The Big Questions
Yesterday we started a new sermon series called "The Big Questions." It is what it sounds like. We're going to look at The Big Questions, such as 'Why Is There Evil?' and 'Why Do We Suffer?' and 'What Is the Meaning of Life?'. To be honest, I can't believe it took me this long to do this series. After all, people have been asking these questions for gazillions of years. You'd think I would have done this a long time ago. Heck, once I thought of it I figured every pastor, everywhere would have done a sermon series to answer them.
To my knowledge, no one has.
Obviously, someone has. I'm definitely not the first. There has got to be plenty of churches where these questions have been answered. But I don't know of any, and I think in most churches they have not been answered. Not directly, anyway. Not this bluntly. As I've prepared for this series, I've wondered why. Why do pastors shy away from answering these difficult questions? Why have I myself waited so long to do a series like this? Unfortunately, I am at a loss to explain either of these. I don't know why churches shy away from The Big Questions, and I don't know why I am only now answering them in a sermon series.
I suspect, though, that somewhere in the back of my mind is fear that these questions really are unanswerable. That the reason they have existed for so long is because we cannot offer an answer. I can't back this up with any paperwork, but it makes sense. Why would anyone try to answer the unanswerable?
In my prayer and my meditation in preparation for this series, I've come to the conclusion that these questions are answerable. I don't think I have the perfect, whole, complete answers to them. You'll have to ask God for that. But I do think that there are answers available if we open our mind to what God says. That means filtering out what God does not say, which can be the harder task because of so many things folks take for granted that are not biblical. So we're going to plunge into this series and I'm going to offer what God has shared with me about the answers to these questions. Hopefully we can video the sermons and post them on YouTube. Assuming, of course, that I don't completely blow it. Which is possible, but I'm not worried about it. I'm going to study, listen, and try my best to say what God tells me to say. The answers won't be perfect because I'm not, but I think they will be helpful to folks wherever they are on their journey.
So here come The Big Questions! Visit our website for upcoming topics.
posted by River Pastor @ 6:54 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Sounds like a great idea. These questions are hard to tackle and I think the line between what we know and what we can only guess might surprise some people.
I hope you can do the videos.
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The questions are hard to tackle or near impossible to answer because it is impossible to say that God has a personal, "involved", unconditionally loving relationship with us and at the same time "allows" us to experience pain, suffering and ultimately the possibility of eternal damnation. If the excuse of the loving parent punishing His children is used to explain away the suffering allotted us, then we must also reconsider the "unconditionality" of God's love as claimed by the Christian church. Then comes the next question of the nature of God's relationship to His creation.
If it is really God's will that all be saved then why doesn't He just use his sovereignty to supersede the natural law of free will (that He created himself) and just save us?
Once we experience the fullness of His love eternally, we would be grateful for our new found state, in comparison, even if we didn't believe He existed. Saying however, that suffering is necessary to know the difference, also brings into to question the claimed unconditionality of God's love.
This contemplation in and of itself threatens Christian indoctrination and is probably why it is taboo. Once Christians in mass consider these questions deeply, the conclusion would probably be drawn that the bible doesn't have all the answers and it would discredit it as a reliable source for constant unwavering truth.
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