however, allow the theoretical possibility of an impersonal transcendent object in NBE—and it seems they must allow this, or some other nontheistic hypothesis—and if they have not convincingly eliminated it (or them) from the set of actual items in NBE, then they must remain open to the possibility that the origin of the universe could be explained in a purely naturalistic manner” (p. 134).

“Who is to say that personality could not have arisen from an impersonal cause? The impersonal might be more complex. If this is impossible, theists must explain why” (p. 135).

Notice what he’s doing here. He throws out more wild theories and then tells creationists we have a duty to consider these possibilities. Why should we when we already have the most plausible answer staring us in the face? This man is a loose cannon on a ship—every time it fires, the canon knocks over the crowd behind it and ends up facing another random direction.

Years ago, Darwin looked to the future for validation of his theories of macro evolution. He just knew we would discover all kinds of transitional fossils which would fill in the gaps on his evolutionary tree.

“Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.” (The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, 1859, p. 220).

Fast forward almost 200 years, and we still have not filled in those gaps. Instead, we have discovered biological complexity far beyond what even Darwin understood, making his macro-evolution theories less and less likely (and evolutionists to borrow more and more billions of years from their god of the gaps to make up for it).

Richard Dawkins, another evangelist for atheism, writes in his acclaimed book The Blind Watchmaker:

“Given infinite time, or infinite opportunities, anything is possible. The large numbers proverbially furnished by astronomy, and the large timespans characteristic of geology, combine to turn topsy-turvy our everyday estimates of what is expected and what is miraculous” (p. 139).

The rest of the chapter Dawkins gives over to wild speculation about how spontaneous generation might have happened and the probabilities involved.

Atheists have their own gods of the gaps. Two are called “enough time” and “if.” It’s actually quite hilarious when you sit back and observe the lengths to which they go attempting to explain reality. You can quickly tell they do not have solid footing. Their house is built on shifting sand. Many of these men brilliantly defend their positions, from the world’s standards of brilliance, and it is a shame they have squandered the gifts God has given them. They bring darkness to the world, not light. They destroy hope in the promised life ahead. They severely limit themselves and all who would believe in their preaching. They believe their thoughts are deep, but by rejecting their Creator they reject true life and true light. Science cannot fill their gaps.

God’s kingdom will overcome all these tiny fiefdoms. May God reign, and may Jesus route and overthrow the enemy of His people.

The preacher hammers the importance of daily Bible study, and most of the church sits feeling condemned, inadequate, and guilty, because we sure messed that up last week!

It's actually not the study itself, but our failures along the way. We make commitments (or at least have a vague idea of what we ought to do) and end up not fulfilling them. We don't hit our targets, don't actualize our vision, don't work the plan perfectly. And our hearts condemn us.

It's as if we feel God accepts us based on whether or not we hit our daily targets.

I know God wants me to spend time in His word (“a minimum of 15 or 20 minutes a day” is the goal I set for myself), and I never got around to it. And I missed yesterday, too. The days pile fast and guilt grows. I'm failing God, myself, my family, my church. I can't let the church know I'm a failure at this because this is what being a Christian is all about, right? If I'm not in the Bible every day, they might think I'm not really a Christian—or at least not a serious one. I'll tell everyone else they should be reading the Bible every day, I'll put on a face like I'm getting it done, and I'll continue to feel bad every week when I don't make it.

Have you ever felt this way?

Trade Law for Grace!

We feel like this when we see ourselves as under law. When we don't understand why Jesus died for us, we can get the idea that God is pleased with us only when we have our act together and displeased when we don't get “enough” works in—as if our works keep us holy and in His grace.

Get this, Brothers and Sisters: as many of you as have been baptized have put on Christ, you are one in Christ Jesus, and you are sons of God through faith (Galatians 3.26–4.7). Because you are sons, you are heirs alongside the Son, Jesus. You inherit eternal fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! God adopted you into His family while you were spiritually immature and broken--and He continues to cover you by the blood of His Son while you grow in Christ. You have freedom in God's house even while you are not perfect! God does not accept you on the basis of what you do for Him, but on the basis of what Jesus Christ has already done on the cross. Nothing you do for God now will make you more holy, more righteous, more acceptable to Him—you are totally accepted right now in Christ Jesus!

So don't feel condemned and guilty when you don't get the works perfect. Keep loving God; keep loving your neighbor; keep loving your family. Keep striving to know and understand more. You have not fallen out of God's favor when you fail.

In God's grace is an amazing freedom—including the freedom to fail and keep right on going. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8.1).

Being under a heartless law system stifles growth and kills the spirit. But being under the grace of a kind and loving God provides and promotes an attitude of steady joy in the face of all our failures. I hope you and I forever revel in that joy!

Interestingly, those with this biblical understanding of grace find their Bible study becomes even more frequent and fruitful!