Sermons
Summer In The Psalms Pt 4 - A Fool Says In His Heart There Is No God
(upbeat music) Good morning, Christ community church. If you have your Bible, if you brought an electronic one or a paper one, you can turn to Psalm chapter 14, which is where it will be today. Psalm chapter 14, I will be reading from the ESV. I wanna welcome you this morning. Great to see you all. We're continuing our series, Summer in the Psalms, discovering the gospel in the Bible's hymnal, and today's message is titled, A Full Says in His Heart There Is No God. Years ago, when my boys were little, I would regularly quiz them on their knowledge of the Bible in theology. And I love just hopping into the car and taking them with me to Home Depot, or usually to Starbucks actually. And one day I asked my son, Tyler, my oldest son, he was really little, and I said, "Hey, Ty, what do you know about Jesus?" And he said, "Well, he can see you, but you can't see him." I said, "Well, that's not bad actually, "but what else do you know about Jesus? "What would you know?" And he said, "Well," he thought, he's got some good news, and he's got some bad news, right? (audience laughs) We're in a series called Discovering the Gospel in the Psalms. The word gospel means good news. It means glad tidings, good news of what? There's just nothing like getting good news is there. After my thyroid surgery hearing the doctor say, "Hey, good news, your cancer is gone. "Go and live your life." That was a great relief. But the good news that the company where you applied actually wants to hire you, the good news that a person you expressed your undying love to actually feels the same way about you or the good news of a mom, a new mom telling her husband, we are with child, we are going to have a baby. That is one of the greatest bits of news you could ever receive. In the case of the gospel of Jesus, Tyler was absolutely right. The good news is the solution to some very bad news. The Psalm two, a few weeks ago reminds us that as the people of this world, as the nations of this world, we are in open rebellion and we are invited to take refuge in the sun. Psalm 51 reminded us that confession of our sins is the true mark of a genuine disciple. We are called to confess, to repent, to believe and have the joy of our salvation restored to us as God renews a right spirit within us. The Psalm chapter eight reminded us that God wants to restore the fallen human beings, the fallen human race to their former glory and even greater, but only in Christ and through the humble act of faith rather than the prideful act of our culture. And so this week, we'll look at a Psalm that takes us to the heart of our problem, even deeper into the heart of our problem as a human race. We learn that no one is righteous, not even one human being seeks God or pursues God or understands God or knows God. And that Psalm 14, it tells us the fool says in his heart, there is no God and they are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. And the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. Have they no knowledge, all the evil doers who eat up my people as if they are eating bread and do not call upon the name of the Lord? There they are in great terror for God is with the generation of the righteous. You would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. And so we're going to ask the question today, why is atheism foolish? Why is that foolish? Because the psalmist tells us that only a fool would say there is no God. Atheism is foolish number one because it leads to idolatry. Because it leads to idolatry. The psalmist begins only a fool would say deep in his heart and really mean it that God does not exist or that there is no God enthroned in heaven. And here the denial of God's existence is not the kind of modern cold rationalism that we encounter in our day. Instead back then, it was an ancient atheism that expressed itself in idolatry. Denying that the one true God of heaven is the supreme ruling God of the universe. And that is a form of atheism. And Isaiah tells us in Isaiah chapter 32, he tells us that the king will return to Zion. And when the king returns to Zion, this is what he's going to do. This is what's going to happen. It says in Isaiah 32, the fool will know more, be called noble. The scoundrel said to be honorable. For the fool speaks folly and his heart is busy with iniquity to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the Lord, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied and to deprive the thirsty of true drink. And this kind of idolatrous rejection of the knowledge of God has resulted in people who are fools being called noble and smart. People who are scoundrels being thought of as admirable or honored, the honored elite. But the fool who denies God's existence and his preeminence utters utter folly. Their words evidence of a heart that is busy in iniquity and secret, shameful acts. And these honored and esteemed members of the so-called intelligentsia utter errors about God and his world. And ultimately, Isaiah says this kind of foolishness, disguised as astuteness, leaves our students, our world, our people empty, unsatisfied. Because it's a thirst for knowledge that is never slaked. Because we are meant to satisfy that thirst in God alone. And to be sure, there are plenty of places across the globe today that practice this kind of idolatry, the kind of idolatry that he was speaking to in Isaiah chapter 32 or the Psalm. But don't think for one second that those in Western culture, in our Western cultures who deny the existence of God are somehow are religious. Somehow just non-worshippers. That couldn't be further from the truth. The natural outcome of a life of atheism isn't non-belief. Non-religious attachment, non-worship, it's idolatry. Because a person who denies the existence of the infinite personal uncaused creator of the universe will redirect all of their religious affections which God has wired into them into something else. That energy for worship, that sense that there is a God and I should be worshiping him. All of that energy gets redirected into some form of idolatry. This is what Paul tells us in Romans chapter one. He says in verse 18, "For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Since what can be known about God is evident among them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen in the creation of the world. Being understood through what has been made as a result people are without excuse. He says, "For though they knew God they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude, instead their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened." Claiming to be wise, they became fools actually and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, forfeited animals and reptiles. What is Paul saying here? Paul is saying when a person denies the existence of God or fails to acknowledge his supremacy above all things, their natural inclination is not just non-worship, unbelief, their natural inclination is to focus that energy toward worshiping something else. And Paul says that's idolatry, that's idolatry. It is redirecting the religious energy and thirst that God has planted within us to anything except for God. And you can't pull these two things apart. The moment we choose not to acknowledge and to worship and to give thanksgiving to the God who crowned us with a religious nature, we are choosing to focus that energy somewhere else. Number two, atheism is foolish because atheism doesn't make sense of the world as we find it. When the psalmist says the fool in his heart says there is no God, he's trying to make a simple observation. What can be known about God from creation is evident. It's obvious and here are a few statements that I would give you that should be just common sense statements. These are not original with me but I'll give them to you anyway. The first one is that God is the best explanation for why there is something rather than nothing. Nothing doesn't give you something. Nothing gives you nothing. The absence of anything at all plus the absence of anything at all gives you absolutely nothing at all. And so when we look at the world around us, the most natural inference, the most natural assumption that we could possibly have is that there is a creator of all this and God is the best explanation for why there is something, something and not just nothing. We also note that God is the best explanation for objective moral values and duties. If objective moral values and duties exist, God must exist. Objective in this sentence just means imposed from without. Which means that they are binding regardless of our disposition toward them or opinions about them, those commands. In other words, the moral principles and obligations we have toward one another do not issue. They do not come from within. They come from without and God has issued them to us. God has bestowed them upon us. So God must exist because if there is a law giver, if there are laws and moral laws, and they are objectively binding and we have them toward one another, those duties and those obligations, there must be a law giver. God is also the best explanation for the existence of objective truth and truth seekers. Well, if there are objective truths in the world and we think there are, if there are propositional facts and truths in the world, then God must exist. Why would anybody trust the moral and the truth value of anyone who claims to know the truth, but their mind has been produced by a random process? Why would we trust a mind so produced? The world is full of objective truths and we are by nature truth seekers. We are by nature creatures who invest our lives and ourselves in extravagant pursuits like religion and art, philosophy and science. And God is the best explanation for why we do that. God is also the best explanation for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. When we stop and consider all of the historical facts surrounding Jesus' or the claim of the early church for Jesus' resurrection, we find that the reticence of the Jews to accept a crucified Messiah, the empty tomb, the eyewitnesses, the initial eyewitnesses being women and not men whose testimonies were not valued in the ancient world. When we see the stratospheric success of the early church against all odds, Rome was quite good at snuffing out religions just like Christianity. When we see the early creedal affirmations of Christ's resurrection by the earliest communities of faith and when we consider the fact that there are no good competing explanations for the resurrection of Jesus, all of that supports the notion that Jesus Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. He has been raised from the tomb never to die again. And when we consider this suite of evidences, when we look at all of this evidence put together, it tells us that there must be a God because a world without God wouldn't make sense. And atheism doesn't make sense of the world as we find it, number three. Atheism also leads to universal human depravity. Now look what the psalmist immediately jumps to in verses one, B through four. He says they are corrupt. They do abominable things. There is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven and the children a man to see if there's anyone who understands who seeks God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt and there is no one who does good, not even one. Have they no knowledge? All the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the name of the Lord? Let me start with this caveat. I am not here saying that an atheist can't be in some sense a moral person. They certainly can be. Non-believers can indeed be good mothers and fathers and employees and employers living their lives with a sense of purpose and meaning and morality. I'm not saying that in atheists, the person who doesn't believe in God can't live their lives with a sense of purpose and meaning and morality. What I am saying is, is that their experience of these things cannot be grounded in their worldview because their worldview does not supply these things. They have to borrow it from ours. And so the psalmist here, however, is going further. The psalmist is saying, actually, you're immoral. Actually, you're not righteous. You may live a generally moral life, but no one is righteous enough for God, not in of themselves. And Paul argues this very same thing in Romans chapter one. He says in verse 26, he says, for this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. And men committed shameless acts and men received within themselves the due penalty for their error. And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. And they are filled with unrighteousness, evil. Every kind of unrighteousness, evil, greed and wickedness. They are full of envy and murder, quarrels, deceit and malice. They are gossips and slanderers and God haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, unmercable. Although they know God's just sentence that those who deny or practice such things deserve to die, they do not only do them, but they celebrate those who practice them. Tyler was right, there's some bad news. And the gospel addresses that bad news because after we have failed to acknowledge God and put him in his rightful place, we find ourselves spiraling into idolatry. And from idolatry, spiraling into greater and deeper levels of sin. Denying the existence or the supremacy of God is a denial of a moral law giver who has issued us vital commands toward one another. And so we will be prone to making up our own rules, making up our own laws, living according to our own authority. This is all really super bad news. But now here's the good news, the best part of the song. God saves us, number four, from this immoral idolatrous and ultimately self-destructive life. The place of that self-destructive path he gives us righteousness instead. Look at what the psalmist says for God is with the righteous. Who is God with? The righteous, the righteous. And you would shame the plans of the poor, but the Lord is the refuge of the righteous. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores the fortunes of his people that Jacob rejoiced, let Israel be glad. God is with the righteous and who among us are righteous. The answer is none, no one is. Paul says it again in Romans three. He quotes this very, very passage. And here's what he says in verse 21. He says, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe since there is no distinction for all have sinned, how many have sinned? All, and all have fallen short of the glory of God and all must be justified freely. Buy his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. The only ones who are righteous are those who are in Christ. Because Jesus is the refuge that the psalmist foresaw. The salvation that comes out of Zion in Matthew chapter 21 in John chapter 12, the king comes riding into town and salvation comes the king. He arrives in Zion. Salvation comes to Zion. The king comes riding there. And Paul says in Romans chapter nine, verse 33, as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." Jesus is the rock of offense. He is the stone that makes us stumble and the rock that makes us fall, but he is also our refuge. He is salvation from Zion. And so Jesus is God's salvation. Out of the city of David, who restores us and reverses our fate, we were God haters. We were God deniers, hopelessly lost in our transgressions. We were utterly unable to help ourselves, but God who is rich in mercy, abounding in love for us. He stooped low, he came down and rescued us from the mire and the mess of our lives. And on the day when we trusted Christ, God's righteous man. On the day when we trusted in Jesus Christ, who died and nailed our sins to the tree, who rose and defeated our greatest foes, death, hell, the grave, the day we chose to believe in him as the day our fate was reversed. Our lives were renewed and restored and our future secure. So let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. Let the Gentiles who call upon the name of God's son rejoice and celebrate for God has restored us. Our salvation is in him. Will you pray with me? Father in heaven today, this morning, we confess. We know that denying you has led us to worshiping anything and everything else. And none of those things we've redirected our energies or passions toward and worship can ultimately satisfy because they are not you. We were made to be satisfied in you. Father in heaven, we confess today that denying your existence or your supremacy in our lives and over our world, does it make sense of the world as we experience it? If not for you, there would be nothing at all. If not for you, there would be no creatures with a moral and spiritual hunger and a sensibility. If not for you, there would be no resurrected man who came out of the grave, defeating death. And all of those things make sense because you exist. And Father, we confess that our failure to acknowledge you has led us into all kinds of moral darkness. Our minds have become darkened and sin. Our actions corrupt and our lives depraved apart from the God who is worthy of our highest praises. And we confess that to you right now. But God, we also know today we acknowledge that there is no salvation apart from Zion because you sent your king, your one and only son to die in our place, to be raised victorious and to return someday to restore heaven and earth. And we acknowledge that there is no salvation outside of the name of Jesus, your son. Everybody said, "Hey man, will you stand?" (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)