Why I Believe - Why I Believe in Creation, Part 1

I'm sure you've heard that science and Christianity are not compatible for the accident. They don't go together.

What I want you to stay with me today were going to explore what history's greatest minds had to say about faith in science. It might surprise you. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge shipping survival teacher for the steely discipleship program, motivating Christian to live what Christians thanks for joining us as we continue our series why I believe in just a minute you dive headfirst the creation discussion by breaking down the terms various beliefs we see today. Before we begin, let me encourage you to join us after this message, as Chip shares how we can take all this information really apply it to our relationships in everyday lives sure stick around for that with all that said, here's Chip. Now for today's talk. Why I believe in creation a few years ago we had little Bible study in her home. It was called love, sex, and lasting relationships. My daughter was a young professional at the time and she invited number of her friends and never forget the young man who came, he was a scientist from Stanford PhD and he was late 20s and really bright really smart and he didn't have much of a social life you been in school for a long time and so after the Bible study that he was invited to view sort of skeptic, but this came I we had a conversation, you know, one of those where you get to the kitchen, leaning against the counter and he said I just want to thank you for opening your home and the people were really warm. And while this is a really neat relational time but I just have to tell you I don't have any room for God in my life because I'm a scientist and I begin to question as to what you mean there mutually exclusive them. I'm going to be a scientist.

There's no room for God and that started us on a conversation because I've heard that a lot. I've heard from a lot of people that science and religion. There's a dichotomy it's a false dichotomy to talk about in our time now is why I believe in creation. In fact it's even bigger than that.

I really want to talk about why I believe in God and I want to share.

Maybe some of the things I shared with that young scientist some things that opened his eyes and caused him to question some of these presuppositions because at the end of the day what we have is this amazing place we call earth and you know it has beauty and order and design and scientist tell us that Jupiter is so big it pulls all those big rocks away in the sun is here and Jupiters there in the earth is in this orbit, and the moon is exactly the right size so that there's a tilt of the earth and were just far enough away from the sun where we don't get too hot we don't get too cold and they tell us that were in this very special little band where life can exist in our day science would say that by random chance from a single cell, over billions of years of evolution. That is how all that we see came into existence. On the other hand, religion would say there is a personal God is all-knowing, all-powerful, who loves mankind and created this beauty is a reflection of who he is and it's a testimony to him and he wants a personal relationship and fellowship with every person. Now were living in a day where your worldview will determine how you do everything there's huge implications to whether we believe were the product of random chance or whether in fact were a creation by the infinite and personal God.

Now here's a little disclaimer this is the most challenging message in this entire series. The volume of material is overwhelming. I actually have done this before with two almost full our messages. I eventually took all of that and I put it into the book. Why I believe so. Here's what I want to know if you're like a sports fan. You didn't have time to watch the game you go to ESPN and you see the highlights right or unit get a big business meeting and they say you need to read this business book is 300 pages and you get the executive summary right go on the Amazon 30 pages you read it you get the net net that's what I'm going to give you because we don't have time to dig in at a level in all the different new scientific discoveries and and I'm not an authority. I'm a pastor. I've done a lot of research what I want to do is introduce you to what the real issues are what I want you to do is begin to think and ponder. What do you actually believe and I want to give you some resources to move and dig in deeper and then asked this question, how does this frame your worldview, what your kids learning what your grandkids learning and what information are you giving them because I will tell you that in the public schools. The random chance evolution story is not taught as a theory. It is taught as an absolute fact. And here's what I want to say before we get going.

The theory of evolution. Or let's just call it the theory of creation are both faith propositions and what I mean by that is this the scientific method requires that you observe things no one observed how the earth came into existence. No one did, repeatable test, we have an hypothesis. What evolution does is take a theory and hypothesis and it takes all the different factors with that presupposition by faith and it interprets them according to that those of us that believe in Scripture.

Look at the earth and the beauty and the order and the revelation of God and by faith we believe God created things. So what I want to know first and foremost, it's not about facts and empirical data and science over here brain and overhear religious people with heart. Both our faith propositions. So what's the fundamental question here it is. Is it intellectually feasible to believe that the God of the Bible created the world, the universe and all living things, or is a theistic evolution that's taught in our public schools. The scientific fact it's empirical, logical, proven means of how life came into existence. Well, let's define our terms before we get too far along. When we use the word evolution. There's microevolution and there's microevolution. Everyone believes microevolution is is change within a species. In other words is lots of different kinds of dogs or bacteria can mutate. No one argues that there's modifications and small mutations. What macro evolution teaches is there's a vertical change. In other words, at some time billions and billions of years ago there was one single cell. Miraculously, somehow began to have life and that single cell went from bacteria all the way up through all the various filings until you have birds and reptiles and animals and apes and that all the way to mankind.

So what we want to understand is evolution says this creation says there's a personal infinite God who is loving and kind, whose made man in his image, and he's created all that there is for his glory and for mankind's good now when you think about that.

What you also need to understand is that the world has changed a lot since probably a lot of you learn this in school. Yes, the Scripture says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Scripture also says that the son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation, for in him. Jesus all things were created things in heaven and things on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or powers or rulers. All things were created by him and for him the creation and evolution debate has been going on over hundred years and currently there's about four major positions that I want you to understand because when I grew up there was just too there is you believe in God and creation. You believe in evolution. Now here's what you need understand there is macro Darwinian evolution right Richard Dawkins Carl Sagan Bill Nye the guys that say this is the only option if you don't believe this year and anti-intellectual but now there's some new voices.

Things that I didn't know about until I did my research in the last few years. Michael B.

He and the classic book Darwin's Black box challenges the very foundation of evolution because when he looks inside the chemical reactions in a single cell or Michael Denton.

He says evolution. It's a theory in crisis. Now I'm not saying these people were Christians.

What I'm saying is there's a whole group of scientists, some are agnostic, some have some faith, some have zero faith in what they're saying is were looking at the evidence and macro Darwinian evolution with the new sciences simply doesn't hold up. But there is 1/3 group that didn't used to exist as well. These are theistic evolutionist. These are scientists that are very committed Christians who are tying together the evolutionary process with a serious approach to the Bible you have people like Dennis Alexander creation and evolution. I love the title.

Do we have to choose.

You have Keith Miller and then probably the most famous of all is Francis Collins. He wrote the classic book the language of God as scientist presents evidence for belief. Now you'll know him as the one who headed the human genome 10 very very interesting story. I'll take a little bit more about him later that he's a guy that had a PhD and while he was doing his PhD he got interested in this idea of jeans so he went to medical school while he's in medical school. He finishes his PhD and as a result of his time as an intern going around with patients. He had an experience that changed the course of his life. I'll tell you about that a little bit later. The fourth is intelligent design. This is a collective group of some Christians some atheists and agnostics, but they look at DNA they look at the most recent science and the just come to one conclusion.

They don't say this is necessarily God, but what they say is things are too complex. The design is too magnificent to be happening by simply random chance. There had to be a designer and this group is made up of a very eclectic group of people. I mean this is some of the hard-core atheist. For example, you have someone like Francis crick who helped discover DNA.

He was asked about DNA.

He said, could this possibly happen by random chance. His answer was no chance whatsoever. Now he admits that he went into science for a very special reason. It was a religious reason, but his religious reason was all the things that people couldn't explain. He said get assigned to religion and my goal was to explain all of them to completely get rid of religion that he has a cohort named Weinstein Weinstein made the same commitment. He says my goal in science was to do simply one thing eliminate and liberate people from religion. What you need to hear of Kate, there's a lot of facts there's a lot of science. Here's what you need to hear. The world is not these objective empirical scientist, and these religious people overhear the world is filled with people that have faith that have presuppositions that have wounds in their past and hurts in their past and I had this information given to them or this information given to them and they've made a faith choice about what they're going to believe and what I want you to know is, those of the four general positions, but the two big ones that I want to ask and answer just some fundamental questions just a top-level view is this macro Darwinian evolution versus classic creation from the Bible. Let's asked some basic questions and then you decide what do you really believe because I grew up in a house where my dad was a science teacher. We went to sort of a cultural church. We didn't read the Bible and on the one hand, we would you know just talk about life in metaphysics and that we believed in God and prayed when someone went to the hospital. On the other hand, my dad is a science teacher, teaching evolution and we had this dichotomy of thoughts that absolutely didn't add up and we lived as though it really didn't matter.

I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you are living the same way and your kids are getting filled with one set of a faith belief and thinking that the only people that exercise faith are religious people when in fact everyone exercises faith. The question is in what and why. So let's jump in and look at some of the rural basic questions and you'll notice that I put up a quick chart for you in terms of looking those four positions that allow you to see that in the snapshot. Okay, are we ready scientists are now looking at facts that are changing their worldview a biochemist as Michael Denton said in his book evolution a theory in crisis.

Listen to this, a non-Christian evolution's intellectual foundations have steadily been eroding by ologies new findings are bringing us very near to a formal logical disapproval of Darwinian claims. Denton believes Darwin's claims that all life devolve from one cell can't be supported by the evidence in fossils, embryology, taxonomy, or molecular biology. In addition, Nobel laureate Francis crick propose that the problems of life randomly originating on earth are so great that life must have arisen from another planet and been transferred here with that, let's jump into the basic questions of how did we get here who made us what we believe and why. So question number one. How did life begin option one evolution is taught in mainstream America. According to the Association of biology teachers evolution answers this life's beginning was unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, a natural process. The beginning of life was random undirected without either plan or purpose option to his creation as defined by the Bible, God spoke in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and so all of us have two options. Was it a material random chance undirected. All the things that you see there some matter and it just got here from one cell or is there an infinite personal God who spoke it into existence.

Let's analyze both premises and see which one makes the most sense. It takes faith to believe that a single cell, over billions of years to produce everything that we see in it takes faith to believe that what this book says about a personal creator brought everything into existence that we see. My question is what do you believe Nehemiah would write you alone are the Lord you made the heavens and the highest heavens in all their starry host, the earth and all that is in it, the sea and all that is in them, you give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. The Bible is very clear that God is the creator and the author of all life. Question number two then is why did life begin classic evolution's response to this is it began as a pure accident. It's a random chance the earth exists because at a certain time in a certain way all the right conditions over billions and billions of years. There was no plan, no meaning, no emotions, no value. It just popped into existence.

Many evolutionists say that were nothing more than a product of our chemical reactions. The feelings that you have it for you to be consistent here that you don't have real feelings. You don't have real emotions. You don't have real purpose.

You are just the product of chemical reactions over billions of years and you have risen to the top of the food chain. If were logically consistent and that's true, then there is no moral accountability fact, there are no morals. You are just an animal, and so as we will see a little bit later.

The logical conclusion of that is the survival of the fittest. Darden would talk about the different races he believed in Holly Genesis what that is. Is that actually like black people came from one strand white people came from another strand spans came from another strand and that he would rank them and said that the European or the white Caucasian was a higher class like there's various types of apes and so when you play this out if this is true if that your worldview. Believe me, that's how Hitler would say you know what Nazi-ism works. We are the survival of the fittest were going to protect the best race is how people actually said that slavery was okay. There were actually southern preachers in America that used some of Darwin's thinking to talk about how slavery was an okay thing before the Civil War.

Here's what I want you to get these aren't little questions they frame your worldview.

Everyone is operating on the basis of faith. If it's random chance. You need to understand your life has no meaning. You have no future. There is no real beginning. There is no end. There is no eternal life. There is no right and there is no wrong. That's the logical deduction from macro Darwinian evolution.

Option number two is creation. By contrast, you are a special creation of a good and all-powerful God. You're the climax of his creation.

You are made to be loved you, or have a design your unique God has a purpose for your life. He set you on this earth. There is a heaven there is a future he made you for himself.

You are the absolute most beautiful magnificent creation of all that is made of all the billions of stars. You in fact is a human being.

You can choose.

You can feel you can act you can think you're actually made in the image of God, you have self-awareness. The writer of Ecclesiastes would say he has made everything beautiful in its time.

He is also set eternity in the human heart. Yet no one can fathom what God is done. Beginning will be back in just a minute.

This application you've been listening to the first part of his message. Why I believe patient let me ask you how confidently can you answer questions about God and the Bible pretty sure of yourself or you feel unprepared. Wishing you would've paid a little more attention in Sunday school through the six part series chip will help you better understand the bedrock concepts of the Christian faith and how you can communicate the truth and engaging ways to others of you want to learn more. Let me encourage you to check out Chip's book. Why I believe, or the small group resources.

These are the perfect tools to help you go deeper. For complete details, go to LivingontheEdge.org the chipping room up or call AAA 333-6003 or Bible teacher Chip Ingram is with me now in chip.

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As we wrap things up today. Let me say not only did we not scratch the surface of this topic. I we barely whiffed at it back when you really think about our teaching time together. Number one, we clearly defined the debate and I think that's so important. I mean there's a lot more to the science and religion to bait than most people think others classic Darwinism that I talked about some of the other emerging things are happened that you, as a follower of Christ need to be aware of what I want you to do rather than get fixated and some of the details and some of the tensions inside and you know my professor says this or my kids are learning this in the school.

Let's just pause for a moment and let me ask you a couple things. Are you living in believing that life really is about random chance. It was an undirected work that has no plan, no purpose, and that you are literally a result of just billions of years of random chance with no design and if so because that's the core of evolutionary thought, then there is no meaning there is no purpose in life. You are just atoms that fit together at a certain point in time and I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds. But what I find is many followers of Jesus are somehow all on an evolutionist door. That's what I heard in school and blindly believing that science and faith can never fit together and yet playing a game like there's life and meaning and purpose and direction and future. We can't have it both ways.

The second thing I think is so important is that second question of so why did life begin. What is the purpose. What is not just that you're learning in school or what your kids learning in school or what your grandkids saying to you, but what about those big issues of meaning and values they become absolutely arbitrary, irrelevant, and there's no basis for them, unless in fact you are the personal work of a personal creator God and your made in his image, and these passions and these desires for meaning and purpose for love for art for music to designed to build to care, to create all those flow out of a very personal and dynamic relationship with the author of life in our next time together. We are going to dig in and really just take the same approach lovingly openly say classic evolution or creation which answers these questions about the newest scientific discoveries in genetics in molecular biology, which really answers the best to the evidence of the fossil record. The social issues of life working to just ask ourselves some very key questions and I want to ask you to join me in our next broadcast, as we explore those together just before we close our mission at Living on the Edge is to help Christians live like Christians and one of the best ways we can continue to do that is through programs like this one. So when you hear a message. That's especially helpful.

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This is Dave Drewry thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge