Why I am a Christian

9:00 Service | 10:30 Service | Sermon Audio

Good morning. The message I’m about to share with you is very personal. I grew up in a Christian home, and there was a time in my early teen years that I made a commitment to follow Christ. But then I became an older teenager. And I started questioning everything. By the time I left for my freshman year at Virginia Tech, I didn’t really have any firm beliefs. And honestly, my life was going so well at that time, I didn’t think I needed any kind of faith. But over the next few years, my entire view of life was transformed. I eventually made a decision that set the trajectory for my life, and has really made me the person I am. And over the past 35 years, my conviction of that decision has only grown deeper. But it wasn’t easy to get there, so today I want to share some of that decision process with you.

Now: I realize everybody’s journey is unique, so you probably won’t relate to everything in my story. I am a naturally analytical and skeptical person. I love that quote, “My heart cannot rejoice in what my mind rejects as false.” I agree with that. I have a very high view of science; I think we should read widely ,and truly try to understand the views of people who are different than us. That’s how I’m wired. You might be wired differently. But maybe you’ll hear something today that resonates with you and helps you think through your own questions and your own faith.

There’s a philosophy professor up at Boston College named Peter Kreeft, and he said when it comes to seeking spiritual truth, you’re not going to find absolute proof—it’s not like a science experiment. But he says if you’re looking, you’ll find compelling clues. He wrote this: "God gives us just enough evidence so that those who want him can have him. Those who want to follow the clues will."

So what I’m going to share are basically the clues that have led me to Christ, and that keep me following Christ. None of these things by themselves would be enough to do it! But when you put all these clues together, the cumulative weight has become very convincing for me.

So: the top ten reasons I’m a Christian—and you’re going to see they start out more general—like why I believe there’s a God—and then they get more specific and focus on Christ. So here we go…

Number 10: Longing. I have noticed something about people: from childhood, every human being has the intrinsic sense that there’s something more than this life, and every human being has a longing to connect with whatever that something is. The actress Jessica Lange described it like this:

“The main thing that I sensed back in my childhood was this inescapable yearning that I could never satisfy. Even now at times I experience an inescapable loneliness and isolation…. Oh, God, how I remember that feeling, though. Sitting on the front steps on a summer night and hearing a lawn mower in the distance and a screen door slamming somewhere. It would actually make my heart ache.”

Can you relate to that feeling? “An inescapable yearning that you can never satisfy?” There’s actually a German term for this—the word is sehnsucht. And you can translate it “longing, desire, yearning, or craving.” The German poet Goethe called it selige sehsucht, which means “blessed longing,” because he realized there was something holy about this ache we all feel. Something in us knows there’s something more, and yet we can’t quite grasp it. What is that?

I’ve come to believe that this longing is in us because our Creator placed it there. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has set eternity in the human heart. So part of being created in God’s image is having this longing for transcendence and eternity, that can’t be fully satisfied in this life.

Now, some people would say, “That’s just a feeling! Just because you long for something doesn’t mean it exists.” But I would challenge that. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis described it like this:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

I think he makes a good point. Now: is that enough to make me a Christian? No. But it points toward the likelihood that there’s something more beyond this world.

And it’s related to this next one—number 9: Nature. Years ago, my wife and I took a trip down to the Outer Banks, and we stayed in the home of a friend. And the first night we were there, I woke up at about 3:00 in the morning. And it was just one of those times that I knew: “That’s it. I’m up. It’s no use trying to sleep.” So I got up. And at this house, on the upper floor, they had a Jacuzzi on the deck. So I put on my bathing suit, and I went into the Jacuzzi. Middle of the night. And after I sat there for a while, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving. So I looked over, and there was this beautiful, shiny frog, with multiple shades of green, walking up the wall right near my head, and I marveled at the beauty of this creature. I was kind of glad I had some company. Then I looked up into the sky, and the stars were breathtaking. And as I was looking up, I saw several shooting stars streak across the sky. Awesome. Me and my frog, looking at the stars.

And then, I went out to the beach. I walked at first, and then I started running, and if you’ve done any endurance sports you know the endorphin rush you get, so I started feeling good. And just as the sun started coming up over the Atlantic Ocean, I looked out and there was a group of dolphins, playing and jumping in the waves. So I went home and Norma Jean was just waking up. And I said, “I just had the best morning ever! Frogs and shooting stars and dolphins”…she was kind of jealous! Amazing morning.

If I had to pick one word to describe that morning, I’d use the word “wonder.” Because I was experiencing things that stirred me inside. Things that gave me this sense that there is more than my physical eyes could see. And, you know what? There’s a fine line between wonder and worship. See, science could explain to me why that particular frog was there because of the climate of coastal North Carolina in mid-April; science could explain the meteorites and the endorphins in my bloodstream and the migratory patterns of dolphins. But science couldn’t tell me a thing about what it all meant. And I’ve come to believe that the Bible does.

In Psalm 19, it says: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. In other words, there is knowledge beyond what science can tell us. You can’t test it with a hypothesis, but when we experience the wonder of the universe, something in us knows there’s Someone behind it…and we feel a hunger to connect with that Someone. So for me, the natural world is another clue that points to the existence of God.

Reason number 8: Atheism. For me, atheism is not an intellectually or morally satisfactory worldview—for a few reasons. First of all, I don’t think it adequately accounts for the first two things I mentioned—our inner longing for transcendence and the wonder of nature. I think atheism dismisses those too easily. In my opinion, it takes more faith to believe this universe is random than it does to believe in God.

But I also have a problem with atheism because of where it leads. In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon kept trying to find satisfaction without God in the picture. And consistently, he found that approach empty—he says it’s like a vapor you can never grasp. And I would say the great atheistic existentialist writers of the last century, like Camus and Sartre—came to similar conclusions: life is meaningless and absurd, and if you’re committed to your atheism, you have to somehow bravely face

that and invent your own meaning in this meaningless world. And if you can’t do that—if you can’t invent your own meaning—the likely result is hopelessness. So I believe atheism is illogical and impractical.

My reason number seven is Justice. If you think back over the past few years, our culture has seen many instances where people have demanded justice. Right? A few years ago, there was Occupy Wall Street—remember that?—where people were protesting income inequality. Then there was the Me Too movement, protesting sexual abuse. More recently we’ve had protests about the abuse of police power.

So, no matter how you feel about any of those issues, here’s the question: why do people get so passionate about things like that? Is it based on personal preference? Like, “I would prefer that men don’t sexually abuse women.” It’s much deeper than that, isn’t it? They have a deep belief that there’s something wrong, that needs to be made right. So they raise their voice, and they join the protests, because they want the injustice to become justice.

So it begs the question: if there’s no higher law given by some higher mind, how would we ever get a sense of justice and injustice? Is it just based on what’s practical for a society to function well? It must be deeper than that. So to me, our inner sense of right and wrong is evidence that there is an ultimate right and wrong, which is placed in us by our Creator. In Romans chapter two, it’s talking about people who aren’t even aware of God’s commandments—they’ve never read a Bible, but…They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.

So I’ve come to believe that our inner sense of justice points to the existence of a just God.

Reason number 6 is Sin. I believe in sin. Remember the big Penn State child abuse scandal, back in 2010? I’m sorry to bring that up, all you Penn State fans. But remember, there was an assistant football coach named Jerry Sandusky, who was accused of abusing a young boy in the locker room, and nobody reported it, and it was just a mess. Shortly after that, David Brooks wrote an opinion column in the New York Times. And the title of his piece was Let’s All Feel Superior. Let me read you a few lines:

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history—during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods—the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but don’t see…

People are really good at self-deception…We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do.

Now, listen to this—here’s where it gets brilliant…

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside.

But we’re not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it…People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again. Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they

have let this happen?” The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive?

I think he’s asking exactly the right question: how can we overcome our natural tendency to sin? Because here’s what I’m sure of: we do have that tendency. Or I’ll just speak for myself: I have that tendency. And as I’ve matured (hopefully), I’ve become more aware of my capacity to be selfish and arrogant and greedy. In other words, sin is a real thing. It causes personal misery; it causes relational breakdown; on a global level it causes war and terrorism.

And so here’s the point: I believe the Christian faith—better than any other philosophy or system—takes sin seriously. And it offers a solution to deal with it.

Okay—reason number 5: Love. In my lifetime, I have seen more amazing, costly, sacrificial acts of love done in the name of Christ than for any other reason. When natural disasters happen, Christian individuals and Christian organizations seem to rise up to bring relief and help people rebuild their lives.

Back in 2005, when hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, there was an article written in The Guardian newspaper by a guy named Roy Hattersley. He’s an atheist. But he couldn’t deny that when you looked at the thousands of volunteers pouring into New Orleans after the hurricane, it seemed like all of them were Christians. This is what he wrote: “Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs and atheists' associations - the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.” He went on to say that as much as he hated to admit it, Christians are “the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others.”

Now: I’m not saying that only Christians do that kind of stuff—of course not! Atheists do relief work; there are Muslim relief organizations, etc. But here’s the thing: the drive to sacrificially love people is not peripheral to the Christian faith. It’s not one of several elements in the faith. It’s the very essence of Christianity. The core of the Christian faith is a Man who sacrificed his comfort and ultimately gave up his life for the good of others…and who calls us to follow in his footsteps. Jesus said in John 13, “If I—your Lord and teacher—have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” To me, that’s very powerful. I need to follow a faith that makes me more loving.

Reason number four is Jesus. I have become convinced that, among all the great world leaders, Jesus is in a class by himself. So many good things that we take for granted were actually introduced into our culture by Jesus—the dignity of children; the value of women; the virtue of forgiveness; the overturning of slavery—to name just a few. He’s had a massive influence on the world.

But in a more personal way, in my own spiritual search, the thing that grabbed my attention, more than anything else on this list, is Jesus. Maybe that seems obvious, but I think it needs to be said. Because over the years, there have been spiritual questions that have bothered me. I know that shocks you—I don’t know the answers to every spiritual question. But what I do know is that I’m amazed by Jesus.

Philip Yancey used this analogy—he had a massive, unabridged dictionary with a tiny font, so he got this huge magnifying glass with a light built into it. And he said, “When I focus the magnifying glass on a word, that word shows up crisp and clear in the center, while the edges grow progressively distorted.” And then he said,

“For me Jesus has become the focal point of faith, and increasingly I am learning to keep the magnifying glass of my faith focused on him. In my spiritual journey I have long lingered in the margins, puzzling over matters like the problem of pain, the conundrum of prayer, providence versus free will. When I do so, everything becomes fuzzy. Looking at Jesus, however, restores clarity. For example, the Bible leaves many questions unanswered about the problem of pain,

but in Jesus I see unmistakable proof that God is the God of all comfort, not the author of our pain.”

I appreciate that. Christianity really is about Christ. It’s not a religion or a philosophy; it’s a person. He’s the one I represent. He is the hero and the model that I’m basing my life on. And I just continue to be convinced that he’s the real thing.

Okay—reason number 3: Resurrection. Jesus was executed by the Roman government in a very public way. Lots of people saw him die. That’s documented only in the Gospels, but also outside the Bible. And then three days later, his followers started claiming that he was alive again. It was a ridiculous claim, and all someone would have to do to silence that claim was to produce the body. Exhume the grave of Jesus, and prove once and for all that all this resurrection talk was a hoax. But no one produced the body. That’s interesting.

There are other pieces of evidence that I believe support the resurrection: the fact that, in the Gospels, the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection were women—which, if this were a made up story, they never would have written it that way, because in that culture, women weren’t considered reliable witnesses. The fact that the early disciples were so changed after seeing Jesus alive that they were willing to go to their deaths rather than deny their faith in him. In fact, they were so changed, and so emboldened, that this movement—which never should have survived—wound up sweeping through the Roman Empire and becoming the dominant faith.

Can you scientifically prove the resurrection? No—that’s not the way history works. But for me, the evidence is impressive.

Number two reason I believe: The Cross. Everybody knows the cross is the symbol of the Christian faith. But for years, I had a very shallow understanding of why that was. I mean, I understood that’s where Jesus died in our place, to pay the price of our sins. I got that. But then I started to see more facets to it…

I saw that Jesus was willing to do that for me, which means God must truly love me. So when people feel worthless, the cross gives them value and dignity.

I saw that my sin was so serious that someone needed to actually die for it. So the cross makes self-righteous people deeply humble. It makes me slower to blame my wife and quicker to ask her forgiveness. So my wife likes the cross, too.

I saw that Jesus died for all people equally—regardless of their ethnicity. So the cross turns racist people into agents of racial reconciliation.

I saw that God was satisfied with the death of Jesus in my place, and he forgave me of all the ways I’ve offended Him, which makes me quick to forgive people who offend me. The cross takes bitter, wounded, self-pitying people…and makes them forgiving people. It’s the most powerful way to live.

I saw that after the cross, Jesus didn’t stay dead—he rose again on the third day, which gives me hope for the future. So the cross turns hopeless people into future-oriented, hopeful people.

Do you get the idea? There’s so much depth to the cross that I didn’t see at first! The cross of Christ changes people in ways that are good for relationships and good for families and good for the world.

And then the number one reason I’m a Christian: Calling. There is definitely a place for reason and logic. But Jesus taught that ultimately, you have to be drawn by the Spirit of God. John 6:44—Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” At some point, to become a Christian, we have to say “Yes” to him, but we don’t initiate the process; our “Yes” is always a response to his call. And that’s a mysterious process, but when I look back at my life, there was a critical time when God made his calling clear.

I mentioned earlier that when I left for college, things were going great in my life. I had done really well as a cross-country runner, and I was about to go and run on the cross country team at Virginia Tech. High-level, Division 1 college athletics. I had done well academically, and I was planning to do a pre-med program at college. I had a great girlfriend; I played guitar in a rock band—life was just good! Who needs God? So I headed off to college, fully planning on success.

To quote the great philosopher Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until that get punched in the mouth.”

And in Blacksburg, Virginia, I got punched in the mouth. It turned out that being a really good runner at Kinnelon High School didn’t mean much when you’re running with the stallions. It turned out that getting good grades in High School science didn’t mean that you could handle chemistry on a college level. And it turned out that being socially well-connected in high school didn’t mean friendships would come easily in college. They didn’t. I had some deep times of loneliness; feeling lost; wondering why life had changed so much, so quickly.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but God was dismantling the foundation I had built my identity on, so I would hear his call. And it worked. So through the pain of that time, God broke through my self-sufficiency and my pride, and he humbled me. At the same time, he started to put people in my life who were Christians, whom I respected and admired. And I started thinking through some of the things on this list that I just shared with you, and some of the things that had been instilled in me as a kid. All of that was part of his calling. Eventually I came to the point where I realized that life without Christ at the center is empty. It just became clear. So I said “Yes” to his call. And I can honestly say I have never regretted that decision.

That’s not the way He works in everyone’s life! He’s very creative in how He calls people to himself. But the point is this: Christianity is not a concept that you study and debate and argue about on the internet and decide if you’re going to believe or not. Christianity is about a living God who shows up in your life in unexpected ways—through circumstances and people and very often through loss and disappointment—and he works on your mind, and he shows you the beauty of the cross and the uniqueness of Jesus, and he calls you to himself.

Jesus said to his disciples, “You did not choose me; I chose you.” So even though we genuinely do question and search and decide whether to follow Christ, Jesus is guiding that process all along.

So…I’ve covered a lot of ground, and I have no idea how much of this connected with you. But I would just ask you to do one thing. This is my plea to you—and this is actually a paraphrase from the book of Hebrews: Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart. Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart. For some of you, this has just been a good review of why you believe—an affirmation of your faith. But for some of you, God is doing something in your heart—you are hearing his voice. God calling you to himself. So if you hear his voice, please don’t harden your heart. Turn to him; say yes to him; allow him to make you the person you were always meant to be.