Green Pastures and Still Waters
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Most of you know that those are the words of Jesus recorded in John 14:1. What is interesting to me is that two chapters later, in 16:33, He also said, “In this world you will have trouble.” What this tells me is that living in this world is troublesome but we don’t have to be troubled. We live in a fallen world. We see the brokenness on every level. Trouble is inevitable but a troubled heart is fixable. I am often troubled by troubles. Not only my own but of those I see everywhere. I ache over broken relationships. I cringe when I see and hear anger. I grieve over the sickness, suffering and death that cancer brings to people’s lives. One reason I have a hard time watching too much news is because I am a wimp. Story after story of suffering and conflict on top of what I already know is too much to take on. So, if trouble is going to be present all the way to glory, how can we live without a troubled heart? The answer is in John 14:1, “Believe in God and believe also in Me.” In other words, trust Him. Dallas Willard writes, “Faith is simply an understanding of how things are, wedded to a commitment to live one’s life in light of that understanding.” The news reports a few things taking place in our world but God’s Word reminds us of how things really are. We learn that God is the Maker of heaven and earth and that He sustains all things by His word. We learn that He is good and that His steadfast love endures forever. We learn that He is present and that He is the God of all Comfort. The trouble with trouble is that it is easy to forget the goodness of God in the land of the living. We’ll see on Sunday that a proper mindset about trouble is part of making disciples. See ya’all on Sunday for, “The Trouble with Trouble.”
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I’m not sure that surveying 5,000 Americans actually reveals what all Americans believe or don’t believe but, a new survey by Pew Research has once again made the attempt. Based on the survey, the Washington Post reported that about 80% of Americans believe in God. However, only 56% of those believe in the God of the Bible. The rest believe in a transcendent force or spiritual power (obviously an impersonal one). Of the 20% who don’t believe in God, half still believed in some force outside themselves. Only 10% were confident that there was no one and no thing outside of humanity. Obviously Mr. Nietzsche (who said, “God is dead”) is the dead one and a good share of the population has a hard time believing we are “on our own.” While Enlightenment proponents would like to suggest we have arrived at a place in human evolution where we no longer need a “great father in the sky,” the general population cannot get over the thought that He just might be there! Why would that be? I suggest that God has given us both internal and external witness to Himself. He has put eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11) and He has provided the witness of nature as a visible reminder of His eternal power and Divine nature (Rom. 1:20). Pastor Tim Keller (The Reason for God), reminds that while individual explanations by Christians of why things are the way they are can be “rationally avoidable at some point,” the overwhelming evidence suggested by the clues God has left us form a rational conclusion—God is! We are living in a Biblically illiterate culture but that does not leave us without a starting point to know God and make Him known. Paul called on the witness of nature in Lystra—we may have to do the same. (See Acts 14:8-18)